As regular CFZ-watchers will know, for some time Corinna has been doing a column for Animals & Men and a regular segment on On The Track... particularly about out-of-place birds and rare vagrants. There seem to be more and more bird stories from all over the world hitting the news these days so, to make room for them all - and to give them all equal and worthy coverage - she has set up this new blog to cover all things feathery and Fortean.

Saturday 20 October 2012

Bird of prey poisonings highlighted by MPs


Hundreds of birds of prey are deliberately killed each year with poisons that have no legal use, according to MPs.
The Environmental Audit Committee says confusion over wildlife laws means criminals often escape unpunished.
It is particularly worried about carbofuran, a chemical used by rogue gamekeepers to kill raptors.
A Defra spokesman said it had banned possession of the chemical, but the MPs insist that it has not.
The chemical is devastatingly toxic to birds. A gamekeeper in Skibo, Scotland, convicted of poisoning birds in 2011, was found to have possessed 10kg of the chemical - enough to kill every raptor in the UK by breaking down its nervous system.
The committee learned that there had been 633 reported cases of poisoning of birds of prey, of which half involved carbofuran.

No comments:

Post a Comment