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Message: <blockquote data-quote="PaulD" data-source="post: 1709497" data-attributes="member: 11840">FicedulaYou say that the most important criteria is whether “EO's cause harm to GB fauna measurably greater than the harm caused by other historically established species”. How do you define harm? If it’s OK to take out naturally occurring owls because of the harm they do to naturally occurring eagles (your example), then I think it’s a green light to the shooting lobby who want to remove Hen Harriers because of the harm they do to upland bird populations (and I’m not in the least implying that you would support a Hen Harrier cull). I'm sticking to my view that if they arrive here naturally then that's fine and they should no more be threatened with culling than Little Egrets or Cettis Warblers should. But they're not here naturally and so I see nothing wrong with the RSPBs suggestion that they should be closely monitored to see what impact (if any) they have. Sorry I can't find the statement where they say that, but I think I've got the gist of it.AmarilloI wouldn’t be so pessimistic about the chances of a wild owl having a ring. The closest pairs to us are in Holland and Belgium and the limited numbers of pairs are reasonably well known and it is my understanding that many of the young are ringed.In Sweden they ring hundreds every year and the recovery rate is a surprisingly high 27% (but despite that they have never had one make the short sea crossing to Denmark).</blockquote>

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