There's been a flurry of publicity for Songbird Survival over the last week - mostly in The Times. This organisation, which I always think as being more anti-predator than pro-songbird, and anti-raptor in particular (but maybe I have got them wrong), may be funding the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust to cull some crows and see whether songbirds flourish. Good luck to them - but I hope they take more notice of this research than they did of the research that they commissioned from the BTO which went some way to exonerate predators from being the cause of songbird declines. That study doesn't seem to have altered Songbird Survival's views at all.
The Chair of Songbird Survival is Lord Coke. Lord Coke hails from Holkham Hall. The head gamekeeper at Holkham Hall was charged with several offences, including some under the Wildlife and Countryside Act, last week. This has led to some interesting comments in some places (see here for example). Lord Coke's father, the Earl of Leicester, is not the biggest fan of birds of prey, nor indeed of the RSPB. As I say, interesting.
The article in the Independent makes the link between the head 'keeper being charged and the fate of the Holkham National Nature reserve. That's an interesting point too.
A love of the natural world demonstrates that a person is a cultured inhabitant of planet Earth.
Ravens eating sheep is horrific ? Why ? Surely the sheep are only there so that we can eat them ?
well, Mark, I've just read through the Country Illustrated Magazine article you gave a link to, and, most unexpectedly, ended up ROFL! It struck me as being so absurd it was hilarious! Here are people (many of whom are in Nationally responsible positions of various sorts) spending a fortune to rear, feed, and protect from predators, a bird. Why? (here the imagination comes into play) I can hear them shout "I WANT TO KILL IT, it's not fair, It's MY bird, so I WANT TO KILL IT" ( and much stamping of feet)
Homo Sapiens? enough said.
With the Thrush it would be interesting if Mark has any figures to suggest that as the Thrush has declined the Blackbird increased as I notice if the Thrush comes in the garden the Blackbirds soon bully it away and as they have similar food requirements it makes me wonder if that is the biggest reason.For sure we have masses of Blackbirds in our close and suspect even if some go back perhaps to Europe in spring we perhaps have a Blackbird nest in every garden.
Mark, re your comment to EP "...then it's nature!" I suppose it can rather depend on whether you think man is part of nature or not! My view is that we stand apart. Where, by our actions, we have created a problem or an imbalance we are justified in trying to correct it, by habitat and other measures if possible but also by culls if need be. By the same token I favour habitat recreation, reintroductions of native species and eliminating potentially-invasive non-native species before they become a problem.
Seems we are not that far apart Mark,I support anyone against raptor persecution but we got pleasure from it and as I have said see no contradiction with that and my attitude to Magpies.Find it a minefield as it is said and probably true that Ravens in Somerset ate a sheep alive that was stuck in fence,obviously horrific.