Killing Wildlife

It's probably best to contact Natural England to check. What a nightmare - I'd be incensed if a neighbour of mine was doing this.

Yep, + 1.

I suspect it's illegal, this should help.

http://www.ruralsports.co.uk/c...all-into-garden.html

Jason.

It's certainly not illegal to shoot squirrels (as long as they're the grey variety); they're regarded as vermin. We're plagued with the things here, not good news if you've got a thatched roof! However I could never kill them. I've a couple of traps & when I manage to catch the little blighters I take them a few miles up the road & release them in some woodland.  Letting them go is against the law too - DEFRA recommends running them into a sack & bashing them with a shovel!

Presumably that would be the same DEFRA that insisted on pressing ahead with the programme to shoot badgers, despite evidence suggesting the objective would not be achieved, and which actually achieved a very much smaller number of kills than the department said was necessary?    

"Not good news if you've got a thatched roof" 

Oh the nuisance of nature. Tony, do the Squirrals actually eat your thatch or are they doing something else to it, like living in it?

Jason.

Like the Rat and the Fox, the Grey Squirrel is described in Law as vermin ...

As far as shooting birds is concerned it is illegal to shoot them.  They should be reported to the RSPB.

SteveT

The Law is an Ass.

No! The Law reflects an unsentimental view that these species are menaces ...

Okay! I understand that a rat and the squirrel is a menace, but why so Mr Fox, they don't eat Thatch?

Jason.

Charlie Fox is a huge problem for agricultural production, but that would not be obvious to many urban dwellers, who have even been known to feed them!

Such an action would never be enacted by someone who had seen the damage the Fox can do. Vermin they certainly are. And correctly classified in Law.

ATB from George

The little darlings like to sneak into the loft where they can pull out the reeds and make a nice big nest (a dray, the squirrels call it). To amuse themselves they like nothing better than to nibble on the tasty electric lighting cables.

A few years back the blighters managed to climb up one of the side walls of our house and got into the space between the floor boards of the 1st and 2 floor. For weeks we lost endless hours of sleep as they ran around at night with what sounded like size 14 Doc Martins on. Had to get Pest Controll in to poison them. Job done but at quite a cost,as it meant carpet and floorboards all had to come up.

Mista H

Think Magpies are fair game as well. They are at times problematic here, helping themselves to hens eggs. Not so bad as the foxes which have "culled" a few of my hens and broke the neck of my best rooster. Also lost a hen to a badger. The joys of country life.

Willy.

To put this into perspective, I live in Brisbane Australia. You have magpies, squirrels and badgers.  We have Koalas, magpies, possums and fruit bats (flying mammals with fox like faces).  

How many of you would support taking out the Koala as a species.  Evil little beasts are they not, they sleep and eat gum leaves and Japanese tourists love to hold them.  Sometimes they even make a noise, god forbid.  Don't worry, they will all be dead soon in South East Queensland at the current rate of development and habitation destruction.  Fruit bats, well they have a digestive tract don't they.  They eat fruit, little b@st@rds, and about 3 % carry a disease that can be transmitted to people via horses. Now its easy enough to vaccinate horses, cos there aren't many of them, but Queensland's government would prefer to wipe out the bat near people ( who are everywhere) .  The fruit bat is only perceived as being a menace because of, you guessed it, development.  Walking home from work in the evening I avoid low trees because bats sort of plummet before they fly off While trying to avoid me. It's not hard, it just needs a little awareness.

Like it or not we are part of an ecosystem, we don't live apart from it.  We started using the term ecosystem services a while back, it's what nature provides us free of charge, bees to pollinate, various species to eat bugs and provide balance so that our human ecosystem can function. If we had to manage everything it would be like living on a Mars, kind of hostile, kind of expensive and kind of vulnerable.

Now I'm not being an animal rights nutter, I can see how problematic it is when people in my neighbourhood feed the magpies, I walk past 20 birds on a summer afternoon on one front lawn.  Killing every last bird is just as stupid and probably more detrimental to our health.  

Shooting animals is just as likely to injure an innocent by stander, far better to think of your back yard as an ecosystem that we share with wildlife.  We need them, there are more than enough of us. Nature doesn't stop existing just because you have new paving and pristine duco on your 2014 Golf. If it's you vege patch that you are concerned about, look up monoculture ( also know as a banquet table to the worlds critters).

For a smart species we are really really dumb.

If left to operate autonomously, fish and wildlife biologists would likely affect different outcomes to the management of many species than we currently see in practice. However, politics plays the predominant role in species management decisions, at least in my experience in the US. Economics are the primary driver, and so an economic importance for a species of concern must be established. Sentiment and moral high ground are usually of little importance in the large scheme. Provide an economic justification for protecting a species and politicians will listen. On the other hand, provide evidence for the species as an economic detriment, or if a species has no apparent economic value, then the game is off. Or, perhaps more accurately, then the game is game.

We have a neighbour who poisons cats with anti freeze ( apparently cats love the taste ) bad death. makes them blind and kills there kidneys, usually dead within 24 hours,,  the only thing a vet can do if you notice the cat is "drunk " is to intraveniasly  introduce straight alcohol to stop the anti freeze crystals forming in the cats organs....strange the vet says it doesn't affect dogs in the same way.....so as a word of caution if you are topping your car anti freeze up or you notice a coolant leak, clean and sort the leak before it poisons a cat....we've lost 3 cats over the past 2 years...we've . decided not to keep any more as its also cruel on my behalf as I know there's a danger, WISH I KNEW WHO IT WAS ....I've posted A4 notices through all the house letter boxes on our estate to warn anyone who may be unwittingly storing antifreeze in a out building, and to educate all of the dangers, but to no avail

Did they ever wipe out the large colony of fruit bats in Melbourne Royal Botanic Gardens? OK, they made a bit of a mess but then many animals do. Not as much as humans of course.

A little irony here?

Magpies feed off eggs of any/all other birds & if hens leave them lying around they get eaten too,  then add any/all bird nestlings & fledglings, road kill & anything else lying around dead anywhere, including you if you were brownbread - its what magpies do, its the way they were designed.   Same for all the crow family crows, rooks, jackdaws etc.  Then you can add add all the varieties of eagles, buzzards & kites & in hard conditions all the other raptors & all the meat eating birds - wanna go kill those bad guys as well. 

Thoughtful post, Briz.  I would have thought most people would show serious respect to the wildlife you get in Aus, given some of it can kill you.  I know I would.  

Here in the benign environment of the UK I get quite a bit of wildlife in the garden, particularly foxes.  They nick the dog's toys, spray in places, dig etc etc and are a bit of pest but I take the view that they've got as much right to live their lives as I have so I do nothing to discourage them.  Occasionally we'll see cubs playing in the garden which is a delight.  

I don't understand why some people are so intolerant of wildlife if it doesn't pose a danger to them.  tnd 

I personally think most politicians are vermin.  Unfortunately for all you shotgun owners out there, it's not in the law.

I think immoral and sociopathic money worshippers describes politicians very well!

Very interesting post 2907. our rescue cat eats for England.

Thanks for the warning.

Mista H