Penny Clarke
Well-known member
DITTO!!!!!!!!!
Plus its not only the Ruddy Ducks that are being shot!!!!!!!!! A wicked, wicked waste of money and life!!!
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ruddy duck. (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter gus guthrie
- Start date
DITTO!!!!!!!!!
Plus its not only the Ruddy Ducks that are being shot!!!!!!!!! A wicked, wicked waste of money and life!!!
theconstantwalker
http://www.flickr.com/photos/the_constant_walker/?
Had Ruddy Duck last year in Northwich Cheshire and i loved watching the male drumming on his chest. A lovely little bird.
Adam W
Well-known member
As has already been pointed out we cant really take that blog as fact but even if we do I dont see anything on there other than some figures that suggest the plan is working.
Pete Mella
Getting there...
This is pretty much my opinion. My issues have always been about cost and effectiveness, and veracity of whether hybridisation is such a big problem, rather than any motives behind it. Ruddy ducks are cracking birds but we can't get too sentimental about invasives. I've always wondered if people's opinions would change if the ruddies were the lumpy ugly ones and the WHD's were the sleek pretty ones, or if WHDs were a British species.
Maybe LGRE could wait until there's two pairs left and rake in cash showing people where they, like he does with the Lady As!
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Woodchatshrike
Registered User
I love watching Ruddy ducks in Spain too.
Helsinki Birder
Stealth Birder
Well Lee's posting linked above is OBVIOUS propaganda. As with many of his postings the language is carefully chosen, in this case to impact the cutsey wootsey aspects of peoples brains, with the phrase "Baby ducks and grebes"....when birders commonly use the terminology "Juvenile". Aimed at motivating the garden granny parade IMO.
Owen
Owen
Neil-T
Moorlands Macro: Close up and personal....with bug
Is there actually any evidence of our Ruddy ducks going to spain and breeding with the WHD?. Would the money have been better spent in a ringing/tagging program for the Ruddy duck to see if it actually did migrate to Spain.
Next Eradication programe should be the Grey squirrel IMO, but thats another story.
Next Eradication programe should be the Grey squirrel IMO, but thats another story.
Adam W
Well-known member
I fear its already far too late for that one,should have been done years ago.
Pete Mella
Getting there...
Agreed, it would be so difficult and expensive, and cause so much public hostility, that it wouldn't be worth it - it's not even a sure thing the reds would colonise the areas the greys were exterminated from anyway. Reds are common as muck in most places other then Britain, too, so it could be argued such vast sums would be better spent on species under wider threat, and ones where the UK has internationally important populations of.
Shoot the buggers where the reds are still hanging on, though
Adam W
Well-known member
Agreed, it would be so difficult and expensive, and cause so much public hostility, that it wouldn't be worth it - it's not even a sure thing the reds would colonise the areas the greys were exterminated from anyway. Reds are common as muck in most places other then Britain, too, so it could be argued such vast sums would be better spent on species under wider threat, and ones where the UK has internationally important populations of.
Shoot the buggers where the reds are still hanging on, though
Sadly I'd have to agree with that,whole heartedly agree with your last sentence aswell.
Looking at the geography of the last two posters,I doubt you shall have local knowledge of the Red/Grey debate in Scotland but the Greys carry a pox,that can quickly cause death to the Reds,our native species on these Isles and with the Greys spreading northwards,our native species SHOULD be saved.
Barred Wobbler
Well-known member
Agreed, it would be so difficult and expensive, and cause so much public hostility, that it wouldn't be worth it - it's not even a sure thing the reds would colonise the areas the greys were exterminated from anyway. Reds are common as muck in most places other then Britain, too, so it could be argued such vast sums would be better spent on species under wider threat, and ones where the UK has internationally important populations of.
Shoot the buggers where the reds are still hanging on, though
Reds might be common as muck elsewhere for the time being, but they aren't safe.
Three grey squirrels were released in a park in Italy after the Second World War in 1948 by someone who thought they would be cute.
Since then they have spread over the whole of northern Italy and crossed the Alps and are spreading northwards into the adjoining countries, where the red squirrel population is "enjoying" the same sort of decline as has happened in Britain due to misguided attitudes.
In the last few years greys have entered Northumberland from the north (Scotland) and south and now our reds are at threat and have noticably vanished from several areas where they were numerous.
I'm also a fan of white-headed ducks and while I was pleased to see my first ruddy duck a few years ago, since the threat they pose has become apparent I'll not be sad to have seen my last.
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Pete Mella
Getting there...
I'm not saying grey squirrels in marginal land to the red populations in Scotland and elsewhere shouldn't be eradicated. But exterminating all two million grey squirrels in England would cost a ridiculous amount of money, have to be an almost military exercise, and be largely ineffectual. Plus look at the public hostility to the ruddy duck cull - and that was a fairly obscure American stifftail duck. Imagine the outcry if the poor ickle fluffy squirrels were being killed, with DEFRA storming into parks, school grounds and private gardens where dreys were present. It would be a PR disaster for the conservation movement.
Fair play, I was exaggerating, but they're still a "Least Concern" species (for now, anyway...), and whatever we do here on an isolated island (right at the edge of the reds' range and with little remaining pine woodland for them to thrive in anyway) will have little or no impact on the mainland European population.
I'd really love to see the greys disappear and the reds recolonise the UK, but I think the war's been lost, at least in England.
Adam W
Well-known member
Couldnt agree more(Sunderland isnt that far from Scotland),there are still strongholds of Reds in some areas i visit in Northumberland and I can remember them being common even closer to home so I've witnessed the problem first hand. Unfortunatley I think its already too late for most parts of England at least but I'd still be all for total eradication of Greys to protect what Reds there are left even if it is restricted to mainly Scotland.
Back tracking a little on my last post,sadly I still think it wont happen because as was said it would be so expensive and still sadly too many people would object and globally speaking Reds arent really in danger but thats not actually to say I wont fully support and agree with eradicating them.
Barred Wobbler
Well-known member
They don't need pines. It's a myth. The river valley I live on is wooded with deciduous species, with hardly a conifer in sight. Reds love it - as long as they survive, but the greys have moved in. The same is true elsewhere in the county. Another hotspot until a couple of years ago was a nearby beechwood. The Wansbeck valley where I used to go to see them until last year is likewise mainy deciduous.
Just because they can tolerate conifers, it doesn't make them essential.
"At least in England", I'm in England and I'd never seen a wild grey in my county until last September. It was a stronghold of reds. The same was said of the whole of England not so long ago.
When I was a schoolboy reds were all over the place and grey squirrels were descibed as confined to the south of England, mainly in parkland. Uncommon they were.
What a change.
If they aren't controlled, there will be no reds in Britain, never mind England.
The fact that they may or may not be on the edge of their range is neither here nor there. The fact is the Atlantic ocean is the limit of their range, and a pretty big one. It's a shame the same can't be said about the eastern limit of grey squirrels and ruddy ducks.
And as far as them being safe elsewhee. They aren't. As I said in my post above, they are already under threat on the continent on a friont moving out of Italy into Switzerland and France. Complacency will kill them as a species.
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Woodchatshrike
Registered User
Ruddy Duck still there today at about 100 yards range so it should be safe!
lewis20126
Well-known member
Enjoy it while you can - it won't be there in march; you've sorted that out for sure!
a
bitterntwisted
Graham Howard Shortt
Red squirrels in Europe are seriously threatened by the spread of grey squirrels from Italy. The time to act is now... http://www.europeansquirrelinitiative.org/summary.html
Graham
Graham
Barred Wobbler
Well-known member
Thanks for that, Graham. It appears I was jumping the gun slightly with my post above regarding the extent of their spread in Europe, but the threat remains the same nevertheless. I thought that they'd already got into France and Switzerland. (At least I remembered the release date in Italy correctly - 1948).
