UK Invasive Species Survey (1 Viewer)

[Paul Chapman]

I quite enjoyed the survey but the Peregrine introduction for Ring-necked Parakeets was a pretty bizarre suggestion!

All the best

Paul

 

[kb57]

Just completed it - I think the peregrine question was the only mis-step - I used to supervise undergraduate projects too in the distant past, and there's a limit to what can be achieved within time and seasonal constraints (terms starting in September aren't great for botany...). This is clearly more of a social sciences project, but it may well generate some decent data if she can get a wide spread of responders.

 

[aeshna5]

I quite enjoyed the survey but the Peregrine introduction for Ring-necked Parakeets was a pretty bizarre suggestion!

All the best

Paul

Interestingly Ring-necked Parakeets along with Feral Pigeons seem to be the most numerous prey items of the 2 pairs of Peregrines near me & suspect for many other London pairs.

 

[Paul Chapman]

Interestingly Ring-necked Parakeets along with Feral Pigeons seem to be the most numerous prey items of the 2 pairs of Peregrines near me & suspect for many other London pairs.

More the suggestion of introducing them with which I took issue. Interestingly for a Cambridge undergraduate social sciences project - and therefore one would hope at a sophisticated and free-thinking level - for me it showed that the interventionist panacea of native wildlife introduction/enhancement was now so well ingrained that it is a default and there is now a snowball's chance in hell that anyone will realise the correct approach is buy more land for nature, don't concrete existing land, don't poison land, don't cut down vegetation, reduce development, etc.....

😮😮😪😪😪

Edit - I have just amused myself by wondering what the reaction would have been to the suggestion back in the mid/late 80s at the Alma Brewery from the birding undergraduates at the time! A lively discussion would have ensued.

All the best

Paul

 

[puff the magic dragon]

Interesting they picked Japanese Knotweed which grows like grass around here in South Wales, a colony of Ring Necked Parakeets was found by a young lad in Morriston park in Swansea after his mum got him a bird book and binoculars during covid lockdown. I very much doubt if the colony will become a problem as we have plenty of BOP to keep the numbers down.

Not bad survey.

 

[aeshna5]

More the suggestion of introducing them with which I took issue. Interestingly for a Cambridge undergraduate social sciences project - and therefore one would hope at a sophisticated and free-thinking level - for me it showed that the interventionist panacea of native wildlife introduction/enhancement was now so well ingrained that it is a default and there is now a snowball's chance in hell that anyone will realise the correct approach is buy more land for nature, don't concrete existing land, don't poison land, don't cut down vegetation, reduce development, etc.....

😮😮😪😪😪

Edit - I have just amused myself by wondering what the reaction would have been to the suggestion back in the mid/late 80s at the Alma Brewery from the birding undergraduates at the time! A lively discussion would have ensued.

All the best

Paul

Yes, I wasn't faulting your critique, just pointing out that the Peregrines will arrive naturally if they have the breeding sites. No shortage of food at these urban sites & negligible persecution.

 

[Patudo]

Edit - I have just amused myself by wondering what the reaction would have been to the suggestion back in the mid/late 80s at the Alma Brewery from the birding undergraduates at the time! A lively discussion would have ensued.

If we were back in the mid/late 80s the only place with any significant number of parakeets would have been London, and there wouldn't have been any peregrines there then, apart from the odd visitor - so they would indeed have needed to be reintroduced!

 

[Paul Chapman]

If we were back in the mid/late 80s the only place with any significant number of parakeets would have been London, and there wouldn't have been any peregrines there then, apart from the odd visitor - so they would indeed have needed to be reintroduced!

I was there.

That would have worked?!?!?!? 😯 For me, I have a problem with X so I am introducing Y is just a crazy default.

in short, my view is...

More fully and seriously put, the world has a very serious problem with the impact of one species (homo sapiens). That species is so arrogant and invasive that it does not realise that its numbers and spread are the most serious issue and secondly its default to tinker, alter and impact the environment consciously or as a byproduct of its activities is the second most serious issue.

It deludes itself over the first problem and it convinces itself that it is doing good instead of harm a lot of the time with the second problem.

The default approach to many current natural issues is to interfere. This is more about a power kick for us as a species. Running around high fiving with beavers behind fences in London whilst still talking about more development rather than living in smaller spaces, converting underused office space for housing, etc.

Reduce our population.

Find alternatives to economic growth.

Stop developing.

Don't cut it down.

Don't poison it.

Set aside more land for nature.

All the best

Paul

 

[Mono]

Can we please have a conservation thread that doesn't end up advocating death camps!

 

[Farnboro John]

Can we please have a conservation thread that doesn't end up advocating death camps!

We don't advocate death camps, just a bit of responsible keeping it in your trousers. Maybe get a hobby? There's more than one kind of shag.

John

 

[Paul Chapman]

Can we please have a conservation thread that doesn't end up advocating death camps!

We don't advocate death camps, just a bit of responsible keeping it in your trousers. Maybe get a hobby? There's more than one kind of shag.

John

Of course, it is that type of evocative language that belittles anyone who actually mentions the biggest single issue that the planet faces and marginalises even a sensible discussion and choice amongst others...

I have no desire to coerce or dictate but I do ask for the respect from those who I consider to be self-delusional on the point to put forward a position without such language.

I really care about the future of the planet and biodiversity and I am living through the age of the greatest extinction.

All the best

Paul

 

[CPP Gardener]

I get shot down for advocating the same thing Paul. Just like Mono, so many people are aghast that it be suggested that having fewer children would make a huge impact on planetary environmental health. They go immediately to China’s forced one child program. Great idea, restricting population growth, really poor execution. Try to bring up that point and get all hell kicked out of you. All it would take is removing tax breaks for extra kids. If it becomes family budget-killing to have more kids, people will have fewer kids.
Cue screams of “eugenics, government over-reach, reproductive freedom, etc, etc”.