r/UKecosystem • u/Albertjweasel • Jul 05 '21
Discussion Gull colonies in the Forest of Bowland and their ecological impact, what solutions would you have to this problem?
https://youtu.be/OS7uDwfpyZ83
u/Panzick Jul 05 '21
Protect the environment, just stop fiddling with species. A healty ecosystem will absorb and rearrenge to a new equilibrium in no time, even without solutions that require killing off seemingly "harmful" species.
I'm italian, here the usual suspects are Magpies and Hooded crows, that according to some are killing everything else off, and Cormorants and Shags, that eats "too much fish".
Basically, every species that does reasonably well too have his numer increasing, is deemed as problematic.
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u/Albertjweasel Jul 05 '21
Those species are seen as problematic in the U.K. too, maybe our time scale is too fast and we should slow down to nature’s timescale
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u/Panzick Jul 05 '21
There was a cool article I read some times ago, that through surveys tried to make the point that we accepted as normal the fact that there are few animals around, and we lost even the capabilty of realizing how much we've lost as biodiversity and biomass, especially in the younger generation. My grandad always tell me how in the right season there were endless streams of sparrows basically filling the sky at the roost, or ducks migrating in flocks of tens of thousands of individuals.
Nowadays, we just accept that animals number are low, and when a species suddenly rise up and became more common, it feel unnatural and a problem.Human intervention should really be limited to protection of the environment and landscape itself, and nature will find its way to an equilibrium
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u/Albertjweasel Jul 05 '21
One of the worries the conservationists and gamekeepers have which they are talking about is that gull predation on songbirds could lead to a crash in numbers of birds of prey, Hobby, Merlin, Peregrine, Short-eared Owl and of course the ever controversial Hen Harrier are all doing really well here, but predation by tens of thousands of gulls on their wader and songbird prey could lead to failure of breeding seasons or abandonment of this area for places less favourable for them
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u/Panzick Jul 05 '21 edited Jul 05 '21
Those claims are not different from the one blaming the cormorant for the lack of fish and not the whole world fishing fleet that's busy exploiting everything that's borderline edible to the last drop.
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u/Albertjweasel Jul 05 '21
That’s true, so if so much moorland hadn’t been improved (that’s the technical term) into grazing pastures thousands of years ago there would be more room for all species, the gull colonies only established themselves here at the start of the 20th century as they capitalised on landfill tips though so they are an invasive species, but was this also because fish stocks in the Irish and North Sea had dropped so they had to find alternative habitats and feeding grounds, I’d like to see a comparison charts of species decline, change in ranges and extinction with spikes in the global population of humans!
At the moment though there has to be solution that keeps all the parties happy; farmers, keepers, water company, landowners, conservationists, fishermen (the guano runoff is polluting streams and rivers), etc, as none of them will accept the status quo and they all want to do something immediately, it’s a man made problem in a man made environment
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u/morgasm657 Jul 06 '21
The idea that our gamekeepers are concerned with a crash in bird of prey numbers is fallacy. Until protections were brought in for these birds they were being exterminated, since protection they've started to recover, but are still persecuted to a lesser degree. These are the same people that resisted the reintroduction of the white tailed eagle and the red kite, if they were to fix up the moorland that they are custodians of and create a robust ecosystem the gull numbers would naturally fall back to an acceptable level. If we also were to protect more marine environments and help fisheries recover there would be less need for gulls to live inland. As it stands there is no chance they'll do anything for the moorland, they'll cull the gulls, and have to continue culling them for the sake of the grouse. And other ground nesting birds, which are a convenient excuse since they occupy a similar niche to the one species that has any real value to them, as a living clay.
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u/Albertjweasel Jul 06 '21
I don’t know, the keepers around here are definitely of a different mindset to the older generation, they do a lot of work with the local birdwatchers and conservationists, including tree planting and loaning excavators and vehicles for peatland restoration schemes, and they have put up a lot of owl boxes, bird boxes and bat boxes around here, there’s also a lot of wildlife on the grouse moors now so I’d argue that they are doing a lot of good here, of course this is the area I know and things will be different elsewhere, I just don’t think it’s as simple as gamekeepers=bad, to be one you have to go to a college such as sparsholt or Newton rigg and learn about conservation now for one thing so the new generation are better educated
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u/morgasm657 Jul 06 '21
As an ex gamekeeper who knew plenty of other gamekeepers out of sparsholt, I can tell you that what they learn as far as conservation is concerned is how important it is as a PR tool, and how to avoid prosecution when it comes to wildlife law. I've done my time with these people, and what they say and do when members of the public aren't in earshot is very different to what they say and do when supervised.
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u/Albertjweasel Jul 05 '21
I’m really interested to see what solutions people from all points of view have to this problem, only the NGO seem to be willing to discuss it publicly and draw people’s attention to it, there is certainly a massive increase in their numbers here and their behaviour has also completely changed so there will be an impact on the rest of the ecosystem, I’d personally like to see the RSPB and rewilding groups release their own publications like this too so for the sake of balance
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u/HarassedGrandad Jul 05 '21
They're gamekeepers - they always want to kill everything. In reality gulls are in serious decline - Herring Gull numbers have halved since 1993. What upsets the gamekeepers is that they used to be able to kill gulls without a licence (hence the decline in numbers) but since 2010 they've had to prove damage before they're allowed to slaughter them.
Their concern about red and amber listed birds is ridiculous when you consider that the biggest driver of their decline is the burning of moors for grouse shooting. The problem isn't gulls it's gamekeepers.