dantheman
Bah humbug
Man who abseiled down cliff to take peregrine falcon eggs jailed
Christopher Wheeldon, who has been jailed, was caught on a hidden nest monitoring camera.
www.bbc.co.uk
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18 weeks jail for taking Peregrine eggs. (2 Viewers)
- Thread starter dantheman
- Start date
Farnboro John
Well-known member
Jolly good. Lets hope some other justices start giving out custodial sentences: they aren't given as an option in order to be ignored.Man who abseiled down cliff to take peregrine falcon eggs jailed
Christopher Wheeldon, who has been jailed, was caught on a hidden nest monitoring camera.www.bbc.co.uk
John
angusmcoatup
Paul
If you're up early enough you may be able to catch the new special offers on Death spell casting, for a bit of Birdforum vigilante retribution,Man who abseiled down cliff to take peregrine falcon eggs jailed
Christopher Wheeldon, who has been jailed, was caught on a hidden nest monitoring camera.www.bbc.co.uk
iraqbabbler
Well-known member
He deserves more than 18 weeks (or even months) in the can. I wonder if that's enough of a deterrent at all.
dantheman
Bah humbug
Took me a while - but yes, yesterday about 5 times throughout the day various spam accounts advertising love spells etc etc (I didn't see the death ones).
dantheman
Bah humbug
Bear in mind that often these kind of wildlife crimes (including poisoning of raptors) don't have any prison term, or paltry fines for a wealthy estate. At least this is something ...
EDIT for clarity:
Bear in mind that often these kind of wildlife crimes (including poisoning of raptors) don't result in any prison term, or paltry fines for a wealthy estate. At least this is something ...
Last edited:
Farnboro John
Well-known member
That is incorrect. Killing raptors carries sentences up to six months in prison. It is however rare for justices to risk losing their shoot invites by imposing them.
John
dantheman
Bah humbug
Note the 'often' in my post.
Maybe swap out 'have' for 'result in' to be clearer.
It's sadly true that sometimes (often?) no conviction is made for shooting Hen Harriers, random poisoned birds found or tagged birds disappearances etc etc ...
Quite, and it's instructive this fellow was stealing them for the Arab market rather than destroying the clutch (and the adult birds into the bargain) for "game management". In which case the standard tariff would have been a slap on the wrist and a telling off.
DMW
Well-known member
Perhaps worth noting that he got 8 weeks for taking the Peregrine eggs, and 10 weeks for unrelated shoplifting offences. While it's gratifying that he at least got some jail time, I've seen claims that British Peregrine eggs go for $25,000 each in the Middle East, so half an hour's abseiling could have yielded $75,000. He should have got a minimum sentence of 2 years.
opisska
rabid twitcher
"The RSPB believe the eggs would have been hatched out in an incubator before the birds were sold, probably abroad, as captive reared, which is legal."
If this is true, then the solution to the problem aren't prison sentences (they generally aren't solution to most problems) but closing these stupid legal loopholes.
If this is true, then the solution to the problem aren't prison sentences (they generally aren't solution to most problems) but closing these stupid legal loopholes.
If that were the case, quite a few more Scottish estates would probably tolerate peregrines on their land! I bow to those with more knowledge of the black market in eggs, of course, but at the egg stage you haven't a clue whether they'll hatch into females (more desired) or tiercels; and the Arabs prefer wild-caught birds anyway (at least for actual hunting, as opposed to perversions of the falcon-owning tradition such as beauty contests or falcon racing). No doubt there is a market for them, but as with most things I'd suspect the actual getting prices are a lot lower than what has been claimed, or reported in the tabloids.
That's not to say that these sorts of offences should go unpunished, of course. Given the reported destination of the stolen eggs, the relevant Sharia punishment would be most poetic justice in this case. It's kinda hard to climb down to a nest ledge with one hand...
DMW
Well-known member
The" loophole", while stupid, is relatively recent, and criminals tend not to worry about breaking laws. What would your proposed punishment be for egg thieves if you think prison isn't a solution? A stern talking-to?
DMW
Well-known member
I'm not really sure what point you are trying to make. Here's one from the Guardian from 2010:
"A businessman was jailed for 30 months today after he admitted trying to smuggle rare peregrine falcon eggs to Dubai.
Jeffrey Lendrum, 48, was caught with 14 eggs strapped to his body at Birmingham international airport on 3 May after he was spotted acting suspiciously by a cleaner. He had wrapped the eggs, worth £70,000, in socks before taping them to his chest."
opisska
rabid twitcher
Jailing petty thieves doesn't really help, there always be more as long as the activity is profitable. Actual solutions are
1. make the activity not profitable - if it leads to legally realized profits, that definitely has to change. Tighter controls on illegal trade - custom checks, seizing of property, liquidation of offending companies etc...
2. societal changes removing the motivation of people to engage in such illegal activities. There are no thieves where there are no poor people.
DMW
Well-known member
Those have already been used as punishments in the UK for prolific egg thieves.
DMW
Well-known member
1. You can't make an activity not profitable so long as there is a demand, and there's only so far you can go to prevent smuggling. Remind me how well the "war on drugs" is working.
2. Not all thieves are poor, and "societal change" doesn't eradicate crime. The City is full of wealthy crooks. The man convicted in the present case is a tree surgeon and drug addict. His life choices are on him, not "society".
Arbu
Well-known member
Some truth in the second sentence I suppose. Crime is very low in Monaco and Switzerland. But, if any of us feel that we could achieve a similar society in our own country, we should run for president!
