Pete Mella
Getting there...
Culling wild birds/animals just because we can't stop making a mess of things does not seem like a reasonable plan to me.
What about mink in areas where water voles are threatened? Or rats on rare seabird colonies?
Culling wild birds/animals just because we can't stop making a mess of things does not seem like a reasonable plan to me.
killing birds in england obviously saves birds in spain..i get it now!!!!! and responding to another ,,.,agreed i messed up slightly with foot n mouth and mad cow but i believe they were both just scare tactics from the government/media..just a question ..anyone here be willing to shoot the ruddies ..or is it a case of letting someone else do it...
What about mink in areas where water voles are threatened? Or rats on rare seabird colonies?
... only a well organised and thorough cull of Ruddy Duck will save WHD from regional extinction (or worse).
... you are obliged to accept that without culling, WHD will become extinct over a significant portion of its range.
I've no idea of the total number of cases of hybridisation recorded, but the data from Carlos Gutierrez (Henderson 2009, BB 102(1)) show that 70+ Ruddy x White-headed hybrids were culled in Spain in the period 1991-2007....how many actual cases of interbreeding have there been?
Yes, I am so at least I'm being consistent!
Thank you for the explanation about the habitat....good to know.
I do understand the argument for a cull and luckily for me, I can sit here and exercise my right to disagree as I am not the one who has to make the decision or pull the trigger.
It was mentioned in an earlier post that unless we stop people from keeping exotics then this type of situation will just keep happening again. So we cull the Ruddy duck but we still have collections of exotic birds, mammals etc in the uk which could result in problems with invasive species. If I have to concede that a cull is necessary then surely something has to be done to ensure that the problem doesn't keep happening. Culling wild birds/animals just because we can't stop making a mess of things does not seem like a reasonable plan to me.
Surely we need to look at what else we are doing that has an impact on populations of birds and animals rather than relying on culls (dare I mention the proposed Badger cull?)
If we are keeping animals or birds in the UK that would be devastating to the local environment if they escaped then shouldn't we discouraged from having them in the first place?
My point in the previous post was that if culling is always used to mop up our mistakes but we are not learning from the mistakes that we make, it doesn't say much for our evolutionary process does it?
I thought it was already an offence under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 to introduce any non-native species into the wild in Britain.
CB
Sort of thinking out loud here.
Something that's always confused me, and that I think is relevant to the Ruddy Duck Cull, is the difference between natural and unnatural. What's the difference between a Bird transporting a seed or insect to another Country, and humans introducing Ruddy Ducks into the UK? We are just another Animal, isn't it all "natural"? Isn't it how Nature works (and always has worked), so to speak?
There have always been instances where animals or plants colonise areas of their own accord, and there are probably many instances where this has also been catastrophic to some species or another.
But while (staying with the ruddy example) it is possible for ruddies to reach Europe under their own steam, the chance of enough doing so to create a breeding population is very low.
The difference with humans is we have the power to transport animals across the entire globe pretty much limitlessly. But this brain power that allows us to do that should also allow us to realise the consequences of doing this, and know the actions that will undo it.
Yes we are just another animal, but that excuse could be taken to extreme to say that anything that humans do is natural because we're animals. Housing estates? Natural, because they were made by animals. Nuclear power stations? Natural, because they were made by animals. The argument basically gives us carte blanche to do what we want because, hey, whatever we do we're just a force of nature. But are we still a force of nature when we're self-knowing about our actions? A hurricane wouldn't be a force of nature if it knew what it was doing, it would be a total and utter bastard.
Yeah, we're just evolved apes, but we're also the first species (that we know of) on this planet to have evolved the mental capacity to not only change the natural environment so strongly, but also to reason and know what we should do to stop it. With great power comes great responsibility, as Spiderman once said.
Anyway, the "aren't the actions of humans natural because we're just animals aren't we?" argument is for philosophers, not conservationists.
I agree, but it wouldn't have been catastrophic to all species; the non-native species would probably have thrived. Wouldn't such events have happened often in the distant past? And didn't some (or most?) of the native species start as non-native?
I agree, but I'm not so sure that we are aware of our actions on a longer time-scale. What if in a few 100 (or 1000) years from now the Ruddy Duck population in the USA gets wiped out by a virus/disease. And our UK Ruddy Ducks were the only ones left? They would come in handy for the USA.
I am not sure the term "non-native" can be used when animals naturally colonize an area. For example, I don't consider Cattle Egrets to be non-native to the Americas for the simple reason that they got here on their own accord.
In the distant past, invasions of animal species into new continents has been absolutely catastrophic for the original inhabitants. The Great American Interchange is a good example of this, whereby North American mammals invaded South America and replaced a large proportion of that long isolated fauna with cats, dogs, horses, camels, bears, etc. However, this event was caused by geology (land bridge) and not by humans bringing in these species.
One could argue that our invasion of each continent outside of Africa precipitated the massive megafaunal extinctions that occurred immediately after humans start showing up on that continent's fossil record. Yes, as the invading species, we benefited but a lot was lost. Continuing by your logic, yes, rats invading islands in the Pacific Ocean and Indian Ocean benefitted the rats, but also caused the extinction of an entire host of strange and beautiful birds.
It is a widespread and abundant species throughout North America. They also breed well in captivity. I'm sure keeping Ruddy Ducks in Europe won't be a necessary "reserve population," just in case.
I am finding it so strange that so many individuals feel that it is so cruel to shoot or eradicate a non-native species to benefit a much rarer (native!) bird. Does no one think it is cruel to allow a species to be threatened because of our mistake? Perhaps the thought process would be different if a breeding population of White-headed Ducks was inside the UK? If it isn't a bird found in my country, who cares?
What if instead of genetic swamping of White-headed Ducks by cute and cuddly Ruddy Ducks, we would be discussing something more dramatic such as an accidental introduction of a new non-native predator spreading rapidly and devouring all the tits, thrushes, and finches in the UK? Would we still be talking about "let evolution take its course?"
Carlos
I thought it was already an offence under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 to introduce any non-native species into the wild in Britain.
CB
As an aside, I saw on the BBC one Show programme a week or two back, a wildlife rescue centre somewhere releasing Grey Squirrel after recovering to full health. Why wouldn't this act fall under the same W&CA as an illegal act?
I agree, but it wouldn't have been catastrophic to all species; the non-native species would probably have thrived. Wouldn't such events have happened often in the distant past? And didn't some (or most?) of the native species start as non-native?
But not impossible. So are we certain that none of the Ruddy Ducks got here unaided by us?
And yet we keep making the same "mistakes". It seems a never ending cycle of "mistakes", followed by some action to try to correct them. And it always seems to cost a great deal more in money and lives-lost to correct those mistakes, than it did to make the mistakes in the first place. Couldn't the money be better spent on other projects? Or would it still end up spent on correcting other "mistakes"?
I agree, but I'm not so sure that we are aware of our actions on a longer time-scale. What if in a few 100 (or 1000) years from now the Ruddy Duck population in the USA gets wiped out by a virus/disease. And our UK Ruddy Ducks were the only ones left? They would come in handy for the USA.|=)|
True, but I'm not sure that we really know what we're doing.