FriendBurst Blog

Source

February 2011. A charity called Songbird Survival (SS) has launched an appeal for £88,000 that will ‘examine the impact of corvid removal on farmland songbird productivity.’
In other words, they apparently want to kill as many corvids as possible in the hope that this will boost songbird numbers.

SS claim that a healthy increase in corvid numbers in the last 40 years may be responsible for the drop in farmland songbird numbers. No matter that these corvids are native species that were heavily prosecuted by gamekeepers until WWII. Once that prosecution eased, their numbers started to grow again, and so the stats show that they have increased in number in the last 40 years. Native species will find their natural balance naturally given the chance; the clue is in the wording.

How is this wildlife conservation?
It must be noted that this disgusting research project (On a par with Japanese ‘research into whale populations’.) will be carried out by the ‘Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust’ who seem to be following the American model, where ‘Wildlife Service’ seems to mean that they encourage as much killing of wildlife as possible. There is a clue in the ‘research flyer’ put out by SS that states ‘predation has already been proved to have a serious effect on upland ground nesting birds’, or grouse as many of us would call them.

£88,000 waste – Then what?
In these austere times, it beggars belief that a so called conservation charity is happy to spend this amount of money on such a project. And why is SS asking the public to provide this cash? It has roughly that amount in savings according to its last published results, and a quick look at SS trustees (see below) suggests that they are not scratching around for a few bob themselves.

And what if, disgracefully, SS does manage to raise the money and show that by removing corvids, songbird numbers increase? Are they then going to ask for millions to eradicate corvids? Where does this research lead whatever the conclusion that it comes to? Is there no better use in this world for £88,000 than to kill a few magpies? And once the crows have been killed, how long before they will come back? Will SS find money every year to keep the ravens away? What a ridiculous and frightening waste – They should have their charitable status withdrawn.

Butterfly Conservation
If you follow the same logic, British butterfly numbers have dropped markedly in the last 50 years, we should be culling all those nasty songbirds that eat the poor little caterpillars.

Corvid Survival
Let’s start a new conservation charity, called Corvid Survival. We can use the same figures to show that as songbird numbers decline, corvid numbers increase, so we shall distribute free cats to everyone in Britain in the hope that they stamp on the menace that is songbirds – It would save butterflies too.

Read more about the SS links to the shooting industry here

****************

I found this petition on Wildlife Village website

PETITION TO STOP THE CULL OF CROWS