Visitors

[Mick F]

Watch a few of these.
Very good acrobats, those pesky tree rats.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_ ... cle+course

[kwackers]

and pigeons- eradicate them and no one here will care?

Well, they crap all over my bike shed - although that's my fault, there's an angled bracket above it they sit on. I've got some pigeon spikes but lazyness means they're still waiting to be fitted.
Again though pigeons are a result of the environment we create, leaving food everywhere etc.

We lose several pigeons and doves a year in my garden but the numbers don't change.
Sparrow hawks, cats, foxes and more than a few window strikes (they really seem to like flying into windows).

I usually move the bodies of dead things to the route I know the local foxes take through the garden. They're always gone the next day.

[reohn2]

Reading this thread this morning I note that the illogical grey squirrel haters have been well and truly Cugeled. I'll leave you with Chris Packham's thoughts on the matter…

The BBC wildlife presenter, has described those who seek to eradicate greys as "a small band of lunatics" who are "blinded by sentimental racism". He says introducing greys was a mistake by the Victorians, but that conservationists need to accept that the "perfect paradise is lost" and that non-native species are now an integral part of the UK's flora and fauna: "If the grey squirrels have to go then so do all the rabbits, hares, four of our six deer species and so on."

That small band of lunatics includes Charlie… say no more!

Al

That small "band of lunatics" as you and Peckham call us realise you cant eradicate them,they're here to stay.
But there's a huge difference between keeping their numbers to a manageable level which allows the Red population to flurish and feeding Greys in our parks,woodland and country estates doesn't help.
They're a pest and like rats need managing not encouraging,also read Ben's posts on the issue.

[reohn2]

You seem to be emphasising the reasons Greys are a nuisance,even on your small patch.Would you be as accommodating toward an influx of rats?

Cats are a nuisance, foxes and even birds - digging up and throwing stones, crapping on garden furniture etc etc.
And lets not forget insects!
(Plus don't forget that red squirrels are rodents, they'll chew through cables, dig holes to bury nuts but until they become widespread we'll conveniently forget that.)

On the plus side I love watching all of them - even squirrels. They're immensely entertaining to watch play and trying to figure out how to get at the bird food.

Just because I find them all a pita at times doesn't mean I think I should get rid of them though. That's the 'human' way, remove anything we don't like even when we're responsible.
But just look where it's taking us.

On the plus side I think we're beginning to learn our lesson and starting to understand that we can't stand outside of nature and control it, we have to work with it.

Squirrels are neither here nor there in the general scheme of things other than an indication of a mindset we really should have grown out of by now.
If we want red squirrels we need to recreate the environment they evolved to live in, not destroy it and wonder why they're not doing so well.

I can't argue with that sentiment,but when an introduced species such as Greys threaten to exterminate a benign indiginous species such as Reds they need managing,that is my point.

[Ben@Forest]

Reading this thread this morning I note that the illogical grey squirrel haters have been well and truly Cugeled. I'll leave you with Chris Packham's thoughts on the matter…

The BBC wildlife presenter, has described those who seek to eradicate greys as "a small band of lunatics" who are "blinded by sentimental racism". He says introducing greys was a mistake by the Victorians, but that conservationists need to accept that the "perfect paradise is lost" and that non-native species are now an integral part of the UK's flora and fauna: "If the grey squirrels have to go then so do all the rabbits, hares, four of our six deer species and so on."

And on the other hand Packham has said in the past that he recognises invasive species have to be controlled sometimes. It's an odd argument where some people are saying that control is required whilst the other side insists this must mean wholesale extermination. I'll leave this thread with the thought that I attended a seminar at FERA recently. They are looking to produce a contraceptive for invasive mammals so in the future they may be controlled without culling.

http://randd.defra.gov.uk/Default.aspx?Menu=Menu&Module=More&Location=None&Completed=2&ProjectID=18077

[kwackers]

I can't argue with that sentiment,but when an introduced species such as Greys threaten to exterminate a benign indiginous species such as Reds they need managing,that is my point.

Why do you think they're benign?
They're still squirrels, they were originally hunted partly because they were considered pests.
If greys disappeared tomorrow and were replace by reds, they'd still raid the bird seed and dig up the garden.

As above though, contraceptives may provide an answer - as long as nature doesn't "find a way".
I'm all for control if there's no other way but killing things is imo an absolute last resort.

[al_yrpal]

When I was down in Lafayette Louisiana a local Cajun guy Kernis had the answer, as well as boiled crawfish, taters and onions, he offered me a frame grilled squr'l on a stick "Its great eatin !"

Al

[reohn2]

I can't argue with that sentiment,but when an introduced species such as Greys threaten to exterminate a benign indiginous species such as Reds they need managing,that is my point.

Why do you think they're benign?
They're still squirrels, they were originally hunted partly because they were considered pests.
If greys disappeared tomorrow and were replace by reds, they'd still raid the bird seed and dig up the garden.

As above though, contraceptives may provide an answer - as long as nature doesn't "find a way".
I'm all for control if there's no other way but killing things is imo an absolute last resort.

Benign in the sense that they aren't a threat to other indigenous species.
In any case if you tolerate the more aggressive Grey,how much more would you be tolerant of Reds in your garden,in the full knowledge that it's only your bird food that's at risk?

[reohn2]

When I was down in Lafayette Louisiana a local Cajun guy Kernis had the answer, as well as boiled crawfish, taters and onions, he offered me a frame grilled squr'l on a stick "Its great eatin !"

Al

And you think I'm mad.......

[mercalia]

You seem to be emphasising the reasons Greys are a nuisance,even on your small patch.Would you be as accommodating toward an influx of rats?

Cats are a nuisance, foxes and even birds - digging up and throwing stones, crapping on garden furniture etc etc.
And lets not forget insects!
(Plus don't forget that red squirrels are rodents, they'll chew through cables, dig holes to bury nuts but until they become widespread we'll conveniently forget that.)

On the plus side I love watching all of them - even squirrels. They're immensely entertaining to watch play and trying to figure out how to get at the bird food.

Just because I find them all a pita at times doesn't mean I think I should get rid of them though. That's the 'human' way, remove anything we don't like even when we're responsible.
But just look where it's taking us.

On the plus side I think we're beginning to learn our lesson and starting to understand that we can't stand outside of nature and control it, we have to work with it.

Squirrels are neither here nor there in the general scheme of things other than an indication of a mindset we really should have grown out of by now.
If we want red squirrels we need to recreate the environment they evolved to live in, not destroy it and wonder why they're not doing so well.

I can't argue with that sentiment,but when an introduced species such as Greys threaten to exterminate a benign indiginous species such as Reds they need managing,that is my point.

i seem to remember reading some where I think it was in Scotland in the 19C or early 20C that the reds were regarded as pests and killed by game keepers? Maybe I should catch mine and turn it into a punk squirrel and dye it red and green?

[mercalia]

Watch a few of these.
Very good acrobats, those pesky tree rats.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_ ... cle+course

well this one in particular - [youtube]nWU0bfo-bSY[/youtube]

shows how inteligent they are? maybe if they made noises like birds some here might tolerate them? seems a crime to kill such animals off. I have come across some 2 legged things that are less intelligent that I would rather see put down

[Cugel]

So wildlife must be exterminated because it's affecting the profits of someone's timber business?...

Firstly, I don't see grey squirrels being exterminated for the reasons I posted. Extirpated locally yes but there will always be a population in the UK.
In any case grey squirrels have healthy populations in the USA - from where they were introduced. This very old article notes the culling of 20,000 greys in the north-east, but I live up here and still see plenty, but hopefully it's helped reds to survive. http://www.thejournal.co.uk/news/north-east-news/over-20000-grey-squirrels-culled-4494827

Like it or not running a business involves at least breaking even. As said if you don't want locally produced timber then you can get it from somewhere else and maybe threaten orangutans in Indonesia instead - a species that really is in trouble.

The Christian tradition has it that we are "the stewards of The Earth" and responsible for maintaining it. Somehow the greedymen and others of the self-centred little skinbag ilk have turned this into "We can use up The Earth and everything in it just as we wish".

I'm not sure that a Christian tradition has any particular bearing on forest or wildlife management but how does that relate to pest management? By a rationale of not killing anything then you have to be happy with rats scurrying under your hospital bed and the nurse telling you it's all just wildlife.

The Christian tradition that promotes we humans to "Stewarts of The Earth". ...... It's one source of our extremely poor behaviour towards the ecology that would otherwise sustain us if we weren't so busy destroying it. ...

This (like so many other Christian traditions have done) has morphed into the secular notion that we humans are somehow in charge of the planet by some sort special right. If this right isn't God-given then it's because we are "The Superior Species" or "Most Evolved". There are several "reasons" we award ourselves for doing as we like to the rest of the environment, no matter what the consequences.

Our behaviour, though, indicates that we're far from superior and even now are conniving at our own longer-term demise, unfortunately via the elimination of an ever-increasing number of other species first. This is a direct result of the notion that we own the planet (because we're somehow "superior") and can therefore do as we wish.

We do as we wish in the most damaging form via various "businesses", amongst which are several varieties of land and natural-resource "management" - a euphemism for outright exploitation and degradation, mostly. Do you think that we British are somehow not so bad and it's all those dreadful people in South America, Africa or Indonesia de-foresting, strip-mining and so forth? Open your eyes.

Personally I obtain my own timber entirely from already-used items that are usually heading for a bonfire or the landfill. It's astonishing what's thrown away - for example, much of the old-growth teak, rosewood and other now rare species from the "refurbishment" of Georgian, and Victorian buildings, which are usually MDF'd to be "more modern". With this reclaimed timber I make very nice furniture (though I say so myself) that will last for several human lifetimes if looked after. Your timber business is likely to produce fast-grown low-quality stuff suitable for making particle board or warped bits of stuff from B&Q. Not that it matters, since the furniture and other woodwork businesses are now fashion-driven like everything else, so it'll all be in the landfill in 20 years time.

****
Now then, where are these hospitals full of under-bed rats? I feel that you are making a straw rat here, since it's quite easy to keep the rats out of where you might not like them without murdering them. In addition, the greatest source of nasty infections in hospitals are the other humans, not rats. Should we "extirpate" them too?

****
I would like a world where humans are still animals who participate and look after their ecology rather than destroying it in some high-handed notion that we are "managing" it. As with the vast majority of human "management" all that's managed is our own short-term and selfish personal interests, with the ever-increasing costs of doing so awarded more and more to the natural world, which is slowly being eradicated in favour of what used to be called "the concrete jungle". But where concrete is not laid down, the soil, water table and several other elements of the planetary surface on which we depend are degraded so some business can "break even". Break the world, more like.

Rehohn2 doesn't like me suggesting that his views are "stupid". But any fule no in his heart of hearts that we humans all are stupid. Stupidity (acting against your own interest despite all the evidence illustrating that you are doing so) is a singular and prevalent human trait.

Still, as long as you can get that MDF skirting board for the new extension, eh?

Cugel

[kwackers]

In any case if you tolerate the more aggressive Grey,how much more would you be tolerant of Reds in your garden,in the full knowledge that it's only your bird food that's at risk?

I'm fairly squirrel agnostic. Red, grey or black they're all cute if a little destructive.
If I could press a magic button and convert one into the other I'd probably opt for reds but only because I think they're cuter...

In my view, the more wildlife that trots through my garden the happier I am. I keep fairly big chunks of it 'wild' (ish) and have bits of it landscaped for me and Ms Kwackers.

[Mick F]

..... I have come across some 2 legged things that are less intelligent that I would rather see put down

Who would they be then?


I know a few too.

[al_yrpal]

Does that include any Royals?

Al