The Attack of the Killer Rhododendrons

by Glen Chilton

  Carmen was called on to translate increasingly subtle concepts. Pepe explained that he had always been a hunter and had killed just about everything, but had long since traded in his gun for a camera, except when called upon by his position. Since he had shot more Ruddy Ducks than anyone else, I asked if he felt proud about his involvement, as I had been told others did. He said it was more a matter of completing a task; it was part of his job. Shooting a duck sitting on the water is difficult, and luck is often involved. For him it was a matter of mathematics, taking into account the wind, waves, and distance as the duck moved in three dimensions. Sometimes he killed the duck with his first shot and sometimes with the fifteenth. I asked if he, the expert, would go to England to kill Ruddy Ducks if asked. He said that he would go if told to by his boss.

  Pepe told me that the man responsible for the release of Ruddy Ducks in Britain was Peter Scott. I finally had a name to go with the act, and when I started looking into Scott, was surprised that I hadn’t stumbled across him before. Scott had won an Olympic medal in yachting, and was a British gliding champion. Serving as a lieutenant commander in WWII, Scott had come away with an M.B.E. and a D.S.C. An early conservationist, he had founded the Wildfowl Trust and was chairman and one of the founders of the World Wildlife Fund. Scott was knighted in 1973 for his service to the environment.

  It wasn’t all sunshine and light though. Somewhere around 1948, Scott imported three pair of Ruddy Ducks from North America to a reserve on the Severn estuary in England, where they commenced breeding. The plan was to trim the wing feathers of all the ducks to keep them from escaping. Could anyone possibly fail to see what would happen next? Because Ruddy Ducks are so good at avoiding capture, not all the young ducks had their wings clipped, and by 1952 or 1953 some had escaped. You know the rest.

  Luis was clearly disappointed that he had lost his audience. He poked at me until I turned to face him and then asked if I spoke French. I said that I spoke un peu. He then demanded that I do so, so I launched into a sentence about my desire for an additional glass of white wine. He cut me off, insisted that I was doing it wrong, and used his own ten words of the language to attempt to construct a sentence. Very badly. He then went off on a tangent about all women being the same after the lights had gone off. I felt sorry for Carmen, as he insisted that she translate his vulgar opinions. I put away my notebook hoping that he would shut up if he saw that I was no longer writing.

  It didn’t work. Luis claimed that he was insulted because he had not been contacted for an interview about Ruddy and White-headed ducks. He was also “pissed off” (I suspect Carmen of cleaning up the language) in general about people who claimed to know about these ducks when they didn’t go into the field to study them.

  He was also “pissed off” because those I had spoken to were not, in his opinion, reliable sources of information. This all came as he blew cigarette smoke in my face. I was getting rather pissed off myself. As I sipped my wine, Luis jabbed his finger in front of my face, making point after point. I wanted to bite his finger, but feared nicotine poisoning. When Pepe got up to leave, Carmen and I took the opportunity to slip away.

  After a late dinner, Carmen returned to her room, while I went for one more walk through the streets of El Rocío. I was trying to put in order all my thoughts of ducks and Spain. I was also trying to ward off homesickness. Then I stopped in front of the church of the Virgin of El Rocío. Despite the darkened skies above, House Martins were still foraging furiously for insects attracted to the cathedral’s bright lights illuminating the plaza. I realized that my Ruddy Duck story wasn’t quite complete.

  THERE ARE TIMES when I don’t want to know all sides of the story. Ignorance makes decisiveness so much easier. It was clear that I shouldn’t leave the story of the White-headed Duck without hearing more about the opposition to the Ruddy Duck cull in England.

  I arrived at Ebenezer Hall in Tonbridge, Kent, in time for the appointment I had made months before, but had trouble convincing myself that I was in the right place. The address I had been given was for the Old Chapel in Bradford Street, and this was the only old chapel in the neighbourhood, but I couldn’t find a sign to confirm my destination. When I walked right up to the building, I found two windows that were discreetly etched with the words “Animal Aid,” but they weren’t visible unless I stood in exactly the right place. A much more obvious sign announced “Notice: Employees Only.” I tried the door and found it locked. I pushed a button and introduced myself to the ethereal voice at the other end. The voice buzzed me in.

  Andrew Tyler was the director of Animal Aid, an agency dedicated to an end to animal abuse and the promotion of a cruelty-free lifestyle. Tyler wore a polo shirt over a T-shirt, and sported a small earring. He greeted me into his office by saying he hadn’t been sure whether I would be coming. I checked my watch. “We said eleven o’clock on the 28th, right?” I asked. Perhaps he wasn’t sure whether I was serious about the whole thing. Tyler’s was a wonderful office, as cluttered as mine, and with the perfect admixture of professional paperwork and personal items.

  As our discussion began, Tyler seemed on edge. The better part of his edginess might have been the result of his anxiety about a dog that was at the veterinarian for an eye operation; Tyler was waiting for the call about the outcome. Beyond this, I wasn’t sure—perhaps he was accustomed to being treated as something of a nutter, the director of an organization that some would say was full of nutters. I asked a couple of general questions to get us started. Tyler explained that fourteen people worked in the offices, but he didn’t introduce me to any of them. It may be the sort of place where names are not disclosed without a good reason.

  I explained that I was interested in the nature of the opposition to the Ruddy Duck cull in Britain, having spoken to so many people in Spain who were heartily supportive. I leaned back in my chair, notepad and pencil ready, and let Tyler speak.

  He told me about Tom Gullick, a leading English ornithologist living in Spain, who had first alerted the Spanish government to the plight of the White-headed Duck after doing surveys in about 1973. Initially Gullick was not opposed to the Ruddy Duck cull, but later came to think of it as a scandalous use of limited conservation funding and described it as a pointless and expensive massacre. I wasn’t familiar with a leading English ornithologist named Tom Gullick. I was familiar only with a Tom Gullick widely regarded as the world’s most eminent birdwatcher.

  Tyler went on to express the opinion that too many people had now “stuck their necks too far above the parapet” to admit that they were wrong about the need to kill Ruddy Ducks to protect White-headed Ducks. He claimed that the White-headed Duck had become fetishized; the cull was no longer about saving the species but designed only to save reputations. Tyler suggested that conservation issues like the White-headed Duck situation can lead to a feeling of impotence that can be circumvented, in part, by killing Ruddy Ducks. “It’s politics. It’s religion. It’s potency.” What we lacked, according to Tyler, was people with sufficient competence and wit to actually fix the problem. We constantly co-opt and reconstitute nature and wildlife with a desire to see the animals of our youth, even though we have so radically transformed the landscape that everything is out of balance.

  Tyler claimed that the media in Britain had two types of stories when it came to Ruddy Ducks. The first was about the great cost involved in culling Ruddy Ducks. The second was about randy Ruddy Ducks seducing White-headed Ducks in Spain.

  I was following the thread, but then Tyler seemed to fall off the tracks a bit. He claimed that at the heart of the Ruddy Duck cull was a desire to help a cherished species because it was threatened by a foreign species. We simply weren’t able to tolerate two species. “If they are close enough to hybridize, it doesn’t matter. It’s killing in the name of blood purity.” He used the word “fascistic” to describe the situation, and then told me to cross it out of my notes, which I did. But then he went on to use the word four times more, and I felt justified
including it.

  Tyler then spoke in general terms about the opposition of members of Animal Aid to actions of this sort. He said that those with even a basic understanding of the issues see an administration that supports and facilitates the killing of wildlife for profit. He cited the example of pheasants and partridge, which are produced in the tens of millions in the UK so that they can be shot. Native stoats, ferrets, foxes, and hedgehogs are considered “vermin” because they interfere with the production of game birds.

  “So people in this country see a regime that supports agriculture over nature, and then they hear that we kill Ruddy Ducks on the nest because of a duck that they have never seen, whose numbers are reduced by hunting and habitat destruction.” I was starting to understand his visceral opposition to the cull.

  “I find the whole business of genetic purity …” He let the sentence trail off, and I think he felt he was getting too close to making an inflammatory parallel. Instead he took a different tack and made a particularly salient point. He explained that the British population of Ruddy Ducks had grown from a very small founding population. Unless all the Ruddy Ducks are eradicated in all European and African countries where they are currently found, then the eradication endeavour was pointless.

  “Logistically it can’t be done,” said Tyler. “Morally it is vile, politically it is cynical, and the whole proposition is …”—Tyler paused to let me catch up and to collect his thoughts—”… an absurd and gross objective through killing. Eradicating the impure,” he said, “is foul, absurd, and doomed to failure.” I think that Tyler, and perhaps other members of Animal Aid, see animal rights activism as an extension of a grander social conscience. He spoke of how a culture can be completely intolerant of behaviours like kicking a dog, but comfortable with a state that subsidizes and supports vivisection and the mass production of farm animals.

  I then asked Tyler an impossible question, and apologized for asking it. “If a button could be pressed, eliminating all Ruddy Ducks in Europe and Africa without causing any suffering, could you and other members of Animal Aid support the action?” Tyler stared at me, and I couldn’t tell if he was formulating an answer, or irritated at being asked a question without an answer. He prefaced his response by saying that it was something of a cop-out. He said that suffering is involved in the Ruddy Duck cull. Some people, himself included, feel that suffering is the bottom line. However, people need to face up to the consequences of greedy and stupid use of the world. On the other hand, one needs to be practical and pragmatic when dealing with animal issues. For Tyler, the bottom line is that the cull shouldn’t proceed; the cull is scapegoating. “If we want the benefits, let’s do it without the killing. We can still obsess about the White-headed Duck.”

  I hAD SET OUT TO HAVE A BIT OF FUN with ducks. Instead I was left trying to juggle pieces of a subtle issue complicated by endless technical aspects and charged with emotion. Was it even possible to summarize the story?

  From 100,000 individuals a century ago, the White-headed Duck was on its way out, the result of galloping habitat destruction and unsustainable hunting. Although the species is by no means out of trouble yet, with continued declines in the global population and an “endangered” designation granted by the IUCN, significant progress has been made, particularly in Spain, where its numbers are increasing. It was absolutely wrong to bring Ruddy Ducks from North America to Britain, but the act was completed without malice and in a different age with different perspectives, and no one could have foreseen hybridization with White-headed Ducks in Spain. Ruddy Ducks came along at exactly the wrong time for the White-headed Duck. To anyone with a background in the biological sciences, there can be no doubt that the White-headed Duck is a distinct biological entity and worthy of preservation. Although the position is not incontestable, it seems that the genetic integrity of the White-headed Duck is threatened by Ruddy Ducks, although the ultimate extent of the threat is not currently knowable. The heart of White-headed Duck recovery efforts is currently in Spain, but the long-term future of the species also depends on efforts in other jurisdictions.

  This is a human-created problem, and nature is not responsible; it is irrelevant that ducks frequently hybridize when placed in unnatural circumstances. Is the problem insurmountable? I have no idea, but I do recognize that White-headed Ducks are now important beyond themselves, as a flagship species for conservation efforts. I also saw the interactions between Ruddy and White-headed ducks as a near-perfect example of the unforeseen and perhaps unforeseeable consequences of introduced species.

  THERE ARE TIMES WHEN I THINK that God is giving Himself a good laugh by making me run around in circles. His latest circle was going to take me to the vanishingly small village of Peakirk, north of Peterborough in central England. Five months after I left Britain, I found out that Sir Peter Scott had, half a century earlier, set up a waterfowl centre in Peakirk, and had managed to convince a publican to change the name of his pub from The Black Bull to The Ruddy Duck. I had done everything else I could possibly think of associated with the Ruddy Duck; surely I had to drink a pint at the pub that bore its name.

  Regrettably, my next opportunity came more than a year later, a week before Christmas, and a day after what locals described as the worst winter storm to hit the British Isles since the invention of weather. Three centimetres of snow, a bit of slush, fog, and temperatures about ten degrees below normal … the kind of thing that brings Europeans to their knees. Lisa and I were travelling together and managed to convince John and Joyce Chaperon to join us. John and Joyce are my only remaining relatives in the UK, although I am not exactly sure what our relationship is. We are second cousins or something like that.

  Despite the predictions of frustration, calamity, and imminent demise by the BBC’s morning news, Lisa and I caught the train north to Peterborough from Kings Cross, and John and Joyce came across from Leicester. From the train station we caught a cab to Peakirk and plonked ourselves down for lunch at The Ruddy Duck Free House & Dining Rooms.

  I am not the sort to arrive unannounced, elbow my way up to the bar, and ask a bunch of foolish questions. What would my mother say? I had, instead, written to the owners of The Ruddy Duck two months in advance telling them about my quest and proposing a date on which they might take a minute or two to speak to me. They had ignored me. Or perhaps my letter had become lost in the post. They had probably just ignored me.

  When John and I found our way to the bar to order lunch, Sue Ruddy did not immediately make me love her.

  “Are you a senior citizen?” she asked. “We have a seniors’ menu.”

  I wanted to say, “No, I’m bloody well not. Sod off!” but felt this might be an unwise opening salvo. Instead I said, “No, I’m Canadian. We all look like this.” After a thoroughly enjoyable lunch of roast lamb, mixed grill, lasagna, trifle, crème brûlée, roast apples, and cheesecake, washed down with wine and beer, Sue spoke with me about her establishment.

  Andy and Sue Ruddy had moved to Peakirk to manage The Ruddy Duck in June of 2003, and when the owners were ready to sell up a year later they gave them first refusal. Given their surname, it seemed as though fate was involved. Sue explained that the pub side of the establishment had formerly been a row of four two-storey seventeenth-century cottages, but these had been knocked together at some point in the past. Despite being a listed building, recognized for its special historical significance, it wasn’t clear exactly when the cottages had become a pub. The restaurant side of the establishment had been added later.

  “Have you ever seen a live Ruddy Duck?” I asked.

  “No, I don’t think I have.”

  I explained that they were beautiful birds in the flesh, and that the antics of a male in search of a mate were quite charming. I then asked if she knew about the controversy surrounding the Ruddy Duck in Britain. She said that she had heard that they were “naughty ducks, and not well-liked.” I expanded on the story, telling her about the difficulties with White-headed Ducks in Spain
.

  She pulled a framed document down from the wall. It was a typed sheet of paper that had been created “On the Occasion of the Opening of the ‘Ruddy Duck’ on 30 October 1964.” It consisted of a long list of alternative names for the Ruddy Duck, taken from a book about waterfowl by F. H. Kortright, and may have been presented to the pub by Sir Peter himself. Among the names listed were Buck-Ruddy, Chuck Duck, Greaser, Shot Pouch, Biddy, Hard Head, Spike-tail, Stub-and-Twist, Wiretail, Creek Coot, Dip-tail Diver, and Bumblebee Buzzer. Given the amorous successes of the Ruddy Duck in Spain, my favourite name on the list was Stiffy.

  Sue explained that Peakirk’s waterfowl centre had closed down eight or nine years earlier and had since become overgrown. While we waited for a taxi to take us back to Peterborough, Lisa, Joyce, John, and I strolled toward the site. A couple of Mallards flew overhead. Ruddy Ducks were nowhere to be seen. I suspect that soon there won’t be Ruddy Ducks anywhere in Europe.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  If You Have Snails, Blame the Romans

  REASON NUMBER ELEVEN FOR INTRODUCING A FOREIGN SPECIES: BECAUSE THEY TASTED SO GOOD BACK HOME.

  IT WAS AUGUST OF 55 bCE, and Julius Caesar found himself a long way from home. Three years earlier he had been appointed governor and military commander of the province of Gaul, and had spent the time enlarging the Roman empire to include major chunks of western Europe. And so, instead of soaking up the Mediterranean sun with his wife at his side and a glass of fine wine in his hand, he found himself on the dreary eastern side of the English Channel, staring across at the White Cliffs of Dover. Great Britain sat there, just waiting to be conquered.