Despairing of the feral parakeet situation (1 Viewer)

[username]

Maybe John O'Sullivan is a follower of Gaia principle......?

ps....has been a fascinating series... 'Darwins dangerous Idea' by Andrew Marr....

..aahh...trust the human race to distort idea's/words....you're mention of Nazi's in you're last post FarboroJohn made me think of that....of course...one cud argue that humans are juz doin wot they do best..and that is to destroy...all part of a self-regulating system?!

 

[Jos Stratford]

Incidentally if anyone else has any doubts about the rightness of removing a human-introduced species that will shag another into extinction: Atitlan Grebe

Atitlan Grebe is slightly different though - as I understand, Pied-billed Grebes were not introduced onto Lake Atitlan, just spread there 'naturally' ('naturally' in the context that modified habitats allowed them to spread).


PS I had the rather unfortunate honour of being quoted as the confirmer of the extinction of this species (if it really was a species).

 

[Farnboro John]

Atitlan Grebe is slightly different though - as I understand, Pied-billed Grebes were not introduced onto Lake Atitlan, just spread there 'naturally' ('naturally' in the context that modified habitats allowed them to spread).


PS I had the rather unfortunate honour of being quoted as the confirmer of the extinction of this species (if it really was a species).

Well I suppose someone had to!

oh well, got it slightly wrong again - and if the spread was "natural" then LAG was doomed. I suppose we all are really, the game is to put it off as long as possible.....

John

 

[username]

Enjoy 'the day' i say....let's do what we can, [albeit futile in some people's eyes], to improve and conserve habitat's for the wonderful creature's that we share this planet with....tis all that we can do....and as for the future?....well...ultimately...'certain things' are not within our powers to control....so perhaps juz best to concentrate on wot we 'can' achieve...whether with Parakeet's or Bubo's...!

ps....we might well be 'fecked' long term....but let's go down fighting....never give up...never surrender....[or...you cud just lie back and do nowt]...!

 

[s. james]

Extinction is a KEY part of evolution. In the past extinctions have been brought about by other natural processes such as asteroid strikes, natural climate cycles, inter species competition now we are driving extinctions. Annihilation is part of the process.
Yep.

Conservationists in Britain are annihilating Ruddy Ducks.
Thankfully they're doing a really bad job of it in NI! I've said it before but the white-headed (sic) ducks don't seem to mind what they mate with.

Conservationists delude themselves they are doing something usefull when on a macro level they are really wasting their time
Maybe, but as others have said preserving biodiversity is surely still the "right" thing to do even if it's pretty useless in the long-term?

In my world you wouldn't have just rats and humans. You would have a range of species that can tolerate living closely with humans. Some of them "native" and some of them naturalised. This is why I consider Grey squirrels and their ilk fantastic species, they are evidence that evolution is in action all around us. Niches are being filled by succesful species. Go out in the morning and have a look around you there are all sorts of species all over the place.
:clap: I quite like this wee bit. More specialist species should be preserved too tho because they're interesting if nothing else.

If this environmental nihilism really is your view of life then I suspect you may be on the wrong forum.

Maybe he likes birdwatching?

 

[Imaginos]

There's a common word used to describe animals that are successful in adapting to human-altered landscape - it's pest (the word for plants is weed).

 

[John o'Sullivan]

I am most definitely not an environmetal nihilist.

I am also most definitely not a conservationist as practised by those people who get hung up on the natural/native/they were here before so therefore they are o.k. and lets not value everything else brigade.

Everything has a value. I love it all (Apart from mosquitoes) and detest concepts such as vermin. Thats why I say go out and look around you. Have a real look at a Rat, A crow, A Fox, A Spring feral pigeon strutting his stuff, Eagle owls, a Mink working a river bank, A spring Ruddy duck etc etc they are wonderful resourceful succesful species.

I do think that much of conservation is based on micro meddling that isn't really achieving anything of note.

I guess that if I was to lable myself it would be as an environmental evolutionist.

Part of the reason I object to these sorts of threads is that they are often self righteous with people deriding other peoples views on environmentalism. Claiming that it is ignorance that leads people to objecting to conservationist culling. It is not always ignorance it is a difference of opinion.

 

[ColonelBlimp]

Not a really fair question given the complexity of the relationships involved, But OK, how about the Little Owl, introduced into the UK in (if I remember correctly) the 19th century. There must, of course, have been an "impact" on other animals, with some species--prey or other predators--being harmed by the introduction, but things eventually seem to have settled down again with little or no permanent damage to the fauna as a whole. Or at least I haven't heard of any. For all anybody knows, in fact, some small mammal species, say--rodents or shrews -- may actually have benefited from the new predator if the owl selectively took competing species. Pure speculation, of course, but so what? The other side doesn't have anything better to offer.

With the Little Owl situation, I'm not an expert on the matter but the gist of what I have read is that it has not directly caused any extinction etc. However, it is still consuming resources utilisable by other birds and decreasing the viability of their population a little bit, and so it is logically an invasive species, although perhaps one of the less immediately damaging ones.

 

[ColonelBlimp]

I am most definitely not an environmetal nihilist.

I am also most definitely not a conservationist as practised by those people who get hung up on the natural/native/they were here before so therefore they are o.k. and lets not value everything else brigade.

But following your logic (i.e. of not giving two hoots about the establishment of invasive species) you end up not valuing the stuff they impact on, i.e. the stuff that was actually there in the first place! Why on earth would turning the world's biodiversity into ecological blancmange be something good???

 

[StuartReeves]

I am most definitely not an environmetal nihilist.

I am also most definitely not a conservationist as practised by those people who get hung up on the natural/native/they were here before so therefore they are o.k. and lets not value everything else brigade.

Everything has a value. I love it all (Apart from mosquitoes) and detest concepts such as vermin. Thats why I say go out and look around you. Have a real look at a Rat, A crow, A Fox, A Spring feral pigeon strutting his stuff, Eagle owls, a Mink working a river bank, A spring Ruddy duck etc etc they are wonderful resourceful succesful species.

I do think that much of conservation is based on micro meddling that isn't really achieving anything of note.

I guess that if I was to lable myself it would be as an environmental evolutionist.

Part of the reason I object to these sorts of threads is that they are often self righteous with people deriding other peoples views on environmentalism. Claiming that it is ignorance that leads people to objecting to conservationist culling. It is not always ignorance it is a difference of opinion.

In many respects our viewpoints are not that far apart, but I'm still left with the impression that you'll be happy to see less resourceful and successful species ground under the jackboot of human progress.

 

[John o'Sullivan]

Stuart

Not happy exactly but I don't think that it matters particularly. There have apparently been six previous extinction events, the ecosystems that conservationists get so excited about are only here because of previous extinctions.

I've seen loads of posts on birdforum accusing opponents of culls of being sentimental yet lots of conservation is based on despair/concern/anger/determination that change is bad and must be prevented.

A wierd underlying assuption with the conservation movement is that nature/evolution needs our help. It does like Bugge*y.

The oceans are acidfying (a change) this is bad news for species with a shell barnacles/mussels/corals these species die out . They are replaced with soft bodied species e.g. Jellyfish/squid etc a situation with winners/losers. Not good not bad just different. Evolution and adaptability in action.

The recent BBC Swarm programme showed an increase in numbers of swarms of a soft bodied species ? a jellyfish that aparently absorbs CO2. Lots of these would return the oceans to its more usual state. maybe this supports the GAIA hypothesis.

One way or another "nature abhors a vacuum" it will fill the gap with something or other.
It doesn't need our help.

Imaginos
That post made my heart sink.

Colonel Blimp

I don't particularly value the intrinsic importanace of species being "native". Evolution is all about change and time (winners and losers). This is my point about this being the anthropocene, we are the drivers of change in the same way previous drivers have been non-human driven e.g. climate change, asteroid strikes, continental drift. The blancmange is what matters not the individual ingredients going in.

Stuart
I've no problem with people who want to attempt to preserve less succesful species. Don't kill the succesful in order to achieve this however. Provide habitat, put them in Zoos, put them on offshore islands e.g red squirrels on Brownsea ( a couple more islands as backup maybe)

Generally
One funny thing about conservationists, they often get excited about gamekeepers killing particular species in order to protect other species yet they believe that when they do it is justified.

 

[ColinD]

........I've no problem with people who want to attempt to preserve less succesful species. Don't kill the succesful in order to achieve this however. Provide habitat, put them in Zoos, put them on offshore islands e.g red squirrels on Brownsea ( a couple more islands as backup maybe).......

But some of the successful species which you have mentioned are only there because they have been imported by man into environments which are not equipped to handle them.

By your logic, if rats are transported accidently by man to, for example St Kilda, we should just let them be, to colonise and decimate various ground nexting birds such as Petrels and Puffins. Would that mean that Puffins are less successful than Rats? Of course it wouldn't, Puffins are highly adapted for the habitat they live in, a habitat which is meant to be Rat free.

Thankfully, very few people share your views, or the World would be in a very sad state.

Escaped Eagle Owls are the Rats of Bowland.

 

[PaulD]

I can readily agree that the concept of vermin is an odd one (though it's strange that you exclude mosquitos from this!).

However we are the only ones on this planet who make conscious decisions to change the environment (animals just follow their instincts) and I can't see any rationale behind an argument that it is wrong to modiy our actions in order to preserve the diversity of life on this planet.

It is certainly arguable that a policy of live and let live has high evolutionary value and that it is therefore in our own interests to maintain biodiversity and not make mistakes such as releasing species into areas where they don't occur naturally.

 

[Jos Stratford]

So account for the healthy harrier populations that breed around Eagle Owls elsewhere.:

The circumstances in places where there are coexisting harriers/owls can be very different than those that are found here. No-one know exactly how the presence of eagle owls here, most likely sustained at higher than 'natural' levels due to as I said humans providing more prey, would interact with a harrier population rising due to reduction of persecution, i.e. they could at least delay the rise, not regarding for the moment other things that could delay the rise or keep the maximum population at a low level, such as habitat loss etc.. In that circumstance, what I am espousing is that the fall-back position should be: if it isn't native, get out the shotgun!

I can only assume there is a genetic deformity amongst the harriers on these Yorkshire moors, one that makes them uniquely unable to cope with an occasional predator that their kin elsewhere can. Or perhaps it is simply an ignorance amongst those that watch over them.


Incidently, is the "most likely sustained at higher than 'natural' levels" mere opinion on your part, or backed by any data?

what I am espousing is that the fall-back position should be: if it isn't native, get out the shotgun!

Differing species and differing justifications, but pretty much the same mindset as a gamekeeper really.

 

[John o'Sullivan]

Colin ,

the habitat is not meant to be rat free the habitat has previously been rat free. The habitat in evolutionary terms is in whatever state it currently is.

Puffins and Petrels are not species that fit well into a human dominated world, Rats do. Therefore in the anthropocene they have an evolutionary advantage over Puffins/Petrels. I have no objection to the humane trapping of Rats from these environments. I don't want them killed however.

In terms of people not sharing my views (of which you only have had access to a very small percentage). Wouldn't you argue that the world is already in
ONE HELL OF A STATE.
Thats part of the reason why I am so anti this minimilist approach to conservation.

THE OCEANS ARE ACIDIFYING.
THE ICECAPS ARE MELTING
40% OF THE RAINFOREST IS APPARENTLY DOOMED
GOVERNMENTS AROUND THE WORLD ARE PROMOTING BIOFUELS
NOTHING IS REALLY BEING DONE TO PREVENT GLOBAL WARMING

I'm supposed to care about Parakeets, conservationists (particularly organisations like the corporate RSPB) are having a laugh.

Fortunately because I believe in the power of evolution I don't think in the long run any of the above really matters. Evolution, homeostasis and time will eventually sort something out.

Paul D,
I exclude mosquitos on personal distaste grounds only. I hate being bitten by other species and in Turkey the bugge*s distress me. Even I was a bit despondent about a story in the times the other day about computer operated lasers to shoot down the little sh**s (I appreciate they have a place in the food chain). DEET wiil do.

I have no problem with attempts to maintain biodiversity I object to Culls.

If you think about the evolutionary process as being driven by genetic mixing, then human introduction of species from around the world into a mixing pot promotes this.

It is fusion cooking but at a genetic level.,

 

[ColinD]

Colin ,

the habitat is not meant to be rat free the habitat has previously been rat free. The habitat in evolutionary terms is in whatever state it currently is.

Puffins and Petrels are not species that fit well into a human dominated world, Rats do. Therefore in the anthropocene they have an evolutionary advantage over Puffins/Petrels. I have no objection to the humane trapping of Rats from these environments. I don't want them killed however.

......,

You seem to be saying that Humans introducing an alien species somewhere is a natural event and therefore good luck to the aliens for being so adaptable and successful, yet Humans removing them by killing them is not natural and is deplorable.

However, consider this, if the rats were so adaptable they should have evolved a defence mechanism to stop us killing them, therefore they are a failed species and extinction at our hands is inevitable and should not be mourned. Wouldn't you agree? Surely I'm using the same logic as you?

 

[PaulD]

I have no problem with attempts to maintain biodiversity I object to Culls.

If you think about the evolutionary process as being driven by genetic mixing, then human introduction of species from around the world into a mixing pot promotes this.

So you are in favour of maintaining biodiversity, but at the same time you are happy to promote introduction of species from around the world into a mixing pot. Perhaps I'm missing something, but that seems contradictory. I don't see how introducing, say, Grey Squirrels, will help to maintain biodiversity. It will have the opposite effect.

 

[ColonelBlimp]

I can only assume there is a genetic deformity amongst the harriers on these Yorkshire moors, one that makes them uniquely unable to cope with an occasional predator that their kin elsewhere can. Or perhaps it is simply an ignorance amongst those that watch over them.

Incidently, is the "most likely sustained at higher than 'natural' levels" mere opinion on your part, or backed by any data?

I freely admit that it is conjecture. However, the potential for eagle owls to be otherwise increased in number (than they were in a time when we assume they coexisted) due to human provision of more eg. mammalian prey is a throughly logical idea. The addition of another predator on hen harriers could, I stress could, not will, take them over the tipping point. Therefore if we're trying to protect their population, shooting a few non-native birds is realistically far easier to do first (in the sense of "better safe than sorry") than tackling the whole problem of persecution.

Differing species and differing justifications, but pretty much the same mindset as a gamekeeper really.

Biggest pile of crap I've read so far. My remark was in response to the discussion about whether any invasive species is good for biodiversity. In my view, it is an impossibility. A bit different to the mindset of a bird-of-prey persecuting gamekeeper. Got any other corkers up your sleeve?

 

[Jos Stratford]

Biggest pile of crap I've read so far. My remark was in response to the discussion about whether any invasive species is good for biodiversity. In my view, it is an impossibility. A bit different to the mindset of a bird-of-prey persecuting gamekeeper. Got any other corkers up your sleeve?

Your comment was "if it isn't native, get out the shotgun", a comment that incidently supports the shooting of Little Owls and a whole range of other species. Comments like that are backward. When conservation bodies are hoping to change mindsets that sees 'undesirable' species as things to be shot and destroyed, having similar comments coming from persons presumably hoping to influence the likes of those who persecute harriers is laughable.


As you now acknowledge, all your comments are based on pure conjucture - there is no evidence that Hen Harriers would not survive alongside Eagle Owls if the real cause of their decline was addressed (but as you also admit, much easier to shoot a few supposed problem birds than actually tackle the actual problem). If you simply take the example of these species elsewhere in their range, the evidence suggests the populations do co-exist. Again, I have to wonder why you believe the English harriers would be any different.


A relatively minor additional point, although I'm a little hazy on European law, I believe as a native European species, in order to legally 'blast them with your shotgun', you would need to actually show these were escapes, rather than believe them to be. In each and every case. Do you have that evidence?

 

[ColinD]

......As you now acknowledge, all your comments are based on pure conjucture - there is no evidence that Hen Harriers would not survive alongside Eagle Owls if the real cause of their decline was addressed (but as you also admit, much easier to shoot a few supposed problem birds than actually tackle the actual problem). If you simply take the example of these species elsewhere in their range, the evidence suggests the populations do co-exist. Again, I have to wonder why you believe the English harriers would be any different.....

Jos, I enjoy your posts and I don't want to have an arguement with you, but two points here. First of all, I completely accept that Human persecution is the main reason for the current plight of the Hen Harriers in England. However, we're not just sitting back and watching as Harriers are killed by gamekeepers, action is being taken and we are trying to stamp it out. It is illegal for a start. But it's a long slow process, and in the meantime, the single figure population of Harriers is being put under more pressure by an escaped predator.

And this is my second point, and one which nobody seems to want to respond to. It is accepted by almost everybody that these Eagle Owls are either escapes from captivity or have been deliberately released. It's my opinion that the only reason they are allowed to remain breeding in the wild is because they are sexy, exciting birds which birders want to believe are wild.

However, if they were rats for example, and if they had accidently been released on a seabird colony, and were threatening to decimate the population of Puffins, everybody would be up in arms demanding their removal. So what's the difference? Why is it acceptable for escaped birds to be allowed to breed in the wild and threaten in any way a rare breeding bird? Nobody seems to want to answer that question.