Gluing birds to trees

[Bird on a Fire]

has been confirmed to be illegal in France:

European judges have ordered France to outlaw the hunting of songbirds using glue sticks, a practice described by campaigners as barbaric and a threat to endangered species.

French hunters argued the method was traditional and justified exemption from an EU ban introduced in 1979.

Until recently, the French government had successfully sought an opt-out that allowed glue hunting in five departments in south-east France on the grounds that it was “controlled, selective and in limited quantities”.
Slaughter of the songbirds: the fight against France's 'barbaric' glue traps
Read more

On Wednesday, the European court of justice ruled the practice was not selective and contravened EU rules. The ECJ called on France to ban glue-stick hunting of birds definitively.

Like the UK, France has a very politically powerful hunting lobby. Obviously gluing birds to trees for hours/days as a recreational activity is unacceptable in a civilised society, but they'd probably have been allowed to keep doing it indefinitely without international law.

Now if they can just stop pumping lead all over the countryside and stop killing large numbers of endangered species we'll be sitting pretty.

[Grumble]

Now if they can just stop pumping lead all over the countryside and stop killing large numbers of endangered species we'll be sitting pretty.

Need to go and shoot them quickly before they run out!

Sadly this is actually how some people in China think about eating endangered species, so I’ve heard.

[dyqik]

Now if they can just stop pumping lead all over the countryside and stop killing large numbers of endangered species we'll be sitting pretty.

Need to go and shoot them quickly before they run out!

Sadly this is actually how some people in China think about eating endangered species, so I’ve heard.

The last passenger pigeon called, via ouija board.

[Bird on a Fire]

Now if they can just stop pumping lead all over the countryside and stop killing large numbers of endangered species we'll be sitting pretty.

Need to go and shoot them quickly before they run out!

Sadly this is actually how some people in China think about eating endangered species, so I’ve heard.

It's happening with Bluefin Tuna as well, with 'investors' like Mitsubishi buying the biggest fish as the population dwindles to extinction https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-c ... 95479.html

Japan still likes to exceed quotas https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/ ... hing-quota plus killing whales of course.

[Woodchopper]

Reminds me of this by a renowned crook:

In his previous inauguration, Nixon had noticed that there were a large number of birds in the trees, and didn’t like the thought of being pooped on as he drove down the National Mall in Washington DC in an open-top limo. Nixon ordered that the pigeons were to be removed – and so the US government spent some $13,000 on a pest spray, Roost-No-More, to get rid of the offending birds.

Roost-No-More’s active ingredient at the time was polybutene. This is a long chain of butylene – two carbons in a double bond, linked to two more carbons – an alkene that has a range of applications. It can be used as a plasticiser, an additive in grease, or as a sealant and adhesive. This adhesive property is why it was used: it forms a non-drying, sticky surface which isn’t fun for birds to land on, causing them to leave. It’s the avian equivalent of getting chewing gum on your shoe.

Polybutene is pretty safe. It can irritate the eyes but isn’t known to irritate the skin, and the risk to humans is generally considered low. In fact, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) even go as far as to say that polybutene ‘is practically nontoxic to birds on an acute oral and a subacute dietary basis’. Unfortunately, as the EPA’s report continues, ‘Birds whose feathers contact the sticky material may become temporarily entrapped, or their feathers may become coated with gel. When such incidents occur they can be fatal, but usually involve only one or several birds at a time.’ But then $13,000 worth of polybutene isn’t usually sprayed at the same time.

All of this meant that while Tricky Dicky was able to neatly avoid any avian scatological mishaps on his big day, he did have the ignominious fate of his motorcade rolling past the corpses of around a dozen birds that had cooed their last. It was an ill omen for the commander-in-chief pigeon murderer – within a year the Watergate scandal had cost him the presidency, and left him as a watchword for political abuses of power.

https://www.chemistryworld.com/podcasts ... 58.article

[plodder]

It's bad in the UK as well. I think I read that the biomass of captive pheasants is greater than the rest of the native wildlife combined.

[Fishnut]

It's bad in the UK as well. I think I read that the biomass of captive pheasants is greater than the rest of the native wildlife combined.

According to the RSPB [PDF] following their Gamebird review,

Between 2004-16 the number of gamebirds released across the UK has increased as follows: pheasants, 35 to 47 million; red-legged partridges, 6.3 million to 10 million. This is the equivalent of twice the biomass of all of our other native breeding birds combined!

They've taken the unprecedented move of calling for government regulation in the gamebird industry following their conclusion that self-regulation isn't working. It's putting adders at risk of extinction in the UK as well as many other species and habitats.

[Woodchopper]

It's bad in the UK as well. I think I read that the biomass of captive pheasants is greater than the rest of the native wildlife combined.

Google brings me this: https://link.springer.com/article/10.10 ... 21-02458-y

Not quite as big. But still wow.

[bolo]

Is this because "native breeding birds" is a narrower category than I imagine?

I have seen more pigeons in one afternoon in London than I have seen pheasants and partridges in all my life put together. Are my perceptions too city-centric or do ordinary birds like pigeons and sparrows not count for some reason?

[Fishnut]

I think it may be your perception. We regularly hear and see pheasants around here and I don't know that there's any shoots nearby (and if they are they aren't big ones) so goodness knows what it's like where there are.

It's bad in the UK as well. I think I read that the biomass of captive pheasants is greater than the rest of the native wildlife combined.

Google brings me this: https://link.springer.com/article/10.10 ... 21-02458-y

Not quite as big. But still wow.

That's a really interesting paper. Good find!

[Bird on a Fire]

I think it may be your perception. We regularly hear and see pheasants around here and I don't know that there's any shoots nearby (and if they are they aren't big ones) so goodness knows what it's like where there are.

It's bad in the UK as well. I think I read that the biomass of captive pheasants is greater than the rest of the native wildlife combined.

Google brings me this: https://link.springer.com/article/10.10 ... 21-02458-y

Not quite as big. But still wow.

That's a really interesting paper. Good find!

Yes, as the paper says, the number of game birds bred and released is enormous. This happens exclusively in the countryside, so unless you're walking around arable farmland you won't see many pheasants. They also tend to hide, rather than scurry around people's feet, for obvious reasons.

Nobody actually knows how many game birds are actually released because the industry isn't obliged to record or report numbers, even around protected areas, and views attempts to make them do so as incompatible with the continuation of canned shooting in the UK. Which makes me suggest that the published estimates are probably underestimates, but I guess we'll never know.

But, equally, the fact that "at their peak in August these two species represent about half of all wild bird biomass in Britain" is really, really astonishingly mad. I don't think any other country in the world has that many non-native birds released on an annual basis. Nor the % area of countryside - including "national parks" - which are managed for shooting e.g. by burning moorland. It doesn't employ many people either, but aristocrats and bankers like doing it and they call the shots in the UK.

[Bird on a Fire]

Also worth noting that shooting estates are responsible for the low populations of really cool birds of prey, especially Hen Harriers, but also Buzzards and Peregrines etc., which get shot and trapped and have their nests destrored by game keepers, and even when they're caught doing it on camera they don't necessarily get prosecuted, or if they do the estate pays a tokenistic fine and everybody involved keeps their job and keeps doing it.

[Grumble]

If you fancy eating pheasant and live in the countryside and have an air rifle it is very achievable.

[plodder]

Yeah, grouse and pheasant are really different in terms of how they're managed, and who shoots them.

Pheasant is in woodlands (typically fenced off with PRIVAT PROPURTY signs) whereas grouse are out on the moors. If you look at an OS map then loads of pockets of woodlands are out there - and loads of them are stuffed to the gunnels with intensively reared pheasants, waiting to be shot by farmers and their mates - it ain't city bankers, it's just rural w.nkers.

[Bird on a Fire]

Yeah, grouse and pheasant are really different in terms of how they're managed, and who shoots them.

That's true. They're all part of the same hunting lobby, though - organisations like BASC defend both the huge numbers of releases and the burning of moors and persecution of raptors. GWCT help them sometimes too, which is a shame as they also do good stuff.

[Woodchopper]

Yeah, grouse and pheasant are really different in terms of how they're managed, and who shoots them.

Pheasant is in woodlands (typically fenced off with PRIVAT PROPURTY signs) whereas grouse are out on the moors. If you look at an OS map then loads of pockets of woodlands are out there - and loads of them are stuffed to the gunnels with intensively reared pheasants, waiting to be shot by farmers and their mates - it ain't city bankers, it's just rural w.nkers.

Yes, at least in rural Northumberland hunting pheasant and deer was a significant use for the local woodland. But it would be done by locals rather than well heeled tourists. Though the term 'hunting' is stretched somewhat as the pheasants were basically tame and didn't fear humans.

[plodder]

Worth also remembering the impact of gamekeepers on natural predators, in addition to the sheer amount of space the pheasants take up.

And of course you rarely see pheasant or grouse in the shops.

[Bird on a Fire]

Releasing tonnes of extremely stupid/naive meat in the form of pheasants and partridges is almost certainly boosting populations of predators far more than gamekeepers' control operations reduce them, which will have knock-on effects on wildlife like ground-nesting birds.

The only natural predators whose populations gamekeepers are reducing are the endangered protected ones.

[plodder]

Releasing tonnes of extremely stupid/naive meat in the form of pheasants and partridges is almost certainly boosting populations of predators far more than gamekeepers' control operations reduce them, which will have knock-on effects on wildlife like ground-nesting birds.

Do you mean the children of farmers?

Foxes, corvids, raptors, weasels, stoats etc are routinely "controlled".

[Bird on a Fire]

I know they are. But I'll eat my hat if the numbers of individuals killed are lower than the number sustained by the ~50% of bird biomass released by the same industry. They're operating a huge unwitting supplementary feeding program, then taking out a few individuals that use particular locations.

Unfortunately there aren't good numbers for this stuff, because they're strongly opposed to transparency.

[Tessa K]

Also worth noting that shooting estates are responsible for the low populations of really cool birds of prey, especially Hen Harriers, but also Buzzards and Peregrines etc., which get shot and trapped and have their nests destrored by game keepers, and even when they're caught doing it on camera they don't necessarily get prosecuted, or if they do the estate pays a tokenistic fine and everybody involved keeps their job and keeps doing it.

I had no idea the French still used glue traps for birds.

Chris Packham has been campaigning against the slaughter of raptors for some time and the shooting of wild birds for 'sport'. For which he has received death threats https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... ooting-row

and was accused of faking them https://www.express.co.uk/celebrity-new ... est-update

On hen harriers: https://basc.org.uk/packhams-revelation ... rsecution/

And also for his opposition to badger culling (horrible photos) https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/c ... 68071.html