I was thinking about non-native species at the AGM on Saturday on the weekend before last and wondered when the pheasant shooting season starts - it must be around now. And it is - the 1 October.
Pheasants are not, of course, native to the UK. They are an Asian species like the ring-necked parakeet - although pheasants have been running around our countryside for a lot longer so we have got used to them and, I guess, tend to see them as part of the natural scene.
When the Romans brought them here there was no great worry about transporting species around the world. But I wonder what impact, if any, all those pheasants have had, and do have, and may have, on our native wildlife.
We've given this a bit of thought but it is definitely work in progress.
The numbers of pheasants released into the UK countryside is enormous - about 35 million birds a year. 'Only' 15 million of them are shot each year, which means that although the BBS shows a steady increase in numbers, many of them must end up inside natural predators rather than in people's freezers, ovens and tummies.
That's an awful lot of bird meat that is feeding crows and foxes and a range of other species isn't it?
I wonder how much the increase in some predator numbers is fuelled by this meat bonanza? Maybe not at all? But given that many of those pheasants are available over the harsh winter period it seems possible that there is some impact. The most mischievous might suggest that live pheasants are eating food that native species such as finches and buntings should eat and dead pheasants are feeding generalist predators - but it clearly is not that simple.
Pheasant management at its best provides lots of cover and food that benefits other species. But the increasing (I think it's increasing) trend for big-shoot days where huge numbers of pheasants are released worries many in the shooting community as well as seeming to me to be at the more worrying end of the specrtrum from an ecological point of view.
I think the pheasant illustrates some interesting points. First, those 35 million non-native birds are released into the countryside without a licence whereas a few white-tailed eagles, a native species, require a whole lot of bureaucracy. I'm with the bureaucrats on this one actually - but it's a very interesting difference. Second, it's sometimes rather tricky to be sure what impact an introduction has or might have, but some species may be relatively benign whereas others cause lots of damage. Prevention is always easier than cure in these circumstances.
If you have a look at the excellent BirdTrack you'll see that pheasant reporting rates (that is, the proportion of bird lists which include pheasants) have a consistent double peak in the year - in April and in late-October. I imagine, please correct me if you know or think differently, that the spring peak is because male pheasants make more noise then so they are easier to pick up even if you don't see them, and that the second peak is to do with all those releases? Is that right?
As a memeber of the RSPB and a sporting shooter this sort of rubbish makes me very angry.
To address all the points here would take forever so lets just look at the facts.
The annual bird crime figure is just rubbish, Raptors are not persecuted at all, to take figures from a website called raptor politics and take them as true is just stupid. peer reviewed facts i will accept but not just anything spouted out maybe for the wrong reasons. I think Eagle owls are the problem for things such as hen harriers and now the RSPB want to cull them. What does that say about this organisation? In my opinion it is not coincidence that the Kestrel population is going down but Buzzards are shooting up. I spend all my time in the countryside you get to notice things.
For true facts try looking at the National Wildlife crime figures. Raptors are just picked out because they photo well swans are far more targeted on urban ponds but that doesn`t grab the headlines.
On the subject of traffic accidents because of released birds. try looking at the figures of accidents for Deer and Badgers.
On the drop in Butterfly numbers, woods that have been coppiced for the use as sporting woods can support far more moth and butterfly numbers than a non managed woodland and if the game shooting wasn`t there then it wouldn`t get done.
My final point is that on the shoot i mainly go on we supply the birds(Pheasants, Grey Partridge, Red Legged Partridge) with tons, and i mean tons of grain every year, evey song bird in the area comes to feed on that grain making for a tremendous mix in wildlife. I can honestly say i would take someone round the shoot with pleasure to show them all the good we do. You only have to compare the bird count on RSPB moors to moors used for shooting to show you what predator control does for ground nesting birds.
Dear M Avery, if you keep on turning out this rubbish then i will have to part company with the RSPB as it is not doing as it should, Birdcrime was a nonsense and the agenda to take down game shooting is underhanded and to be quite honest not in your remit.