Countryside Management - Shooting animals to save others

[Anonymous]

Hello all

I think this could bring some interesting responses... :?
I thought about starting this thread after Davidd bagged his fox

It goes without saying that everyone on this forum is an animal lover. I'm sure some people on the forum weren't too happy to hear that a bonny looking creature like a fox had been shot. However, to protect your livestock and in the interests of health and safety it can be necessary to kill the likes of rats, crows, foxes and occasionally even badly trained pet dogs. The last one is particularly frustrating as the others are just doing what is natural but some people shouldn't be allowed to keep dogs if they can't control them.

I've shot rats and jackdaws, and threatened to shoot a neighbours dog because it tried to get to my hens (this was the same dog that attacked them when they belonged to my friend before he gave them to me).
I wouldn't hesitate to shoot a fox or any other animal if it was after my pet birds, but I would take no pleasure in it. It isn't nice and while I enjoy shooting - being out in the countryside, enjoying nature, I am aware that a lot of the British countryside is massively affected by humans and it has to be managed to get the most out of it. Some people think that if all hunting practices were to stop then nature would sort itself out, settle down and establish its own state of equilibrium. If we stopped shooting pigeons then we'd struggle to get crops to make things like bread and veg oil because they'd swarm. Similarly, a pair of corvids (crows, magpies etc) can clear out a nest a day of smaller birds like sparrows or thrushes. They can also target the likes of lambs to try to get at their eyes and tongues.
I would love to have some buff orp and pekin chicks running around but need to minimise the size of the black feathered cloud flying over my village.

While I am pro hunting - for pest control and food, I'm not really a fan of shooting for sport. I've seen people go out and shot dozens of rabbits and other game and not done anything with them afterwards. It's a waste of good meat for a start but also cruel to use something for a bit of target practice or entertainment. I'm also not a fan of any other bloodsports. As a result, I see the point of the anti fraternity and the shooting community, but don't quite fit in with either.

No-one should have to apologise for controlling pests but it's my belief that no-one should should take pleasure in killing for the sake of it. Enjoy developing your skill, be satisfied at being able to do the job well, appreciate the animals you're protecting, but that's all. You can't manage the countryside without having a balanced view and understanding of the arguement for and against shooting.

I'm very interested to hear everyones views on this subject. I like to think I have a balanced view on the subject and tried not to preach my point of view, more just share my thoughts and hopefully learn something new from hearing the opinions of other members of the forum.

Jamie

 

[Lucylou]

Hi Jamie,
I was very interested to read what you had to say. I come from a somewhere in the middle viewpoint too.

I've lived in big towns & more rural areas & its quite interesting how peoples opinions are formed by their environment. Country folk tend to understand the need for some sort of management, townies seem sometimes to be anti, & very often I have experienced they form their view without knowing all the facts (but let me add not all townies!)

When I had my fox attack last year I was devastated, told my friend & she was quite blase about it saying the foxes are lovely & cuddly! She couldn't understand that as it had killed all my birds, I didn't think it was cuddly at all & given the chance I would have put an end to him ever doing it again.

We have a very high hedge & at this time of year its like the maternity ward for small birds but this year the jackdaws have either eaten or frightened them all away. We feed the wild birds & my elderly mum loves to sit & watch them but this year there are very few robins, sparrows, blue tits etc only magpies, jackdaws & pidgeons. Don't know what can be done though.

My Mum used to live in a small rural village in Scotland (she ran the village pub) having moved from London, & lots of her regulars were farmers or similar taking great pride in their livestock. Following the annual County Show any rosette the animal won as a live animal would be displayed on the carcass of meat in the local butchers after slaughter.It took her a long while to get used to seeing this but it was considered a real accolade & something to be valued. Can you imaging seeing this now? Unlikely.

My sis-in-law lives in a village about 10 mins from me. Typical old fashioned country village, they have a local 'rat catcher', if she has uninvited guests in her chooks run she calls him in. No-one thinks its odd, just necessary.

So I think opinions can vary based on personal experience, & once you've been 'hit' opinions change! One things for sure, with food becoming less & natural habitats dissappearing, there'll be more wild animals coming closer to humans, (e.g the Canadian bears coming into towns for food) And as for the urban fox ----- don't get me started :evil:

 

[Anonymous]

It was in the news the other day that there's a raccoon visiting someones garden in County Durham somewhere! Rather that than a stray Canadian bear! They didn't say where because they thought someone would shoot it. I don't mind as long as it's just the one. We've already got mink in a nearby nature reserve and don't fancy anymore invaders :?

Good point made re changing opinions after an attack. They are good looking animals but foxes rapidly lose their charm when they wipe out your hens :evil:

 

[Lucylou]

A raccoon OMG whatever next. Hopefully not mink, they're vicious things.

The other week we had a little monkjack deer visit the garden. It was amazing, there it was quite happily eating the berries on a tree. No idea where it had come from as the nearest wood/ countryside is probably half a mile off at least & it would have had to negotiate roads & houses in between! Now, we took pictures & wondered at this but if it had been eating the prize roses (if I had any :lol: ) no doubt it would have been a different story.

But of course in some areas deers are becoming over populated & too many to all find food so I would think that a humane cull is the best solution otherwise its starvation & which is the best option?

Following the story the other week in the news, of the fox that had bitten 2 babies in their cot, I heard a woman on the radio who had just had her old dog pts. The old dog used to sleep on the end of her bed. A couple of nights later she felt something on her feet & sleepily thought it was the dog, then woke up realising she didn't have the dog anymore. Yep - it was a fox that had come in through the window

How far will it have to go on before the doubters accept something has to be done.

 

[ncotb]

Good management I'd say in the countryside (we are rural).

Now urban foxes- Going on to the poor children that were attacked, this is down to people feeding the foxes & encouraging them into their gardens thinking theyare cute etc (yes they are very pretty creatures BUT they are wild). We keep our back door shut in the evening in case a rat might come in (even though we have a dog & cat), urban foxes will go into houses if a door is open as they have no fear.

 

[Anonymous]

Rats...touch wood we've only had the ducks a short time & we make sure there's no food left lying at the end of the day, so as not to encourage vermin.My husband kept chickens when he was younger & did have a rat problem,so his Dad got rid of the chickens but he said he was prepaired to kill the b.....s, which I don't mind [even though we did have a pet rat before].
Foxes... we are close to farm land & sometimes hear the vixen screaming in the night,though touch wood since we've kept dogs, plus a 6ft fence,no fox has appeared in the garden.

 

[Tim]

OK so this is one of those subjects that I do try to shy away from a little.

Why? Because having frequented the old Pekin Bantams forum and skirted around a few others over the last 10 years or so, the one topic that would always end up 'locked' was the shooting of foxes debate!

There are those that agree with it and those who are firmly against it and inevitably it leads to strong views and differences in opinions. I respect different views and I welcome both sides of the argument, as long as we keep things civil, there should be no harm in this topic being discussed whatever your view... :?

Anyway, that said, I tend to agree with most of what you say Ozric. I dislike Fox hunting with hounds as I feel there are more humane ways to deal with foxes and I also believe that if you are using electric fences, it is better NOT to shoot foxes - this is because the local fox population will have tried to get in and had a nip from the fence and learnt they cannot get in. If you shoot them, new foxes (territorial animals) move in and will attempt to get in and might just be successful.

We have loads of foxes here - we live in the middle of fields and a few fields away is old English woodland. If a fox is persistent or is brave enough to come up to our fence during the day (not electrified) I will shoot it. Thankfully, so far this has only happened 3 or 4 times in my lifetime. I have only had one fox attack (thankfully).

Other problems....

Now Magpies can be a problem to our local birds, and two farmer 'neighbours' trap and kill magpies. I rarely see a Magpie ... but I read this year how the farmland birds have decreased another 20%. Not here thankfully.

I delight in seeing the thrushes and blackbirds, gold finches, chaffinches, various-tits, woodpeckers and my favourite when I'm locking up at night - the little owls. Why are these here? Well my guess is the hedgerows are thick and full of old dead trees which gives the owls, woodpeckers and everyone else some habitat and there are few magpies, jackdaws, crows and birds of prey like hawks.

Before moving to Bedfordshire, I lived in Wales, in the Forestry Commission and surprisingly there were very few birds where we lived. The area was perfect in terms of habitat - overgrown, not farmed and there was no shortage of woodland. There were no wood pigeons, thrushes, very few blackbirds and very few small birds BUT there was no shortage of Buzzards, hawks, kites, magpies, crows and the like.

On a sunny day, I could count 5 or 6 buzzards in the sky.... and I lost all 20 of my racing pigeons to them over a couple of years.

So to summarise, I feel that the countryside gamekeeper or ranger would have, in days gone by, helped to keep the balance. Shooting animals to save others is, in my opinion something that has been done well for years and is not done much these days.

I believe in live and let live but after treading the fields day and night observing the local wildlife, I would suggest that shooting foxes to protect your chickens can be necessary at times and keeping a balance by shooting certain carrion / varmites can in fact be preserving some other species....

 

[Lucylou]

This subject was being discussed on a radio phone in yesterday & 2 callers caught my attention. One was a farmer who owns a small farm in Hertfordshire & due to such enormous damaged caused this year by foxes he has taken to shooting them. Since he's been doing this he has shot approx 80 in a few months. He said the fox population has increased so much that he was losing too much livestock to ignore it anymore.

The other was a licenced pest controller & this includes foxes. He works in London & when on a contract to catch a fox he uses dog food as bait & sometimes in one night, he kills as many as 12 foxes with this one bait in a back garden. He said the foxes are always very ill with mange or lungworm or both, some so bad their skin is bald & bleeding. These diseases can spread to domestic pets cats & dogs & is very serious to our pets.

So this made me think beyond the chook keepers viewpoint. I guess its an us or them situation really, our food or theirs, our pets or them. I really think the situation has got to the stage where reasonable procedures need to be put in place to keep an equilibrium. Surely we want the fox as a wild animal, in managed numbers, not hunting in packs wandering our urban streets, but how to achieve this, that's the million dollar question.

 

[Anonymous]

As a MidWest Yankee, we haven't the fox problem you do (although we DO have fox), our problem is raccoon. They didn't used to be such a problem, as there was a pretty good price paid for raccoon furs. Lots of guys had "coon dogs" and went hunting for them in order to sell the pelts.
Then it became politically incorrect to wear fur, so the hunters quit hunting them, as really, they're not much good for anything but fur.
Now, we have a rampant over-population of raccoons. Some with rabies. All of them a problem for both city dwellers and country folk alike. You need a hen house secured like Fort Knox to keep them out or they'll kill the whole flock just for fun. They get into everyone's trash and scatter it everywhere. We've no wolves left in our area, so there's no predator except Man, and we won't buy the fur any more.

So, I have no problem shooting raccoon, although I'm loathe to kill anything, and I hate processing chickens.

Similar problem here with Whitetail Deer. 25 years ago, they weren't such a problem as hunting was an accepted fact of life. People ate the meat. Now we have far fewer hunters, and the deer population is out of control. Try growing sweet corn or having a good garden without 12 foot fencing. They eat everything in site. I swear Lillies and Hostas must be like deer cocaine.
During rutting season in our county (an area 22miles x 22miles square) it is common to have 8-12 car/deer accidents A DAY. It's not so bad the rest of the year, but it's rare to drive a road around here without seeing at least one dead carcass along the road. Every few years we have a fatal car/deer, and I'm not talking about the deer. So in this case, you're shooting an animal to help save humans.