Federal plan might let states kill unwanted cormorants

By KATRIANNA RAY | March 13, 2020

By KATRIANNA RAY

Capital News Service

LANSING — More than 1,000 people have submitted public comments about a proposed U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service rule that would permit state wildlife agencies to authorize previously prohibited techniques to manage cormorant populations. 

They would include killing some birds.

Under the proposed rule, each state would have the power to determine how to control cormorants, a migratory aquatic bird sometimes blamed for damaging fish populations in parts of the Great Lakes. The state agencies would need to work within limits set by the Fish & Wildlife Service.

Michigan is home to around 55% of North America’s double-crested cormorant’s breeding pairs, according to the Michigan United Conservation Clubs (MUCC).

The double-crested cormorant is the most numerous and most widely distributed cormorant in North America, according to the National Audubon Society. They are the only cormorants to occur in large numbers outside of the Atlantic and Pacific coasts.

The birds are federally protected, making it illegal to take, possess, sell, transport or purchase any part of them.

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The legality of a recent controversial cull of some 60 birds at Caerphilly Castle, Gwent, has been questioned by members of the House of Commons.

18/06/2019

The legality of a recent controversial cull of some 60 birds at Caerphilly Castle, Gwent, has been questioned by members of the House of Commons. Cadw – the Historic Environment division of the Welsh Government – executed the cull on 14 May under general licences issued by Natural Resources Wales (NRW), the same type that has recently been withdrawn in England. Cadw has since suspended any future culls.

Among the birds shot were Feral Rock Doves that had previously been in the care of Caerphilly Bird Rescue, before being released back into the wild. Legal experts in the House of Commons have questioned the cull's legality and Hefin David – a Welsh Government Assembly Member – has raised a number of legal questions with NRW.

Mr David said he had been reassured by Dafydd-Elis Thomas, the Welsh Government's Deputy Minister for Culture, Sport and Tourism and Member of Parliament of the United Kingdom, that Cadw has "suspended" further culls at Caerphilly Castle and that a review of the policy was underway, with Mr Thomas saying: "Many people in Caerphilly have expressed their outrage at what has happened in the Castle.

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200 gulls shot dead this year after city decides on lethal crackdown

By Kirsty Stewart - 

August 4, 2017

ALMOST 200 seagulls – including 30 chicks – have been shot this year after a Scottish city decided to take lethal measures over a plague of aggressive birds.

After trying everything from noise deterrents, plastic owls, anti landing systems and netting, Dundee City Council have taken to using deadly force in a bid to control the birds.

Not only have pest controllers shot down almost 200 gulls in just eight months – they have also removed 401 gull eggs.

Under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, it is illegal to kill, injure or remove any wild birds including seagulls.

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70,000 Birds Killed To Clear New York City Flight Paths

But bird strikes are still on the rise.

01/15/2017 01:10 am ET | Updated 3 days ago

Mary Papenfuss Trends reporter, The Huffington Post

Nearly 70,000 birds have been killed in a bid to make flight paths safer for New York City-area planes since 2009 — but it doesn’t appear to have reduced bird strikes.

The slaughter was triggered by the accident eight years ago that forced hero pilot Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger to land in the Hudson River after his plane engines sucked up several geese.

According to statistics compiled by The Associated Press, after the killings, bird strikes by planes taking off or landing at New York’s LaGuardia and New Jersey’s Newark airports actually increased. The airports tallied 158 strikes per year in the five years before the Hudson River accident and an average of 299 per year in the six years after it — even though tens of thousands of gulls, starlings, geese and other birds were killed after the emergency river landing.

At Kennedy Airport, which routinely killed birds before Sullenberger’s crash because it’s on a major migration route, the number of reported strikes has also increased — though the number of birds killed has dropped slightly.

The killings — and statistics — are disheartening to bird lovers. “There has to be a long-term solution that doesn’t rely so extensively on killing birds and also keeps us safe in the sky,” said Jeffrey Kramer, of GooseWatch NYC.

Despite the numbers, airport officials are convinced the killing programs have made flights safer because there hasn’t been a similar Sullenberger crash.

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An act of 'unkindness'? Calls to cull ravens that peck sheep to death

The common raven is being held responsible for an upsurge in attacks on ewes and lambs, sparking calls for a relaxation on the rules on shooting them

Gerry Braiden, Local Government Correspondent

HERITAGE and wildlife bodies are facing calls to give more powers to kill ravens amid claims the bird is the biggest predatory threat to young lambs.

Farmers have claimed the common raven stalks 'in lamb' ewes in flocks of more than 30, attacking the eyes, mouth and other soft tissue of the mother and forcing it to lose its unborn young whilst in a state of shock.

The bird has also been accused of swooping in flocks onto ewes with twins to split one of the lambs, leading to the killing of both the mother and one of her offspring.

Calls for Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) and the RSPB to relax the rules on the killing of the bird, which has around 7500 breeding pairs in the UK, have been backed by several hundred people, mostly understood to be involved in agriculture and several of whom have claimed small farm holding cannot sustain the financial hit from the raven attacks.

But the RSPB said such a move would leave the move ravens open to local extinction, while SNH said any permission to shoot at the bird would simply be to deter them rather than any cull.

The petition calling for 'general licences' to be issued for the killing of ravens was instigated by 'pest control shooter' Danny Bissett who said there had been an upsurge in attacks on ewes and lambs, in part because the bird has natural predators and that it holds a protected status.

His petition states: "The manner in which colonies of the Common Raven have been allowed to grow, uncontrolled would call into question whether the RSPB and SNH have any idea as to what is being witnessed on the ground on a daily basis throughout the farming community, which is massed flocks of this species targeting both in lamb ewes and new born lambs.

"Currently demonstrated instances where SNH have issued landowners with a licence to take two Ravens when the issue is a flock of thirty is laughable and in no way meet the requirements of those who face multiple deaths of their livestock on a daily basis."

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High court challenge over cull backing

Published on the 13 May  2014 

A High Court challenge has been launched against Government backing for the culling of thousands of seabirds on the Lancashire coast.

The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) is concerned that the cull is setting a dangerous precedent for bird conservation in the UK.

The RSPB is asking a judge to quash the Environment Secretary’s decision last May to sanction the cull in the Ribble Estuary on the Lancashire coast, at the request of aerospace firm BAE Systems.

BAE said a reduction in the population of lesser black-backed gulls and herring gulls was required because of fears over birds being sucked into the engines of jets taking off at the airfield at its nearby Warton site.

Consent was for the killing of 552 pairs of lesser black-backed gulls and for further operations to maintain the population at the reduced level for 10 years, provided the overall population was not reduced to lower than 3348 pairs.

There was also consent for further measures to be taken to maintain the herring gull population at the reduced level that followed an earlier cull.

David Forsdick QC, for the RSPB, told a judge sitting in London: “As far as we are aware this has never happened before in the UK and that is why the RSPB is so concerned to have the decision set aside.”

Asking Mr Justice Mitting to order a re-think, he said the culls threatened to undermine the conservation purposes of European Directives for birds and habitats.

The populations of lesser black-backed gulls were in “substantial decline” across the UK and in need of protection.

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FEATHERS FLY: Brooklyn bird groups divided on mute swan plan

Advocates who track the graceful birds at Prospect Park and beyond differ on the Department of Environmental Conservation's proposal.

BY DOYLE MURPHY / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Bird advocates are goosed up — and flying in different directions in response to a state plan to eliminate wild mute swans within the next decade.

Activist group GooseWatch NYC points to the plan, released last month by the state Department of Environmental Conservation, as an example of human meddling, almost implying the policy is downright anti-American.

“It’s similar to the immigrants that come into this country,” said Jeffrey Kramer, a GooseWatch NYC volunteer. “We’re very hostile to them.”

The president of a Prospect Park-based birdwatching club, on the other hand, counters that the lithe longnecks are a menace.

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Conservation agency approved cull of endangered birds, documents show

Natural England licensed cull of tens of thousands of lesser black-backed gulls on one of England's largest shooting estates

Tens of thousands of endangered birds have been shot, trapped and poisoned on one of England's largest shooting estates with the approval of the government agency responsible for protecting the species, a Guardian investigation has found.

The government has licensed an annual cull of lesser black-backed gullson the Abbeystead estate on the Bowland Fells in Lancashire for decades, officially to stop water pollution. However, some experts believe the culling was also partly to protect grouse shooting interests.

The regulator Natural England now admits that, since a government-led bird conservation review occurred in 2001, "confusion" over the legal protection status of the species has allowed the culling to continue, despite its population crashing in recent years.

Chris Packham, the BBC Springwatch presenter and naturalist, has described the situation as a "travesty" and the RSPB is now calling for an urgent review.

The 23,500-acre Abbeystead estate was bought in 1980 by a trust "on behalf" of the Duke of Westminster, one of the UK's richest landowners. The duke's Grosvenor Estate manages the Abbeystead estate, which hosts pheasant and grouse shoots.

The estate was first allowed to cull the gulls in the 1970s on the grounds that droppings were polluting the watercourse. The licence to cull was last renewed by NE in 1999. But a former Abbeystead gull surveyor has admitted that the culling has been conducted, in part, to protect the "economy of the shooting estates". The species is known to eat grouse eggs.

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