On a transect survey you basically walk along a pre-determined route stopping at pre-selected points for eg five minutes, and log whatever it is you’re looking for: in this case bats, using a Duet bat recorder which converts their ultrasonic clicks into audible sound. The idea is that by finding out what uses the site, when the developers come to build over yet more habitat they might leave the odd hedgerow used by commuting Pipistrelles, or the pool hunted over by whatever species is in the area. It’s called mitigation: take away most of the good stuff and leave the odd sliver because, you know, we all like wildlife and that’s the law anyway (unless George Osborne gets his way and removes these ‘barriers to development’)…

The surveys started 30 minutes before sunset, so it was still light. Both evenings were fairly cool, but should have been warm enough to bring out insects and the bats that feed on them. The habitat, mainly rough pasture with hawthorn hedge boundaries, small streams, and the occasional clump of mature sallow, looked pretty good – but the results were extremely telling, and perfectly reflect the conclusion of the State of Nature Report released (coincidentally) today: I saw virtually no bees or hoverflies, very few large moths (scanning by torchlight after dark), and recorded virtually no bats (a handful of Pipistrelles and one or two Noctules). I saw one or two Roe Deer, a few Rabbits, heard one or two Blackcaps and a Whitethroat, but to all intents and purposes this part of once rural Wiltshire is practically devoid of wildlife. It was if a clean-up crew had gone in prior to the survey and removed anything that might have slowed down the construction companies queued up and ready to pour their concrete.

It reminded me that a while ago conservation organisations began talking about the ‘splat test’ – an informal way for drivers of noting how many insects are about in the evening by looking at how many get splattered against windscreens and licence plates. The common question that results is this: when did you last need to clean your windscreen of splattered insects? Five years ago? Ten years? Fifteen or twenty? I can’t remember personally, but it was a LONG time ago…

Does it matter whether we’re NOT wiping out insects with our cars? Hell, yes. Our roads cut right through the heart of our farmland and woodlands. They’re actually usually quite good routes for insects too. High hedges keep any wind down, the hedges themselves provide sites for insects to feed and breed, and while the very best sites may be well away from traffic-heavy areas insects used to be so abundant and ubiquitous that it was impossible to go anywhere without driving through clouds of them.

That simply doesn’t happen now. Powerful insecticides are routinely used on farmland and in our gardens, councils mow down roadside vegetation when insects most need it, our climate is changing (if cool, wet springs become the norm our insect life and the wildlife that feeds on them are all but done for), and the current government seem hell-bent on pursuing a ‘development is all’ policy with almost complete disregard for wildlife habitats.

So back to the transect survey. I appreciate that it’s not scientifically valid to claim that from two evenings of surveying any accurate conclusions can be drawn about what the state of wildlife really is on the south-west side of Swindon. Perhaps it’s just unusually cold this week, I wasn’t looking hard enough, or I was looking for the wrong things, but I know – I absolutely know – that if there are no insects on the wing there will be no bats either, if there are no moth larvae to be found birds will struggle to feed their young, and if there are no pollinators there will be far fewer fruits or arable crops.

It may well be (if I’m being extremely generous) that the developers who will flatten what is left of these fields and streams will improve parts of the area by cleaning up the streams, create gardens that householders will fill with plants, and enclose the best sites as ‘nature reserves’ to be managed by local conservationists – but going by what exist just a mile down the road I doubt it, or that would anyway meaningfully restore biodiversity or give our wildlife any sort of respite at all. Yet another area of biologically-devastated farmland will be turned in to biologically-denuded housing estates, yet another tranche of our precious wildlife will be lost to our own crazy and unrestrained growth and ‘need’ to acquire more and more land. Yet another area of British countryside will be turned into yet another suburb of people, roads, vehicles, houses, noise, artificial lighting, and newly-planted non-natives shrubs and trees.

But at least none of these new residents will ever have to clean their windscreens of dead insects…

• Bat Conservation Trust: http://www.bats.org.uk/
• Butterfly Conservation: http://butterfly-conservation.org/
• The Wildlife Trusts: http://www.wildlifetrusts.org/

A range of speakers including Joe Duckworth (the League’s chief-exec), Kerry McCarthy MP, Adrian Sanders MP, and birder and conservationist Bill Oddie (all League vice-presidents) spelled out the cruel, indiscriminate, and widespread use of a tool that most of us will have thought went out if not with Ark but certainly post the Victorian age. But no, gamekeepers are laying tens of thousands of these awful things and condemning thousands and thousands of animals to lingering, painful, and extremely stressful deaths. “A survey of vets, wildlife crime officers and Scottish SPCA Inspectors published in November 2007, found that 90% believed that animals caught in snares had suffered.” (www.league.org.uk/content/753/What-s-Wrong-with-Snaring-)

The major question is why are they still in use?

The simple answer is to maximise profits for the shooting industry. No-one else uses them – virtually no-one else these days would even consider using them – and their sole purpose is to catch ‘predators’ that might otherwise catch and kill prey that has been raised solely to be used as live target practice by shooting syndicates. Using shooting industry data (which are difficult to obtain and examine anyway) there could well be 12,000 animals caught in snares every day: right now thousands of animals are frightened, in pain, and suffering so that someone can blast pheasants and the like out of the sky for fun.

That makes absolutely no sense to me, and I will doing what I can to help the League get the use of snares outlawed. If you’d like to help PLEASE sign the petition at the link below:

• League against Cruel Sports Snaring Manifesto:

  The League Against Cruel Sports has published a Snaring Manifesto, which encapsulates the findings from years of our investigations and research into snaring in one document.

  The report addresses the issues raised in the DEFRA report head on. In our view, voluntary codes of practice are simply not sufficient to end the suffering caused by snares and the only way forward is to ban these cruel devices once and for all.

  The Snaring Manifesto was published on Tuesday 14th May and launched at a House of Commons event and is available to in pdf format.  PLEASE NOTE: the report contains some graphic images of animals caught in snares. If you would prefer a hard copy of the Snaring Manifesto, please contact our Press Office by email: pressoffice@league.org.uk and we will arrange for one to be sent to you.

  We’ll also be pressing the Government to respond to both the DEFRA report into snaring – submitted in March 2012 – and to our report; to acknowledge the issues raised in them; and to commit now, once and for all, to a ban on snaring, backed by primary legislation.

   We need your help too in banning snares. Find out What You Can Do >>

   

  What Else Can You Do?

  Spread the word – make sure your friends and family are aware of this danger to pets and wild animals and write to your local newspaper.

  Tell us about you snaring incidents – please let us know if your pet has been caught in a snare of if you have seen a wild animal suffering as a result of snaring. You can email us at: info@league.org.uk or call on 01483 524 250.

  Make a donation to our campaign – the League receives no Government or National Lottery funding and relies on the generosity of our supporters. Every pound helps fund our campaigning and investigative work.

Happy days.

Whilst I was doing what almost everyone else was doing (with the noble exception of the warden Martin Cade who was doing his best to make us blinkered birders aware of the wonders of moths) – ie ignoring virtually every other representative of the entire animal and plant kingdom – a father and son team wandered placidly around the Obs garden looking at hoverflies. As excited by migrant and vagrant diptera as the rest of us were about migrant and vagrant acrocephala and phylloscs, they were – as I remember – extremely amiable and willing to share what I now realise was an enormous amount of information. Only, none of us were interested…

Leap forward some twenty-five years and with a burgeoning fascination with everything that flies, hovers, and crawls around the beautiful part of North Wiltshire I’m fortunate to call home, I now look back on these two good folks (and I’m sorry, but I don’t remember their names) as pioneers who discovered one of the most interesting groups in British wildlife long, long before many of us even noticed that they existed (other than as Spotted Flycatcher prey or to swat them away when they appeared every summer of course).

How I wish now that I’d been more open to peering into the pots and jars they carried around, following up on the discoveries they made when the wind came streaming in from the direction of the Sahara, or absorbing their hints about how to tell one Eristalis from another.

I mention all this because it would be a) disingenuous of me to rave about a book about hoverflies (which I’m about to do) without acknowledging that I am something of a neophyte and unskilled dipteran, or b) without also acknowledging that I used to be no more interested in hoverflies as, say, a Lebanese hunter is interested in conservation. Having got that out of the way, I can now unveil my passion for these fascinating flies without fear of ridicule or being accused of jumping on a bandwagon only because it is passing close by and undoubtedly beginning to pick up speed…

So, on to the raving…

‘Britain’s Hoverflies – An introduction to the hoverflies of Britain’ is the latest field guide from the excellent WildGuides (now a division of Princeton University Press). It was my personal first ‘must have’ book of 2013 (paid for via the excellent Wildsounds), has been in the offing for several years, and is certainly waell worth the wait. Beautifully and clearly laid out, ‘Britain’s Hoverflies’ is packed with over 500 high-quality and razor-sharp photographs of live insects (a remarkable collection when you consider how quick these things are) and the most up-to-date data on distribution, flight periods, and identification tips. Written by two of the country’s leading experts, Stuart Ball and Roger Morris, the text explains where to find hoverflies, details their biology (including their often bizarre larvae), provides a glossary, and gives a ‘must read’ guide to the various hoverfly tribes. Every one of the 70 UK genera are represented, and unless you’re working on a doctorate the information you need to get to grips with hoverflies is here somewhere.

Male Blera fallax, copyright Ellen Bletheray (used with permission)

The book, though, is clearly titled ‘An introduction to…’ which suggests that there is even more to discover/learn/worry about. This is presumably because the book details ‘just’ 165 of the some 270 species of hoverfly recorded in the UK, but don’t let that put you off for a second: this wonderful guide goes way beyond the niche occupied by, say, the Observer series of books, which really are introductions to a subject. Many of the species not covered in detail here are functionally identical to species that are, and others are very occasional vagrants that most of us will never be in a position to see anyway. In reality this is a very full coverage indeed, and is far and away comprehensive enough for the vast majority of users.

Just skimming through this book proves that point, and I’ve been working my way through photographs I took last year – discovering new records and confirming old ones. However, on a note of caution don’t be fooled into thinking that expertise is within our grasp just because we buy ‘Britain’s hoverflies’. As the authors point out (and have expanded on elsewhere in discussions on the consequences of data bias if just ‘common’ species are recorded), there is a lot to learn before any of us newbies start putting names to more than a relative handful of common species.

Some hoverflies, eg Episyrphus balteatus, Xanthogramma pedisequum and Rhingia rostrata are almost instantly recognisable (once you know that they actually exist of course) but others are extremely tricky. A handy symbol alongside each species’ text points to whether they can be identified by ‘eye’, with a magnifying glass, or only via a microscope. They’re a sober reminder of how difficult hoverfly ID can be. Just as with taking up birds or moths it’s great fun to leap into a new world, but definite identification of hoverflies often relies on seeing small features like wing clouding, the way a wing vein bends or lops (or does not bend or loop), how many dark rings are on the tibia, or whether or not the eyeballs are hairy (I kid you not…). Learning any new group takes a lot of effort and time of course, and even armed with ‘Britain’s hoverflies’ many sightings – as I can sadly attest – will remain unidentifiable (unless dissection is your bag: it’s not mine and while I do understand that my taking a few ‘samples’ will have a vanishingly small impact on populations – and might potentially add to that data bias I mentioned above – I can’t bring myself to kill an individual hoverfly just so that someone else may one day identify it).

Xanthogramma pedisequum, copyright Charlie Moores

Volucella inanis, copyright Charlie Moores

Does that mean that hoverflies are not worth looking at? Of course not. Many birders have become beguiled by moths in recent years. They’re an equally frustrating group of often very similar-looking insects, but one which make things even harder by its members mostly coming out at night. In my own experience hoverflies are just as rewarding (and not so sleep-depriving). Widespread, stingless, sometimes strikingly beautiful, and often abundant and approachable, our hoverflies are important pollinators, natural ‘pest’ control agents, and as much a background to summer as Swallows and Ox-eye Daisies. They’re all around us – in declining numbers due to habitat loss and the overuse of pesticides – but you really don’t need much more than a potted plant stood in a sunny corner of even a small garden to attract a few species. They surely deserve to be the next group we die-hard ‘avianistas’ turn to – especially now that we can do it with ‘Britain’s hoverflies’ by our side (or in our rucksacks etc etc).

To sum up, then, this is another very high-quality and expertly-written field-guide from WildGuides (if you’ve not come across WildGuides before check them out – they are producing a series of consistently excellent and great value books covering a wide range of natural history subjects and distinctively wrapped in wipe-clean covers [which should be the norm in my opinion]). Every naturalist, neophyte or long-in-the-tooth, should own this fascinating, highly-detailed, and beautiful book. Jump on that hoverfly bandwagon right now, even (or should that be ‘especially’) if you’ve already spent the first four/fifths of your life looking only at birds…

Britain’s Hoverflies: An Introduction to the Hoverflies of Britain By Stuart Ball & Roger Morris | 296 pages, 500 colour photos | colour distribution maps | WildGuides | Paperback | PVC slip-over cover | Mar 2013 | ISBN 9780691156590

• Hindus urge Malta tourism boycott if it failed to curb illegal bird hunting

  Expressing shock at the reported illegal spring bird hunting and trapping in Malta, Hindus have urged immediate intervention of European Union (EU).

  Hindu statesman Rajan Zed, in a statement in Nevada (USA) today, said that the world did not understand why the Malta Government was allowing it to continue, which reportedly included killing of some protected, threatened and rare bird species. Zed urged Malta Government to “wholeheartedly” end this illegal tradition.

  Zed, who is President of Universal Society of Hinduism, pointed out that thousands of migratory birds which flew through Malta on their path to breeding places in Europe were a world heritage and did not belong to Malta or any other particular country. Malta should not be allowed to shoot these valuable bird species for whose protection millions were being spent, and if it continued, EU should institute some kind of tourism boycott of Malta, Zed added.

  Rajan Zed urged Malta President Dr. George Abela and Prime minister Dr. Joseph Muscat for efficient and effective government action on this issue, which was urgently needed as it was long overdue. Malta, which lied on the strategic European-African bird migration route and was said to have highest density of hunters per square mile in Europe, should show strong political will.

  Zed asked for effective implementation of the conservation laws in Malta. The majority of Malta people, who were not hunters or trappers, should raise public opinion against these crimes against biodiversity, Zed argued.

  Few European countries have such concentrated architecture, history, and beaches in so small an area as Malta. Maltese islands were first settled reportedly in 5,200 BCE. Hinduism is oldest and third largest religion of the world with about one billion adherents and moksh (liberation) is its ultimate goal.

If tourists do start staying away – and it’s likely that they will as the stories are picked up and reported repeatedly across Europe – the tourist authorities will know EXACTLY where to put the blame: on their arrogant, lawless ‘hunters’.

Army drafted in to guard nature reserves

Times of Malta: Thursday, April 25, 2013

The secretariat for rural affairs and animal rights confirmed this afternoon that soldiers are being used to enforce hunting regulations.

In a statement, it said it was disappointed by the ‘unfair criticism’ of BirdLife Malta after the government used the army’s services to continue to enforce the hunting regulations.

The government said its decision showed that while it allowed hunting according to the regulations, it was not prepared to tolerate illegalities.

“The use of a number of soldiers to guard the boundaries of nature reserves has permitted the police to monitor other areas more effectively,” the secretariat said. 

The ministry wondered what the reaction would have been had the number of people deployed to enforce regulations had actually been reduced.

Earlier, BirdLife Malta said that up to 28 soldiers had been made available to assist the police in controlling spring hunting.

Since Tuesday, Spring Watch teams encountered soldiers in Delimara and in the Foresta 2000 Bird Sanctuary. The soldiers were armed with automatic assault rifles to keep illegal hunters at bay, the NGO said.

“The armed forces have been called in despite the government continuing to claim that the derogation is being strictly controlled as required by the derogation of the EU Birds Directive that allows spring hunting to take place. Spring Watch Coordinator, Nicholas Barbara said, “This is the sort of thing you might expect to see in a developing country, not in Malta which in all other respects is a wealthy and progressive European nation.”

The decision to use soldiers to police the spring hunting derogation clearly demonstrates that the hunting season has not been strictly supervised to date and has therefore been illegal.

“While the government might claim that this latest move demonstrates that they are taking the issue of illegalities seriously, BirdLife Malta asserts that this development proves that illegal hunting is rife in the Maltese islands and civilian authorities are unable to tackle the situation effectively.

 “It is surely desperate measures to call in soldiers who have no special training in dealing with wildlife crime to deal with what should be a matter for a properly equipped and trained wildlife crime unit,” Mr Barbara said.

 

]]> http://www.talking-naturally.co.uk/how-bad-is-illegal-hunting-in-malta-send-in-the-troops/feed/ 0 http://www.talking-naturally.co.uk/malta-conservation-the-fknk-way/ http://www.talking-naturally.co.uk/malta-conservation-the-fknk-way/#comments Wed, 24 Apr 2013 06:08:20 +0000 Charlie http://www.talking-naturally.co.uk/?p=11782 Press-release from BirdLife Malta concerning the FKNK, Malta’s vociferous hunting organisation which attempts (like so many hunting organisations across the world) to offset its destructive activities by calling itself a ‘hunting and conservation’ group. The FKNK’s particular brand of conservation is well illustrated here – creeping round nature reserves with a gun and shooting whatever they happen to see…

 

• Monday 22nd April – This morning, Edwin Vella (1), a high-ranking FKNK official, was photographed hunting illegally inside the Foresta 2000 Bird Sanctuary, only hours after Mellieha resident Chris Gauci was convicted of the same offence. BirdLife Malta will be calling on the government to put an immediate end to the current spring hunting season, which it said was completely out of control, with bag limits and quotas not being respected or supervised and the police unable to cope with the number of hunters and scale of abuse.

  Steve Micklewright, BirdLife Malta’s Executive Director, said, “The fact that an FKNK official has now been caught hunting illegally in a protected area demands that immediate action be taken to prevent the situation spiraling further out of control. We will demand that suspension of the hunting season is discussed at Tuesday’s Hunting Derogation Board meeting.” (2)

  BirdLife will also call on the FKNK to resign their place on the Hunting Derogation Monitoring Board because their position is no longer tenable in the light of this most recent incident. Mr Micklewright added, “An organization that includes people who flagrantly disregard the law among its officials can clearly not be trusted with the responsibility of ensuring that the conditions of the spring derogation are respected and abuses curtailed,” said Mr Micklewright.

  BirdLife Malta Conservation Manager, Nicholas Barbara, said that the incident raised some serious questions about the sincerity and credibility of the FKNK’s statements that it will not tolerate any illegal hunting by its members, and the organisation’s self-purported ability to police its members’ activities during the hunting season.

  “The FKNK claim to have marshals in the field supervising the hunting season, but we have not seen any. It is also high time the FKNK published records of the number and type of any hunting and trapping offences committed by their members and what action the FKNK has taken in each case,” said Mr Barbara.

  As for the incident itself, BirdLife said that it clearly demonstrates the invaluable role of photographic and video evidence gathering by BirdLife staff and Spring Watch camp volunteers in detecting and securing prosecutions for illegal hunting offences. “Without the work done by our local staff and international volunteers, I have no doubt that the majority of illegal hunting offences would go unpunished,” said Mr Barbara. (3)

  Rather than supporting BirdLife Malta’s efforts to end illegal hunting, the FKNK has consistently called into question the authenticity of video and photographic evidence documenting illegal hunting offences in the Maltese countryside.

  Commenting on evidence showing Chris Gauci and a second accused man, Carl Borg, hunting inside Foresta 2000 Bird Sanctuary, a moderator on the FKNK’s internet forum questioned whether photos and video of the two men hunting in Foresta 2000 Bird Sanctuary was genuine. (4) “It would be interesting to know whether the two men accused are members of the FKNK, and if so, what action has been taken,” said Mr Barbara.

 

The BirdLife Malta website: http://www.birdlifemalta.org

BirdLife Malta is part of an international network of fully co-ordinated ringing stations and National Ringing Schemes that have been indispensable for the efficient management of scientific bird ringing in Europe. We are the leading voice in ensuring that Malta’s hunters WILL conform with EU Directives and spring hunting will be banned in accordance with those directives. Birdlife Malta currently manages two nature reserves, Ghadira and Is-Simar, and also joint manages an afforestation project known as Foresta 2000 (located adjacent to Ghadira): the two nature reserves are both Ramsar-designated wetland areas and represent the largest free-standing sources of water in Malta.

 

]]> http://www.talking-naturally.co.uk/malta-conservation-the-fknk-way/feed/ 0 http://www.talking-naturally.co.uk/gunning-for-change-a-symposium-on-the-shooting-industry-and-firearm-licensing/ http://www.talking-naturally.co.uk/gunning-for-change-a-symposium-on-the-shooting-industry-and-firearm-licensing/#comments Tue, 23 Apr 2013 15:45:11 +0000 Charlie http://www.talking-naturally.co.uk/?p=11775 Talking Naturally will be recording vox pops and short interviews with attendees and delegates at the League against Cruel Sports’ symposium this coming Thursday. We’re part of the official social media output, and we’ll be making everything we record (once it’s been edited up of course) available to the League as well as uploading the files to this website.

The day will feature interesting and exciting headline speakers from a range of organisations opposed to cruel sports and illegal hunting, and we’ll hopefully be speaking to as many of them as possible as well as talking with people from the League itself. Events like these can help so many of us understand the shooting industry and the cruelty involved in both raising young birds to be used as living targets and in the ‘control’ of natural predators so reviled by many estate-owners and gamekeepers: we’re proud to be playing our (small) part!

• If you’d like to stay in touch with events on the day, ‘Gunning for Change’ news will be tweeted with a dedicated hashtag – #GFC13

 

Gunning For Change: A Symposium on the Shooting Industry and Firearm Licensing

Date:  Thursday 25th April 2013
Venue: Central Hall Westminster, Storey’s Gate, London SW1H 9NH

• For details please go to Gunning For Change

 

]]> http://www.talking-naturally.co.uk/gunning-for-change-a-symposium-on-the-shooting-industry-and-firearm-licensing/feed/ 0 http://www.talking-naturally.co.uk/11756/ http://www.talking-naturally.co.uk/11756/#comments Sat, 20 Apr 2013 19:08:20 +0000 Tristan Reid http://www.talking-naturally.co.uk/?p=11756 Spring migration is in full swing in Malta, unfortunately so is the hunting season! Please read and share the following press release from Birdlife Malta:

Friday 19^th April - BirdLife Malta today questioned the ability of the government and enforcement authorities to properly control and limit the spring hunting season in accordance with its derogation of the EU Birds Directive that allows spring hunting of turtles dove and quail.

Many Turtle Doves were seen being shot down on Thursday morning, when Spring Watch teams in Malta recorded more than 9000 shots within a three-hour period. Photo © David Tipling

BirdLife Malta says that it has witnessed widespread illegal hunting in the first week of the season and the number of hunters and amount of shooting are not compatible with a strictly enforced spring hunting season.

BirdLife Malta Conservation Manager, Nicholas Barbara, said that volunteers monitoring migration as part of BirdLife Malta’s Spring Watch camp witnessed a “big push” of Turtle Doves migrating on Thursday morning.

“Our teams in the countryside recorded in excess of 9000 shots in the space of just a few hours in the morning at 8 different locations around Malta,” said Mr Barbara.

Spring Watch camp participant, Marianne Leenders, who has been coming to Malta for Spring Watch and Raptor Camps since 2009, said that it was the worst morning she had ever experienced in all the camps she has volunteered at.

“It was like a warzone. There were hunters everywhere and the shots were coming so fast from every direction it was like we were surrounded by machine gun fire all morning. We saw many Turtle Doves flying and many being shot down. With so many hunters it is difficult to imagine how any could have survived.”

BirdLife has raised doubts that the number of SMS reports sent to MEPA will accurately reflect the number of Turtle Doves shot, saying that evidence from previous seasons suggests that this will not be the case.

Mr Barbara added, “Under-reporting of kills has been a long-running issue. There is no way that the few police officers our teams have seen patrolling in the last week can monitor the number of hunters there are in the countryside as they are required to do by law, let alone check the amounts of birds that are being killed by each hunter.”

There are also concerns that police may not be correctly enforcing daily bag limits and seasonal quotas in accordance with the derogation conditions.

Nets, trapping equipment and at least 10 live Turtle Doves, which were being used as decoys, were confiscated from five active trapping sites in Wardija area this morning. Police apprehended two suspects after BirdLife Malta reported the illegal activity. Photo © Rupert Masefield

On Thursday morning a hunter was filmed shooting and collecting two Turtle Doves and then continuing to hunt, shooting at, but missing, at least two Quail. Police attending the scene spoke to the man, who admitted that he had killed two Turtle Doves and then continued hunting Quail, misinterpreting the law limting the daily bag of each hunter to two birds. In a separate incident reported in the media yesterday, after Thursday’s influx of Turtle Dove, police are reported to have managed to apprehend just one hunter on Gozo exceeding his bag limit.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9roLC4aS7ck

BirdLife Malta’s Executive Director, Steve Micklewright, said, “It is impossible to overstate the difficulty in enforcing these quotas. With the recent peak of Turtle Dove migration, shots fired in thousands all over the island, and incidents such as these, it is hard to believe that each hunter has kept to his two-bag limit, and that any strict enforcement of bag limits is even possible.”

In the meantime, BirdLife Malta has continued to record various other illegal hunting incidents, including incidents of hunting on Sunday as well as after the 3pm curfew.

On Thursday afternoon, Spring Watch participants at the Għadira Nature Reserve witnessed masked men hunting illegally inside the Foresta 2000 Bird Sanctuary, taking advantage of the 1pm ALE shift handover during which time hardly any police are present in the countryside.

This is not the first time that such incidents have been reported, but this time round Spring Watch volunteers were able to film and photograph events as they unfolded and have passed on video evidence identifying the individuals to the ALE.

“We understand the police are aware of the identity of the culprits and that investigations are ongoing,” said Nicholas Barbara.

In the latest incident, which took place this morning, BirdLife staff and volunteers filmed two men illegally trapping Turtle Doves in Wardija. Police attended the scene and apprehended two suspects. Nets, trapping equipment and at least 10 live Turtle Doves, which were being used as decoys, were confiscated from five active trapping sites in the area.

To find out more about these and other incidents recorded by Spring Watch volunteers during the 2013 spring hunting derogation, visit BirdLife Malta’s tumblr page.

To find out how to report illegal hunting and what to do if you find an injured bird, visit www.birdlifemalta.org.

]]> http://www.talking-naturally.co.uk/11756/feed/ 1 http://www.talking-naturally.co.uk/new-study-provides-first-direct-evidence-of-feral-cats-in-hawaii-killing-endangered-hawaiian-petrel/ http://www.talking-naturally.co.uk/new-study-provides-first-direct-evidence-of-feral-cats-in-hawaii-killing-endangered-hawaiian-petrel/#comments Thu, 18 Apr 2013 09:27:25 +0000 Charlie http://www.talking-naturally.co.uk/?p=11748 Press-release from the American Bird Conservancy, Washington, D.C., April 17, 2013

A new study by federal and university scientists has provided the first direct videographic evidence of depredation of the endangered Hawaiian Petrel by feral cats. The study affirms large amounts of earlier anecdotal evidence that feral cats are an important factor in population declines of the species and provides important additional information on the behavior of cats at petrel burrows.

The study, which was prepared by scientists from the University of Hawaiʻi, National Park Service, and U.S. Geological Survey, involved the monitoring of 14 Hawaiian Petrel burrows with digital infrared video cameras that produced 819 videos and 89 still photographs during 2007 and 2008 at petrel nesting areas on Mauna Loa on Hawaiʻi Island. The study confirmed the presence of feral cats at eight burrows.

The report says that the effects of feral cats on endangered birds are poorly understood because many endangered species are rare and therefore observed infrequently. In addition, some endangered species are nocturnal and occur only seasonally in remote and inaccessible environments.

All that is true in the case of the Hawaiian Petrel. This species was once numerous and widespread throughout the entire Hawaiian archipelago but now numbers only about 15,000 birds distributed in isolated breeding colonies on Kauaʻi, Lanaʻi, Maui, and Hawaiʻi Island. The birds spend most of their time at sea, and return to land only to breed in barren alpine areas and steep forested slopes, where they come and go from underground burrows nocturnally. Usually, confirmation of breeding is determined by a variety of indirect signs such as the presence of droppings, feathers, footprints, or vocalizations.

Depredation of Hawaiian Petrel adults and chicks at colonies has been frequently documented and attributed to cats based on the condition of bird carcasses and the presence of nearby cat scat.  Analysis of cat scat and stomach contents of feral cats also suggest that cat depredation is occurring. However, the technology does not currently exist to differentiate whether petrel remains came from consumption of live prey or scavenged dead animals.

One feral cat depredation event was recorded on video in 2008 and showed a feral cat waiting near the entrance of a burrow for over one hour.  When the petrel chick emerged, the cat quickly grabbed it. The remains of the chick were found 10 meters from the burrow. Evidence from an additional depredation event was documented in 2008 during a field visit by researchers, while eight other depredation events were documented during field visits in 2007.

The report says that the video data should prove useful in studying both the bird’s nesting behavior and predator interactions. “This information may prove to be beneficial for developing more targeted management strategies for a suite of endangered bird species in Hawaii,” said Dr. Steven Hess of the U.S. Geological Survey.

 

Videographic evidence already exists for feral cat depredation of another endangered Hawaiian bird, the Palila, while another video shows a feral cat trying to take the egg of a Nēnē, the endangered Hawaiian Goose. According to the study, other strong evidence for the negative effects of feral cats on native Hawaiian seabirds comes from the positive response of bird populations where feral cats have been controlled and from comparisons of Wedge-tailed Shearwater reproduction in the presence and absence of feral cats.

The authors point out that while the depredation of Hawaiian Petrel chicks may limit the recruitment of chicks into the population, the killing of adults by cats may have even more severe consequences.

 

“This species has delayed sexual maturity, low reproductive potential and extended nestling development, all of which place a premium on survivorship of the adult birds. Further, the birds also have a high degree of mate fidelity and may have difficulty replacing mates that have been depredated,” said Dr. Darcy Hu of the National Park Service.
She pointed out that the majority of numerous depredated Hawaiian Petrel carcasses found in the study area were adult birds, presumably ones that were actively breeding or seeking mates.

 

“These data provide yet more evidence that feral cats are having an impact on many wildlife species, but especially on birds,” said George Wallace, ABC’s Vice President for Oceans and Islands. “Feral cats are believed to have been at least partially, if not fully, responsible for the extinction of several dozen wildlife species, including the Stephens Island Wren of New Zealand and Mexico’s Guadalupe Storm-Petrel.  Management controls, such as predator control and predator-proof fencing are urgently needed to prevent that from happening to the Hawaiian Petrel.”

 

One such effort is underway to protect Mauna Loa’s Hawaiian Petrels. The National Park Service with support from the US Fish and Wildlife Service, National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, and the American Bird Conservancy, is constructing a fence specifically designed to keep feral cats and mongooses out of important Hawaiian Petrel nesting habitat in Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park. Once completed, the fence will protect an estimated 45 active petrel nesting sites and enclose 640 acres of prime nesting habitat.

]]> http://www.talking-naturally.co.uk/new-study-provides-first-direct-evidence-of-feral-cats-in-hawaii-killing-endangered-hawaiian-petrel/feed/ 0 http://www.talking-naturally.co.uk/world-parrot-trust-podcasts/ http://www.talking-naturally.co.uk/world-parrot-trust-podcasts/#comments Thu, 18 Apr 2013 00:11:03 +0000 Charlie http://www.talking-naturally.co.uk/?p=11729 Over the last year or so I’ve been working with the World Parrot Trust (WPT) – an organisation I unreservedly support – to produce a series of podcasts on welfare issues surrounding captive birds: nutrition, disease, enrichment, foraging, flighted vs non-flighted etc. They take the format of a ‘conversational’ seminar, and the wonderful Michelle Kooistra at WPT has been arranging for me to talk with some absolutely fascinating experts – from vets to nutritionists and operators of rescue centres. Basically I ask questions, sit back and listen while the ‘guest’ astound me with their knowledge and empathy, and then I go away and edit up our chat into a twenty-minute downloadable podcast.

The plan has always been to build up a number of these seminars before starting to release them on the WPT website so that they can appear regularly, and the first – a two-parter on the dreadful Proventricular Dilatation Disease (PDD) with Dr Scott Echols (photo right) – has just gone online at www.parrots.org/index.php/forumsandexperts/podcasts/. I will be the first to admit I knew nothing about PDD before the topic was put to me – actually very people do – but to his absolute credit (and my sincere gratitude) Scott and I chatted for about two hours to create 40 minutes of material: the result is testament to both his expertise and his patience (and, I’d like, to think his trust in me to edit skilfully enough that the vast cracks in my knowledge wouldn’t make the ‘conversation’ sound ridiculously one-sided).

Now – ‘podcasts on welfare issues surrounding captive birds‘…I am a life-long birder so it might seem a little contradictory for me to work on podcasts aimed at people who keep birds in captivity – something I don’t do myself, and haven’t done since I was very young indeed (as a seven year-old I ‘killed’ a Budgerigar by having no idea how to look after it). I must admit when WPT first asked me if I’d like to work with them on these seminars I was initially a little sceptical about getting involved (and pleasantly surprised they asked of course). However, and I’m being totally honest here and not just in ‘promotional’ mode, I have been deeply impressed and inspired by the people I’ve talked with and every one of them has said basically the same thing about why they’re onboard: it’s a fact that there are millions of birds in captivity, and while there are we need to make sure that owners/caregivers know as much as possible about how to look after those birds so that they can provide the conditions that will give their birds as rich a life as captivity allows.

The seminars are not about the ethics of bird-keeping per se, then, but they are strongly ethical. It is an unavoidable truth of course that there are parrots living in dreadful conditions, bored witless, and to all intents and purposes abandoned. I know full well that there is not a podcast in the world that will make a difference to their lives, because their ‘owners’ would be extremely unlikely to be interested enough to listen to it: in cases like that the best hope is rescue and rehousing. However, as I’ve learnt, there are far, far more birds living with owners who want the best for their birds, who are looking for up-to-date expert advice that they can use to enhance the welfare of the birds they care for, and – as sappy as it might sound – if by helping to make these podcasts I also help even just one bird live a better life then my involvement will be hugely worthwhile.

So, if you have a parrot or are just interested in avian welfare issues I’d urge you to have a listen. They’re free, most of them don’t last more than 25 minutes, and I’m really rather proud of them (and hopefully WPT’s members will be too)!

• http://www.parrots.org/index.php/forumsandexperts/podcasts/

 

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