I'm more than worried by this as a precedent
Still thinking about this :C
Wait for those folk that want to shoot raptors to take the attitude that if they did, they would only be breaking the law in respect to not having a license. "You see - it sometimes legal now". :C:C:C:C:C
Before you get jumped on by a lot of other birders (this is a VERY emotive issue in UK, and with good reason...) I'll start by saying you are right that in some circumstances predators will be limited by food supply...what ecologists call 'donor control'...an example would be snowy owls and lemmings, where predator populations follow cycles in prey populations. But except in very simple ecosystems, it is very rare for a predator to deplete a prey species to such an extent that both die out...for one thing, predators generally switch to a more abundant food source which takes less energy to forage for. So killing predators is hardly ever necessary to protect ecosystems, and usually has sometimes unforeseen negative consequences. In the specific case of raptors in England, their populations have not historically been limited by food supply, but by the depredations of tweed (plaid)-clad landowners and their lackeys, who consider themselves not only to be above the law, but also to know more about ecology than scientists, because they've lived in the countryside for generations, and really know best. In the case of common buzzards they introduce so many hand-reared pheasants into the countryside every year with few innate predator avoidance responses, that some buzzards allegedly find it more energy efficient to prey-switch from roadkill rabbits (and roadkill pheasants, of which there are many) to preying on live pheasants. Our ecosystems will not collapse because of this, buzzards will not die for lack of food, but the landowners feel that people who give them a lot of money to come and shoot the pheasants may not be able to shoot quite so many.I mean I hate the thought of having to kill something, but if the number of raptors out numbers the amount of food then the food will all be eaten plus most of the raptors will die with out a food source, so what they should do is like what they do in the U.S for deer is make a season for killing. Only have a certain number of licenses, and each person with a license can only kill a number of raptors to protect the ecosystem that each of the birds live in.
I can only voice my opinion and that is that no native species should ever be sacrificed to protect a non native alien species.
Nice idea, but by the time the petition gets noticed, it'll be far too late.
What's needed is an urgent court injunction to prevent the killing going ahead, and a judicial review of the case, with investigation of the judge who OK'd the killing - does he have any interests in shooting, perhaps? Is he a good friend of the owner of the land for which the license has been applied?
Unfortunately I don't have the faintest clue how to set about this . . .
Agree, but I've just signed anyway, no. 6,137 this morning so looking like a good chance of getting to 10,000.Nice idea, but by the time the petition gets noticed, it'll be far too late.
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Only needs to get to 10000 to get govt response so about 4000 to go shouldn't take long
Nutty 'licence'......:t:
Have they any provided proof yet for their theory that buzzards take live pheasants?Natural England claimed that the licence would be "time-limited with stringent conditions" and that "only buzzards in and immediately around the animal pens" would be killed, "not on passing birds". It now transpires that this is to be 'enforced' by asking the applicant to fill in a form (see attached screen grab taken from Twitter of a FoI request by Steve Harris, a former PWCO)! Not exactly hard to work out a potential problem here is it?