We must preserve game birds (at all costs)

[emc]

Amazed to read this, but then I suppose pheasants are a little bit like gwouse, keeps the countryside economy going and provides a bit of sport for Wupert. I am not against shooting per se, as long as it shows some respect for other creatures. When we came to Norfolk 30 odd years ago there were no buzzards at all. Now there is a small but not excessive population. Also getting the odd red kite now so I wonder how long it will be before these will need to be controlled!


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18183204

[burnie]

This is another example of what mans total lack of understanding is doing to this country.Not satisfied with raping the seas of every living thing to make a profit,it's let's get rid of an indiginous species so we can have more introduced ones.
It could be "let's get rid of all the Brownies in the rivers as they eat the Salmon fry/eggs"................oh hang on they're already doing that!

[Wildfisher]

Kill native birds to preserve non indigenous pheasants so some arsehole can then blast them out of the sky.

Yes, that probably makes perfect sense in their twisted minds.

[burnie]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-18262300

Happily this London government has done a u turn on this,one of many u turns,Do they actually know what they are doing one wonders.With UDN found in the Spey,you can only wonder what they'll do to make a mess of that as well.

[Wildfisher]

A rare victory for common sense.  Quiet frankly it disgusts me that in this day and age any organisation would support such 19th century thinking as I see the Countryside Alliance did. Pathetic.

[shad]

Spotted my first Sea Eagle on the East Coast last weekend - wonderful sight , keepers have already been bitching about the amount of stockie pheasants they are eating, so no doubt they will need controlled.
I can see the point though,average  shoot employs a keeper or two on minimum wage + untaxed tips and maybe 10 beaters @ £30 per day , mostly on dole or pension dodging tax - Scotland's economy would no doubt collapse without shooting :lol:
Personally I would like to see all pheasants tagged so a claim can be made for damage to cars from the pillock who released the poor buggers to wander our roads.
ATB Colin 

[Stonepark]

Man has disturbed the natural balance and therefore we have  a responsibility to maintain it as best we can.

When intermediate predator species (in the above example buzzards) become too common control of some sort is required in order not to wipe out prey species. Where I am in central Scotland we have gone from 1 buzzard as a rare site to one every mile along a main road (or so it seems). Once these levels are reached prey species (and contrary to what the rspb put out, buzzards do hunt quite successfully) and do have an effect on other rarer bird and animal numbers.

What we actually want to bring back is the apex predators (wolves, sea eagles etc) as these control the numbers of intermediate predators such as foxes and buzzards respectively and complete the web which man has broken.

[Malcolm]

Update on the story here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/18198526

We've created a sort of urban zoo in our heavily populated areas. Lots of "artificial" predators like cats. No apex predators, as Stonepark said. Lots of artificial prey too, Stocked birds and fish which promote high surviival rates of predators; then when the artiicial stocks dry up the predators turn to natural prey, as they are starving, making huge inroads.

[Otter Spotter]

Personally I would like to see all pheasants tagged so a claim can be made for damage to cars from the pillock who released the poor buggers to wander our roads.

That is an outstanding idea!

I was thinking of attaching a pair of 12 bores to the front of the car....

[Wildfisher]

I would like to see all pheasants tagged so a claim can be made for damage to cars from the pillock who released the poor buggers to wander our roads.

Fantastic idea!  These irresponsible bastards who release tame birds that are a genuine hazard to road users need to to be held to account for their selfish actions. 

The avian stockie bashers who take pleasure in the cold blooded murder of these unfortunate tame creatures should be ashamed of themselves and probably would do had they the wit to actually understand what they are doing.