From top: One of 23 buzzards found dead in County Cork, the largest poisoning of birds of prey in the country; Dan Boyle
This week we learned that twenty three buzzards had been poisoned by some person or persons.
When I heard this news it made me feel quite angry. Then I checked myself.
Am I this angry about COVID? Does the existence and persitence of homelessness move me in the same way?
Of course they do. This got me thinking further. Why was I whatabouting myself?
One of the biggest negatives that has come about, in a world where communications are increasingly conducted through social media, has been the avoidance of context or proportionality.
Greens/environmentalists/animal welfare activists regularly get reacted to when they try to raise issues of concern. For some it seems to invoke a whole series of questions they think rhetorical.
Greens particularly get criticised for antropomorphising animals. Sometimes the criticism goes deeper with claims that environmentalists become superantropomorphic by investing in animals qualities that make them more important than humans.
Some may do but that is far from being a fair criticism. Their importance is a mutal importance which is shared with us humans. It is the reason why Greens bang on so much about biodiversity.
The planet we share with other living things works best when nature is balanced and in harmony.
The natural world evolves to achieve ecological balance, sometimes quite brutally. That we have a biodiversity crisis at all is solely down to human interventions.
Often wilfully and certainly indifferent to consequential effects, meeting what we have defined as our needs, we have been the overwhelming source of inputs towards creating the biodiversity crisis.
Someone has decided that the existence of these buzzards was inimical to their well being. They chose to act illegally not only in what they chose to do, but also in how they chose to do so.
The poison chosen, carbofuran, should not be in anyone’s possession. When used with such reckless abandon it threatens all life forms.
I suspect those who undertook this action care little of its effect. They may even think themselves clever that their quarry, being birds, would die at locations distant from where the poison was laid.
They are also most probably very smug, secure in a knowledge that resources to effectively prosecute do not exist.
It was a local farmer who found many of the dead birds. He found the manner of their deaths to have been offensive. He, it was, who informed the authorities of what had happened.
His being offended, his natural display of disgust, is a reminder of the difference between agriculture and agribusiness. Where your preoccupations centre around yield, the environment in which you operate can easily be seen as an impediment in achieving a somewhat flawed efficiency.
We need to challenge the thinking of some that nature is an enemy.
More importantly we need to acknowlege the cultural aspect of life in agriculture, recognise that for what it is and have it economically rewarded.
However offended I am by the actions of the poisoners, I take greater heart from the disgust of the farmer who has helped bring this cruelty to light.
To rewrite the old song The Farmers and The Greens can be friends.
Dan Boyle is a former Green Party TD and Senator and serves as a Green Party councillor on Cork City Council. His column appears here every Thursday. Follow Dan on Twitter: @sendboyle
Pic via Irish Raptor Study Group
Scumbags Dan, your anger is well justified.
For once I agree with Dan on the killing of these birds.
disgusting behavior
MIght have been carelessly put down to kill rats.
Only way to tackle it is to do a large scale education campaign with the IFA, Farmers Journal etc and encourage open talk
‘im were worryin’ th’ sheep
There was usage of a cheap Italian source of paraquat some years ago that didn’t have a smell to warn off animals and birds. Carbofuran isn’t available to anyone without a licence.
Have any of the Farming Organisations condemned or commented on this yet?
Why would farming organisations comment? Buzzards are of benefit to farmers in antagonising crows and keeping them at bay; gun clubs however are a different story because one of the main sources of food for a buzzard is wood-pigeon which are regularly used as target practice by gun enthusiasts.
I agree with Steph on the gun clubs theory. I have personal experience of this.
Dan, why do you presume that farmers poisoned these birds? What are you basing your ill-informed opinion on?
…yeah…circumstantial evidence…like those gorse fires in Kerry…
Because it would be appropriate to do so. Farmers are regularly presented as ‘custodians of the environment’ and indeed are sometimes paid through public funds to be such. Also I’d like to believe that most farmers would find the killing of the Buzzards to be abhorrent and would expect their representatives to articulate this on their behalf. Furthermore, farming organisations doing just that would likely narrow the focus on the likely culprits.
Otis: I could be obsessive and argue this all night with you, but I don’t have the time or inclination; as I mentioned in a previous comment, if buzzards are being poisoned, it’s not being done by farmers.
Bisted: gorse fires in certain parts of Ireland happen for a few reasons, I’m sure your local fireman/woman will attest as such; some are caused by incompetent farmers, but most are by idiots – be they people camping; cigarettes; broken electrical lines or lightning. Gorse growth depends on soil type, and unfortunately in some parts of Ireland such as hillsides or mountainous areas which are inaccessible to machinery, gorse is burned instead of uprooted. Government departments regularly take satellite photos of farmland and inform landowners as to their observations and regulations.
You’re presenting opinion as fact. I guess we’ll find out in due course.
Otis, unlike Dan’s opinion piece above and the subsequent comments in response, I am not presenting opinion as fact – I am informing you of the facts – unlike Dan who has failed to respond to the question I posed. And yes, the truth will come out, but I doubt if Dan will post an apology to the farming community he’s already castigated in this written published tripe of disingenuous whataboutery.
When were they introduced into the country as they seem to be a recent arrival, if they
have been poisoned, what was the substance and what bait was it applied on, poisons
are not available for vermin control, which has led to rise in Grey Crows and Magpies
who are predators on both small birds and in particular newly born lambs, one other
matter that should be a source of joy to environmentalists , this dry spring has brought
a volume of insects, flies and bees not seen since the 50’s…..the Bumble Bee is alive
and well and a lot more benefit to the environment than a Buzzard
@Truth: buzzards reintroduced themselves to Ireland and they have gradually (40+ yrs) began breeding and nesting. It takes time for a mating pair to find each other especially considering they are as dispersed as they are in Ireland, however, when they do, they stay together for life; also, they don’t have chicks every year, or if they do, sometimes the chicks don’t survive. The training adult buzzards give their fledglings is disciplined, always guided and sometimes harsh but they do reward their young. In fact, if you ever hear a cat-like meow sound above you in/ near a wooded area, look upwards as it could very well be a buzzard – you’ll know by the small body, massive wingspan and the wings are whitish underneath.
Any member of the crow [Corvidae] family is an adept survivor (Aesop wrote about the intelligence of crows in 5th BCE); be they Jackdaws who will nest in a chimney that still has a lighting fire; a Magpie that steals and nests in another bird’s nest; a raven that attacks at will if it hasn’t been fed by its keeper, or a crow which will eat unattended new-born lambs alive or peck the eyes of a sick adult ewe who can’t defend herself – crows are worse than foxes as a threat to lambs because they descend in an organised assembly once they’re cognitive to the lack of a human presence, that’s why buzzards are so important to farmers because buzzards view crows as a food source – the problem is – crows are always together, so if a buzzard tries to attack one in flight, there will always be other crows to distract and fake attacks on the lone buzzard. Crows also eat fresh crop seeds which have been planted, hence, many farmers have Crow-Bangers to ward them off, but again, crows are very intelligent, consequently, the only real deterrent is of their own feathered kind – such as the Buzzard.
Can we poison a few farmers now to even up the score or do we have to wait until the “underlying causes” take them out?
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