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Poorly muntjac


chubby

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21 hours ago, Fitter kieron said:

Well done Chubby. Makes no difference to our government if the species is native or not. Look what's happening to our native badger population right now and look at the amount of non native pheasants in the countryside. It's all controlled by money and some rich land owners who think it's all theirs for the taking. Just my opinion, for what it's worth.

hhhmm, not sure that the native badger population and the non native muntjac or the non native pheasant can all be considered under the same umbrella.

I have a few pheasant in my policies, but they don't breed, as they need to consume large quantities of wheat from blue plastic feeders, normally supplied by those money rich landowners of whom you speak.

Badgers have gone mad in population terms, and spread disease, yet they are protected: in ye olden days [ie in my lifetime], the populations were probably controlled, to the benefit of those who lived and worked in the countryside. That was in the pre fluffy bunny days, when town and country knew their place in society. 

Personally I rather like the little deer we get around here [roe], and it would be sad if they were ousted by the muntjac, however, I'd be grateful if the money rich landowners round here asked their gamekeepers to shoot all invasive grey squirrels, and restore the native reds to their rightful demesne.

 

Edited by LadyG
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The most destructive non native species around here was a Mink. Also introduced by man and released by animal rights protesters .

The Mink significantly culled the local wild bird population as they kill everything they see. In their natural habitat their prey is relatively scarce. Someone eventually hunted it down. 

I had a visiting Muntjac in the garden on one occasion. A nice looking animal. I expect, for the one described on this thread,  it's narrowboat visit was more scary than its swim. But your actions helping save it are a credit to you. After all the non native deer introduced by man was almost drowned in a man made canal so it seem appropriate that man should save it's life.

 

 

 

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Hi Lady G. I think in a way you've un masked this badger cull for what it really is about. The government have been advised time and again by their own experts that it is an in effective or even damaging way of trying to control TB in cattle. I've never been political but the conservatives will always be controlled by those with influence in the hunting and shooting set and the NFU. Look at last weeks headlines with Andrea Leadsom  fox hunting. I don't have a problem with rich people owning land or the essential service which farmers provide but why can't there be more tolerance and respect for our wildlife ? Everything which can't be exploited for profit or creates inconvenience ( not referring to TB in cattle ) has to be devalued and controlled. When you say badger populations were controlled you mean they were gassed in their sets. Surely you agree that this is in humane. Badgers have been here a lot longer than us and should be treated with respect. Perhaps i'm over simplifying things but if there were more foxes and birds of prey wouldn't there be less rabbits, squirrels ( and pheasants ) ?. Maybe as a truck fitter / driver I should ' know my place in society ' but I don't think so.

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35 minutes ago, Fitter kieron said:

Hi Lady G. I think in a way you've un masked this badger cull for what it really is about. The government have been advised time and again by their own experts that it is an in effective or even damaging way of trying to control TB in cattle. I've never been political but the conservatives will always be controlled by those with influence in the hunting and shooting set and the NFU. Look at last weeks headlines with Andrea Leadsom  fox hunting. I don't have a problem with rich people owning land or the essential service which farmers provide but why can't there be more tolerance and respect for our wildlife ? Everything which can't be exploited for profit or creates inconvenience ( not referring to TB in cattle ) has to be devalued and controlled. When you say badger populations were controlled you mean they were gassed in their sets. Surely you agree that this is in humane. Badgers have been here a lot longer than us and should be treated with respect. Perhaps i'm over simplifying things but if there were more foxes and birds of prey wouldn't there be less rabbits, squirrels ( and pheasants ) ?. Maybe as a truck fitter / driver I should ' know my place in society ' but I don't think so.

Badgers were [and are] shot by gamekeepers and farmers, not on a specific "hunt" but more in a random, shoot on sight manner, which is a reasonably effective control method. It is illegal of course.

Farming practices are such that a degree of control is essential, as man is setting up artificial food banks all over the place.

I am not against deer culling by good shots, as nature's solution is to cull by starvation ....... survival of the fittest.

I don't think gassing was formerly used as a routine method of control, it is difficult, probably expensive and definately time consuming, easier just to shoot them one by one.

Re tuberculosis spread by badgers, I think it is a major problem, and probably tackled too late, if folks had not rallied round, to protect the badger, it would probably not have got out of hand. Farming practices are severely affected by the disease, which is pretty much rampant in some counties. It was almost eradicated in the 1950's, so things have gone very wrong in the last seventy years. 

Edited by LadyG
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1 hour ago, LadyG said:

hhhmm, not sure that the native badger population and the non native muntjac or the non native pheasant can all be considered under the same umbrella.

I have a few pheasant in my policies, but they don't breed, as they need to consume large quantities of wheat from blue plastic feeders, normally supplied by those money rich landowners of whom you speak.

Badgers have gone mad in population terms, and spread disease, yet they are protected: in ye olden days [ie in my lifetime], the populations were probably controlled, to the benefit of those who lived and worked in the countryside. That was in the pre fluffy bunny days, when town and country knew their place in society. 

Personally I rather like the little deer we get around here [roe], and it would be sad if they were ousted by the muntjac, however, I'd be grateful if the money rich landowners round here asked their gamekeepers to shoot all invasive grey squirrels, and restore the native reds to their rightful demesne.

 

Some estates pay £3 per Grey tail

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7 minutes ago, LadyG said:

 

I am not against deer culling by good shots, as nature's solution is to cull by starvation ....... survival of the fittest. 

A lot of people don't realise that, No old folks homes for wild animals most die of cold and starvation, some get taken by predators of course

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Just now, ditchcrawler said:

A lot of people don't realise that, No old folks homes for wild animals most die of cold and starvation, some get taken by predators of course

But the natural predators, lynx and wolves have been eradicated, even small deer have no predators, never mind The Monarch of the Glen.

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WE have killed off all the predaters, it is up to us to do their job and keep the local fawner from overpopulation, when numbers are allowed to run amok untold damage is done to the natural world. Human kind is a good example of what goes wrong when there is no check on the population.

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Badgers are being shot and caged and then shot in 21 zones ( if I remember right ) this year under license from 'Natural England' by registered shooters with in a specific time period which started last month. Other than that badgers should be protected but like you say ( Lady G ) gamekeepers and Some farmers will kill them at any time. I've seen a set which has been gassed ( blocked entrances and exhaust soot at one ) so I guess it still goes on. Vegetarian myself but I understand that eating a wild deer that has been expertly shot is maybe more ethical than a farmed animal. Anyway I don't pretend to be an expert in the ways of the country but have taken an interest since the badger cull came into effect maybe five years ago and I know that I think it's wrong. On the plus side it's made me take a much greater interest in our wildlife. BTW I should apologise to you Lady G you never inferred to me that I should know my place, that comment I made was out of order.

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1 hour ago, bizzard said:

According to Enid Blyton badgers only come out at night, so must be difficult to shoot them. :closedeyes:

Its a piece of cake, literally, some cattle cake outside the set for a few nights, then , its fish in a barrel. Harvest moon an' all that.

1 hour ago, Fitter kieron said:

Badgers are being shot and caged and then shot in 21 zones ( if I remember right ) this year under license from 'Natural England' by registered shooters with in a specific time period which started last month. Other than that badgers should be protected but like you say ( Lady G ) gamekeepers and Some farmers will kill them at any time. I've seen a set which has been gassed ( blocked entrances and exhaust soot at one ) so I guess it still goes on. Vegetarian myself but I understand that eating a wild deer that has been expertly shot is maybe more ethical than a farmed animal. Anyway I don't pretend to be an expert in the ways of the country but have taken an interest since the badger cull came into effect maybe five years ago and I know that I think it's wrong. On the plus side it's made me take a much greater interest in our wildlife. BTW I should apologise to you Lady G you never inferred to me that I should know my place, that comment I made was out of order.

Not at all K, I still love you :P , but you can see, that if natural processes had been allowed to take their natural course, there would be no need to cage and shoot a wild, stressed, animal.

Edited by LadyG
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1 hour ago, bizzard said:

For fox sake stop hunting.     Killing things is all royalty go to Balmoral for, hunting, shooting and fishing.

I hate to tell you, but I don't think Charlie boy ever shot a fox:  grouse, woodcock, jack snipe, hunting for the pot , lol, 

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What about the massive reduction in numbers of poor tiggywinkles? Since the badger population has been allowed to grow anyone that spends time in the countryside will have seen empty hedgehog skins. They are a tastey snack for a badger, their spines are no help because with their strength and long claws the badger turns them over opens them up and eats them from the stomach out.

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On 10/7/2017 at 09:46, LEO said:

Interesting - Here in South Bucks we are plagued by one more introduced invasive creatures - Edible Dormice or Glis Glis, introduced at Tring Park by Lord Rothchild, they cause huge problems to property owners in an expanding area, they chew and 'poop' over everything, particularly bad on our moorings at Cowroast - we appealed to Lord R. for compensation for our losses to no avail.

 

The doubly unfortunate Edible Dormouse of Tring -- not only has "Edible" in its name, but also its address... ;-)

[they were a delicacy in Roman times, which together with the name suggests a possible solution to the problem]

 

Edited by IanD
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6 minutes ago, IanD said:

The doubly unfortunate Edible Dormouse of Tring -- not only has "Edible" in its name, but also its address... ;-)

[they were a delicacy in Roman times, which together with the name suggests a possible solution to the problem]

 

Couple of recipe suggestions here: https://en.m.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cookbook:Edible_dormouse

The Romans had special pots, glilaria, for fattening them in.

I suspect they are protected under WCA (1981) now, mind.

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Just now, BruceinSanity said:

Couple of recipe suggestions here: https://en.m.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cookbook:Edible_dormouse

The Romans had special pots, glilaria, for fattening them in.

I suspect they are protected under WCA (1981) now, mind.

I suspect they're not, because they're not native to the UK and are classified as a pest. If so, you can kill and eat them legally, just like grey squirrels.

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Just now, Machpoint005 said:

And muntjacs?

Very likely the same -- or maybe not if they're covered by the general description of "deer" rather than specifically as "muntjac deer". Anyone know for sure? They are *very* tasty...

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2 minutes ago, IanD said:

Very likely the same -- or maybe not if they're covered by the general description of "deer" rather than specifically as "muntjac deer". Anyone know for sure? They are *very* tasty...

As I posted earlier - there is no 'closed season' and they can b shot at 'any time', it is suggested that does are not shot if they have fawns at foot as it would just leave the fawns to die of starvation and no one wants to be cruel.

 

It's open season on Muntjac all year round. For other species, there is a carefully-considered close season when it is illegal to shoot deer.
 

Muntjac

There is no statutory closed season for this species. However when culling female Muntjac, it is recommended to choose immature or heavily pregnant does to avoid leaving dependent young.


http://www.shootinguk.co.uk/shooting/deer-stalking/deer-seasons-83047#25gpLro3RwIltoav.99
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5 hours ago, IanD said:

I suspect they're not, because they're not native to the UK and are classified as a pest. If so, you can kill and eat them legally, just like grey squirrels.

Looks like you are right, the native hazel dormouse is protected, but as you say, the edible dormouse is a pest.

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