Went Killin

I once killed an animal, a blackbird to be specific, in fact I didn't actually kill it come to think of it, I injured it, Gary Gallagher killed it!  As we were walking down Hall Lane in Leyland with our air rifles (we were 14!) a bird landed about 30m's in front of us.  "I bet you can't hit that bird", said Gaz, "I bet you I fuckin can", I replied with more bravado than sense, and I raised the rifle and shot.  Everything aside, it was quite a skillful shot, but the consequence was now a Blackbird was it pain, unable to fly and was flapping about frantically.  I felt immediate guilt.  We ran up to it and Gaz said, "You're gonna have to kill it".  I didn't know how.  My only weapon was my rifle, and no matter how good of a shot I was there was no way I would be able to hit a rapidly moving flapping bird.  Gaz saw I was struggling and stamped on the bird splattering us both in blood.  From that moment in time I knew that killing animals for fun wasn't very nice.

Last night however I killed more than 10 mammals with an air rifle, Rats to be specific.  There is a farm that is infested with Rats, and I'm not talking 10's of Rats, I mean easily 100's and probably 1000's.  Even the Pied Piper turned down this gig!  The Rats rip holes in the farmers food stocks as well as being a potential severe health hazard to the other animals, including the human inhabitants of the farm.  So this wasn't sport, or me being a vicious little bastard like with the blackbird, it was farm management.  It would be impracticable to use traps and unsafe to use poison (and poison seems a little inhumane to me!) so managing the population of the rat seems like the only solution.

I went out after dark with a silenced air rifle and 2 torches attached to the weapon.  At first I didn't spot many rats but as soon as twilight ended things got mental.  You could hear rats all around, squeaking and fighting (or playing, but "fighting" eases my guilt!) and running over stuff.  Pete was chaperoning me at first, showing me all of the hot spots.  Once I made the first kill he left me to it.  At one point I found myself in a cow shed in complete darkness.  The brightness of the lamp scatters the rats so I was using it sparingly.  I shouldered the rifle and switched the lamp on to reveal a festival of rats all looking at me.  If these were zombie rats I would have been in trouble, but as it was they were scared and began to run.  Before I switched the lamp off I had killed 3 Rats, which considering I was using a bolt action rifle wasn't too bad.  If I had my old L1A1 Fal rifle from the army I'm pretty sure I could have killed a magazine worth of animals, 20 if I remember correctly, but then again there might have been several cows killed in the melee and some structural damage.

Any road, I don't feel guilty this time and I did enjoy the experience.  I don't believe I caused any unnecessary prolonged harm or distress to the rats, I haven't got a thirst for blood and will not be going big game hunting in Africa or any other place.  I'd never make a Buddhist would I?

"Dead Rat"

"Down the Sights"