RSPB allows "wildfowling" (1 Viewer)

Twite · Jan 14, 2008

rozinante said:
One last comment on the fallibility of NGO's... they let the ruddy duck into british water ways because they looked pretty and got their punters another tick. Was that for the best?

This in response to kingwolf's "One last comment on animal rights supporters - they let mink into British water ways to save them from a future as coats....... is that for the best???? "

To try and lump Slimbridge WWT and Sir Peter Scott in with the scum who dug up the corpse of Gladys hammond and send letter bombs to Universities. How low can you go. :C

Twite.

Isurus · Jan 14, 2008

justmissedit said:
As far as I'm aware the RSPB didn't sanction the shooting of these birds so I dont see why there getting the stick.

The birds were shot on a Royal estate, apparently by a member of a Royal shooting party, you cant just put your name to a organisation and not back it up.
Dont blame the RSPB, blame the clown with the gun and if he/she is a Royal well shame on them

JMI this is about a completely different issue in a completely different reserve - nothing to do with the hen harrier issue whcih is why the RSPB is, wrongly in my view, getting the stick.

rozinante · Jan 14, 2008

Twite said:
This in response to kingwolf's "One last comment on animal rights supporters - they let mink into British water ways to save them from a future as coats....... is that for the best???? "

To try and lump Slimbridge WWT and Sir Peter Scott in with the scum who dug up the corpse of Gladys hammond and send letter bombs to Universities. How low can you go. :C

Twite.

What an interesting if strange place this is where to question the validity of a bird protection agency colluding in the destruction of birds leaves one open to hints of supporting terrorism.

It might be amusing were it not so counter productive.

kingwolf · Jan 14, 2008

Twite I am not lumping together - I am asking can you lump them together because the unnecesary killing of a species like mink slowly for the fashion trade is intolerable. However the release of a species such as mink into the water ways to help protect them is naieve and shows the difference between conservation and animal rights.

All the RSPB can do over the Hen Harriers is condem the shooting of them and aid their death to raise the issue of the persicution of BoP on shooting estates. Though I agree with the likelyhood of who or group of people who shot the birds they are innocent until proved guilty. Norfolk police put a file to CPS and it was decided there was not enough evidence to prosecute. Unless more evidence arises case (sadly) closed and therefore we should drop.

I dont have unquivical support for them, I wish they would do more in the way to support their staff. However they have been extremly succesful in protecting the habiats and species (not just birds) that occupy that land and managed it aid this without going wild spending members money.

Did I say it was a convienet option - in fact I poited out that it is not taken lightly and is therefore not convient. With out some one therefore to offer ADVICE how can anyone head in the right direction in life. I'm sure when advice would be sort there would have been a great variety of advice and therefore it is part of CONSERVATION to take in to account all of this plus the SCIENCE and make a reasoned decesion rather than just bounding down a path becuase your heart says that is best.

Lets try and remember a lot of the habitats we seek to protect now were created by humans a few hundrad years ago - especially the grouse moors. If we were not to do any managment every site that every nature conservation organisation managed would slowly turn to woodland including those sites that are protected for the unique grassland habitats etc. therefore cuting down trees/shrubs that apear there, introducing grazing is destructive of these species - IS THIS WRONG???

Pete - you are completly right.

John Cantelo · Jan 14, 2008

rozinante said:
I would prefer to think that the goals of animal rights and conservation are not mutualy exclusive as you suggest.
QUOTE]

You might prefer to think it, Rozinante, but I fear the reality is different. Clearly, the release of hundreds of mink from fur farms (and I'd be the first the have 'em closed down) makes absolute sense from a strictly "animals rights" perspective. However, from a conservation point of view such action would be (and has been) a disaster.

This debate seems to be going the same way as many others with pragmatists on one side vs idealists on the other. In the pragmatist corner folks have, as their guiding principal, the idea that what counts is the practical outcome of any action whilst in the idealist corner what really counts is whether their own interpretation of morality holds sway with the practical realities taking second place. Sometimes the first ends up being of greater long term benefit and sometimes the second. In this case to my mind it's clearly the pragmatists that have the stronger case,

John

Nightranger · Jan 14, 2008

It is interesting how many different subjects have appeared on this thread and the only common denominator is the RSPB. I guess if your instinct is not to like a society for one of its policies, you are not likely to like them for anything or even to look for further faults. I am not asking anyone to change their minds but one thing I would say is, put yourself this applies to everyone really) in the shoes of the decision-maker. I am not going to pick out persons from the thread but the ruddy duck question is particularly interesting. Imagine having to take this decision as part of a team. I can tell you, there are the usual mix of vegetarians etc at the RSPB so I cannot imagine everyone involved in the process was happy. This means that decisions are not made by one person and really serious decisions may involve other organisations. Nevertheless, it is an interesting exercise to consider what it is like to be in that position and this was why I suggested that anyone with concerns, talked to the RSPB directly.

Ian

DunnoKev · Jan 14, 2008

rozinante said:
I hope that the principle is never applied to eggers.

Sorry to run with one of the side issues, but never call 'em "eggers". They like that title, it's a bit like "birders" to some of us, all sexy and go-getting.

They are egg-THIEVES. No more, no less.

Nightranger · Jan 14, 2008

rozinante said:
Hello Kathy

I can't speak for Ian of course, but I don't think missleading or exagerated stories in the press are usualy targeted at all. I don't think in general terms that they are particularly for or against anything other than maximising profits from sales.

Hi Rozinate,

I try not to be so cynical but essentially, this is a fair comment. A few years ago, you could rely on a broadsheet or two and the BBC news to be (ITN is a special case and we can ignore this from the perspective of this discussion) not only neutral, but to dig for the roots of the story. To be fair, the BBC probably are still neutral from a TV news position but the BBC Online News can be sloppy. I could probably point to a number of newspaper reports but the easiest example to use (because you can still find the trail) is the BBC Online reports on avian flu. I recall one report two years ago that filled in the background at the end of the item but this pretty much contradicted the main gist of the story. Fortunately, there were plenty of places where people could go for pertinent information such as the RSPB, Wildlife Trusts, Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust and if you could follow the links, the DEFRA site. Unfortunately, there is a tendency for people to react before finding the truth and I am not sure what the answer is. It worries me that the news media could end up (probably already have) destroying a charity (I am talking broadly here, not just conservation) who are totally innocent of all charges but do not have the reserve capacity to counter the claims before extinction. Scary thought!

Ian

Twite · Jan 14, 2008

rozinante said:
What an interesting if strange place this is where to question the validity of a bird protection agency colluding in the destruction of birds leaves one open to hints of supporting terrorism.

It might be amusing were it not so counter productive.

Let me make this quite clear, I was not implying that you supported terrorism.
It was you who made the comparison between what were the unforseen consequences of the release of the Ruddy Duck and the deliberate release by "animal rights activists" of Mink.The latter in my opinion was a deliberate act of environmental terrorism. How many millions of waterfowl, domestic fowl and small mammals have died as a direct result of this? Nobody will ever know.
My post was never intended as a personal attack, it was just a response to what I considered to be the lumping of two groups who don't even seem to be from the same planet.

kingwolf said:
Twite I am not lumping together - I am asking can you lump them together because the unnecesary killing of a species like mink slowly for the fashion trade is intolerable. However the release of a species such as mink into the water ways to help protect them is naieve and shows the difference between conservation and animal rights.

I understand that you weren't lumping WWT and "animal rights".
WWT or Ruddy Duck hadn't been mentioned at the time you made your "Mink comment"

Twite.

Nightranger · Jan 14, 2008

mooskibaby said:
The RSPB (The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds) is supposed to protect birds, not to be killing them. A couple of years ago i was up for supporting the RSPB, i'm beginning to hate them more and more. First of all it's the culling of the ruddy ducks admittedly a hybrid but it's here now, and now it's killing wildfowl for no apparent reason. Why do it? The word in the name of the charity "PROTECTION", well that doesn't exist anymore does it really. I'm only 16 years old, and i'm a very keen environmentalist and i don't tolerate this at all in the slightest some serious action will have to be taken. If anyone is in favour of the killing of wildfowl then.......

Hi Anna,

It is a difficult call for anyone to make in deciding they are going to set limits to what they believe an organisation should mean and maybe, what the title of that organisation should mean. However, to use the word 'protection' in this way can be used both ways because why is it ignored that this means protection of the white-headed duck? Forget all the nonsense being trotted out about other labels and think about this for a moment. I am not going to name one of the organisations involved in this because their name is vague enough that it could mean just about anything so let us think about the RSPCA for a moment (and this is not going to be a criticism, BTW). The name stands for Royal Society for the Prevention Of Cruelty to Animals. If we apply logic of names and compare this to the deflected topic of this thread, we could ask why the RSPCA does not have a major campaign against (drum roll) ... game shooting. The answer is, the subject of cruelty is relative and is not easy to prove in shooting. The RSPCA chose to oppose the eradication programme (they are not threatened in North America or the cull would not have been considered) simply because they had misgivings about the way DEFRA would control the programme. This is fair enough in itself and the RSPB shies away from making the same conclusion simply because they trust DEFRA to do an adequate job that does not clash with conservation aims.

One thing I will not crticise you for is having a belief that nothing should die, particularly unnecessarily. This is an extremely difficult belief to stick with as we go through life (that was not meant to be condescending, BTW) and I know I do not have the same beliefs that I had when I was your age. I am not saying you will lose this particular belief but there are almost certainly some things in your life now that will mean something very different in a few years (possibly, as little as five years and five years on, they will change again). I think the key thing to understand is how to ask questions and discuss things especially, as we now have the Internet with all its good and evils.

Ian

rozinante · Jan 14, 2008

John Cantelo said:
rozinante said:

I would prefer to think that the goals of animal rights and conservation are not mutualy exclusive as you suggest.
QUOTE]

You might prefer to think it, Rozinante, but I fear the reality is different. Clearly, the release of hundreds of mink from fur farms (and I'd be the first the have 'em closed down) makes absolute sense from a strictly "animals rights" perspective. However, from a conservation point of view such action would be (and has been) a disaster.

This debate seems to be going the same way as many others with pragmatists on one side vs idealists on the other. In the pragmatist corner folks have, as their guiding principal, the idea that what counts is the practical outcome of any action whilst in the idealist corner what really counts is whether their own interpretation of morality holds sway with the practical realities taking second place. Sometimes the first ends up being of greater long term benefit and sometimes the second. In this case to my mind it's clearly the pragmatists that have the stronger case,

John

Click to expand...

Hello John

I am suprised (and frankly dissapointed) that you choose to attempt to dismiss my point that respect for animal rights is fundemental for any real long term conservation by associating the words animal rights with terrorism. The words still have a validity beyond the activities of the ALF and I think it should be obvious in which sense I used the words.

You might wish to clarify but from what you said it apears that you dismiss the concept of animal rights because of the irrisponsible actions of those who released the mink.

The pragmatists case might indeed be the stronger one. I don't know myself but due to my own reluctance to use violence as a solution to any problem I would require some serious reassurance. Unfortunatly for various reasons, many people would prefer that this be handed down as if imutably carved in stone and dismiss any who might question the divine wisdom as heretics. Those of us not blessed with either blind faith or letters after our names are therefore denied the oppertunity to increase our understanding of the situation.

I realise that the majority of people on this board as in society at large have few qualms about killing for any number of reasons. Its not encouraging to realise that once the concept of gratuitous killing is accepted how subtly the parameters can be streached.

I am baffled by the over reaction regarding the views of someone so obviously out of touch with reality. (where did I put that Das Ich und das Es

rozinante · Jan 14, 2008

mooskibaby said:
I'm only 16 years old, and i'm a very keen environmentalist and i don't tolerate this at all in the slightest some serious action will have to be taken. If anyone is in favour of the killing of wildfowl then.......

Hello Anna

I wouldn't dream of patronising you either.

Despite the reactions on this thread I am not fully clear in my own mind on this matter. Even if I was I would not try to tell you how you should feel about it.

I will tell you though from long experience that the passion and conviction you feel now is likely to be either knocked out of you or bought of you within 5 or so years.

Some people call it growing up, others call it selling out.

It depends on how much you passion means to you how much of it you hang on to.

All the best.

young ian... nice one

Will they get you?

CornishExile · Jan 14, 2008

birdieboy123 said:
Not only should the RSPB drop the "royal" after the Harrier episode, maybe they should drop the word "protection" too

http://www.birdwatch.co.uk/website/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=863&Itemid=32

Good grief... birds aren't sacrosanct you know, especially when they're not top-end predators. If the RSPB can't be trusted to manage this sort of activity (no matter how personally distasteful you might find it), there's really not much hope for conservation in the UK.

I'd be more exercised about intensive livestock rearing if I were you. And no, the wildfowling isn't a conservation issue - they're not gunning down the increasingly misnomered Common Scoters - it's all about public conscience and ethics. There are bigger animal welfare issues to be resolved out there.

ce

PS - Tim Allwood - delete some PM's, mate! You're out of touch, hoho.

rozinante · Jan 14, 2008

Ian Peters said:
Hi Rozinate,
Fortunately, there were plenty of places where people could go for pertinent information such as the RSPB, Wildlife Trusts, Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust and if you could follow the links, the DEFRA site.

Personally I rarely find the most pertinent information from corporate press releases or government websites.

It would be great if someone started a web site where people of similar interests could freely discuss such topics and arrive at informed opinions.

Isurus · Jan 14, 2008

rozinante said:
Personally I rarely find the most pertinent information from corporate press releases or government websites.

It would be great if someone started a web site where people of similar interests could freely discuss such topics and arrive at informed opinions.

Nice one.

I'll just take issue with you on the roots of conservation as you see it. For me conservation is about ecosystems not individuals and tis preserving the whole that counts. Ideally the whole will be untouched but most times in the UK its gonna be maintaining a habitat in as near original as possible a state that gets the focus not individual animals. As such I see no conflict in cases like this even if they from time to time are distasteful for personal reasons.

I think there's a massive reserve in Africa somewhere that funds its maintenance by allowing big game hunting that we would probably all find sickening (arguably much more so than taking a couple of ducks for the pot which to me is ethically preferable to someone buying two battery chickens) but by all accounts their conservation success elsewhere on the reserve was remarkable - quite the predicament. Another example would be the success of John Walmsley's Earth Sanctuaries in sustaining Australia's endangered small mammal populations - they came with a pretty big feral cat and fox body count.....

rozinante · Jan 15, 2008

Isurus said:
Nice one.

I'll just take issue with you on the roots of conservation as you see it. For me conservation is about ecosystems not individuals and tis preserving the whole that counts. Ideally the whole will be untouched but most times in the UK its gonna be maintaining a habitat in as near original as possible a state that gets the focus not individual animals. As such I see no conflict in cases like this even if they from time to time are distasteful for personal reasons.

Thanks for taking the trouble. :t:

I am not sure I understand which issue you are taking though.

You seem to think I believe that the survival of an individual creature is of more important than its environment. I don't, that would be a rather ridiculous position to take as I am sure we all realise that without the environment there would be no creature.

Regardless of that, it doesn't appear that habitat protection is the issue at stake here anyway. From the RSPB statement it appears that the main consideration is the good will of the wildfowlers and avoidance of the expense of policing them if they were not allowed to shoot.

Isurus · Jan 15, 2008

rozinante said:
Thanks for taking the trouble. :t:

I am not sure I understand which issue you are taking though.

You seem to think I believe that the survival of an individual creature is of more important than its environment. I don't, that would be a rather ridiculous position to take as I am sure we all realise that without the environment there would be no creature.

Regardless of that, it doesn't appear that habitat protection is the issue at stake here anyway. From the RSPB statement it appears that the main consideration is the good will of the wildfowlers and avoidance of the expense of policing them if they were not allowed to shoot.

I was responding to this:

rozinante said:
In fact for me they are inseperable. Conservation being the product of respect for the fundemental right of animals to life.

If not based on respect for life, what is the motivation for conservation, killing for fun, ticks, entertainment?

rozinante said:
Who says its the "best way" anyway? Not everyone shares the view that killing is ok provided its for a greater good.

I would say habitat protection in the wider sense is the issue here - the habitat is gonna be degraded by shooting; this is the RSPB's sacrificial attempt to keep it to a minimum and in a defined area.

davercox · Jan 15, 2008

To go back to the beginning ...

birdieboy123 said:
Not only should the RSPB drop the "royal" after the Harrier episode, maybe they should drop the word "protection" too

I believe it was one of the terms of the RSPB's 1904 royal charter that they should not oppose wildfowling and "other legitimate sport of that character". When you think who was on the throne at the time I guess it's not surprising.

So maybe you're right birdieboy, if they were to ban shooting then they would have to drop the "Royal" (and who knows how many members ?).

Twite · Jan 15, 2008

rozinante said:
It would be great if someone started a web site where people of similar interests could freely discuss such topics and arrive at informed opinions.

Your wish has been granted.

http://www.animalsuffering.com/forum/

Believe it or not, this is the header for one thread in this "Forum".

Animal Rights Talk
Discuss animal laws, AR tactics, AR organisations, ...
This forum is not intended to debate pro and anti animal rights, but to be used by fellow animal rights supporters.

Make your point here and everyone will agree with you. Utopian or what?

Twite.

Nightranger · Jan 15, 2008

davercox said:
To go back to the beginning ...

I believe it was one of the terms of the RSPB's 1904 royal charter that they should not oppose wildfowling and "other legitimate sport of that character". When you think who was on the throne at the time I guess it's not surprising.

So maybe you're right birdieboy, if they were to ban shooting then they would have to drop the "Royal" (and who knows how many members ?).

In the strictest sense, the RSPB is even more constrained today because the remit of the society is conservation. The original name was the Society for Protection of Birds and at that time, the divisions between conservation and welfare/cruelty were not so easy to define.* Indeed, if you look at the campaigning at the time (For The Love Of Birds or Bird Notes) there was an element of campaigning against various aspects although primarily it was concern about the milinery trade by the Didsbury and London Ladies. (These days, illegally sourcing feathers from wild birds is not so common and most are sourced as a by-product from the food industry.) This all leads to the fact that the RSPB is registered with the Charity Commission as a conservation charity and it can be risky to step outside the remit even if not all dividing lines are so easy to see (the RSPCA have the same problem in reverse).

I have seen a number of comments about dropping the words ' Royal' and 'Protection' but I am not sure everyone has thought this through. Quite apart from the enormous PR exercise this would create, it is not a particularly good greening exercise. The entire Marketing strategy would have to be changed overnight and many products needlessly scrapped without ever having been used. All publications and and stationery would have to be scrapped and reprinted with the minimum possible overlap. Name changes are possible but they would be difficult for any organisation that controls as many resources as the RSPB and RSPCA does. I also mentioned the PR effort because I would not want to see months of effort directed into this kind of thing at the expense of albatrosses or closer to home, the current press release on Scottish crossbills. As you can see, there is quite a bit of debate about name change on various BF threads, imagine what it would be like if it happened.

Ian

* I am talking mainly about public perception here but it is perhaps, difficult to understand the precise thinking of the Didsbury and London Ladies after all this time but they were certainly dedicated.

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