Januari 19, 2017
[music] this film is more secret squirrel than furtiveferret. thanks to years of research carried out in a bunker in where? north korea - no- more like southend - we believe we have the technology to bring you dark secrets ofthe underworld. we call upon king of the ferrets simon whitehead,who has been the brains and the money behind all this. before he reveals all, he's gotsome proper work to do - checking the drop boxes on a fenceline on this particular farm. the drop boxes is an ancient method of trackingrabbits or trip trap as some people call them. it is a box put in the ground with a trapdoor and a tunnel and the tunnel goes through
the rabbit fence so you are giving the rabbita way of getting from a to b and from b back to a and then you put a counter lever on thetrap door so when it goes on the plate it doesn't move and it gets used to going throughand then when we want to harvest the rabbits we take the counter lever or the weight offthe trap door and every time the rabbit goes on there it traps down into the nice box onthe floor, then it springs back up. one customer in here. what you have got to do is make surehe is despatched straight away. it is always important to make sure this is working againand that is ready for tonight. with the drop boxes emptied we can crack onwith the main event -strapping cameras to ferrets and bolting rabbits to shotguns.
we have been searching high and low for thisand it is a bit of a land mark in what i have been doing because as long as i have beenportraying and protecting ferreting in the media i have always wondered what it is liketo be a ferret. people have said i smell like a ferret i have got the ethics of a ferret.i am even as feral as a ferret. well now i am going to have the chance to see what itis like to be a perkfield ferret. we have commissioned ... come on simon - you have a reputation to maintain- get a grip. we, or darren has come up with the answerto all my questions on what happens to a ferret under the ground. does it fall asleep, doesit go and have a little word with the rabbit
or is it just going to run about like somepeople i know try to look busy without doing much. so today we are going to fit one ofthe ferrets with the unit. i can't say what it is called. it is just called the unit. the one thing he is serious about is not allowingus to film the camera. sorry about that. it has actually taken a long time to get useableimages in what are horrible filming conditions - firstly it's pitch black, then there's thesoil, lots of it, which tends to stick to the lens, then there's the operator - whodoes like to shake wobble and roll. thankfully for us, some rabbits are camera shy and makea dash for it. that's when simon is waiting for them with, of course, gun cam.
some of them need two barrels... simon maintainsthe first shot hit the tree - nevertheless unlike elma fudd the shooting times writeralways get his wabbit. he is however keen to stress that bolting rabbits to shotgunsneeds great care. he's seen many a capable gun see red and go fairly feral with the excitementof "the bolt". not only have you got the added distractionof ferrets running up and down the ground, you have got long periods of inactivity andthen you have got a quick flurry of action and rabbit shooting i have found out overthe years have the ability to turn a surface of shots into a gibbering wreck and an unsafeshot. so there are a few rules i always have with the few people who are allowed to shootover my ferrets. the person facing the rabbit
holes is in charge of the ferrets, he tellseverybody where they can and cannot go. there's no wireless picture feed to the surfaceso we are filming blind, until we pop the memory card into the computer. we might aswell have given the camera to a mole - did someone say mole - we'll here's a man whois also working to protect this newly seeded pasture and it's another first for fieldsportsbritain - a real life mole catcher. you have got to think like a mole to catcha mole really. as you can see he is built for digging, he is mainly feet. he has verysmall eyes, he lives under ground, but he has these huge feet for digging and scrapingaway the earth. he has got lovely soft skin which is non directional so he can turn aroundin a really small space. the tunnels are only
about the size of the mole, but he is ableto turn around in that space without getting all the mud in his fur. so he is really builtfor the job and all he does is he digs the tunnel which all they are is basically wormtraps and the worms drop down in front of him and he snuffles them up. i don't knowwhether we can see with this one, his teeth. he has got some pretty good gnashers on therejust for crunching worms. he has to eat a heck of a lot for the size of him there isnot much value in a worm. he spends all his time eating. they work in a four hour cycle.four hours off and four hours eating. that is basically his job. the moles are hung on a gibbet line - it usedto be a common site in the british countryside
- showing the landowner just how many pestshad been there - and for people like paul showing just how much money he's owed. back to the rabbitting, the ferreting andthe filming, we have a ferret/rabbit confrontation. it's not easy to make it out - so let me talkyou through it: ferret sees rabbit - we think he tries to get the other side of it - there'sa struggle then it goes dark because ferret has hold of rabbit and his face plus cameralens is close up against the rabbit's body. he tries to drag it to the surface with afew shouts of protest, whereby he gets a helping hand. ferret and rabbit are removed from holeand eventually prised apart, and the miniature cameraman goes back in his box.
now ferreting at this time of year isn't foreveryone as they do have young. but simon's job is to clear the rabbits - and a smallrabbit will eventually be munching as much foliage as a big one. a rabbit is a rabbit. this time of the yearthis is the difference between out and out rabbit control and bolting rabbits for sportand ferreting for sport. they are not going to grow up so there is going to be a gap inthe breeding programme in this area and with everything else that is going on around herein a matter of time the rabbits will be next down to nothing. the final ferret filming foray doesn't goto plan and our cameraman goes first walkabout
then layabout. the ferret finder puts himat 7 feet - simon does not shy away from a dig. some even say he enjoys it. you'd haveto, especially when the little blighter moves as he breaks through. eventually all are accounted for and it'stime for a refreshing cuppa. all the animals are back, we have got rabbitsin the bag. i am now going to have my cup of tea and go home and have a nice clean up.so until we meet again, bye, bye for now. it's been a fascinating day, but after thatlast performance we understand that this ferret's career will now be in front of the crowdswith simon at the game fairs and not behind the camera.
Tidak ada komentar
Posting Komentar