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Buzzard Persecution Trial to be sponsored by DEFRA (1 Viewer)

If its all about pheasant coops, let the damn sportsmen pay to roof them over. I bet its a lot easier to keep a Buzzard out than a Fox or a Stoat.

Let the rich spend their own money on extant legal options and leave my taxes to fund the proper business of government: contraception for developing countries and weaponry for the armed forces.

John
 
Apparently buzzards have become so successful in their spread and numbers across England, that its worth spending £375k on a study into how best to control them. It sounds very much like a cull of some sort may well be on the cards. If this is the case what else will it include, anything with a hooked beak? Its funny but only the other day I was thinking buzzards are doing well, it seems I am not alone. The difference is I am pleased at the outcome, and they are not.
 
I had been, unusually, dumbfounded and at a loss for words, when reading of this project by Defra. I seriously cannot remember a comparable situation which has so angered my sense of injustice, compounded by a total, complete waste of our tax revenue at a time when funding of any kind has become so difficult.
Living for so many years in leafy Devon, I remember well the absolute carnage of road kills adjacent to release areas for Pheasants, which of course provided wonderful sources of fast and easy food for the local Buzzards! During all my years I had not questioned the morality of releasing and slaughtering millions of these chicken sized birds on the basis that so much woodland had been preserved to house this ‘so called’ sport. It had been a compromise of my beliefs, but I had convinced myself and others, that it was of benefit to so many other ‘natural’ species relying on mature woodland to roost, breed and feed. Sad, but I believed factual. Of course this belief was slightly flawed to some extent by the encouraging of under storey cover for Pheasants to skulk and hide, with obvious adverse affects, for example, to such species as Wood Warbler and Pied Flycatcher. So where now is the reciprocal compromise from the hunting fraternity whereby tolerance of some species of raptor can be demonstrated?
Having had time to digest this latest in a line of follies from Defra, I am actually feeling positive about the negative! I have a sneaky feeling that at last we have a cause which will galvanise support against raptor persecution, a platform for uniting conservation bodies and public opinion against the senseless persecution of the hapless Buzzard. I believe this latest act of supporting a minority sport will be a massive own goal by Defra, Countryside Alliance and BASC.

Peter
 
Petition signed as soon as I found it.

Proposed methods include destroying nests to prevent birds breeding

But they aren't 'culling'. A bit like not lying but 'being economical with the truth'.

catching and relocating buzzards to places such as falconry centres

In other words they will be getting rid of Buzzards ( at the moment ) in order to 'protect' one profit making enterprise as well as supplying another with it's 'raw material'!

Have the shooting members of this group got nothing helpful to add?.........

Seems not. Thanks Dave. Now we all know we are "in it together".

Chris
 
I would asume that these people would not know a Buzzard nest from say a Goshawks or any other raptor, so even some of the UK's rarer species are likely to be targeted as well !!!!
 
I wonder if DEFRA has actually consulted with "falconry" centres prior to announcing this as a possible avenue for captured buzzards?

I also doubt many centres would want them.

In other words they will be getting rid of Buzzards ( at the moment ) in order to 'protect' one profit making enterprise as well as supplying another with it's 'raw material'!

Chris
 
Crows and foxes are hardly comparable to buzzards. Both of the former species are able to exist at much higher populations than normal because they can supplement their diet with human garbage. When buzzards start hanging out by McDonald's than I might start being worried by their population.
 
Buzzard petition

There is another petition on the Hawk and Owl web page and its only got 72 people signed up and they are trying to get 10,000 people to sign it

Guess some folk just do not like Buzzards
 
As cars clearly kill many peasants close to shooting estates perhaps defra should impose a 10 mph speed limit on nearby roads together with the instalation of speed humps ;)
 
There is a study. 0.6% of Pheasant deaths are caused by raptors.
Pheasants are alien species, hosts of parasites and generate disturbing sounds. They should be left alone without human help until death or even shot or be poisoned to the last leg if they don' want to die themselves. And those who breed them and shoot native wild raptors sent to psychologist at least on evaluation.
We should be grateful to raptors and wish them to be much much more efficient in killing of pheasants. Because for example I am personally very dissappointed with these data.
And buzzards don't feed on pheasants. Someone apparently needs very serious basic education. I think that they are not even able to identify raptors. This is very dangerous to nature and endangered species. Do they have to pass any exams before getting weapon ?

Gapeworm Syngamus trachea, Heterakis gallinarum, perhaps other parasites - how frequently are they found in pheasants ? Aren't they dangerous to partridges, willow ptarmigan ? And what is most important - to raptors ?! Maybe this "pheasant experiment" should be terminated, and an entire area decontaminated, perhaps even nuked !

Occurrence of eggs and oocysts of intestinal parasites of pheasant (Phasianus colchicus) in droppings collected in differently managed protected areas of Tuscany (Italy) Eur J Wildl Res 2011
Although the transmission of parasites from farmed birds to wild birds may be limited by natural and management factors (Villanúa et al. 2008), we suggest to interpose a strip (larger than the home range of the pheasants) where hunting is not forbidden between the restocking and the wild areas.
This could reduce the risk of spreading parasites and diseases in the wild areas where the wild resident populations are only managed. In addition, the release of farming pheasants should not be allowed at least within a “pheasants home range distance” from the wild areas.

Parasite-mediated competition between pheasant and grey partridge: a preliminary investigation Oecologia (1999) 119:378±382
Following controlled exposure, we found that infection by the caecal worm H. gallinarum was negatively correlated with grey partridge body condition (Fig. 4b), while being unrelated to pheasant body condition (Fig. 3b).

The role of shared parasites in the exclusion of wildlife hosts: Heterakis gallinarum in the ring-necked pheasant and the grey partridge Journal of Animal Ecology 2000, 69, 829±840
the bulk of H.gallinarum infection to partridges, when they occur in the same locations as pheasants, will be from the pheasants and not from the partridges themselves.

Only few examples. But maybe they want to reduce buzzards in defense of gamebird other than pheasants, like partridges. So perhaps instead of buzzards they should shoot pheasants as hosts of parasites ?
 
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I wonder how DEFRA are getting around the EU bird directives? If they cannot but go ahead with this "bee in the bonnet" they could be truly in legal trouble.

If they are getting around the EU bird directives then how? Because they can claim in favour of "economical interest"? That is they only way (apart from serious health threats) that I can think of.

Of course it would be easy to prove that their cull is based on pure cods-wallop - but is anyone doing that?

Surely the RSPB could at least issue a press statement to clarify their position on the matter.
 
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