Our attitudes to wildlife at official level are appallingly lax and there’s always some lobby that seems to keep them that way, despite there being not very much obvious support for the status quo.
You see these kinds of stories pop up every once in a while.
PolR2023 on
FFS!!
TheStoicNihilist on
Not at all surprised. We don’t give a shit about wildlife crime in this country.
NaturalAlfalfa on
While I agree that Ireland is absolutely *shite* in terms of protecting nature and animal rights, this is a very poorly written and confusing article. Using the statistics given, it shows that essentially all of the birds sold are captive bred. Only *one* wild caught bird was sold, and that was done illegally. And the total number of birds sold was only about 1200, over the span of ten years.
Captive breeding of birds of prey is important- it stops them being poached from the wild. The npws gives out a tiny number of licenses per year ( about 20)to allow a few very experienced people take a tiny number of eggs from the wild. These are used to ensure that the captive bred population doesn’t become inbred. The birds are used for breeding for a few seasons, then are often returned to the wild.
About 70% of wild birds of prey don’t survive their first year. As such the ones taken from the wild, bred and released do far better
Falconry is actually one area where Ireland does it right. If you want to be involved with falconry, even to own a captive bred bird, you have to apply for licenses, have your property inspected, answer a lot of questions to show you know what you are doing. The number of people practicing falconry on this country is very small – a few hundred people max. And of those, only a tiny fraction have the right to take a wild caught bird or egg.
This is in stark contrast to the UK, where anyone can just buy any bird of prey they want, with zero oversight. You can go on done deal in the UK and buy any bird of prey, with no knowledge of how to care for it, and it generally turns out really badly. Captive birds of prey require a lot of specialist equipment, they need to fly free and hunt basically every single day. It’s a massive commitment that takes hours every single day. And these are not domesticated animals – when flying a bird of prey, they can ( and do) decide to simply fly away and not come back. And they are perfectly adapted to reverting to living wild, regardless of if they were born in captivity or not.
Open_Big_1616 on
Why is Ireland like this regarding animal welfare. ELI5
5 Comments
Our attitudes to wildlife at official level are appallingly lax and there’s always some lobby that seems to keep them that way, despite there being not very much obvious support for the status quo.
You see these kinds of stories pop up every once in a while.
FFS!!
Not at all surprised. We don’t give a shit about wildlife crime in this country.
While I agree that Ireland is absolutely *shite* in terms of protecting nature and animal rights, this is a very poorly written and confusing article. Using the statistics given, it shows that essentially all of the birds sold are captive bred. Only *one* wild caught bird was sold, and that was done illegally. And the total number of birds sold was only about 1200, over the span of ten years.
Captive breeding of birds of prey is important- it stops them being poached from the wild. The npws gives out a tiny number of licenses per year ( about 20)to allow a few very experienced people take a tiny number of eggs from the wild. These are used to ensure that the captive bred population doesn’t become inbred. The birds are used for breeding for a few seasons, then are often returned to the wild.
About 70% of wild birds of prey don’t survive their first year. As such the ones taken from the wild, bred and released do far better
Falconry is actually one area where Ireland does it right. If you want to be involved with falconry, even to own a captive bred bird, you have to apply for licenses, have your property inspected, answer a lot of questions to show you know what you are doing. The number of people practicing falconry on this country is very small – a few hundred people max. And of those, only a tiny fraction have the right to take a wild caught bird or egg.
This is in stark contrast to the UK, where anyone can just buy any bird of prey they want, with zero oversight. You can go on done deal in the UK and buy any bird of prey, with no knowledge of how to care for it, and it generally turns out really badly. Captive birds of prey require a lot of specialist equipment, they need to fly free and hunt basically every single day. It’s a massive commitment that takes hours every single day. And these are not domesticated animals – when flying a bird of prey, they can ( and do) decide to simply fly away and not come back. And they are perfectly adapted to reverting to living wild, regardless of if they were born in captivity or not.
Why is Ireland like this regarding animal welfare. ELI5