Trapping Predators - Birds Of Prey

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Paul_B

Bushcrafter through and through
Jul 14, 2008
6,152
1,546
Cumbria
Not too good. Everyone nows its better to invite a royal shooting party round if you want rare birds taken care of!! ;)

(referring to the Harry Windsor shooting party after which a hen harrier or something similarly rare was found shot dead. ALLEGEDLY!!.)
 
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Nov 29, 2004
7,808
22
Scotland
Not too good. Everyone nows its better to invite a royal shooting party round if you want rare birds taken care of!! ;)

(referring to the Harry Windsor shooting party after which a hen harrier or something similarly rare was found shot dead.)

Quick! add allegedly to that last post! :)
 

Paul_B

Bushcrafter through and through
Jul 14, 2008
6,152
1,546
Cumbria
Stop deleting my words Sandbender, it looks like I hadn't put allegedly in there!! ;)
 

dwardo

Bushcrafter through and through
Aug 30, 2006
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I wonder if the 10,000 fine is enough. I used to work for a guy who would pay upward of 4,000 for a weekend shoot.
 

robin wood

Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
Oct 29, 2007
3,054
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derbyshire
www.robin-wood.co.uk
Just to confirm this is not an NT gamekeeper. The NT leases shooting rights of the moor to a third party who presumably employ the keeper. Live traps are not illegal. Had it been a corvid in there it would have been legally used for trapping other corvids. Using a pigeon is only going to trap raptors. The lack of breeding success of larger raptors (particularly gos hawk and hen harrier) in this area is well known and speaks for itself. Very very hard to actually get a conviction and hats off to the RSPB to going to considerable lengths to achieve it.
 

Aaron

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Dec 28, 2003
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I would reckon he knew what he was doing and he got caught

I'm not sure he did know what he was doing, given that he was on National Trust land, not the most discrete location to be trapping and killing raptors, and secondly, he'd already had a pheasant he was using as a call bird go missing from the cage - as a gamekeeper myself, this would instantly set alarm bells ringing that someone had found my traps and knew what I was up to! ;) Anyway off to watch Chris Packham talk about moorland conservation on BBC1, I daresay as a supporter of the League Against 'Cruel' Sports he will completely neglect to mention how much of the UK's upland is managed for conservation thanks to shooting and how gamekeepers benefit the biodiversity of these areas by controlling predators and burning off heather to promote new growth :rolleyes:
 
Feb 15, 2011
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I'm not sure he did know what he was doing, given that he was on National Trust land, not the most discrete location to be trapping and killing raptors, and secondly, he'd already had a pheasant he was using as a call bird go missing from the cage - as a gamekeeper myself, this would instantly set alarm bells ringing that someone had found my traps and knew what I was up to! ;) Anyway off to watch Chris Packham talk about moorland conservation on BBC1, I daresay as a supporter of the League Against 'Cruel' Sports he will completely neglect to mention how much of the UK's upland is managed for conservation thanks to shooting and how gamekeepers benefit the biodiversity of these areas by controlling predators and burning off heather to promote new growth :rolleyes:

I always shudder when I hear expressions like wildlife management or predator control, ........it implies that man is God & decides what lives & what doesn't & always in favour of human activity & not that of eco-systems ( another word I don't like)
As for the uplands, there is much less bio- diversty when managed by man than when left to nature. Of course I'm not a naive tree hugger, & in this modern crowded world where there is only place for man & his needs & wants I realise that even landscapes & wildlife have their price & those species that cannot be used or hinder those that can, have less value & so are disposable. I am well aware that we cannot leave large swaiths of income generating land to nature but I'll never believe that nature is better gouverned by man, than by nature it's self.
 

Aaron

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Dec 28, 2003
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I always shudder when I hear expressions like wildlife management or predator control, ........it implies that man is God & decides what lives & what doesn't & always in favour of human activity & not that of eco-systems ( another word I don't like)
As for the uplands, there is much less bio- diversty when managed by man than when left to nature. Of course I'm not a naive tree hugger, & in this modern crowded world where there is only place for man & his needs & wants I realise that even landscapes & wildlife have their price & those species that cannot be used or hinder those that can, have less value & so are disposable. I am well aware that we cannot leave large swaiths of income generating land to nature but I'll never believe that nature is better gouverned by man, than by nature it's self.

Then I would suggest that you go away and read a decent natural history book like A history of the countryside by Oliver Rackham who will explain much more eloquently than I can how the landscape of the British Isles is made up of habitats such as farmland, heathland coppice woodland to name but a few that owe their very existence to thousands of years of human intervention and how species such as the heath fratillary butterfly have evolved to become completely dependent on conditions in these habitats produced by the 'management' that you dislike so much. Shooting and the practices that surround it will always be an emotive topic but try and see the bigger picture - yes many keepers will control birds of prey but that is weighed against the benefits they bring by planting cover crops, leaving long grass margins, coppicing woodland and managing woodland rides, all of which is done for shooting purposes but which also benefit insect and invertebrates, song birds and small mammals, many species of which are equally as threatened. Moorland is a brilliant example: Hen Harriers predate grouse, but without the young heather shoots moorland management for shooting produces there would be no grouse, and so no hen harriers either - if you think the RSPB could take on the same amount of land and manage it as effectively without making any income from it then you are kidding yourself. I can understand that not everyone will approve of shooting for sport but I would encourage people to try and form an opinion from speaking to people that actually have first hand knowledge and experience of the issues involved rather than just watching Countryfile and going on the internet.
 
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robin wood

Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
Oct 29, 2007
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derbyshire
www.robin-wood.co.uk
As for the uplands, there is much less bio- diversty when managed by man than when left to nature. Of course I'm not a naive tree hugger, & in this modern crowded world where there is only place for man & his needs & wants I realise that even landscapes & wildlife have their price & those species that cannot be used or hinder those that can, have less value & so are disposable. I am well aware that we cannot leave large swaiths of income generating land to nature but I'll never believe that nature is better gouverned by man, than by nature it's self.

I'll try to avoid the emotive pro's and cons of shooting. Most folks dislike of it is actually as much to do with prejudice against minority rich landowners as moral questions.

On the question of biodiversity there is no question unmanged moorland is less biodiverse than managed. Just like an unmanaged mini coppice the heather becomes single aged, all tall and overgrown with no young shoots. Selective burning or cutting of small patches creates a mosaic of ages and heights which favours a more diverse flora and fauna.

The oft repeated shooters implication that the moors were created by and sustained by shooting and the practices that surround it is however tosh. Grouse shooting has been around a couple of hundred years, the moors were created and sustained by farmers grazing livestock. A high proportion of moorland in the UK is managed without income from grouse shooting playing a significant role and whilst I agree with Aaron on the benefits of habitat management I would disagree that this is only possible through income from shooting, There are thousands of hectares of land within a few miles of me that prove otherwise.

As for no shooting = no hen Harriers, this is plainly not true. Hen harrier populations are very clearly statistically lower on keepered estates than non keepered estates. As I said before grouse shooting is in terms of the 8000 years of moorland management a very new introduction, there were hen harriers here before there were grouse shoots. The moorland management regime of selected burning to encourage new growth was introduced not for grouse but for grazing animals, grouse and hen harriers benefited incidentally.

The moors as rich mans playground has been a short blip in their long history of management. Their importance over the coming years may rest more on recognition of their value as a carbon sink. The upland moors of the UK hold more carbon than the forest cover of the whole of Europe. So forget planting trees to save carbon, protect a bit of moorland.
 
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Aaron

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Dec 28, 2003
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As for no shooting = no hen Harriers, this is plainly not true. Hen harrier populations are very clearly statistically lower on keepered estates than non keepered estates. As I said before grouse shooting is in terms of the 8000 years of moorland management a very new introduction, there were hen harriers here before there were grouse shoots. The moorland management regime of selected burning to encourage new growth was introduced not for grouse but for grazing animals, grouse and hen harriers benefited incidentally.

Fair enough Robin, I dont think that I thought my arguement through here properly, but my question as to whether the moorland that is currently managed for shooting would be as actively managed in its absence, i.e. if grouse shooting were to be banned tommorrow, still stands, I dont believe a return to widespread hill farming would be economic with the financial pressures that are on farmers today and although charities such as the RSPB and the National Trust would undoubtedly take bits on they are charities and would not be able to manage it on the scale that it currently is.
 

nodd

Nomad
May 12, 2004
485
0
liverpool
The landscape of the British isles is a semi natural landscape(no natural landscape left), this will have to be continued to be managed to protect the biotopes,habitats and species that are found within it.
As always man is the big problem again, with his capacity to be able to cause the extinction of species through hunting or other actions. The predator prey relationship has been around for thousands of years it only becomes a problem when it conflicts with mans interests.I feel Some gamekeepers, feel they have to kill every predator, a culture that has been developed through hundreds of years of tradition.
 

Manacles

Settler
Jan 27, 2011
596
0
No longer active on BCUK
Interesting thread, having worked (in my youth) with game keeping and more recently with a wildlife trust I can see both sides of the argument. As far as this particular trapping incident goes, I've no sympathy whatsoever for the keeper (assuming the media reporting has been accurate) as it certainly appears that his skills were not acceptable toeither the keeping fraternity or the laws of the land.

Picking up on the discussion regarding the landscape, I do feel that there has been a tendency over recent years to "over manage" the natural environment. A couple of nature reserves I have had dealings with are excessively restored and manicured almost to the extent of damaging the very reason for their existence. Somewhere in all this is a sensible middle ground which would benefit everyone, farmers, keepers and naturalists. Currently there are so many different nature and country groups most with divergent views, and this seems to have resulted in a lack of uniformity in the landscape............
 

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