Are protected wildlife a threat to your livestock?

[Scottishfarmer]

I just want to know your thoughts on: If farmers should be allowed to shoot protected wildlife that are killing or are a threat to livestock?
I've had some of my hens and a duck taken away by buzzards that were free range. I have had to move them to a protected run, but the buzzards are still lingering around. My partner's dad, in his first year of being a farm manager, lambed outside but he had day old lambs getting killed by badgers. Since then he's had to move lambing inside. I just want to know what kind of procedures are you doing to stop protected wildlife taking your stock? And if there's another way to stop them than possibly shooting them (which is obviously not allowed)?

 

[Davy_g]

Are you a journalist?

 

[Forkdriver]

What you want to do is against the law.
I believe you should be aware of the 11th Commandment.

 

[Scottishfarmer]

Are you a journalist?

No

 

[Jackov Altraids]

In answer to the question in the first sentence, Yes.
I say that as someone who does not like shooting.
I say yes, where it is a farmer which is having livestock killed or at a real and present danger of being killed.

Because there is currently a one sided fixation on apex species which is nonsensical. Their natural presence is a fine indicator of a healthy ecosystem whereas their artificial presence and protection actually puts a huge strain on the whole ecosystem to the point of potential collapse. And to me, badgers and birds of prey attacking livestock in close proximity to humans could well be a clear indicator that the local ecosystem is no longer capable of sustaining the current population of apex predators.

 

[BAF]

As a nation we have too many protected predators. BOP suffered in the past by trapping and as a side effect of pesticides. Badgers were protected as knee week reaction to something that was already illegal. People with no understanding of the countryside and predator/prey relationships now have the say in what we do. Take fox hunting for example. As a method of fox control its minimally effective. They just don't kill that many. It can be pin point effective especially if carried out in conjunction with terrier work but on the whole they just run a few foxes about for a bit and don't really kill that many.
In my opinion if predators are seen the their population is too large. I don't want to see rhe extinction of anything but regulation is definitely necessary especially in the British Isles. Tomorrow evening I'll be sitting out for a fox I have seen in my pregnant ewes this evening.

 

[Dry Rot]

All things in moderation. The trouble is control can get out of hand so that the only good predator is seen as a dead one. In Europe they seem to manage with a licensing system so there is a balance between protection and hunting. In this country we have stuck with paranoia and total protection in the face of common sense.

A few years ago a young girl came from Sweden to work in my kennel and, hopefully, learn something. After a few months she said she wanted to go home. I thought maybe I had done something or said something to upset her. Not at all! She just wanted to get home for the opening of the badger hunting season!

Just a word about hunts. I realise that it depends where you are in the country but the hunts of my youth (at least six within cycle range of my home) had a selection of followers who knew exactly which earths would be occupied and were experts on foxes. If a farmer was experiencing problems, a few old hounds would be drafted by the terrierman and that fox would be humanely dealt with.

 

[steveR]

As a nation we have too many protected predators. BOP suffered in the past by trapping and as a side effect of pesticides. Badgers were protected as knee week reaction to something that was already illegal. People with no understanding of the countryside and predator/prey relationships now have the say in what we do. Take fox hunting for example. As a method of fox control its minimally effective. They just don't kill that many. It can be pin point effective especially if carried out in conjunction with terrier work but on the whole they just run a few foxes about for a bit and don't really kill that many.
In my opinion if predators are seen the their population is too large. I don't want to see rhe extinction of anything but regulation is definitely necessary especially in the British Isles. Tomorrow evening I'll be sitting out for a fox I have seen in my pregnant ewes this evening.

Good Luck. Got one here and going to set Daughter on it... Trouble is, she is wanting night sights of some flavour.

 

[bluebell]

Up to about the 1970s ( when there was far far more people either farming, growing, small holders, or had been connected with farming? Anything that "threatened" attacked or was a direct treat to either the crops you were growing or your livestock, was "fair game" now today, with far more people living in the countryside with no direct connection or having to try to make a living all thats changed, many if not all ,see the countryside as a "nice place" to live, where everything gets on and man betternot interfeer? The only time i think this might change, is ever home grown food, becomes very valuable and important again, as in ww2 and the years immediatly after, then all this badger, wild rewilding nonsense will be shouted/ screamed out?

 

[BAF]

Good Luck. Got one here and going to set Daughter on it... Trouble is, she is wanting night sights of some flavour.

Treat her to a thermal spotter as well as a nv

 

[steveR]

Treat her to a thermal spotter as well as a nv

Paid for her to have a day at the Shrops Vets lambing course yesterday... more than generous I feel.

I have asked my Son if he could "liberate" a thermal scope from Work, maybe one from the American Cousins while they are all on exercise in Poland!! My .22 will take a weaver rail scope... and her 243 would to with an adapter.

 

[BAF]

A Pard add on would be quite a good thing. Just clips on and off so you can use it on both rifles. And they're not crazy money. Unless you want one with a laser range finder then you're around the £600 mark. But an original pard 007 add on is £2/300 or even less second hand. I had a Yukon Photon for years and years until it died. It was about 8 years old and was unrepairable because they classed it as obsolete! So I've got a sightmark Wraith as my main NV at the minute on the 243 and a pard on the 270. A thermal spotter is on the wish list!

 

[steveR]

I dod have a cheapie IR NV that uses a small screen. I bought it for rats, but need to see if I can modify it for the .22 as it seems to have a range of about 60-70m.

 

[BAF]

I dod have a cheapie IR NV that uses a small screen. I bought it for rats, but need to see if I can modify it for the .22 as it seems to have a range of about 60-70m.

Better ir illuminator should do the trick if the camera in the end of the tube is good enough.

 

[Frank-the-Wool]

I just want to know your thoughts on: If farmers should be allowed to shoot protected wildlife that are killing or are a threat to livestock?
I've had some of my hens and a duck taken away by buzzards that were free range. I have had to move them to a protected run, but the buzzards are still lingering around. My partner's dad, in his first year of being a farm manager, lambed outside but he had day old lambs getting killed by badgers. Since then he's had to move lambing inside. I just want to know what kind of procedures are you doing to stop protected wildlife taking your stock? And if there's another way to stop them than possibly shooting them (which is obviously not allowed)?

They are more of an issue now than ever before and not only our farmed livestock but I cannot understand how it is that the so called conservationists fail to see the link between the loss of some species and the uncontrolled predators.

I list a few:-

Badgers have eliminated all the ground nesting species and all the Hedgehogs. They also eat sheep alive if they get on their backs and will take lambs.
Ravens (Big Black Crows!) have increased massively and will attack ewes on their backs by drilling through their sides and take lambs tongues off when born. They take Fledgling birds.
Black Backed Gulls will kill lambs when they are born and will also eat Fledglings.
White Tailed Eagles are spreading over much larger areas and just take whole lambs. I guess they also eat plenty of other species as well.

Then we have the opportunist predators that are less of a risk to farm animals but will take Chickens in Free Range systems, Buzzards and Kites (Red and Black).
Pine Martens, Lynx and Wild Cats are all on the wish list of so called conservationists.

If Badgers were taken off the protected list then the numbers of other species would increase quickly and the Badger population would be healthier.

 

[Dry Rot]

Foxes will also eat sheep and lambs alive (as I witnessed many times when I w as controlling foxes), though I accept that in the soft south they probably don't do as much damage as in the Highland -- yet they are not protected. They don't look cute enough, obviously.

Where predators have few or no natural controls, man must control them. I do not understand why some consider that unreasonable.

 

[BAF]

They are more of an issue now than ever before and not only our farmed livestock but I cannot understand how it is that the so called conservationists fail to see the link between the loss of some species and the uncontrolled predators.

I list a few:-

Badgers have eliminated all the ground nesting species and all the Hedgehogs. They also eat sheep alive if they get on their backs and will take lambs.
Ravens (Big Black Crows!) have increased massively and will attack ewes on their backs by drilling through their sides and take lambs tongues off when born. They take Fledgling birds.
Black Backed Gulls will kill lambs when they are born and will also eat Fledglings.
White Tailed Eagles are spreading over much larger areas and just take whole lambs. I guess they also eat plenty of other species as well.

Then we have the opportunist predators that are less of a risk to farm animals but will take Chickens in Free Range systems, Buzzards and Kites (Red and Black).
Pine Martens, Lynx and Wild Cats are all on the wish list of so called conservationists.

If Badgers were taken off the protected list then the numbers of other species would increase quickly and the Badger population would be healthier.

We are in a cull zone and there has been a huge resurgence in ground nesting birds and hedgehogs over the last 4 years. I wonder why that could be I havent got an ology and only spend a lot of my life sneaking around the countryside at night time...day time as well, so I'm clearly not qualified to comment in the eyes of the do gooders

 

[Farmer Roy]

In Australia ?

nah, hardly an issue
ALL native fauna here is protected by law, but our main problems are from introduced species, which we are obliged to control anyway

 

[Wooly]

Unfortunately the rules on protecting pests are made by city dwellers with degrees, that have no understanding of the Countryside.

Protecting badger numbers in the 80's was acceptable; it's certainly not now.

 

[Compassioninfarming]

In answer to the question in the first sentence, Yes.
I say that as someone who does not like shooting.
I say yes, where it is a farmer which is having livestock killed or at a real and present danger of being killed.

Because there is currently a one sided fixation on apex species which is nonsensical. Their natural presence is a fine indicator of a healthy ecosystem whereas their artificial presence and protection actually puts a huge strain on the whole ecosystem to the point of potential collapse. And to me, badgers and birds of prey attacking livestock in close proximity to humans could well be a clear indicator that the local ecosystem is no longer capable of sustaining the current population of apex predators.

"Artificial presence".. you say. Badgers are our native wildlife. There's nothing artificial about their presence, been here as long as humans.
Except humans have built on the majority of our wild spaces or of course for farming animals for food.
If anything is causing ecosystem imbalance it's humans. I think it's important to admit that.
We have a situation globally where
96% of all mammals in the world are humans and the animals they farm for food, included in this is 1% pets.
Only 4% are wild animals!
This is from a huge peer reviewed study, in 2018. Widely respected and sited measured in biomass.

Felt it's important to note this if you are going to talk like an ecologist, you got to include the whole picture.
We could soon have a situation where we no longer have that 4% of wildlife, unless we learn to co-exist with our native wildlife.