BBC article on Chris Packham being harassed as a result of his Wildlife Justice Campaign. Packham

Nah, too orangey

Yes. Questionable on how affective shooting the crows is though.

However the law needing reviewing and that’s what is happening but mean time the unrestricted license is being revoked.

Nah, too orangey

Chapeau.

I’ve been lead to believe, from a number of articles I’ve read over the last few years, that attacks by crows on live lambs are relatively rare, the crows, like most corvids, are scavenging still-born lambs and the afterbirth.
I would also suggest the loss of livestock through attacks by domestic dogs running amok is a far greater financial loss than the loss of lambs to crows; crows aren’t raptors, predators, they’re carrion birds, the common crow is more often called the carrion crow, it’s what they feed on!
Also, the corvids most often seen in fields where there are livestock are rooks and jackdaws, which are flock or community birds, crows and ravens are rarely seen in any sort of numbers, they’re mostly in pairs, or at least most of the crows I see out in the countryside are in pairs, same as the ones around town and at work.
There are lots of sheep around here, Wiltshire is known for sheep, the Bybrook valley that Castle Combe sits in had nineteen mills for working wool into cloth going back to Roman times, and the Marlborough Downs have lots of sheep, but I’ve never heard of crows being responsible for loss of lambs.
Dogs, yes.

Last year hubby and I (mostly hubby with me directing) had to help a ewe calf a dead lamb.
The ewe had trouble giving birth and the lamb got stuck half way out. By the time we arrived the crows had pecked out the lambs eyes and the ewe was in a bad way.
We were out on the moors mtbing at the time. Hubby managed to pull the large lamb out. Myself and a passing walker gave the exhausted ewe water and after 5 minutes she was looking better. We got her to her feet and left her alone to wander off to the rest of the flock, while keeping an eye on her. We phoned a local farmer I knew who said he would report the loss to his neighbour.

I have no doubt that both lamb and ewe would have perished had it not been for the walker and ourselves being around to help the ewe and ward off these corvids.

I grew up on a Lakeland farm, I can’t remember any healthy lamb being attacked by crows (or any corvid). My brother still lives on and runs the farm and he’s never mentioned it either. Welshfarmer will no doubt let us know his experiences.

The one attack I do remember was on a ewe that had got stuck in barbed wire and crows had pecked its eyelids away.

Changes to farming practices (lambing sheds) and environmental laws about burial of carcases have had an impact on the Raven population in the Lakes. Whereas once it was just peregrines that gave rise to crag restrictions for climbers, now Ravens have that protection.

My Grandfather had it happen a few time and I seen the odd one but it was very few.

Hard to imagine a person present with a firearm would have helped the situation though, unless it was to euthinise the ewe and/or lamb.

Not a farmer but lived for a few years with our living room window facing directly onto both a sheep field and area of common land grazed by sheep. Regularly saw large black birds of some variety going for the lambs, not sure how much damage they were doing as didn’t notice any dead lambs.

Someone told me they also pecked the wool off to use in nests… no idea if that is true

When i was growing up, we bred Suffolks for quite a while. Crows would go for the eyes on dead lambs occasionally. I never saw them attack live lambs though.
IMO Most farmers haven’t got time to go shooting crows.

@ferrals – there’s often a lot of wool lying around in fields and enclosures where there are sheep. They’ll use walls, trees and the like to give themselves a good scratch; they snag their fleece on branches and barbed wire; sometimes lumps of wool will come away. If crows do go for wool off a live animal it’s mostly likely to be an older animal, lambs’ wool is pretty well attached and corvids are pretty smart so won’t waste time on them.

Seen crows peck the eyes out of very ill, several month old lambs in a field. I was having to put any old lick buckets I could find over the heads of any of the poorly sheep I could to stop them until the vet came out to euthanise them. Farmer got convicted: http://www.chewvalleygazette.co.uk/article.cfm?id=101487&headline=Chew%20Stoke%20farmer%20banned%20from%20owning%20sheep%20after%20animal%20welfare%20conviction&sectionIs=news&searchyear=2016

This year crows have moved into our stone barn were we are lambing. They have ruined the roof lining this last year too which is annoying as now I will have to take the tiles off when we convert it to a house.

I have been worried about them attacking the newborn lambs the same but they shouldnt with the mothers around. Old couple down the road have a dead crow hanging up in their garden. Bought a new bird feeder the other week, crows cleaned it out in 2 days. Seem to be over-run this year.

Around here farmers will shoot what the **** they want, be it wood pigeon, magpie or crow, no matter what Mr Packham has to say. I’ve seen and heard it action. Crows really are gobby **** though, I’ve seen three winding the shit out of a buzzard only this morning

Is it inefficient to try and shoot crows though?

As with most ‘vermin’ like rats, removing the food source will take care of the problem.

I don’t imagine sickly lambs are the main food for crows. So what are they thriving on? Remove that rather than trying to shoot crows with guns, I imagine they are a tricky target.

Tackling the cause rather than the symptoms would seem to be the best bet if they are really causing a problem.

Around here farmers will shoot what the **** they want, be it wood pigeon, magpie or crow, no matter what Mr Packham has to say. I’ve seen and heard it action. Crows really are gobby **** though, I’ve seen three winding the shit out of a buzzard only this morning

Well that’s because until today they could.

Is it inefficient to try and shoot crows though?

Where I grew up they shoot the nests!

Sounds like there’s grounds for concern for Natural England that some people haven’t been playing fair with the old general licences. These were licences which you just printed off the website and you were responsible for following the conditions, such as being humane. The licences covered a few things, not just shooting, including keeping live birds in small larsen traps to attract other birds, but again you had to do it humanely to meet the conditions.

Now, you can still do all that but you have to apply for an individual licence. Looking at the new form, it’s just like all other Natural England licence forms, maybe a bit simpler. In this case, you have to describe if you’ve had proper training in the sort of control you want to do. It professionalises the whole thing, I doubt it’ll trouble proper gamekeepers apart from the delay in getting approval (which is a reasonable concern in the short term).

If someone wants to carry on with what they were doing before but can’t show that they are competent or explain why it’s needed, well…. but clearly the main complaint from opponents is the additional hassle. Some think that’s needed, some obviously not!

It affects pest control in towns too, pigeons in buildings etc, as they also revoked GL05. Shouldn’t be a problem for legit pest control businesses but caused our estates team some flapping when I told them they had to suspend activities

Local sheep farmer to me reckons that ravens and badgers take some of his lambs each year. Surprised at badgers but he swears they take the odd lamb.

the crows, like most corvids, are scavenging still-born lambs and the afterbirth.

Yup.
Around here have watched crows waiting on fences to go for newborn lambs, the afterbirth and the rear ends of sheep who have recently lambed.

It happens.

I’m quite happy to see corvids, rats, deer and foxes controlled when they are a pest.

I don’t like it, they are all intelligent, wonderful creatures.

But needs must.

Well that’s because until today they could.

I’ve misread this, thought it had been “law” for a longer.

Please now quote me as ‘farmers round here won’t give a shit and will still keep blasting what they want”

The reason the shooting lobby are so upset about this and putting forward all the propaganda about lambs is that under the illegal licenses they can shoot corvids etc to “protect” game birds. This they will no longer be able to do as the law says “livestock” and game birds are not livestock

I grew up on a sheep farm and saw crows peck the eyes out of dead and in some not so nice cases immobile but alive sheep but doubt they ever really killed any that weren’t already dying

@tjagain – The wildlife and countryside act does include animals kept for shooting or fishing in its definition of “Livestock”. I think it’s the delay and extra administration requirement that is causing the most complaints, made worse by the time of year of its introduction and apparent short notice.

That was from some commentry I read on the decision.

I think the bigger problem is pigeons. They can clear a field in 2 days of its crop. If you google how much they eat, you would be surprised at the amount – they eat a lot. Scarers only work intermittently, seeing their shot dead mates falling tends to keep them away a lot better.

Scarers only work intermittently, seeing their shot dead mates falling tends to keep them away a lot better.

Not in the slightest they still come and feed regardless, I’ve shot well into the hundreds in one field in a few hours. They’d still fly in with the are littered with dead ones. The best best decoys are freshiy shot ones.

This they will no longer be able to do as the law says “livestock” and game birds are not livestock

Not true either.

AndyL – I know exactly where that farmer’s fields are…. even though he’s not directly keeping animals the last time I was up that way the livestock in the field were in a pretty bad way – a lot of the sheep were lame and quite a few were shuffling around on their knees and looked in need of attention from
a vet.

I’m not a regular to the area so if you get the chance please keep an eye on those fields and let the RSPCA know if they need to pay a visit..

I don’t have data on the lamb vs crow issue but as has been said, crows are mainly consumers of carrion. A crow wouldn’t kill a healthy lamb. A weak or abandoned one maybe but I imagine cases of lambicide are few and far between.

Shooting crows is extremely challenging. Most shooters have given up on the walking-up approach with air rifle and shotgun and shoot a .17HMR or similar from a bipod, laid up and camouflaged.

I strongly believe that magpies should remain on a general license. Magpie numbers trebled between 1970 and the early 1990s and although the current trend is a weak increase, they are responsible for significant losses of songbird broods. I’ve shot dozens over the years with FAC air rifle and rimfire. And each time I killed one, I felt I had avenged the killing of blackbird and bluetit chicks and fledglings up and down the land. Silly but true.

Short answer is yes. But often it is farms with poorer quality stock (weaker ewes & lambs), or those lambing in more harsh conditions which have the greater problems. I have only seen crows effectively kill one of my lambs over the years when I used to lamb outside and that was only dues to an extreme snowstorm and a ewe having twins wasn’t able to protect both lambs. The crow sat in the tree above his kill and mocked me. He is the only one I have shot as well. Here we have a far worse problem in that our ewes are now so well looked after that they tend to get too fat and end up cast. This is when they end up on their backs like a tortoise and are unable to get back onto their legs to stand up again. If not found and righted they will die within 24 hours. Our sheep get checked daily so while we haven’t had any die, we have had 3 cases in the past 12 months where birds (crows or magpies most likely) have pecked out the eyes of the sheep while it lies there. I now have 3 sheep with only one eye 🙁

I still won’t be going out and shooting them though, but do understand those who feel the need to. The new licence that is available means that there shouldn’t be any reason why numbers can no longer be controlled by shooting, provided the forms are filled in correctly anyway. So nothing has really changed, just one more level of bureaucracy to go through to achieve the same end point. And a few more jobs created and a bit more tax revenue that will need to be raised from somewhere.

A more nuanced comment here;
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/apr/27/crowgate-isnt-story-its-britains-heedless-killing-birds-farmers-chris-packham

“As Tingay told me, Wild Justice had never sought for the licences to be revoked. “Our ask,” she said, “was for Natural England to acknowledge that the current general licences were unlawful and for them to be changed and improved before they issued them again in January 2020.” Wild Justice accepts that in certain circumstances farmers and some other land users need to control certain species, but this should be, Tingay says, “regulated, monitored and proportionate”. (Natural England has said that it will reissue the general licences on Monday, with updated wording to reflect issues raised by Wild Justice.)”