Taffyshooter

Its pointless to talk of bringing back wolves to any part of the UK with the current style of sheep husbandry. In places like Romania you have a tradition of full time shephards, indoor lambing and guard dogs. What might change all this is if the EU start cutting subsidies to hill farmers which is really the only reason why sheep are still kept on mountains in the UK.

I'd agree with that - it won't make much difference to the current state of play. I thinks its more a case of the DM whipping up a non-storey. Lets face it - they do have form in this area.

A job for an airgun. Releasing vermin is totally without any merit.

I read in the ST it was one licence for one shoot. However that may be the end of it given the fuss kicked up and some of the stuff that leaked out about the application which didn't make EN look too bright.

Pen birds are doing fine - we've gone with Manchurian X's this year and they seem to cope well with the heat. Good few wild broods knockin about too

You mean as a Disinfectant??

Another vote here - between trapping and lamping we've done in near 2 dozen this year.

We have a good few buzzards on our shoot, but compared to the likes of foxes, mink, road casualties etc. the number of poults lost to them is insignificant as far as I can make out. Gamekeepers operating outside the law are gonna bring down even more hassle for the rest of us. This has already happened in Scotland where all types of traps and snares will now have to be tagged with the owners details.

Its easy enough to remove most lead fragments from the likes of gamebirds. Most shooters/hunters I know do this as part of carcass preparation. Its not hard to do. In any case me and the family have eaten game meat from many sources over the years with no ill affects.

What a waste of court time. This ban must be the most stupid pointless piece of legislation brough in in recent times. I'm all for protecting species that are officially fully protected and prosecuting rogue hunters who kill them. But this concerns bl**dy foxes!!!!!!!!!!!!

Appears now to be a CGI hoax. At least according to be Daily Mail and other sites. Always looked a bit dodgy for such a bird to be hanging around a city park.

That or some kind of mustalid ...I've seen similiar damage done by mink in the past

You can get liquid vitamin feed which is added to their drinking water. You can also privide greenery like chickweed,dandelion for young birds and turnips,artichokes and potatoes for older birds.

Sounds like a ground based predator. Probably some kind of mustalid. Best to put down a few mink traps and see what turns up!!

A heron will take chicks allright if given the oppertunity, but unless an adult mallard is injured or sick I doubt a heron would represent much of a threat. The wound on the bird in the pic does look like it was made by a pellet. Though I have seen farmyard ducks with similiar injuries after a mink attack.

Pretty poor here in South Wales with much lodging plus high disease and moisture levels. A real blow given rising prices on international markets.

Each batch is different according to breed, age etc. - you just have to keep an eye on things and when it becomes clear there gettin more adventurous, you then move on locating your feed barrels where you want the birds to be.

Is it possible to net your pens?? - we net ours to keep out corvids etc. that hassel the birds around feeders etc.

In fairness I think Cormorants are in a different league compared to Ospreys when it comes to signficant affects on such fisheries. TBH this story appears to be alot of fuss about nothing since its well known that BOPs will eat other BOPs. A bit like Lions killing Hyena's in Africa or Tigers killing Leopards in India etc.. Something that has happened for as long as both species have been about and could hardly be described as a "conservation" issue.

This issue arose on a Golf course near here that wanted to get rid of rabbits - looked into the issue myself since my young lad is into ferrets which would be just the job for this problem. Turns out it is indeed illegal to poison rabbits since there is no product licensed for that purpose in the UK by the government pesticide control agency. Thankfully the management of the course saw sense when I pointed this out so my young fella and his ferrets got the gig instead

I read on another site that it was one estate in Northhamptonshire that "claimed" it was losing 30% to buzzards which prompted DEFRA to start this study. I googled some more info on this topic and found actual BASC studies putting the averge figure closer to 1-2%(with the worst shoot in the sample being 5%). Those figures include losses from all raptors species, not just buzzards.

Never had a problem with the 3 pairs of buzzards on my own shoot - one was hanging around one of the release pens a few years back so i kept an eye on him. Turns out I had a rat problem there which came to Mr Buzzards attention before mine . We do loose a small number of poults to female sparrowhawks, but compared to crows, foxes, mink, disease, road casualties etc. its small beer.

Have caught 60 magpies on a new permission since the start of the year - they really are a plague that requires year round control just to make a half decent dent in their numbers!!

Yep - where ever the money is being made in the business of gameshoots, the footsoldiers see very little of it. I know a lad who worked as a gamekeeper on a large estate near the Peak District. After a couple of years of hard graft, lousy wages and accomodation, the other half threatened to leave him unless he changed career:( He's a courier now!!

Sounds like Mink - they can exploit any bit of damp cover availiable