Natural England grants licenses to destroy Buzzard nests

[Kid Sampson]

Natural England has granted two licenses (in secret, this has come about due to FOI requests,) to destroy Buzzard nests and eggs in order to protect their wealthy gamekeeper mates pheasants. The destruction has already taken place. Thought this had been done away with after a public outcry last year, clearly not.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/may/23/government-licenced-buzzard-egg-destruction

[taxman]

No surprise there eh? They'd rather damage native species than upset their pheasant shooting chums.

 

It seems bizarre to afford full protection to certain species if the government can then come along and grant licences to destroy their eggs and nests. It hardly sends out the right message to all those neanderthals out there who like to persecute birds of prey.

 

Some gamekeepers and landowners won't be happy until certain species are almost wiped out.....again.

[Murphy Jnr]

If you want to let DEFRA Minister Richard Benyon know how you feel you can email him here.

 

richard.benyon.mp@parliament.uk

[Rupert_Baehr]

Do they need to be culled?

 

Don't their natural predators keep the numbers down to a level where the rest of the food chain can support them?

 

What are their natural predators?

 

So 'Natural England' have granted a licence for the destruction of TWO (not 2000) nests. Hardly 'Mass slaughter' or 'eradication of a species' is it?

 

Do the people who work for 'Natural England' haver any sort of qualification? Is it reasonable to suggest that they might actually know what they're talking about?

 

Come on Rupert! - This is SF.

 

I haven't shot a pheasant for many years and I doubt I will do so in the forseeable future.

 

I'm well aware, however, that those who pay (often ridiculously high) fees to shoot provide the money the gamekeepers (working for the landowners) use to maintain, support and nurture a lot of wildlife which isn't strictly necessary to produce crops.

 

If the gamekeepers stop looking after the rest of the wildlife, can we expect to see loads of townies out doing the job for them at weekends?

 

Should the government raise the cash necessary to look after wildlife by a 'townie tax' on food?

[Murphy Jnr]

I think it's the fact that it's a protected native species over a mass bred non native species that has people raising eyebrows, and it isn't the first instance that this 'secret' go ahead has been granted albeit against different bird species posing a similar small threat to gamebirds.

 

---------- Post added 25-05-2013 at 10:21 ----------

 

Quote: Do the people who work for 'Natural England' haver any sort of qualification? Is it reasonable to suggest that they might actually know what they're talking about? Unquote.

 

It is rumoured that NE are in the pocket of the game keeping fraternity though i stress that there's no (that I can find) substantial proof of this.

[Rupert_Baehr]

I think it's the fact that it's a protected native species over a mass bred non native species that has people raising eyebrows, and it isn't the first instance that this 'secret' go ahead has been granted albeit against different bird species posing a similar small threat to gamebirds.

 

...It is rumoured that NE are in the pocket of the game keeping fraternity though i stress that there's no (that I can find) substantial proof of this.

 

'A protected native species over a mass-bred non-native species.'

 

Pheasants were indeed introduced to the UK - by the Normans, who introduced them for hunting. They are fairly well established.

 

How long does a species have to be present in the UK before it stops being non-native?

 

Turkeys are a relative newcomer. - They weren't introduced to the country until 1541. There's no shortage of turkeys and (presumably) they've displaced something else. Should they be eradicated?

 

If you are going to get rid of non-native species, shouldn't potatoes be eradicated? (They arrived shortly after the Turkeys. Well, you have to have something to eat with roast turkey and turnips are a bit boring. Potatoes [or rather potato blight and potato eelworm] have caused massive problems. Just ask the Irish.

 

I'm intrigued by your use of the phrase 'game keeping fraternity'. I was not aware that there was a 'fraternity' of gamekeepers. I know a couple; one of whom is a decent-enough guy and the other ... no comment. They are both knowledgeable and highly-skilled, but - like most other farmworkers - not very highly paid.

 

'Secret go-ahead'. Are the people who make decisions like that obliged to publish them in advance? Should the decisions (unpopular though they may be) be made by the experts hired to make them, or should the government pay for the expertise and then ignore it?

 

Should all unpopular decisions be overturned?

 

I doubt that anybody went into that decision-making process thinking: "Here's a chance to eradicate a rare species."

 

Culling a species - any species - is seldom popular, but it's sometimes necessary. In the late 1980s I lived in a place where 'deer-hunting' (with a bow and arrow [i don't like that] or a shotgun with a solid-tipped bullet) was very popular. A county just South of where I lived decided they weren't going to allow their deer to be hunted and they imposed a moratorium - against the advice of a lot of fairly knowledgeable people.

 

Deer had 2 predators in that area: Humans with guns/bows & arrows and humans in vehicles (who didn't usually attack them.)

 

Autumn came, no deer hunting. Loads of deer. Then came winter (with the usual 6-8 feet of snow.) Lots of deer, but not a lot of food.

 

So the deer took to the roads and were killed by the tin-can predators - many of whom didn't do themselves any good, either.

 

By Spring time, there were hundreds of emaciated, diseased, injured deer.

 

Fortunately, 'Name and Shame' was quite acceptable and the blame went where it should've done. - A number of county politicians found that they were reviled (and they had no chance of re-election.)

 

I'm not a farmer, but I've spent most of my life (including 3 years in South Yorkshire, 12 years in Lincolnshire, 6 years in Cambridgeshire and 13 years in Norfolk) living in agricultural areas It's perhaps hardly surprising that I know a few farmers.

 

AFAIK most of the large farms in the UK are now owned by 'financial organisations' who know nothing and care less about farming. They hire highly-skilled farm managers who in turn hire farm workers. If you tell those financial organisations they can't make any money out of letting out shooting rights, they will stop rearing pheasants.

 

And they will stop employing gamekeepers and the other workers who don't just 'rear pheasants' but who do a lot of other work in the ancillary business of 'looking after the environment.'

 

If there's an aspect of farming - in this case, rearing game birds - which is extremely unprofitable, what makes you think the financial organisations (who are interested in money, not agriculture) are going to waste their money doing it?

[Murphy Jnr]

There are a lot of questions there and I'm unable to answer them all nor will I try, suffice to say i'm not championing the eradication of Pheasants or requesting that the country rallies behind a cry of save our Buzzards.

 

The 'maybe' necessary killing of a select few that chose country estates to dwell on or near is a long way from a mass cull and is likely not to cause the demise of the bird but it does strike me as odd that protection comes with clauses, more so if you consider that a captive bred species numbering a reported 35 million each year is somehow under threat from another numbering a reported 40,000

[Parvo]

If you want to let DEFRA Minister Richard Benyon know how you feel you can email him here.

 

richard.benyon.mp@parliament.uk

 

 

 

wow he's even got a website...bet the phone numbers aren't to him really though

 

http://www.richardbenyon.com/

[Becky B]

Hmmm. Buzzards predominantly eat carrion .

How many pheasants become roadkill? How do those figures compare to the number actually killed by buzzards?

 

Perhaps they should ban all motor vehicles from shooting areas before destroying the buzzard nests...

 

Edit:

Hah - the article even answers my question!

 

"1-2% of pheasant poults released were taken by all birds of prey, Knott said, adding that a third of all pheasants are killed on the roads."

[Murphy Jnr]

Hmmm. Buzzards predominantly eat carrion .

How many pheasants become roadkill? How do those figures compare to the number actually killed by buzzards?

 

Perhaps they should ban all motor vehicles from shooting areas before destroying the buzzard nests...

 

Edit:

Hah - the article even answers my question!

 

"1-2% of pheasant poults released were taken by all birds of prey, Knott said, adding that a third of all pheasants are killed on the roads."

 

All it takes are a few incidents for it to be blown out of proportion, any excuse to kill something.