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.
Tim Roper's concluding remarks in the chapter on Badgers and Bovine TB;
' And what about badger culling, which is, of all the possible management options, the one of most interest to readers of this book? It is easy to understand why farmers are frustrated by the lack of progress towards controlling what is, by any account, a serious disease situation. It is also easy to understand this frustration results in calls for the resumption of badger culling. Culling has a strong intuitive appeal:it seems only common sense, when faced with a disease reservoir, to try to eliminate it; and the most obvious way of doing this is by eliminating the host species. However, the RBCT has shown that things are not that simple. At best culling may not have much of an effect and, at worst, it may have unintended and counterproductive side-effects. And despite the multiplicity of trials, the long term effects of culling on the prevalence of TB, in either cattle or badgers, are still not known. From a political point of view, culling is hard to defend because of its unpopularity with the general public and because the economic costs of doing it are substantially greater than the immediate economic benefits that the expected reduction in cattle TB would bring. It is still possible that culling would contribute usefully to TB control in certain well-defined circumstances or in combination with other measures such as vaccination or enhanced biosecurity. However, the scientific case against isolated, one-off, spatially restricted culls of limited duration, such as were carried out in RBCT,is very strong.'
Even a badly managed and politically-driven operation - the RBCT - produced the following from the author of the book "Badger" which Mark has recently bought and read.
Pro Tim Roper importantly says “it has subsequently become clear that this is not the end of the story - culling ceased in 2005 – but the incidence of TB in cattle within the proactively culled areas continued to decline while the perturbation effect also declined and eventually…. went into reverse”.
The case is so strong that even BAD SCIENCE produced positive results !!
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!
Quote "this is the perturbation effect which is well-established".
Actually the on going monitoring has now, recently, disproved this, but the badger websites will not be reporting this :-)
Quote "Badgers and ground-nesting birds - yes they do take some nests (of course) but our studies suggest they are much much less important than foxes."
As I said, in hot spots you are very wrong, they are a major predator.
A fascinating debate! Another aspect relating specifically to reserves is their role in providing enjoyment and education for the public, and in recruiting members.
My understanding is that after badgers raided the islands in Burrowes pit at Dungeness some years ago, the nesting terns and gulls went elsewhere (for many seasons - are they all back now?). What a pity that visitors were deprived of a fantastic spectacle from the visitor centre windows. I know badgers are a protected species, but it still seems a pity...
At Minsmere the Sand Martin colony in the old carpark must have given enormous pleasure to visitors over the years. I have a feeling stoats have been a problem there and certainly Magpies learnt to take the about-to-fledge young from the nest entrances. Not sure if the martins were back there this year. I'm sorry, but there are far too many magpies at Minsmere (or at least there were a couple of years ago when I visited more regularly than I do now).
What's the problem with taking out individual birds or mammals that are causing trouble? Nature is red in tooth and claw, perhaps reserve managers should take more of a leaf out of nature's book. Fences are fine in particular cases but for 'natural' wilderness reserves are they really any substitute for playing God and managing wildlife populations?