Nature can be so cruel; not just the red in tooth and claw eat and be eaten predator variety but in other ways as well. I know when it comes to animals nobody could be more sentimental than I and what started this off was an article and sad photograph in the paper of an outcast seal pup; outcast because his fur, instead of being a sleek black, is ginger and his normal black relations want nothing to do with him. It doesn’t pay to be different. Think of the consequences of being albino in some parts of Africa. It could lead to your death when the witchdoctor wants your body parts to make muti.

I never knew there could be ginger seals but evidently there is a large colony of them near San Francisco so if the poor little outcast pup had been born in a different neck of the woods instead of Tyulenly Island, Russia, the whole start to his life would have been different. Evidently the colouring is caused by a build up of iron in his system but that can’t be explained to the normal seals so there he sits, so as not to be bullied, a forlorn little figure a hundred yards away from the cavorting colony on the beach and waiting for his mother who will never come to feed him. To make matters worse he has blue eyes and is partially blind. Fortunately at the time he took the pictures the photographer was with staff from a dolphinarium who took the pup under their wing. Maybe some philanthropic millionaire will fly him to San Francisco.

But to another animal story of a different kind. Of all the predators that exist surely mankind must top the list. Animals kill because they are hungry. Human beings kill.

The Faroe Islands have their own government, language, flag, currency and make their own rules but they are part of Denmark and the Danes and Danish government should hang their heads in shame at what goes on in the Faroes every year. I refer to the mass slaughter of dolphins and pilot whales when the sea runs red with their blood as they are hideously slaughtered in their hundreds. There are those in the water doing the killing while the rest of the community, including children, stand watching. This gruesome festival is supposed to prove adulthood! ‘Kill a dolphin and you will be a man my son.’ It has evidently been going on since the 10^th century but should it be allowed to continue? The hideous wholesale slaughter of these defenceless, friendly, beautiful, intelligent animals? The answer has to be a resounding no, no, no, and no again. The Faroes might have a certain independence but isn’t it time the Danish Government stepped in to stop this horror? It has no place in a modern supposedly humane civilised society. And, should you think horror to be too strong a word, look up ‘Denmark – dolphin killings’ on Google; that is if you feel your stomach can take it.