Viewing 18 posts - 41 through 58 (of 58 total)
  • Well done Chris Packham
  • lemonysam
    Free Member

    not that it matters if you know your stoat from a weasel or can tell a crow from a rook to be allowed to form an opinion on urban foxes and i dont think you need a BA in the subject to post on here?

    Yes, but if you call someone “moronic” because of their, fairly mild, views on something then it seems valid to question the strength of your position. FWIW, having a bin and knowing what a fox looks like isn’t really a strong start.

    Rusty-Shackleford
    Free Member

    MrSmith – Member
    not that it matters if you know your stoat from a weasel or can tell a crow from a rook to be allowed to form an opinion on urban foxes and i dont think you need a BA in the subject to post on here?

    If you’re going to have a pop at someone without actually bothering to explain why you take issue with their stance, then don’t be surprised if someone picks you up on it 😀

    MrSmith
    Free Member

    well this is his position on urban foxes

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/wildlife/10359130/Chris-Packham-urban-foxes-can-live-harmoniously-with-humans.html

    my opinion differs in that i see them as vermin and not to be encouraged in the inner city*, yes people like to see them as they feel they are seeing something ‘wild’ but given the choice i would see them discouraged rather than encouraged like Chris advocates.
    i have also seen the laughable results of a ‘repatriation program’ where city foxes were trapped and released in the countryside by doe-eyed do-gooders so that farmers could shoot them as they stood in the fields looking for a bin to empty.

    *the attacking people in their homes is just a side issue that i have no real opinion on as it’s so rare but it’s possibly the closer contact with humans in the city plus feeding them that made this possible**

    ** no proven peer reviewed scientific research done by me, sorry 😐

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    MSP
    Full Member

    Packham said reports about foxes attacking humans, going up the stairs in houses and allowing themselves to be picked up were “improbable.

    He’s a monster burn him!

    Rusty-Shackleford
    Free Member

    I don’t have a strong opinion one way or another, though I do think it’s a bit rich for us humans to complain about ‘urban’ foxes, having concreted over vast swathes of their natural habitat! I guess I lean towards live & let live.

    marcus7
    Free Member

    I got attacked by a squirrel at the weekend in Chester, scary stuff I can tell you… God knows what I’d have done if it was a Fox!! 🙁

    miketually
    Free Member

    All that on foxes seems very sensible.

    outofbreath
    Free Member

    the RSPB, Wildlife Trusts, Hawk and Owl Trust and National Trust said Packham’s criticisms were baseless.

    IdleJon
    Full Member

    i have to make do with the foxes eating babies nappies out the bins

    Whereas it’s the magpies that rip open my bin bags looking for stuff. Maybe we should wipe them out as well as the gulls for daring to pick up waste food? Of course we’d have less problems with scavengers if people would actually look after their own locale and not treat it like a rubbish dump.

    MrSmith
    Free Member

    Of course we’d have less problems with scavengers if people would actually look after their own locale and not treat it like a rubbish dump

    this 100% ^

    miketually
    Free Member

    Whereas it’s the magpies that rip open my bin bags looking for stuff. Maybe we should wipe them out as well as the gulls for daring to pick up waste food? Of course we’d have less problems with scavengers if people would actually look after their own locale and not treat it like a rubbish dump.

    It was pet cats around here, until we got wheelie bins. I’d be perfectly happy for those to exterminated, though.

    DaRC_L
    Full Member

    Certainly think when it comes to the NT Packham has a point to an extent. Certainly it’s a point worth raising about some WWT’s too.

    So he raised an issue for discussion in a magazine where such issues should be discussed (as a member of the NT, WWT and Wildfowl & Wetlands Trusts it’s not an area they are particulalry vocal about).

    However as MR Smith purports to have come from the strata of countryside society that is being criticized; no surprise there….

    CraigW
    Free Member

    The RSPB and the National Trust are scared to criticise any of the rich land owners or supporters or the government.
    So they continue to support grouse shooting, even though it is linked to illegal persecution of a variety of other animals. While hen harriers and pine martens are now almost extinct in much of England.

    Speshpaul
    Full Member

    “I got attacked by a squirrel at the weekend in Chester, scary stuff I can tell you”

    Was she called Tracey?

    MrSmith
    Free Member

    So they continue to support grouse shooting, even though it is linked to illegal persecution of a variety of other animals. While hen harriers and pine martens are now almost extinct in much of England.

    probably because better the devil you know. those environments where hen harriers/grouse can thrive are managed and not natural, without the grouse £££’s who else is going to pay for it’s management?
    in an ideal world the state would create a bucolic rural idyll where local people and wildlife co-exist in harmony and all fauna and flora thrive, reality is somewhat different.
    the answer is to educate and prosecute any illegal trapping/poisoning while encouraging those who are best placed to manage the land while encouraging a local economy and wildlife. it is possible.

    DaRC_L
    Full Member

    those environments where hen harriers/grouse can thrive are managed and not natural,

    Yep there’s no ‘natural’ landscape in most of Britain all of it has been affected or created by man at some point.

    There is a balance between the people who manage the land and the people who pay (through their taxes) for many of the subsidies.

    Now I get that many small & tenant farmers struggle financially but much of the grouse hunting landscape is owned by very, very rich people.

    jimw
    Free Member

    he answer is to educate and prosecute any illegal trapping/poisoning while encouraging those who are best placed to manage the land while encouraging a local economy and wildlife. it is possible.

    I think you will find that this was the broad thrust of Chris Packhams’ comments- he just may have a slightly different emphasis on the ‘encouragement’ and how the land is best managed. Hence the antagonism from the CA

    i dont think you need a BA in the subject to post on here?

    being a natural born pedant, I think he has a BSc rather than a BA in zoology

    Richie_B
    Full Member

    Not sure who I dislike more him or the CA. Both represent entrenched narrow minded focus on a single interest at the expense of anyone else.

    I have no respect for him after his misrepresentations of proposals for a closed circuit cycling track near the velodrome at Pride Park in Derby. As far as I could see, beyond the short term disruption, the proposal would have little impact on nesting birds etc on the land. The way he represented it was that the proposal would despoil a pristine natural environment (The land was given over as a nature reserve after the development of Pride Park because the soil buried just below the surface is seriously contaminated and couldn’t be built on without decontamination). As a member of Derbyshire Wildlife Trust and BC I couldn’t see why both couldn’t coexist.

    Having been to Chatsworth this weekend and heard some prat in pink trying to explain that fox hunting was basically a working class pursuit (I am sure he didn’t say pursuit of the working class) my view on the CA is pretty similar.

Viewing 18 posts - 41 through 58 (of 58 total)

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