Swans slaughtered to be eaten by Immegrants (2 Viewers)

[Peewit]

Hi there

I had a look and cannot see this bit of news elsewhere on this thread unless I have overlooked it. So my apologies if I have.

I heard an article about the whole issue of destruction to our wildlife in the local News to me today. I have the BBC I-player set up and it will take time for it to be available (the BBC I-player is always a bit slow after a programmes has been on)

However, I found an older article about the same issue of the Swans. I have heard about it already in the past and have similar issues close in my own area.

Older link: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...dents-frightened-visit-park-Peterborough.html

I am gobsmacked about this and feel quite sickened about the whole situation. It is a question of what we do about it.

This could be an interesting discussion. Of course, I have my views but anyway I will leave it up to others to start the discussion here

Newer link today: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00s0z9l

Swans discussed towards the end of the 15 mins programme local to my 'Look East'

Regards
Kathy
x

 

[Himalaya]

Where are the police?

 

[Peewit]

Where are the police?

True, I thought the situation would demand the attention of Wildlife crime Officers more than anything

Regards
Kathy
x

 

[Richard Klim]

Sounds like classic Daily Mail xenophobic scaremongering to me.

Richard

 

[Peewit]

Sounds like classic Daily Mail xenophobic scaremongering to me.

Richard

Hi Richard

I am not keen on the Mail, but this is all I can get a hold of at the moment at this point in time....unless someone finds a better link.

There are lots of issues about the same problems going back over the last couple of years or so ....so it is not new at all. Maybe there has not been enough News on the TV about the issues at hand.
I see in this recent case Northampton Council where not to keen to be interviewed at all so that must be saying something about issues at hand.

There have also been issues of numbers immigrants being found using peoples shed in their back gardens. To me that is scary. :eek!:

Anyway, need to get a better account of the issues at hand through better coverage.

Regards
Kathy
x

 

[Kev23]

Sounds like classic Daily Mail xenophobic scaremongering to me.

Richard

Agreed. Would this article have been written in such a way if local groups of English "Chavs" had been the accused?

But one thing I am grateful for The Mail for doing is highlighting is the abundance of "Mating Bewick's and Whooper swans" in Peterborough... might be worth a trip up there over the coming months as seeing them "doing it" in the Arctic circle has always been out of my reach budget wise........

 

[Peewit]

http://www.peterboroughtoday.co.uk/news/features/fury_as_swans_brutally_killed_1_367438

Another variation of the same article from March this year.

In my area of Bedford there was a spate of Fish being taken from Bedford Park lake a while ago, and the mystery was solved eventually. It is proof of the event and the person caught that is needed and that is not the easiest thing to do or achieve.

Even if people born and breed in the UK where starving, we would not resort to eating our wildlife that I know of - would we!

Regards
Kathy
x

 

[JTweedie]

Even if people born and breed in the UK where starving, we would not resort to eating our wildlife that I know of - would we!

Regards
Kathy
x

Probably because people don't have the ingenuity to catch their own food. Also, if you're technically starving then you'll probably not have the energy to hunt, so raiding bins/stealing from shops is more productive.

 

[AlanCh]

Even if people born and breed in the UK where starving, we would not resort to eating our wildlife that I know of - would we!

Regards
Kathy
x

Are you sure you aren't just feeding on the Daily Mail xenophobia - are any of their stories based in fact?

As for your comment about the UK population not eating our wildlife, what do you think poaching was/is about - surely that always used to be the poor and poorly fed catching wildlife that the rich claimed as their own, so they could eat it.

 

[Kev23]

Are you sure you aren't just feeding on the Daily Mail xenophobia - are any of their stories based in fact?

As for your comment about the UK population not eating our wildlife, what do you think poaching was/is about - surely that always used to be the poor and poorly fed catching wildlife that the rich claimed as their own, so they could eat it.

Thanks Alan for writing exactly what i was going to say... if individuals are killing protective species for ANY reason (Maybe other than self-defence!) it is a crime and in my eyes dispicable, but I find the nationality of the individual to be irrellevant. Unlike The Mail and a large number of it's readers. You could also argue whether a "starving person" killing to "survive" is any worse than some miscreant with a shot gun having a pop at wildfowl for fun or some kids chucking rocks at ducks on a local pond which sadly I have witnessed. Those delightful children were from the not exactly impoverished area of Richmond-upon-Thames...UK born and bred and I'm sure educated to a level where they know killing wildlife for fun is not on.

Just as these evil "Eastern Europeans" know what they are doing is wrong according to The Mail correspondent.

Kathy, it's distressing to think of people eating birds that we love watching, of course, but a pinch of salt needs to be at hand when reading any story in The Mail or Daily Express which involves immigration.

I refer to my comment on "mating Bewick's/Whoopers when I suggest that facts aren't the most important thing of the agenda when there's a chance of a spot of Xenophobic journalism..

Happy spring birding everyone

 

[Steven Astley]

I agree something needs to be done as our country isn't big enough for people to be eating the wildlife.

Regards making a moral judgement on these people, it could be said what they are eating is free range, organic and has had a quality of life. We farm animals often intensively, eg battery hens, most have no chance of of reaching maturity, lambs, beef etc.

In areas of the world were people still live a simple life of hunting the ecosystem is more balanced, such as tribes in the Amazon.

They way we rear and eat our food has probably played a major role in what's wrong with our planet such as over population and global warming.

 

[Jos Stratford]

Even if people born and breed in the UK where starving, we would not resort to eating our wildlife that I know of - would we!

Regards
Kathy

Are you sure you aren't just feeding on the Daily Mail xenophobia - are any of their stories based in fact?

Sorry Kathy, but the story you post and your comments are simply xenophobic crap.

I live here in Eastern Europe, not far from the Poland, the so-called centre of swan-eating culture if we were to believe the article you quote. I can confirm, not for food, not for sport, there is no culture of shooting swans in Poland, nor is there is a culture of shooting swans in Lithuania. Indeed, read through the press in the UK and you will reasonably quickly find isolated cases of pure-blood white UK youths that have decided it fun to shoot swans with an airgun or crossbow, or stamp on a young deer calf (Dorset last year). I have never heard of such happening in this country.

Just as this wandon violence on wildlife by British yobs is not representative of British society as a whole, it is also the case that if some person in Peterborough, maybe an immigrant, has taken it upon themselves to shoot swans, it is not a reflection of their background.

 

[Jos Stratford]

And ps. these persons are not starving, but assuming they were, it would be totally understandable that they would kill wildlife to survive. And I have no doubt if a British person was starving, or their children were, then they too would kill a bird to survive. As I said xenophobic crap.

 

[dafi]

Well said Jos!!!

 

[captaincarot]

it's legal to eat swan if you're
a) the queen
b) at a royal banquet where it's being served
c) a member of one certain cambridge colledge which i forget the name of.

 

[earleybird]

otherwise they are protected by the Wildlife and Countryside Act of 1981 and all Mute swans are the property of the crown and have been since 1482.

If people want to come to this country they should be prepared to abide by our laws not their own Countries. If they are not prepared to abide by our laws then let them not come to the UK .

Personally I'd put them in the Tower and then hang draw and quarter them :t:

 

[AlanCh]

otherwise they are protected by the Wildlife and Countryside Act of 1981 and all Mute swans are the property of the crown and have been since 1482.

If people want to come to this country they should be prepared to abide by our laws not their own Countries. If they are not prepared to abide by our laws then let them not come to the UK .

Personally I'd put them in the Tower and then hang draw and quarter them :t:

And would you apply the same punishment to English yobs who shoot wildlife, of whatever class? If not, your comments are simply racist - if so, perhaps you are just a bit extreme.

 

[Pete Mella]

It's the usual xenophobic, hate-mongering crap that's peddled by the Mail every day, sadly. For a rebuttal, including quotes from the RSPCA, see here http://tabloid-watch.blogspot.com/2010/03/littlejohn-makes-it-up-about-swans.html . It always makes me sad when people take such garbage as this on face value, and uses it to form their opinions of people of other cultures. No wonder the BNP are gaining ground.

Of course it's not impossible for immigrants to kill swans, or do any other bad thing, and there are yobs and miscreants in all cultures and of all races. But as Jos says just because someone of a certain group does something wrong it shouldn't be seen as a evidence that that's how that group behaves. I'd find it pretty ludicrous if anyone took my actions and misdeamours alone as evidence of how the "white British" behave.

 

[lashinala]

I'd find it pretty ludicrous if anyone took my actions and misdeamours alone as evidence of how the "white British" behave.[/QUOTE]
Too late! Just kidding.
This thread does make me snicker though....just a 'swan song' for immigrants?
When I lived in New Orleans, people used to joke that they wanted more South American immigrants so they could show us a better way to prepare nutria, since we were overrun with them. :eat:

 

[Jim M.]

In this country, we have a problem with immigrants killing swans also. Specifically, British immigrants (and their descendants) are keen on wiping out Mute Swans from an entire state: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/15/AR2009051501258.html

(But I'll confess I have some sympathy with their reasons. (Though I'm a descendant of such immigrants also, so I'm suspect).)

Cheers,
Jim