Why do Birds of Prey deserve a god like status ? Is it sustainable ?

[baguio]

BOP have been shot under license in the UK when in close proximity to airfields, especially defence related

Not true! All airfields manage the bird strike risk. I do it and have been on a tour of one of our civilian airports to see how they do it too! Especially doesn't come in to it!

 

[Beretta V]

We had a healthy stock of rabbit and hedgehog until badgers turned up on 2 farms.
The hedgehog numbers could noticeably be seen dropping.
The rabbit nests were dug out regularly.
Houses on the estate’s use to feed the hedgehogs but now they don’t bother as it’s badgers that come in their garden and eat the food and ruin their gardens.

Moderation is the key to anything

 

[Rake Aboot]

What are “scotch eagles” ?

 

[ciscokid]

What are “scotch eagles” ?

They lay scotch eggs

 

[RCS Deer Management]

We had a healthy stock of rabbit and hedgehog until badgers turned up on 2 farms.
The hedgehog numbers could noticeably be seen dropping.
The rabbit nests were dug out regularly.
Houses on the estate’s use to feed the hedgehogs but now they don’t bother as it’s badgers that come in their garden and eat the food and ruin their gardens.

Moderation is the key to anything

At least controlling hedgehogs is one positive side effect of having badgers!

 

[Heym SR20]

120 years ago the barometer had swung fulling in the eradication of all apex predators, indeed any predator.

Now they have come back and mankind has had a mythical type relationship with top predators. Our heraldry is full of eagles, lions, wolves etc, ditto military etc. we have eagle squadrons, we don’t have blue tits or duck squadrons.

For many, self included, sight of predators is a good thing.

But here in the UK we don’t understand moderation or tolerance. Once protected you cannot do anything with it. Too many eagles, buzzards, badgers, otters etc you need a level of control. But that won’t happen.

But much more to the point, it’s not the otters or seals that are damaging the Salmon rivers. Yes they are taking a few. But far far far and away the biggest damage is being caused by man. At sea the big trawlers are hovering up any small fish, ruining the sea bed and kelp forests all in the name of getting cheap fish protein, which is the frd to falmed salmon to provide cheap food for the masses.

And in the meantime going to just about any river and they all full of sewage sludge caused by overflow from the inadequate sewage systems installed in all the new housing developments. Mass rearing of free range chickens etc doesn’t help either.

But its the predators that get the blame - not the man which has actually caused the problem and has the solution.

And of course its all down to greed - sewage systems are out of sight, so install as cheap as you can get away with. Regulators have had their teeth pulled, and property developers make lots of contributions to government pension pots at all levels, and politicians can say we have built millions of houses. Fact that they are all poorly built - well that’s our childrens problem so thats ok then.

 

[andyk]

I’d say it’s down to history.

The sorts of people who extend this god like level of protection to BOP, badgers etc are one and the same as those who want everything made a protected species.

So far, they’ve only managed with these particular species but they will fight tooth and nail to hold on to these.

That’s why they’re so heavily protected, they’re figureheads for the animal protection lot. It has nothing to do with protecting them from extinction etc.

It’s not really an argument about population control, it’s the same animal rights argument we have with non-protected species by proxy.

 

[countrryboy]

Badgers were very scarce during the 1970s / 80s. Pretty much wiped out in most places.

Have badgers always been widespread throughout the UK?
Not just certain areas?

Even in my area there were certain hot spots for badgers and places/areas that had none within a few miles and no sign of historic activity either and also the places with none weren't keepered ground so no real reason for them not being there.
Over the past 20 or so years their populations have exploded and every year they seem to be spreading wider and further.

Just i can mind a right old cumbrain lad, must of been in his 70's+ 30 odd year ago talking about digging badgers legally, he reckons a lot of cumbria's badgers were actually relocated by the badger diggers so they had sport closer to home.

He talked about them hitching to lorry cafes on the M6 or A6 or wotever it was called back then to get a lift down to cheshire and areas with a lot of badgers and bring the badgers back up the road and release them.

 

[countrryboy]

The big problem u have in the UK is it is such a heavily managed and populated island, u simply can't get a true predator prey model.

As someone said earlier the key is balance, no one wants to see any animal wiped out ( althou non natives may be the exception here) no one is wanting to see a return to the good/bad old days of keepering when everything was a target and by any means.

But just some sort of Special Licence granted for local areas where populations are too high, exactly like the SL that the NGO took EN to court over for not issuing and the court ruled in NGO's favour that EN were acting unlawfully by not issuing them.

U only have to look at population numbers/counts of various species, most of wot u would call prey species are generally in terminal decline while almost every predator species is soaring.
Surely there must be a link??
Gwct and Songbird survival have shown it scientifically, most other countries acknowledge it and allow a limitied licenced cull of even protected predators.

Sadly the very thing ment to protect endangered birds/animals will likely be there death knell, nature reserves doing habitat work so attracting higher densities of a struggling species into a smaller area if not controlling predators, otherwise just a glorified McD's off rare species all gather tightly together making it easy for a predator to hoover the lot of them up.

I don't know where the urban UK gets its mindset from as seems far more extreme than even other urban countries ( very anti hunting/fieldsports and guns) but by the time they realise that all these predators are not a good thing they're will be bugger all left appart from predators eating smaller predators.

U only have to look at the old gamebooks to see the ammount of Grey Partridge shot all over the UK, at 1 point u could find Black grouse in every county in england, even the places red grouse used to be shot, i still know where some butts are and u would never have believed would be grouse there.
Same with waders, lapwings, curlews, pewit, plovers etc, they used to be common throughout everywhere in the uk, so common a lot of country folk ate there eggs.
Now u hardly see 1 nest in my area never hear them at night, if grouse shooting was banned it would not be long before there was very few left

 

[nicowilson]

A lot of our history has been captured in pub names, for example: The Spread Eagle

And given that many of us enjoy the hospitality of pubs, it's easy to see how birds and animals become mythical.

 

[Bowland blades]

Different areas have different situations . One bit of ground can be out of balance with too high a population another bit could do with some adding . Brood management should be more available to benefit the birds and the localized situation.
Today i am in a place where introduced sea eagles are displacing the golden eagle from their Natural ground. If we are to meddle lets take full responsibility eh ?

 

[NOTSHARP]

They lay scotch eggs

I once managed to snap a pic of a scotch egg hatching, just before it disappeared.






Steve.

 

[Border]

Visited the UK this summer. In my old stomping grounds (oxfordshire) red kites were more plentiful than sparrows or starlings. Too much of a success story or......?

 

[Cumbrian 1]

but is that just not nature at work? Darwin’s theory? Why do humans think nature needs human intervention?

contentious issue?

Because nature only works when it is in perfect balance. In the UK most of the natural habitat following the last ice age has been cleared and many species have been eradicated. Yes nature can find a balance but only at a loss of biodiversity, why would you want more species extinct?

 

[Cumbrian 1]

As with everything, it’s a question of balance; rural communities and field sport interests seeking to actively enhance their returns in investment and effort and maintain their way of life do not garner many votes, nor is there much if any appetite in permitting the removal of problem birds, so localised problems fester and cause resentment to authority figures with no skin in the game. Like Beretta V, I’ve seen plenty of nothing on most “conservation” agency managed reserves, and there are simply too many examples (where always it is the prey species who pay for the incompetence of the “managers”) where nothing of value is raised, or if it is, it is at unsustainable cost. Contrast this to the level of biodiversity to be found on any well managed moorland (ground nesting birds, other than grouse also abound), and it is clear which route helps to fill and which to drain the already half full/empty glass. Ironically so, given that both ideologies purport to want to increase biodiversity. They forgot about the birds!

It’s been several decades now since an objective back to back trial was undertaken where one portion of land is managed fully against the effects and causes of predation, and the other is “conserved” according to eg RSPV guidelines (Vidar Marcström’s back to back control study set the standard, his papers still available from University of Uppsala, Sweden), and little by way of the nature and relationship between predator and prey has changed in the interim, despite the waffle merchants on MSM; this does tend to suggest that it is more a political posture/anti-fieldsport stance than objective conservation effort by the detractors, whereas Songbird Survival take a far more balanced approach, though are of course vilified for so doing by their erstwhile fellow birds chums. The sums wasted by such types is staggering when compared with private concern, especially given the dismal results, writ large in the case of the capercaillie, or the eider colony Nr Slains, etc.

#smokeandmirrors

Well said, do people ever think the RSPB will ever turn around and say mission accomplished we’re disbanding? It pays to push the lies, bops are popular with the general public house sparrows less so.

As far as I am aware bop numbers are at their highest since records began.

 

[Bo Diddley]

A lot of our history has been captured in pub names, for example: The Spread Eagle

And given that many of us enjoy the hospitality of pubs, it's easy to see how birds and animals become mythical.

The Landlady at the Spread Eagle must surely have been Lilow Lil........

 

[long_range_rob]

I think it’s down to charismatic mega-fauna. Species like the giant panda which has millions spent on preserving it when nature has clearly marked it out for extinction.

I agree some species need help but once they become common and are clearly not endangered any more we need to think again on their management.

 

[London Jaeger]

Hi guys

This will be a contentious issue. Just to be crystal clear-

1) I have never knowingly injured or harmed any bird of Prey

2) never will I do so.

3) I quite enjoy seeing them. They are pure killing machines at the top of their food chain.

Having established the above- I do wonder why they deserve such a god like status amongst so many ? Given their numbers are increasing considerably- will there ever be a place for strict numbers control ?

They certainly aren't our friends in the same way as domestic animals are......but perhaps its that we can bend them to our will a little that means we look on them favourably ?

Their numbers have been low historically and everyone roots for the underdog.

They don't typically attack livestock (Scotch eagles being the exception perhaps)- so aren't a problem ?

Am I missing something ?

And what would need to happen before their numbers would need to be controlled? If livestock is ever in danger I suppose. But I can't see it being popular- even in the shooting community?

To be honest it is the same with various game species as well. If I injure a deer and it needs a follow up shot I am very disappointed with myself and it sticks with me for weeks. Whilst if i prick a pheasant on a driven day I won’t think of it beyond the next drive. Hypocritical, yes absolutely. But for some reason deer have an elevation in terms of apparent sentience and moral worth when compared to a pheasant in my eyes.

 

[London Jaeger]

I think it’s down to charismatic mega-fauna. Species like the giant panda which has millions spent on preserving it when nature has clearly marked it out for extinction.

I agree some species need help but once they become common and are clearly not endangered any more we need to think again on their management.

Along with the charisma of certain animals, there is also an either real or imagend level of sentience and moral worth. A raptor appears to society as noble, intelligent and thoughtful. Where as a chicken is just meat and feathers. Both are birds however and we slaughter billions of chicken a year without the vast majority of society batting an eyelid. Were as get caught killing a raptor (not that I am defending that) and society will hang you from the yardarm

 

[nun_hunter]

They're not the only animals with a God like status. Read through a few threads on here and compare people's attitudes to killing deer and foxes. Deer get the utmost respect, the close up humane kill is essential, long range sniping is really frowned upon, people agonise over losing a wounded animal even to the extent of calling out a specialist dog handler to help them find it. Some even indulge in a little ritual over the carcass of each deer they shoot. And so on.
Fox? If you see it, shoot it, distance no object. Provided you hit it somewhere it's bound to end up dead. Next please!

This is very true but then on purely humane grounds people kill foxes in a more ethical way, looking for a powerful and destructive bullet to instantly obliterate a fox BUT when it comes to deer its all about getting a lung shot with a good stout hunting bullet to preserve meat.

If someone shoots a fox and gets a runner for it to die 40m away its considered a bad shot or the wrong bullet but with a deer its fine, some people even spend thousands of pounds buying and training speciality dogs just for tracking deer that run off after being shot, even after you've stalked in to 50m to shoot it. However if you use a big heavy tactical rifle to "snipe" a deer from 300m and use a suitable bullet to drop it in it's tracks then that not ethical???