WILDWAY
As the winters grow soggy and the summers scald, bears and wolves are going to want to come north, the reindeer and beaver to trek south. If we build a Wildway – an intercontinental wildlife corridor, a vast, connected landscape – then these magnificent creatures will grace us with their presence.
Examining some sea-charts over the weekend, however, it was forcefully borne in upon me that Britain is completely surrounded by water. Indeed, it is not over-stating the case, I fear, to say that it is an island. The Wildway will, therefore, need a Botanic North Sea Bridge from Peterhead to Stavanger, and/or a Botanic Channel Bridge from Dungeness to Calais.
Ah, but where will the money come from? Which multi-billion-pound state subsidy to a transnational oil company do you plan on cutting to pay for your fancy Wildway? Which gas provider will be going without their welfare payments this year?
In a 2013 Finance Bill, the government gave a three billion pound slice of the welfare pie to those inveterate benefit scroungers oil and gas transnationals, with which to sink speculative boreholes in the West Shetland Deepwater Basin. On top of the three-billion handout there’s another half a billion earmarked for what’s called Derrick Dismantlement – who I thought played bass for UK Subs, but which turns out to be the retrieval and scrappage of tapped out drilling rigs and indemnifying these corporations from any clean up costs in the event of a toxic spill.
To initiate play, wolves do what is called the canid play bow. Wolves that exploit the canid play bow, by using it as a ploy to attack another wolf, are ejected from the pack. So too are selfish wolves who don’t share food equally. Philosopher Simon Blackburn points out that exile is a death sentence for a wolf because they are pack hunters.
And here’s a question: how exactly do you pass on your selfish genes if you are banished from the pack?