Bad game keeping – simple! No need if all in ‘relative’ balanced harmony. (as much as one can be in ‘managed’ land of course)

Scumbags in my book…..

Northwind. Exactly so its unlikely 430 eagles are going to decimate the red grouse population and even more unlikely they will have any noticable affect on the population of lambs.

Bad game keeping – simple! No need if all in ‘relative’ balanced harmony.

It simply isn’t bad gamekeeping. It is an illegal act. I don’t know of too many altruistic businessmen who would stand by and watch up to 24% of their resources being taken without payment or recompence, so I do understand why it is done, but it isn’t bad gamekeeping.

its unlikely 430 eagles are going to decimate the red grouse population and even more unlikely they will have any noticable affect on the population of lambs.

Well, if they live next door and it is all your lambs or grouse they take, then it would be very noticable indeed.

Its grouse shooting season

Its a buisness ,My next door neighbour is the keeper for langsett moor/cut gate there are some dubious tactics used to protect the shoot or profitibility of shoots country wide

There is also an understanding that certain creatures are classed as expendable in terms of cost of fine per financial loss of shoot in a lot of these cases they try to move the creature even temporarily to another patch if its of “value”,believe me if it isn’t of ‘value” its life expectency can be the time taken to pull a trigger

Tootall. Hence my question about relative population sizes used to come up with those % estimates. If people throw about shite stats they should at least know what they are based on. We dont even know whatspecies they ate based on.

Then read the study that whoever was quoting stats got them from – there are two links to it on the first page. What you’re asking is in there if you bother to read it.

I disagree with the whole gamekeepers are evil attitude…yes sometimes some of them do the odd daft thing however can you imagine what would happen if everyone just stopped controling our more prevalent preditors (which has been done for hundreds of years) obviously nobody wants to see anything wiped out but i think there has to be some controll?

People catching Golden Eagles and collecting Peregrine eggs?

There can only be one explanation – Waitrose preparing for Christmas 🙂

Unless CFH is redecorating?

TooTall – Member

Well, if they live next door and it is all your lambs or grouse they take, then it would be very noticable indeed.

As appealling as it is to imagine a sort of council scheme of golden eagles all in one place, claiming benefits and eating all the lambs out of the neighbouring field, I don’t think it works quite like that.

Kenny I dont need to read the study to know that the stats they have quoted are meaningless in the context of what we are talking about. The fact that the person is using those stats in this context shows one thing they are either trying to deliberatly missinform or they have missinterpreted.

You’ll have to explain that a bit more then because I’m not seeing why. I was expecting the link to be something from a gamekeepers association or something, and I’d have been sceptical as to the independence of it, but as far as I can see it’s independent of either side in the killing eagles argument.

How have they misunderstood the stats? The research resulted in estimated percentages of game bird populations lost to birds of prey, which varies depending on prey type, predator type and location. In some circumstances it’s quite high. That’s all he’s saying, as far as I can see.

The context of what we are talking about is that some people justify killing eagles because of how many game birds they kill, so the stats seem to me to be entirely relevant when the amount that they kill is part of that argument.

If you have 4 lambs its easy to kill 25% of them if you have 4 million its a bit harder but not if you have 1 million eagles.

If you have 4 lambs its easy to kill 25% of them

you also don’t have much of sheep raising business.

if you have 4 million

then you probably don’t live in Scotland, so golden eagles aren’t much of a problem

As appealling as it is to imagine a sort of council scheme of golden eagles all in one place, claiming benefits and eating all the lambs out of the neighbouring field, I don’t think it works quite like that.

you’re right – they deal drugs and bling and get their posses, the red kites, to do the dirty so they is not connected, innit?

I dont need to read the study to know that the stats they have quoted are meaningless in the context of what we are talking about.

I don’t see how you can possibly say if they’re meaningless or not if you haven’t bothered to look and consider them. Until then your just guessing or assuming.

21 eagles, 6 years, 0 prosecutions

Do something about it then

Kenny I am not sure i can make it simpler.

need to get the wolves back, keep them deer in check

I don’t think the deer are responsible for killing Golden Eagles 🙁

Was chatting about this with a falconer mate of mine earlier. He’s possibly biased; he loves raptors. But on the other hand, his livelihood is pest control.

He’s convinced that there’s a correlation up north between sheep-farmers who take aggressive vermin-control approaches, and those who lose stock to eagles. The reason being, an eagle’s default food source in scotland is hares and rabbits. However they’re opportunists and will eat anything they can kill, if need be. (in mongolia, they hunt wolves with golden eagles- holy ****!)

So- kill their preferred prey and they’ll take their second option off the menu.

Just throwing that in; tbh I don’t have a clue either way but it seems pretty reasonable. What’s maybe more controversial is that he reckons the sort of farmer that’ll hire him to stamp out every last hare or rabbit on a hill is exactly the same sort of farmer that’ll kill raptors.

Would eagles take grouse? Do they take many lambs? Remember most young lambs are not out on the fell. I never heard grumblings in the lakes when a pair were around. Having said that its unlikeely the eagle was specifically targetted.

anagallis_arvensis – Member
Kenny I am not sure i can make it simpler.

Evidently not.

I still don’t see what you are objecting to – thegreatape quoted a credible source of information to support the argument that in some places raptors kill a significant amount of game birds. I’ve looked through the research he linked to can see no reason why it isn’t valid, and it’s hardly unusual to quote information as percentages for easy comparison.

From what you’ve posted, the fact that he lifted and quoted some percentages from the study seems to be the rationale for your objection – that the numbers used to calculate the percentages quoted might be so small as to be meaningless, and therefore should be dismissed?

Perhaps I am stupid for crediting the researchers with a bit more intelligence and competence than that?

Or is it something else?

If you have 4 lambs its easy to kill 25% of them

I don’t think any scientist/ecologist/whatever they are worth their salt would draw any meaningful conclusions from a sample that small.

if you have 4 million its a bit harder but not if you have 1 million eagles.

But to the gamekeeper or estate manager the number of eagles doesn’t matter – their concern is what proportion of their stock they lose to the eagles, they don’t care if it’s one greedy eagle or a hundred moderate ones – if they’re losing 10,000 birds to them they’re losing 10,000 birds.

So, in the context of the thread, the number of predators doesn’t matter – it’s the extent of the loss of prey that those that justify killing the birds are interested in.

I suppose this comes back to my assumption that the researchers are competent and the figures used to draw their findings didn’t come from stupidly small samples, but the information in the report supports that assumption.

Quite simply, there is no defense for the killing an animal/bird of prey, for going about its natural business. The utter monsters who go kill a creature for no reason but to protect their investment need a serious re-alignment of their view on the issues.

Its a top level predator, its going to go and eat things, thats what it does. If you’re going to raise stupid amounts of its food, for your fun and profit. Don’t be surprized if the predator thinks it can help itself…. Cos thats what it does, thats all it does !.

It pisses me off even more when one considers the compensation schemes that have been set-up to try to get the people responsible for this behaviour to let it go and claim for the loss. I’d happily see my tax money go to subsidize legitimate losses in order to prevent the killing of such creatures.

Piss boiling ?, yeah, thats about right !.

Raptors and significant amounts are the key terms. He quoted percentages of populations which without having an idea of population size is meaningless and does help us asses the amounts of birds killed. Its also only refers to raptors not eagles.

The numbers, upon which the percentages are based, are included or referenced within the research he linked to. As are the species studied, both prey and predators.

you do realise its not research that he linked to its a review dont you? It contains very little information about eagles and certainly doesnt appear to quote any research that suggests Eagles have any discernable impact on the populations of game birds. Indeed it does at one point suggest that eagles limit other rapters that would have an impact on gamebirds. So you see the figures quoted are pure shite in relation to the impact of eagles on populations of game birds.

What Solo said, end of.