Thursday, June 2, 2011

Save the bluebells, kill a dog

Some people don't get it, they have a passion for a certain subject that borders on fanaticism and then wonder why they get slated by commenter's and people like me.

Mail.
Dogs should be killed to protect Britain's bluebells according to feminist Germaine Greer who blames the pets for killing the woodland flowers.
The outspoken academic told the Hay on Wye literary festival that dog owners walking their pets through bluebells are killing off a fungus necessary for them to grow.
Professor Greer, who owns a one-acre bluebell wood in Essex, said that mycorrhiza fungi is being killed off by dogs' faeces.
She also said the British bluebell is under threat from a Spanish variety of the plant.
'But the real threat to our bluebells is not a foreign invader,' she said. 'It is the use we make of the woodlands, people running through them, taking photos of each other standing on trampled bluebells.
'And, at the risk of making you all very cross, may I suggest it is also time that the British gave up on their endless love affair with the dog.
'If you love your bluebells, kill your dog.'

Of course you could apply common sense and go for a cull of feminists/environmental extremists and save ourselves from comments like that of Germaine Greer. But wandering around Kent this year with my dog Coal I saw an abundance of bluebells for the first time in Places like High Elms near Downe and Ashenbank Woods near Cobham the woodlands despite the dogs are beautiful in late April and Early May with masses of bluebells.
Yes, anyone who owns a dog will watch them immediately head for a patch of bluebells for a crap (not), yes dogs do crap in the woods, but the chances of it being on the bluebells is the same as anywhere else.
So whilst there might be a problem with bluebells and dog faeces, it certainly doesn't seem to be the problem that Germaine Greer seems to think it is, not enough to start a cull of the canine population.
Paul Hetherington from the Woodlands Trust said: 'All UK woods have existed and developed with the presence of badgers and foxes; species of similar size and activity.
It's easy enough to keep people off the bluebells, dog faeces is usually gathered by responsible owners (not pleasant, but necessary) and oddly enough, the stuff that is left is often recycled by other denizens of the woodlands.
Bluebells if left alone will return, the Spanish variety is by far the biggest problem to overcome all the rest just needs to be a case of education and not some sort of barbaric cull by dog hating feminazi enviroloons.

3 annotations:

Anonymous said...

GOT A BIG GARDEN THREE DOGS GERMAN SHEPARDS AND A LOT OF BLUE BELLS MMMMM

JuliaM said...

Peter Risdon points out that a far greater source of phosphorus exists in far closer proximity to bluebells than any dog...

Anonymous said...

thanks for that juliam a big mmmmmmmm