Wildlife poisoning epidemic??

Birdnuts

Sickening as the situation is in Kerry with the sea-eagles, it now appears the reckless throwing of poison bait around around the countryside appears to be a growing trend in all parts of the country with the news of at least 8 buzzard deaths in the NE of the country in recent months. Reading the following article it appears the law in this area is truly an ass!!:mad

www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/0506/1224245993542.html

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

Ahh, they were including part of county Dublin! Anyway

This is not a growing trend. There has always been this level of poison laying. Buzzards, as they re-establish themselves, are falling foul to it more and more. Doesn't make it any better I know but nothing is gained by losing sight of reality.

The poisoning is not anything to do with loopholes. It is blatent disregard for the law, as there are clear rules which must be followed when the laying of poison is taking place and these are not being followed. In fairness though it does not seem that the Buzzards were generally the target of the poisonings. It is difficult to enforce the existing laws as it is because the culprit is sometimes never identified or not with enough evidence to allow court proceedings. We already have the laws but we need to be able to enforce them. Quite often (in the case of Buzzard poisionings I have come across anyway) local landowners seem genuinely upset to hear of their accidental deaths when poisoning for Hooded Crows etc. In my experience poisoning usually stops once people are made aware of the affects of their actions.

Birdnuts

I take your point but there does seem to have been an upsurge in incidents recently including the news that 5 ravens were found poisoned in Sligo at the end of last month. The law here really needs to be changed, there can be no justification for leaving out uncovered poison bait in any circumstances, its a totally indisriminate way of going about the problem, which studies have shown around the world that the serious negative impact on non-target species far outways any other percieved benefits. Especcially when rare or protected species are put at risk. As regards farmers having problems with grey crows etc, your local gun-club is only too willing to deal with this problem problem in a clean, effective and targetted way:)


PS - You seem to have some local knowledge of buzzards in the meath area, do u consider their population is now at a level where it can sustain the current level of losses from this source as highlighted in the IT artical?:)

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

Birdnuts wrote: »

You seem to have some local knowledge of buzzards in the meath area, do u consider their population is now at a level where it can sustain the current level of losses from this source as highlighted in the IT artical?:)

More Louth than Meath but yes. They can certainly cope with that level of loss at present. They are spreading well over the past 10 years thank goodness.