10 Replies to “This survey will make you think…”

  2. I tried to do this survey. When I said I don’t work in conservation etc, I wasn’t allowed to continue and i am a life member of the RSPB and a member of my local RSPB. I can now see who this survey is aimed at and it’s certainly not someone who is interested in birdwatching, wildlife etc like myself!

  3. Interesting trophy hunting survey.
    Reminded me of a conversation I had with a religious person years ago who was anti-abortion and pro-foxhunting.which seemed odd but then I have met many others who had exactly the opposite views. Just as odd in a way.
    In the words of Ben Goldacre’s T shirt slogan
    “I think you’ll find that it’s a bit more complicated than that”

    1. I lied a little to get access to the survey (and there’s no check on whether I lied). Access and control to the survey is extremely poorly controlled and anything that comes from it has to be viewed in a (un)certain manner.

      It’s another meaningless online survey. Wwhich could go Oregon petitio-style (without the opportunity to inject humour; I wanted to sign it Charles Darwin!).

      1. Anything coming out of Texas A&M has to be viewed as uncertain. They have to be allowed academic freedom but it’s then up to us to apply the “Is this True?” checks on their outputs.

        If the information in Wikipedia is accurate the culture in T A&M is so bizarre it is scarcely credible in 2020 – but it’s in the USA so …

  4. After doing the survey and making my comment I went downstairs to discover remnants (gizzard and head) and feathers of a dead sparrow strewn around our hall and living room. The cat is trophy hunting ,he hasn’t taken a bird for a long time ,large rats are his preferred prey .
    The event hasn’t changed my survey answers but like a lot of things that happen it makes you think.

    1. A few weeks back the house cat went missing. That cat had a back story which is long. So I’ll keep it short.

      Whilst walking the bi-weekly garbage collection to the collection point I saw that the cat had been returned. The presence of maggots in the mouth indicated death at some previous date. The damage to the corpse (one missing hind limb, totally open lower body cavity, total evisceration of the lower abdomen up to but not including the liver) together with a lack of maggots in the exposed body cavity indicated some form of scavenging after death (and after the flies found their opportunity). I’m just worried that she found a poisoned bait (trap and subsequent starvation wasn’t on the likely cause list as there was still a visible layer of subcutaneous fat around the open abdomen).

      That event hasn’t affected my views on predators, predation and scavengers. I’ll admit that it was extremely upsetting at a personal level. But then a lot of what goes on upsets me.

  5. I was recently reading a book by Leslie Brown who was chief agriculturalist in Kenya and a famous African ornithologist, best known as a bird of prey expert and founding author of Birds of Africa. He was extremely critical of attempts – which included massive insecticide spraying – to control Ttese fly which prevented farming of domestic stock over much of savannah Africa. He thought it would be much more sensible, and less ecologically damaging, to cull native herbivores for food instead, and surely he had a point.

  6. Trophy hunting is a totally vile industry that is going to consign numerous species to extinction.

  7. Scientists have a lot to answer for. I think that there are more Galapagos Hawks in the drawers at California Academy of Sciences than exist among the islands.

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