Streetlife

1. Poor rabbits and pigeons.

Apologies Jan E, I have only just seen your message, for some reason I didn't get a notification!!! I have replied.

only wants too shoot rabbits and pigeons poor things

Can you add magpies to the list to shoot as I am fed up with them I have lost all the lovely little garden birds from my garden because of these predators

I've got a few neighbours to add to the list too ;-)

at least he only wants to shoot rabbits and pidgeons food for the table or leave them alone should be the motto

Rabbits and pigeons are serious pests of agricultural crops and cost the country many many £ millions a year in lost production. Look at the Defra web site if you doubt it. Rabbits are not a native species and the number of wood pigeons in the UK has soared since the 1960s ( warmer shorter winters), as well as feral pigeons.When I was young we never saw the huge flocks of wood pigeons except in winter when they came from the continent and nothing like as many sitting about in gardens. The cost of cartridges means that shooting them for sale as food to game dealers is probably prohibitive and many farmers do not have the time-which is why you will hear bird scarers on oil seed rape as farmers struggle to prevent their whole crop being eaten off. Shooting rabbits and pigeons is usually an instant death and probably better than gassing which is what has to be resorted to when warrens reach an intolerable size. There are a couple of fields in the area where the rabbit population built up to such an extent that whatever the farmer planted on the field was eaten off across half the width ( the safe bunny scurry distance) of the field. The local foxes and cats did not make a dent in the numbers-maybe if buzzards spread a little more easterly they will do the job.. No one working in an office would expect to give up a portion of their income because of rabbits so it is unreasonable for those who live near or in the countryside to condemn those who shoot them to keep numbers under control.
If I remember correctly there is a requirement for landowners to control rabbit numbers. it is however illegal to shoot or hurt a magpie, no matter how wrong the RSPB may be on the disastrous effect the soaring numbers of all corvids has had on the song bird population. Grey squirrels are however fair game and equally harmful to birds as they eat bird eggs.

Golly - that's me told then! I have no problem with farmers managing their land, or with people shooting if they plan on eating their kill. However I do not like the thought of killing live animals (even vermin) if the sole reason is for pleasure, there has to be something wrong with that.

If I were the farmer, I'd have the rabbit meat processed by a local butcher and sold in my farm shop .. that way, everyone's a winner (except the rabbits) :o)

Good call..... I may even try Rabbit stew.