Anyone who took the opportunity last night to watch Countryfile featuring buzzards and peregrine would have been disappointed by what they heard and saw. Much of the rhetoric was pretty much the same standard propaganda highlighting the shooting fraternity’s historic stand on birds of prey and the alleged damage these birds caused to pheasants. There was also a short interview with two Scottish pigeon fanciers who claimed to have experienced first hand the damage and stress peregrines attacks had caused to their birds.
The problem was many of the claims being made, in particular by Alex Hogg, Chairman of the Scottish Game Keepers Association, were not backed up by Science. It was also very clear that Alex was not too good either when it came to simple mathematics. In an off camera interview with Tom Heap Alex had stated he was about to release 700 pheasant poults into his wood. When by asked on camera by Tom Heap how many of these poults he expected to lose to buzzards, he relied “we’re probably losing, getting on for over 1000 pheasants in a year to buzzards.” Is it possible the buzzard population on Alex’s property are on a daily dose of steroids, a 1000 pheasant poults predated, that’s truly astonishing especially when he only released 700 birds to begin with?
On a more serious point we were pleased to see that the RSPB’s Duncan Orr-Ewing together with Dr. Steve Redpath brought some common sense to the programme. Duncan Orr-Ewing made a particularly valid point when asked by Tom Heap: “look, in the future we are just going to have just birds of prey and corvids, crows, magpies, seagulls, that’s the future for our birds. Don’t you think that’s a possible scenario?” Duncan Orr-Ewing replied: “I could’t disagree more, go to anywhere on the continent of Europe where you have natural bird of prey populations . The simple fact is we are not used to seeing large birds of prey in our landscape, because they were removed and now they are coming back, people see these changes, they are obvious, the birds, so they see there is a problem and of course, they try and make a link between raptors and songbirds, which may not be there, of course.”
Professor Steve Redpath cast doubt on the whole buzzard pheasant prey relationship by saying the problem is we do not have any independent evidence with which to asses their impact and reach any sensible management decisions.
Professor Redpath also pointed to the fact that not all raptor populations were increasing, using the current demise of the hen harrier, which he said had now been virtually eliminated from England.
Footnote:
It seems almost beyond belief that here in Britain where bird of prey persecution has been a consistent but illegal way of life for some people within our society throughout both the 20th and 21st century, these individuals with Victorian attitudes are now attempting to get their way by attempting to reverse wildlife legislation by using propaganda with no scientific justification. Changing important wildlife laws which would allow Britain’s wildlife heritage to be slaughtered in support of a minority blood sporting activity can simply not be justified under any circumstances. We urge everyone to sign the E-PETION for the law of Vicarious Liability before the deadline expires on 17th November 2012.
You can watch to complete programme but only for the next seven days here.
For those who do not understand the implication of Vicarious Liability, we have enclosed a simple explanation below.
Vicarious Liability. Explanation.
If the law of Vicarious Liability is passed by the English Parliament, bringing English legislation into line with Scotland, employers will become liable for the illegal actions of their employees. For example where a gamekeeper is successfully prosecuted for illegally killing protected birds of prey, where there is enough evidence, the gamekeeper’s employer could then also face prosecution by the courts. In the past, sporting estate owners have been able to say they had no knowledge of the illegal activities of their staff working on their behalf. If Vicarious Liability ever became law in England, this excuse would not hold any water.
Let’s face it if this government could have ‘gulags’ like in Soviet Russia we would all be in them. Then these rich criminals could get away with murder with no one daring to say ‘boo’. Having said that we say ‘Boo’ and they totally ignore us. Not much difference then!
Did anyone else notice the overhead wires directly above the pigeon loft? These are more deadly to pigeons than any peregrine. Normally pigeon fanciers would demand that flight deflectors are fitted to them.
I was always under the impression that they just neck injured or lame birds? How is that loving pigeons to the point of crying on tv?
If the buzzard is such a phenomenal predator, mopping up droves of pheasants on shoot after shoot, WHY may I ask, are they not THE weapon of choice in the falconry sector?
Oh that’s right, because buzzards are notoriously lazy birds with small feet that mainly prey upon insects, worms, snakes, small mammals and carrion – Wiping out and decimating shoots??? POPPYCOCK!!! Poor management more likely!
One other curiosity to consider, the comment from Andy regarding % of released pheasant shot was very significant but has been over-looked. A shoot is pleased, according to Andy, if 46% of released pheasants are shot. That means the other 54% of birds not shot must also include road kills, losses due to inclement weather, disease, and birds predated by, foxes, stoats, weasels, badgers, mink and the few taken by pheasants buzzards, oh yes lets not forget the pheasants taken by poachers. This being the case what is all the fuss about the buzzard we should all be asking?
Fanciers cull on a regular basis during the flying season,they will not feed POOR/WEAK flying birds and have no need to encourage their offspring.Leads to a weak gene pool in their flying stock.
This government is hell bend on bringing back victorian attitudes towards raptors in this country.
I just wish you self righteous know it alls would stop just for a minute and listen to genuine concerns of real people
I race pigeons and this year from 50 young birds bred- 14 have been killed by the same hen sparrowhawk that attacked them every time I let them out (Its nesting at the moment so the attacks have temporarily stopped
These wern’t lost in races killed by cats or any other reason –they were killed by the same hawk –I witnessed every attack and carried the half eaten bodies away
What would you like me to do –stand and applaud the wonderful RSPB for the great work its doing in protecting the likes of this killer –I think not
Editor’s Comment.AJ, Thank you very much for your comments detailing your concerns. Our advice to you would be, wait in future until this sparrowhawk has completed breeding and all the young have left your area before letting any birds out near a hawk’s territory. It would also have helped if you had left the dead pigeons where they had been killed instead of picking them up. Of course the hawk is going to come back and look for another bird to feed to its family because you had removed the one it had killed. Sparrowhawks are a part of the natural ecosystem, the racing pigeon you rear and fly for your own enjoyment are not.
Re : editors comments
First thing to note is that the attcacks all happened before the hen hawk went to nest so your advice regarding keeping the birds in is irrelevant unless you mean keep them in from January until July which rather defeats the whole point of keeping Racing Pigeons
All over the country pigeon fanciers are having similar problems to those that I have encountered due to the over population of sparrowhawks and other predators often introduced into the locality by so called “do gooders ”
The sparrowhawk may be part of the natural ecosystem but by having an artificial diet ie racing pigeons –their numbers are increasing which is causing an imbalance between the number of raptors and songbirds etc
Of course you can always blame the farmers -ha ha
Editor’s Comment, AJ we are please you can see the funny side of this.
i would rather watch a pigeon or songbird in flight,than a raptor that the rspb are allowing to breed at a silly rate wiping out all the these birds.WAKE UP.Bird tables are now take aways for birds of prey
It appears that someone’s letting all the nutters “breed at a silly rate”!