The UK Dept of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) has declared two species of Parakeet persona non grata. DEFRA has announced plans to remove the UK population of Monk Parakeet, by relocation, nest destruction or shooting. See http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13181503
DEFRA has also declared open season on Rose-ringed Parakeet, removing their protected status and allowing landholders to shoot them without a licence. See http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/london/8284962.stm & http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/surrey/hi/people_and_places/nature/newsid_8286000/8286707.stm
It certainly is becoming less easy being green in the UK.
Cheers,
Carl Clifford
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Hi Carl
You’re obviously far too subtle for me! Many apologies. Got you now. Maybe I’m being a little over-sensitive considering what may happen to the UK under this current government! I think it is a case of the government having to play catch-up with legislation as far as the conservation and legal status of some species in the UK is concerned.
According to DEFRA (Dept. for Env. Food & Rural Affairs) Coypu became extinct in the UK in December 1989. However, some people claim it is still holding on in the Norfolk Broads, its original stronghold but this has never been officially corroborated. There are still plenty left in Europe. There is currently a project to re-introduce Beavers to the UK and the first ones are now back in the wild in western Scotland.
Mink are a serious problem and seen to be partially responsible for the massive decline in our Water Voles and probably the final nail in the coffin preventing re-establishment and population recovery from habitat loss and aquatic pollution. They are particularly voracious predators with serious attitude, not backward in coming at you if you get near their young, as I can testify to. The other mustelid problem is feral ferrets. Released by idiots to control rabbits, they prefer eating ground-nesting waders and their eggs. Not only a problem due to their predatory nature, but probably seriously hampering the re-colonisation of “proper” native Polecats due to hybridisation. And then we have the idiot who released Hedgehogs in the Outer Hebrides, although a native species, not on those islands where, again, ground-nesting waders are suffering.
I could go on and on………
Once again, apologies for misunderstanding you.
Cheers Liz
Ah, I took it mean that if you’re a green bird, it’s not going to be easy…
Tony
Hi Carl
I’m not quite sure what you mean about “being green”. It’s about conservation and biodiversity, not about not being “green” and it’s hopefully becoming less easy to be a a sentimental “bunny-hugger”, blind to the bigger picture, in the UK. The UK signed up to the 1992 UN Convention on Biological Diversity, The Habitats Directive (Europe) and recently signed up to the new UN target set at Nagoya to halt biodiversity loss and restore ecosystems by 2020, plus we have (for the moment -see below), in place many other national and local biodiversity targets. I see absolutely no difference between the UK trying to remove damaging species, and I stress damaging, and the efforts being made in Australian to remove non-natives. We have our fair share of damaging non-natives, the impact of which is probably as serious and significant in our crowded island with little space left for natural and semi-natural habitats and the wildlife they support.
The really important thing to be worrying about in the UK at the moment is not the removal of a relatively small number of individual animals but the new coalition government’s “Red Tape Challenge” which is basically looking to remove 278 regulations which protect species, biodiversity, climate and habitats.
Priorities, that’s the important thing in these days of austerity. A few parakeets getting the bump is not something worth expending worry on, in my view.
Liz Cumbria, UK
And of course man was self-introduced……
It’s a good idea if they can manage it – and maybe they can then teach our Government how to tackle such issues!
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It’s sad, but it needs doing. They’re displacing native species from nest sites and I’ve heard that people in Surrey and Berkshire are finding them to be quite a pest. Not only that, the numbers are increasing and they’re starting to spread. Overall, there’s momentum building for a drive against all introduced species with claims that removing them will save a few billion pounds from the bill for periodically clearing one area only to have it repopulated later. I just wonder how far they’ll go – I mean rabbits, brown hares and pheasants are introduced species, but have been around for up to 2,000 years in Blighty.*
I’m sure Greenfinches, Green Sandpipers, Green Woodpeckers and Greenshanks are unaffected. 😉
Tony
* I’ve had to explain to quite a few people at work that Blighty is not a town in the Midlands, but a nickname for Britain as a whole.