6. Landscapes Of Destruction: The Curse Of The Pheasant

Killing birds and animals is a preoccupation for large numbers of those who can afford it. Landowners have the advantage. Limited access to land confers prestige on the activity, making the slaughter of wildlife a badge of status or social acceptance. Consider the early eighteenth-century movements of the Imperial Austrian court; they were determined solely by the hunting seasons. Hunting ceased only for Lent, until woodcock shooting began at the end of March. April was spent flying falcons at herons, just when the herons were making beelines for their nests. From the end of June until the start of October, the court moved elsewhere to hunt stags, decamping again for 10 days shooting of hares and pheasants. After that, it was engaged almost every day in hunting wild boar, until the end of January, when enormous drives were staged to deal with any game that had escaped. At a later period, the Archduke Franz Ferdinand managed to slaughter 274,889 animals and birds before he fell to the assassin's bullet at Sarajevo. He recorded killing his 100th eagle, 1,000th chamois and 6,000th stags before the end of his abbreviated lifetime.