A Saturday quickie

There have been a few recent wildlife stories that caught my eye over the last week that I thought I might share with you.

The first one I flagged up in my last post about a total (now) of 32 Swans that had been shot in Somerset.  The reward is now up to 25,000 GBP.  Lets hope this soon stops - such a tragic loss and waste of these beautiful creatures.

Meanwhile, the Daily Mail did a rubbish job of reporting a story about 'Death from the Skies'!!!!! as Golden Eagles swoop to take live lambs on Mull.  Never one to let facts get in the way of a good story, they seem easily confused as to the differences and the history of Golden and White Tailed Sea Eagles.  I prefer not to give such garbage further airtime, but in this case it is worth a read to see the drivel that the old dead tree press lazily pump out.

Meanwhile, the Hen Harrier remains on the verge of extinction in England, and stays heavily persecuted in areas of managed Grouse Moors, where surprise surprise our so called bastions and safe keepers of the countryside seem to struggle to let them live.

Finally, I can recommend a good book for those of you who care about the countryside and the link to it is below.  It sets out the reasons how since the end of World War Two, the chemicals business, that has essentially been subsidised to the tune of many billions each year has resulted in the killing of the countryside.  Vast area of farmland in the UK are now barren sterile areas of industrial agricultural land of uniform grass for feed or grain production that supports no other living life.  The entire wildlife food chain has been destroyed from the tiniest bugs, and fungi  through to smaller mammals which ultimately provide the food chain for many of our songbirds, farm land birds, and hunters like Barn Owl or Kestrel

So the next time you see rubbish plans like the Corvid Cull (strangely supported by the shooting community - enough said I think) trying to kill off the corvids that they claim are killing our songbirds, we nee to look deeper for the true underlying reasons why.  Or maybe they think the corvids are killing off their pheasant, partridge and grouse chicks is the real answer that they don't want talked about

I know when I travel by train or road, the best wildlife is to be found at the margins where the hand of the farmer hasn't been pouring his chemicals and pesticides all over it, where wildflowers still exist.

The book is worth a read in order to get a better understanding of why our countryside is now dead.

Many of the wildlife organisations do a cracking job around the country with the reserves and the Wildlife Trusts, the RSPB and WWT are all excellent organisations, but the reserves are actually just small islands of life, fence less zoos if you like with no connecting corridors to allow the free travel between species.

Martin