[johngalway]

Originally Posted by Birdnuts

Golden Eagles are still used in parts of Mongolia to hunt wolves - does that mean your pet labrador is at risk if you go for a walk in the hills of Donegal??

Originally Posted by Birdnuts

What species?? - Roe deer are very small and Muntjac deer are not much bigger then a large Hare

PS: I'm suprised at a sheep farmer being upset at an eagle taking the odd fox!!

I'll do a two for one with the above. My link to Wikipedia was only to illustrate that Eagles are capable of taking animals of the sizes and weights mentioned, not that the Irish Eagles are thinking about, or doing so, simply that they are capable of such an act.

We're going back to quoting me again, I'm afraid, but, where did I say I was upset over any foxes being taken by Eagles? It would save me €1.60 per bullet, plus my time and petrol, I'd be distraught (the bold being a joke).

Originally Posted by Birdnuts

Is he?? - he accused me earlier of hating farmers despite the fact that I'm from a farming backgound and currently live on a working farm in North Kildare

I have a friend in the North East of England. He hunts, shoots, snares, traps, ferrets, fishes... Eats what he hunts/catches... What else... Anyway, you get the drift. Last year he started going out with a vegetarian who absolutely hates the above. She recently accepted his marriage proposal, incidentally. How much weight would she have coming onto the hunting forum, not giving her own personal views, but making "strange" comments, then claiming she comes from a hunting household? I'm not saying you're doing this, but it's an interesting illustration I think.

[stevoman]

Right folks i have been watching this thread closely and i can see the points that people are making and everyone is intitled to have an opinion. It may seem that it is going a little off topic, but i think the issue has to be fully debated in the larger scheme of things.

Im not a fan of issueing bannings, warnings and red cards but if i see anymore back seat modding or attempts as personal attacks or jibes thats exactly whats going to happen.

Boneless and I Mod this forum and its at our discretion how we do that.

[Kess73]

Originally Posted by johngalway

I'll do a two for one with the above. My link to Wikipedia was only to illustrate that Eagles are capable of taking animals of the sizes and weights mentioned, not that the Irish Eagles are thinking about, or doing so, simply that they are capable of such an act.

Bit of a large difference between the Golden eagles used for hunting larger animals and the ones in Donegal. The subspecies of Golden Eagle that is used to aid in the hunting of wolves and the like is Aquila chrysaetos daphanea, which is the largest and most powerfully built Golden Eagle by a long way, with only the North American sub species being in it's size class.


The species in Ireland is Aquila chrysaetos, which is simply nowhere near the strength and power class that the two sub species I named before are. In fact the size difference can be so great that it is comparable to the difference in size between a female sparrowhawk and a buzzard.


I never got a chance to reply to you yesterday after you were good enough to list what you regarded as pests and why you would kill them. I don't agree with everything you said in that post as some of the cases would be rare enough events in my view, but I can see where you are coming from in each case though.

The magpie one baffles me though, as it is an arguement I have heard used to justify the killing of them here and in the UK.

The impact that magpies have upon songbird populations in not great at all, in fact the damage they do lags far behind what birds like the jay would do for example. It is not a pleasant sight, but it is natural and part of natures way of controlling the numbers.

The biggest two threats to songbirds, both here and in the UK, are cats(domestic and feral) and man. It is estimated that cats will kill more small birds each year than all the other main avain threats combined.

[Srameen]

Well said Kess.

Certainly comparisons with Golden Eagles elsewhere, as I said myself earlier, is pointless and shows little indepth knowledge on the subject.

At the risk of going off topic, your comments on the Magpie are perfectly true. There is no corelation between Magpies and declines in songbird numbers. Indeed several studies show that the 2 populations seem to almost compliment each other in well balanced environments.
I think we're arguing about instances of predation by birds (be they Crows or Raptors) that are so rare as to be insignificant and serve only to try and sway the argument.

I think the problem here is that we have 2 schools of thought who will never agree. Strange for a Nature forum (others I contribute to all agree on the Golden Eagle issue) but there you are. Maybe it's healthy debate!

[Half-cocked]

Originally Posted by Kess73

The magpie one baffles me though, as it is an arguement I have heard used to justify the killing of them here and in the UK.

The impact that magpies have upon songbird populations in not great at all, in fact the damage they do lags far behind what birds like the jay would do for example. It is not a pleasant sight, but it is natural and part of natures way of controlling the numbers.

The biggest two threats to songbirds, both here and in the UK, are cats(domestic and feral) and man. It is estimated that cats will kill more small birds each year than all the other main avain threats combined.

100% hit the nail on the head Kess. Just to add a bit more to this completely OT subject, magpies generally take eggs/hatchlings/fledglings, 90% of which will die anyway from natural causes before reaching breeding aga. Cats kill adult breeding birds, the 10% that have survived to breeding age - a far more serious impact on the population. Magpies have been here since the 1600's. Our songbirds have only suffered since the advent of modern agricultural practices and habitat loss in the 20th/21st century. I know its very un-PC to do so, but I know quite a few gun club members/gamekeepers who actively target feral cats as part of their vermin control and consider it far more important than culling magpies.

To return to the main topic, I don't know the facts surrounding predation of lambs by eagles but surely there is some credible research on the subject somewhere? And if not, then there should be as part of the reintroduction programme. Perhaps eagles do take live lambs, but then this needs to be offset against the benefit of eagles controling other predators. If I was a sheep farmer and it was proved to me that having eagles meant losing a few lambs to them, but having other forms of predation reduced (foxes, grey crows etc) to the point where I was seeing a nett reduction in overall losses, I'd be happy to have the eagles around. I think that in the long term, if we are to see an end to indiscriminate poisoning of eagles, we need proper research and education on the subject of eagle predation. The eagles and kites that have been poisoned are receiving much publicity as they are monitored species, but I shudder to think how many buzzards are being poisoned unnoticed each year.

[Srameen]

Originally Posted by Half-cocked

...I shudder to think how many buzzards are being poisoned unnoticed each year.

I personally found 3 in Co. Louth in 2009 and heard of a few others.

[Half-cocked]

Originally Posted by Srameen

I personally found 3 in Co. Louth in 2009 and heard of a few others.

I've heard of 2 families (2 adults, 2 juveniles each) suddenly disappearing in the North Dublin area. I'll bet they were poisoned too.

[johngalway]

Kess73,

Thanks for the clarification on the subspecies, I was not aware of that.

As for magpies, what I can tell you from my own experience is that there were many less songbirds around here, going on what I was hearing out on my farm (which has a broad leaf wood on one side, plus high gorse in one area). When I began to control the numbers of magpies, there seemed to me to be a dramatic increase in the songbirds, again going on what I was hearing out and about.

I agree with you about feral cats. Though they're not feral, my sister has two toms at her house near my farm, they're always dragging songbirds, frogs etc back to the house, not nice to see at all!

[johngalway]

Originally Posted by Srameen

I think the problem here is that we have 2 schools of thought who will never agree. Strange for a Nature forum (others I contribute to all agree on the Golden Eagle issue) but there you are. Maybe it's healthy debate!

I think it is healthy. If you have a group of people who always agree on everything... Bit like politics, you've the middle ground on either side who can talk to each other, then the extreme left or right who will always disagree! Stifling debate is a bad thing IMO.

[stevoman]

I think we are done here and im going to lock this thread unless anyone has any further that they want to offer and then they can PM me.

We seem to have moved onto another topic, one which i think is very interesting to birdwatchers, nature lovers and hunters alike and i think it will make for a great debate and discussion regarding cats, magpies and farming so im going to set up a new thread for that.