I received this by email today. This is just the type of information that I hope it will be possible for individuals to submit to the DEFRA consultation on regulating gamebird releases which is promised (by DEFRA) for Monday.
This letter has been edited to remove information that is personal or which would identify the sender, but not to change the sense of the email.
We live in the middle of an upland National Park. In our garden we have a small pond, which hosts common frogs, common toads, palmate newts & great-crested newts. We have drystone walls, which host common lizards. Slow worms & adders are often found in the garden, on nearby fields and on the moor.
Sadly we also have a lot of ‘visiting’ pheasants, released by a shoot, which is approx 1500m away.
This shoot has become more intensive over the years and, last year, the ‘shoot keeper’ built a new release pen approx 500m away from us. Last summer/autumn we found 3 dead slow-worms, which looked as if they had been pecked to death, on the verges of the lane.
We worry that, as pheasant shoots become more commercial, demand ‘bigger bags’ to satisfy ‘the guns’ and are steadily moving their activities ‘further up’ valleys like our, with more birds being released, we are seeing an increasingly negative impact on fragile populations of amphibians and reptiles. There must surely be a solution! A moratorium on shooting and a scientific study of the existing fauna of this area alone might help!
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That is an excellent letter and just what was wanted. What is says is so true. I have seen quite a few dead slow worms which appeared to have been pecked very badly. Common lizards have also dropped hugely in numbers here in the Chilterns. Alan
Over the years there must have been a tremendous amount of time, effort and money spent conducting research on the lives of birds from puffins to black grouse to hawfinches to find answers needed for their effective conservation. Maybe the best candidate of all for this type of research though was the ring necked pheasant – not for its conservation, but for that of so much else like butterflies, reptiles and other ground nesting birds.
There have been anecdotes of them hoovering up all the caterpillars of certain butterflies, I’ve seen video of a pheasant incessantly pecking an adder on the head so slow worms would be fair game, and there are eyewitness accounts of them fighting waders with at least one of a lapwing chick being eaten. How much might supplementary feeding allow them to deplete natural food sources in ways that no truly wild bird could?
The pheasant has never been a really rare bird, and even if it was it’s a non native species so understandably it’s probably been in a field research blind spot. What an enormous mistake that will prove to be, what would just one incident of a wader chick going down a pheasant’s gullet being caught on a research camera have done to change perceptions?
After Paul Irving commented the other day that a lot of anti predator abuse is increasingly being heaped on the returning otter I just saw another post on facebook from a local newspaper about otters moving back on to a local river. The comments were shocking – ‘water rat’, ‘vermin’, ‘they’re not cuddly they’re killers’, ‘they’ll eat all the fish then eat all the ground nesting birds’, plus the inevitable pics of ducks and swans being grabbed by what is after all a predatory mammal. This is the worst incident of this type of outright hostility against the otter I’ve seen yet, actually shook me a bit.
We’ve done a pretty lousy job over the years fighting the misinformation, smears, propaganda thrown at any native predator that might just possibly affect huntin, fishin, shootin. Meanwhile the very same people that have been responsible for that have foisted millions upon millions of a rather aggressive omnivore upon us that can probably afford to snaffle up all the wildlife that can fit down its gullet because unnatural feed is put out for it too.
That’s not to mention the woods with the life choked out of them by rhoddie, cherry laurel, snowberry and other non native plants planted out as game cover, a practice that continues. And how many people in the UK would post on facebook or write in to their local paper of what great dangers pheasants pose for our wildlife?
Fantastic!! What a most knowledgeable ’email’ and with all the answers to! Truly amazing! Should be shared more really for those that are not so clever but who like complaining to use. If i had wrote such an informative piece i would have been proud to put my name to it! Shame! . . . Three dead slow worms? imagine how many more they must have to find that many left uneaten? Hedgehogs would of cleared them up. But i wonder if they have got badgers nearby to though? Envious they have so much and rare wildlife and a shoot near by. Wish i had adders in my garden. Sadly only common old grass snakes. Perhaps pheasants don’t like them?. . . .I found a predated slow worm and young shelduck on the beach at Minsmere a while back. Should i inform the RSPB/DEFRA etc? There were crows and so many large gulls about that were predating some other rare species. Visitors witnessing it were shocked! Surely something should be done!? Where have all the waders gone? . . . So glad they killed a lot of them pesky red deer. Ain’t seen any on the beach for ages.