The airwaves are busy with criticism of last night’s episode of Countryfile, which featured a few pieces on evil birds of prey, especially buzzards and peregrines.
It’s too tedious to reproduce all the arguments here – we’ve heard it all before, although the SGA chairman Alex Hogg’s apparent inability to count was quite amusing. In a voiceover we were told that Alex was due to release 700 pheasant poults into his woodland pens (prior to letting them loose into the wider countryside so they can be shot dead). The interviewer (Tom Heap) then asked Alex if he had any idea how many poults he might be losing to buzzards. Alex’s response: “We’re probably losing, getting on for over a thousand pheasants in a year to buzzards“. Hmm.
At least the RSPB’s Duncan Orr-Ewing was able to provide some balanced and constructive discussion, but it was disappointing that the producers failed to include any meaningful discussion on the persecution issue. Tom Heap took to his Twitter account after the programme and offered this:
“Am intrigued…many accusing #countryfile of buzzard bias. Why? Real country issue, meticulous balance. Proud of our work“.
For anyone who missed it, the episode can be seen on BBC iPlayer for the next seven days (here).
Raptor Persecution UK 
Some pigeon keepers seem to be very unlucky. I live in the Scottish Highlands, my Pigeons havs an open loft – they come and go as they please – there is a Peregrin nest within a mile, we have Buzzards, Sparrowhawks, Eagles and many other predators yet I have lost only 2 Pigeons this year! Overall I thought Tom Heap was fairly neutral in his reports.
Birds of Prey need continued protection, they, together with prey birds, including song birds, have co-exsisted since the beginning of time. Once we allow any group to be able to ‘control’ them, they will end up going the same way as the Hen Harrier in England!
maybe we have more in the city then, I Have a loft in Preston Lancashire and we are getting hit daily now, we are 37 pigeons adrift.
37 is certainly a large number. The most I have lost in one year was 5 in 2011, before that I had only lost a couple in the previous 3 years. Being ‘open hole’ maybe mine are more street ‘sky’ wise, also being more in the country maybe ‘natural’ prey is more abundent. I also stress that my loses mentioned are from around the loft, not from racing which I now do very little.
And there couldn’t be anything other than Peregrines to account for your losses?
Yes the sparrowhawk, but people just refuse to believe it happens.
So, of your 37 lost birds how many would you say were victims of Peregrines and how many do you think were killed by Sparrowhawks?
Thanks for the link to iPlayer, it was great to hear The Peatbog Faeries playing in the background. Shame they used Croftwork as Faery Stories may have been more appropriate to Alex Hogg’s comments!
Just watched on I player, a fair and balanced debate in my opinion. A couple of points I think are appropriate to add. Buzzards do have natural predators that can have a direct impact on their densities.
Golden Eagles observed to predate Buzzard (Fielding et. Al., 2003)
Goshawks (Kruger, 2002)
Eagle Owls (Sergio et al., 2005)
Pine Marten
Unfortunately these predators have already been reduced to rarity status so their impact is limited. Perhaps Richard Benyon “our wildlife champion” and DEFRA could use funding to re introduce these species into areas where they once existed, this is probably the fairest and most natural way of reducing Buzzard numbers, with Squirrel, Corvid, Rabbit and Woodpigeon featuring highly on the prey lists of these predators too its surely a win-win situation for everyone.
The SGA has issued a statement to clarify the ‘numbers not adding up’ issue:
http://www.scottishgamekeepers.co.uk/content/bbc-countryfile-clarification-over-numbers
A cracking commentary on the SGA’s numbers clarification on Alan Tilmouth’s blog: http://dustybins.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/numbers-game.html
One of Alex Hogg’s “great passions”, he describes in one of his blogs, is to kill foxes at their dens (http://www.scottishgamekeepers.co.uk/content/3rd-may). This includes killing the vixen fox before deliberately setting his terriers on her fox cubs underground and allowing his dogs to kill the cubs. One can only imagine what these young foxes go through as they are butchered by Alex’s dogs. This type of slaughter continues to be legal in Scotland and is just another method used by gamekeeper’s to kill more wildlife in our countryside. Is it just me, when I hear somebody describe killing wild animals as a “great passion” of theirs, that I become disturbed by this?
According to Alex Hogg on the recent Countryfile programme, over one thousand pheasant are killed by buzzards on his estate every year. Of course, no one can prove what he says is correct. However, what is an actual fact is that millions of non-native birds are artificially raised on farms and released into the UK countryside every year to be shot for pure entertainment. Putting aside the moral issue as to whether it is right, in a civilised society, to allow people to kill living sentient animals for pleasure, not forgetting also the serious impact on the environment that may occur when thousands of non-native bird species are suddenly released into woodlands and the countryside, we must also ask ourselves is it really OK to kill wild animals, in their thousands annually, for the sake of this recreation of killing for self gratification?
As it stands now, thousands of wild animals in the UK are snared in wire nooses (OneKind continues to uncover the cruelty and suffering of those animals that get trapped in these crude and indiscriminate devises). Thousands of wild animals are also crushed to death in spring traps that litter our countryside in there thousands, wild birds are trapped in cages and then shot or clubbed to death and wild birds are trapped and forced to live in cages as a decoy to attract more wild birds to the cage to be killed. Wild birds, such as crows and rooks, are also shot in their thousands, including the blasting and destruction of nests. Not satisfied with the legal persecution of wildlife some people become criminals and kill protected species. Raptors are targeted and slaughtered, some estimate in their many hundreds, across the UK. The killing of these protected and often endangered birds goes on far away from public view and so the accidental discovery of dead raptors, almost exclusively found on shooting estates, can be considered as the tip of the iceberg with many more buried or taken away and disposed of. These highly protected bird species are shot, poisoned and trapped and sometimes as a consequence their chicks also suffer and starve to death. May be this can be a topic for Countryfile in the future?