Sheep dogs to protect lambs from eagles in the Highlands (1 Viewer)

[JTweedie]

This might be a cheap and effective way of protecting lambs from eagles. However I don't think I'd like to encounter these dogs if I was walking in the countryside, I've seen how aggressive they can be, although I believe their behaviour is more about making a lot of noise and just being intimidating, rather than actively dangerous.

Maremma sheep dogs trained to protect Highland herd from sea eagles

Highland falconers are training two Maremma sheep dogs to look out for large birds of prey in the sky.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[Farnboro John]

This might be a cheap and effective way of protecting lambs from eagles. However I don't think I'd like to encounter these dogs if I was walking in the countryside, I've seen how aggressive they can be, although I believe their behaviour is more about making a lot of noise and just being intimidating, rather than actively dangerous.

Maremma sheep dogs trained to protect Highland herd from sea eagles

Highland falconers are training two Maremma sheep dogs to look out for large birds of prey in the sky.

www.bbc.co.uk

Of course there's no chance at all this could go wrong by one of the dogs attacking a protected White-tailed Eagle while it was trying to carry off a lamb.... what complete stupidity. If you teach the dog to be aggressive to eagles it will be. Just pay the sheep owner for the lamb (on production of evidence of the attack that they saw, not production of part of a dead lamb taken as carrion and subsequently gleaned from the environment).

If only Roy Dennis would concentrate on thwarting stuff like this instead of perpetrating unnecessary reintroductions.

John

 

[JTweedie]

Looking at videos of these dogs in action, from what I've seen they make a lot of noise and that's usually effective. I would hope that if the dogs were well trained and birds are not actually attacked then it could save birds from being shot or poisoned as seems to happen fairly frequently. Couldn't we allow this trial under official supervision to determine its effectiveness and to build in safe guards for the birds?

 

[Farnboro John]

Looking at videos of these dogs in action, from what I've seen they make a lot of noise and that's usually effective. I would hope that if the dogs were well trained and birds are not actually attacked then it could save birds from being shot or poisoned as seems to happen fairly frequently. Couldn't we allow this trial under official supervision to determine its effectiveness and to build in safe guards for the birds?

Or perhaps have more countryside rangers or police specifically to hunt down the shooters and poisoners and get them banged up where they belong - after a fair trial of course. Then there won't be a need for sheepdog trials, either for barking at eagles effectively or biting them illegally.

Or maybe the shepherds could lead their sheep beside still waters all day every day instead of just popping out once in a while to blame eagles for their poor husbandry. I'm sure I've read that was the traditional way of shepherding sheep and we know how hot on countryside traditions the farming community is: they'll have to do it anyway once the wolves are back......

John

 

[JTweedie]

It would cost a lot more money to employ more police or rangers - gathering sufficient evidence to prosecute people is already really hard as persecution of raptors often happens in remote places away from watching police or rangers. We need to be looking at more practical solutions since there doesn't seem to be much will to resolve these issues in more official ways.

 

[Farnboro John]

It would cost a lot more money to employ more police or rangers - gathering sufficient evidence to prosecute people is already really hard as persecution of raptors often happens in remote places away from watching police or rangers. We need to be looking at more practical solutions since there doesn't seem to be much will to resolve these issues in more official ways.

I know it's not easy. The real problem is the corruptness of the authorities - for instance I can't think of a single kind of firearms offence that would result in the offender being permitted to keep their licence except for raptor persecution. Penalties are not included in legislation so judges can abet crime by not punishing it to the full extent of the law. Fewer gamekeepers would obey the incitement of their employers if they knew it would result in them automatically losing their ability to be a gamekeeper: but the local magistrate values his invitations to the manor shooting parties.....

John

 

[jurek]

Dog might be effective. However, farmers might find that keeping a dog costs more than loses to the eagles.

In Poland, diverse, cheap and effective methods of protecting sheep from wolves are now abandoned in favor of set payments, because protection costs more that loses to wolves. In Switzerland there are now volunteers trying to run anti-wolf protection measures for farmers. Bottom line is that sheep grazing is hugely unprofitable at all.

I would investigate how much of these dead lambs were killed by eagles rather than stillborn, and, eventually, put carrion of sheep which died anyway to keep the eagles from hunting.

In the longer term, farmers and the public need to familiarize themselves with the idea that farming in marginal land should be abandoned and the land returned to nature. Unless the advocates of simple rural living want simple living exactly like in the past century - with the income of a shepherd from a century ago.

 

[Strontium Dog]

As with killing badgers to stop bovine TB, is this not just another "solution" to a problem that doesn't exist? I have trouble believing that sheep form a significant part of the diet of these fish eagles, and I would also suggest that any sheep taken would most likely be already dead or at the very least moribund.

 

[JTweedie]

Agreed that there needs to be a strong evidence-base for it. Naturescot (then Scottish Natural Heritage) did a study which if I remember rightly said that eagles definitely do take lambs, however it was more common, as you said, for them to take carrion. But farmers are quick to blame the eagles when they see a carcass when it could already have been dead before an eagle (and other birds like crows) had eaten parts of it.