When I went to Shetland as a young 24 year old entrepreneur the first thing I did at the weekend was go to Noss to see one of Shetland’s most wondrous wildlife spectacles.

As I walked up that great hill I could smell the smell of fish and then as I topped the rise I heard a great cacophony of calls going “EEEEh, Ehh, EEEE!! Etc. and so this city of gannets seemed to be saying “EEEEEEh Manchester “ to me a common phrase from my home city.

Gannets sound like Mancunians and they are wonderfully beautiful animals. Gannets live in a city and in they are so remote from anything else lost in a vast sea and yet they all survive together. They do this because they are naturally altruists – animals that share for mutual benefit. The selfish gene might exist but it is held in check. This is because a gannet shares where it finds its food with its neighbours so that if a shoal is found soon all the gannets are fishing it. But if the selfish gene gets more dominant those selfish ones don’t share and although benefiting from the sharing kind, in a world of generosity and abundance; they suffer when confronted with other selfish ones. If the selfish gene continues the whole colony would collapse and mass extinction result.

People have not learned this lesson some experts think that nature should be selfish because they have limited understanding and maybe because they themselves are but nature is not. Only stupid people are selfish and sadly because we continuously invent and change our environment we have never taken account of our mostly selfish selves and so the most selfish have become most dominant and the world and people are exploited terribly.

© Jon Proctor SEA Ltd 2020

admin@sea–agency.uk – Easter 2021