Last week I spent two half days, and some time in a bar in between, with a bunch of RSPB site managers (or wardens as we used to call them!) talking about fox control.
We have over 200 nature reserves and we cull foxes on about 20 of them, so, as written before, we use fox control as a management option but not as a standard management prescription. Our main reason for fox control is where we have vulnerable populations of breeding waders such as lapwing, redshank and snipe and where we believe that foxes are making a big difference to their numbers or breeding success.
But getting out the rifle is not the only option - non-lethal methods may be more effective, cheaper and more acceptable to the public or to our staff. One option is fencing, and the results of some trials are described in the RSPB Reserves review for 2010 (see pages 34-35 of the document or pages 36-37 of the pdf). A couple of different fence types have been tested but both have electric strands. One advantage of fences is that, as well as foxes which we know can be important predators of waders nests, they also exclude badgers which are more occasional nest predators. Another advantage is that you aren't up late at night with a reifle trying to get a clean shot at a wary animal.
The results are encouraging but we are a cautious bunch so we aren't claiming anything yet. I can't see fences being very useful in the uplands but in lowland areas they may have a part to play. We'll see.
I live in the countryside and hardly ever see a fox. Most of my recent sightings have been in London on early mornings where just as the foxes seem very nonchalant about people, most Londoners seem very relaxed about urban foxes. I get quite excited when I see a fox - they are lovely animals. But I don't, personally, have any problem about a bit of fox control to protect birds of conservation importance.
But we, the RSPB, do take a particularly strict line on predator control on our own land. We don't use snares. We don't use dogs to flush foxes underground or above ground. And we try very hard not to shoot at times when we might kill lactating vixens with young cubs underground. Those constraints don't make fox control very easy compared with the job a gamekeeper can do.
Overall, over the last few years, (2005-2009, see the Reserves Review) lapwings and redshanks have increased in numbers on our nature reserves (and that isn't because we've added more land - it's true of the land we started with in 2005) so unless lots of waders flock into our reserves every year (which is just possible) we can't be doing too much wrong. But lapwing and redshank numbers fell a bit this year (2010) so there's nothing to be complacent about.
A love of the natural world demonstrates that a person is a cultured inhabitant of planet Earth.
NO BADGERS – NO bTB
Mark says
• “Badgers and TB - think Nightjar is right in saying that the science shows that badger culling may increase TB levels - this is the perturbation effect which is well-established - but is not the only thing to consider in this complex question. I'll come back to badgers and TB some time soon too.”
Nightjar says ‘hard science’ and Mark says ‘the science’
Both make the same mistake of assuming – and they should know better – that the RBCT performed by Pro Bourne’s ISG was ‘scientific’.
• Just because a task is performed by scientists doesn’t make that task ‘scientific’
The truth of the matter is that ‘science’ has proven and continues to prove that if there are no badgers whatsoever – there would be no bTB – that’s a hard scientific fact – this is your scientific baseline – this is your starting point!
Incidentally the Veterinary Association for Wildlife Management (vets, profs and fellows of Royal College of Pathologist) said in 2004
They conclude "Tb is a disease of overcrowding, stressed conditions and nutrition and the current status of the badger as a protected species is now creating exactly that situation for them. Failure to act now, will not only see the disease spreading in both cattle and badgers, but progressive environmental contamination will see it establish in other domestic stock for example free range pigs and (domestic) cats. It will produce more cases of human Tb, particularly in the rural population. (or those roaming the countryside?) The long term 'holistic' approach advocated by the ISG is entirely reasonable if time could be made to stand still but the problem is out of hand now, and will inevitably worsen in the years to come that the group and government take to formulate their 'solution'.
2004 eh? - that’s over 80,000 dead cattle ‘ago’ !!
Now try to think scientifically – please!