The Birmingham New Mainline canal between Birmingham and Wolverhampton was built for business. Designed by Thomas Telford, by 1838 the New Main Line was complete: 22⅝ miles of slow canal reduced to 15⅝; between Birmingham and Tipton, a lock-free dual carriageway. It was also called the Island Line as it was cut straight through the hill at Smethwick known as the Island.
I could go into a long history lesson about this but this is not the point of this blog.
The badger below was seen floating dead near Dudley Port a couple of days ago. I wonder if it was one displaced from the rattlechain as a consequence of the works? Telford canals are not wildlife friendly at all. The sides are too steep for anything to climb out of. They are a menace; a straight flight for two legged vermin on wheels to churn up paths, and a watery graveyard for mammals. I once counted 6 dead foxes between Tipton and Smethwick in one bike ride along this trail. Unfortunately the plight of the urban animal or bird is one which the great and the bad simply do not care about. They have no vote potential, they have no newsworthyness.
Urban wildlife does not have many friends. The RSPCA is perhaps the best of a bad bunch when it comes to the “top table” animal charities. Most of them are there for educational purposes and making money to further their own enterprises and sell merchandise.
The politician is rarely on the side of wildlife but there were a few like Tony Banks who did care passionately and speak out against the intrusion and protection of business- particularly dirty business.
It’s just a shame that there are few media outlets or newspapers that are pro wildlife. There are some that are so anti wildlife because they are also pro -business which means that if a farmer is going to be out of pocket as a result of TB (badger blamed), then brock will get the flack with a subtle run of stories about how they are digging up pensioners gardens and loosening the foundations, or even human graves.
Similarly we have had a run of stories about savage urban foxes entering houses and biting babies after the passing of anti hunt legislation. This has entirely been concocted by the pro hunt countryside lobby media who attempt to lobby the white middle class urban dweller. This dying breed, with a passion for all things 1950’s and rose tinted glass tales of king and country, days when religion mattered and when they thought that “British was best” are themselves a dying breed. They know this, but choose to sublimate their swansong days with attacks on “non native species”, usually using the “it’s killing our native species” argument (i.e they feel that they are being killed). But when these native species affect business, they become public enemy number one, and then we here the cry of “lets’s cull it”. Fox, badger, bird, deer,boar,otter etc etc.
The countryside matters whereas “brownfield land” is fine to build on- even that that has naturally greened without a bricklayer in sight to produce an oasis for urban wildlife- (this does not include rattlechain lagoon which has acted as a venus flytrap for wild birds).
But take a train ride through this important countryside and you will find delapidated farm buildings, slurry pits, piled plastic barrels of pesticides, broken tractors and agricultural machinery, doted with some livestock in fields where the money is to be made through subsidy. We here all the time in the media, some of it urbanly local that we must “protect the greenbelt”, wheras brownfield land is “ripe for development”. So it is fine for 5% of the population to own 90% of the land and enjoy the solitude and view whilst the rest are packed like rats with ever diminishing prospects of hope amongst the sprawl. The brownfield sites are the last places left for urban wildlife- and they are disappearing to fuel the pompous economy myth that building more houses will fix the problems caused by corrupt businessmen and their confederates in the housing markets who caused the recession in the first instance by building homes that could not be paid for.
Industry liked levelling the land for profit, and exploiting the natural for the avarice of the few. “obscene, perverted, cruel, uncivilised and lethal”
And after this gluttony of spending come the dinnerparties. They give themselves “award” ceremonies to dress up in tuxedos and eat their roast pig dinners and celebate themselves and how good they are whilst the rest of us just read about it in manufactured publicity photographs. The chemical industry has its own oscars, sponsored for and voted by the chemical industry. Rhodia UK have won a few awards, but don’t mention that their CEO is on the board of the chemical industries association in the PR write up.