Wildlife

johnalison

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Shoot the lot of them. Anything that flies.

I spent the best part of an hour cleaning their residues off my coachroof and deck yesterday and some of the stains remain. Probably starlings, and we haven't even got to the pigeon season with blackberries yet.
 

Tomahawk

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Agree..

Either that or be able to charge the bird lovers for cleaning the crap left over from their everso precious and vitally important hobby ... for that is what it is; a hobby. Other hobbies are available such as football, opera, literature, fine arts, amateur dramatics and even sailing.. For the most part individual hobbies do not impose on other people.. but when it comes to bug hugging and birding .. everyone has to cow tow to the great god of all things enviro..
 

johnalison

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Agree..

Either that or be able to charge the bird lovers for cleaning the crap left over from their everso precious and vitally important hobby ... for that is what it is; a hobby. Other hobbies are available such as football, opera, literature, fine arts, amateur dramatics and even sailing.. For the most part individual hobbies do not impose on other people.. but when it comes to bug hugging and birding .. everyone has to cow tow to the great god of all things enviro..
I have never tried towing a cow, but it could be interesting.

For all that I dislike cleaning my decks, bird life and all wildlife is incredibly important to us as individuals. The metropolitan crowd don't see and only think of it in terms of cuddly animals being eaten on telly. Birds form part of a system and are important indicators of the system's health. The effect of DDT on peregrines was a striking example of what can go wrong. The crash in most UK species, from insects upwards is not only affecting the way the countryside looks but in turn will affect our food supplies.

True, there are hobbyists whose interest is fairly superficial, but there are many thousands of professionals and academics who are concerned about the future. When your great-etc- grandchildren are reduced to eating reconstituted worms and factory-grown bacteria plant substitutes, they will have us to thank for it.
 

Tomahawk

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I refer my honerable friend to the various graphics that show population growth across the planet.

World population has trebbled in my life.. and the rate of growth is accelerating in kaces like Africa and Asia. If people want to see where the eco systems are being destroyed, they need to look elsewhere to the Uk.
 

johnalison

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I refer my honerable friend to the various graphics that show population growth across the planet.

World population has trebbled in my life.. and the rate of growth is accelerating in kaces like Africa and Asia. If people want to see where the eco systems are being destroyed, they need to look elsewhere to the Uk.
World population is a complex matter. The late Hans Rosling has a good explanation. However, the rest of the world is our responsibility too, through various agencies, but this doesn't disguise the disastrous state of Britain and much of Europe, or its importance in the grand scheme of things. In spite of our small size, we hold important sectors of many species and we can hardly preach to others if we don't put our own house in order.
 

Marmalade

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I am a total bird hypocrite - I love watching them and hate the thought of species disappearing - until I arrive at the boat and see their crap all over it. Have tried many approaches to dissuade them but none has worked so far...
 

Tomahawk

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World population is a complex matter. The late Hans Rosling has a good explanation. However, the rest of the world is our responsibility too, through various agencies, but this doesn't disguise the disastrous state of Britain and much of Europe, or its importance in the grand scheme of things. In spite of our small size, we hold important sectors of many species and we can hardly preach to others if we don't put our own house in order.

When you say..."important", what exactly is important?

.Why is a species important and in shat way is it "important"? This is a very fundamental question because when one watches enough wildlife programs one comes to understand that life always finds a way to inhabit any and every slight difference or niche in the physial environment. Think of the crustaceans living on the oceanic floor hydrothermal vents. Or the bacteria happily growing inside the remains of the Chernoble nuclear reactor. On which subject, here is an ofd thought. Should the actor clean up be halted because there are "important" ecosystems living in the radioactive remains? If a species can be said to be "important, then surely any life that has evolved to live in a radioactive environment is the most "important" species on the planet as it heralds a way to cope with the potenal aftermath of a nuclear war?

Of course I am jesting a bit. But it illustrates the underlying question . If a species is said, (by people, whose hobby is looking at species), simply because it has evolved to exploit a small niche in the environment, does that actually leave any space for a species that can only survive inniits present numbers by removing all other species?

There was a time when humans lived in and as part of the ecosystems. But that changed some 10,000 years ago when we gave up being hunter gatherers and adopted managed agriculture.
 

johnalison

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After working my way through the depredations of your spell-corrector, I would say that we don't actually know what species matter to the environment as so many have been found to affect it in unpredictable ways. Beavers are, of course, an obvious example. I don't adopt a 'spiritual' view that we and nature are somehow united but only that biological systems are complex to the point that we will never fully understand them. It may well be that Chernobyl will turn out to be a useful haven, but since we have little choice except to leave it alone, that is for the future. Removing what little is left of our salt marsh is a different matter, and one that we are in a position of dealing with.
 

Dan Tribe

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Shoot the lot of them. Anything that flies.

I spent the best part of an hour cleaning their residues off my coachroof and deck yesterday and some of the stains remain. Probably starlings, and we haven't even got to the pigeon season with blackberries yet.
I don't often find Jeremy Clarkson amusing, but on one occasion he was praising the efforts of the Royal Society for the PREVENTION of Birds. When his co-presenters pointed out that it was PROTECTION of birds, he couldn't see the point of that.
 

Tomahawk

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After working my way through the depredations of your spell-corrector, I would say that we don't actually know what species matter to the environment as so many have been found to affect it in unpredictable ways. Beavers are, of course, an obvious example. I don't adopt a 'spiritual' view that we and nature are somehow united but only that biological systems are complex to the point that we will never fully understand them. It may well be that Chernobyl will turn out to be a useful haven, but since we have little choice except to leave it alone, that is for the future. Removing what little is left of our salt marsh is a different matter, and one that we are in a position of dealing with.


Our salt marshes are being destroyed by the Environment Agencies flood defences on behalf of various hobby groups like the RSPB and English Nature.
The sea defences stop the salt marsh from moving with the changing seasons and climate. In particular rising sea levels. In places like the Colne Estuary, they cannot migrate inland because of the sea defence. What was once a huge area of salt marsh is now reduced to a postage stamp.

The real problem stems from the discovery by bug huggers that the borrow ditch used to build flood defences have changed from salt water to fresh water and been colonised by fresh water dwelling species. So instantly they discover something like a newt or dragon fly the whole area is designated as an SSSI and hence forth cannot be altered in any way... The the that the land behind the sea defence is unnatural and entirely artificial is ignored..

So the EA have to defend a sea wall that protects an artificial environment whilst the sea wall destroys a natural one.. Pretty clever all told..
 

johnalison

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Aquaboy

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Surely species evolve or die out as the world changes. This has been going on since the beginning of time. I've never seen a Dodo, so what?
If the glaciers melt (which I'm pretty sure has happened before) we'll evolve and adapt or our numbers will be reduced.
Is that such a bad thing in the grand scheme of things.
Maybe this is what covid is about, getting rid of us............
I think its something like 99% of species that have lived on Earth are now extinct. I don't think we are going to change that somehow.
86% of the worlds current species are not really fully known and its thought only about 10% of sea life is discovered.

PS Plastic owls don't work.
 

johnalison

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Surely species evolve or die out as the world changes. This has been going on since the beginning of time. I've never seen a Dodo, so what?
If the glaciers melt (which I'm pretty sure has happened before) we'll evolve and adapt or our numbers will be reduced.
Is that such a bad thing in the grand scheme of things.
Maybe this is what covid is about, getting rid of us............
I think its something like 99% of species that have lived on Earth are now extinct. I don't think we are going to change that somehow.
86% of the worlds current species are not really fully known and its thought only about 10% of sea life is discovered.

PS Plastic owls don't work.
The difference between the natural order of things and the current situation is that for most of the time each species that dies out is replaced by another. A mass extinction results in a radically different world. The dinosaurs didn't enjoy the last one much, and a depleted world with no large mammals other than camels and yaks and little more than jellyfish and squid to reap from the sea won't be much fun for our grandchildren either. They will have little to occupy themselves with other than moaning on social media and laughing at old films of our generation flying around the world and apparently enjoying ourselves.
 

Mei Mac

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My local boatyard has built a new fancy shed and in order to keep nesting birds away they've installed a speaker that emits a squawking and chattering sound every 45 minutes or so. It isn't the nicest of sounds but it beats a barrage of seagulls etc, it also work a treat since, so far, no birds have taken a fancy to nesting there.
 
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