Well, let's analyze the article:
Her little chihuahua had been playing in the garden for only a few minutes when the seagulls swooped down and pecked it to death.
Serves her right. Get a real dog next time.
Pretty sure Chihuahuas and similar breeds are also subject to predation by house cats. And nobody would make such a hassle if it were a hamster pecked to death. Yet when it's a "dog", it's somehow worse?
The RSPB insisted attacks by gulls on dogs are rare, but that’s hardly a consolation to Nikki. With a wingspan of 4½ ft, an adult body weight of 2lb, sharp claws, a long, vicious beak and a flight speed of 40 mph, gulls have become a thieving, stealing, dangerous — and dog-attacking — menace in urban areas up and down the land.
Gulls don't have "sharp claws". Their claws are useless for attacking other creatures. This guy doesn't even get the basic anatomy right.
Killer birds: Predators such as the common buzzard (above) are increasing in number under strict protection laws- but some say they are posing a threat to farm stock and vulnerable wild birds
I find it hilarious that a species that preys mostly on voles is seen as such a threat by some people.
Complaints about attacks have soared — Rentokil estimated that gull-related call-outs had increased by 15 per cent year on year — and in a recent survey, they were awarded the status of the most hated bird in Britain.
Numbers are almost meaningless without context. We need to know the total number, not just the increase in percentage.
Yet gulls are a protected species, which makes it illegal to kill or injure them intentionally. And despite the increase in attacks, the RSPB is vehemently against any cull.
Gulls aren't "a" species.
For the problem is mirrored in its attitude — along with that of many other eco-minded conservationists — to all manner of aggressive avian killers, such as buzzards, red kites and sparrowhawks, whose numbers are getting out of hand.
"Aggressive" - superfluous, subjective adjectivization.
Also, where's the source for "numbers getting out of hand"?
Does the author know what size a Sparrowhawk is?
The truth is there is an obsession in conservation circles with increasing the number of these ‘avian predators’ —– or, to put it bluntly, birds that kill other creatures.
Animals kill other animals in order to eat them. Well spotted. I hear it's called "nature"...
These raptors and predators are also doing untold damage to vulnerable wild birds, such as the lapwing and skylark.
Says who?
Since the Seventies, the population has increased by 805 per cent.
From which number? See above.
Paul Sargeantson, a builder and smallholder in Oxfordshire, has had all his free-range chicks and ducklings taken by kites. They even attack the meat from his barbecue as soon as it gets on the plate.
He says: ‘The unfortunate truth about the red kite is that they have a voracious appetite for a great range of live prey, such as mice, voles, frogs, leverets [young hares] and the chicks of all ground-nesting birds, including our beloved and endangered lapwings, skylarks and many others.
The benefits (to agriculture) of Red Kites eating mice, voles, carrion, and the odd crow, should at least be mentioned when talking about their "nagative impact".
‘It was clearly intended to promote the myth that red kites feed only on earthworms and carrion. I would like to invite the BBC to the Chilterns to observe the obscene spectacle of a large flock of red kites mobbing and harassing lapwings in order to plunder their chicks.’
British shooting lobbyist really like the word "lapwing", don't they? It turns up a hundred times in every "kill the raptors" article.
The birds sit on them, pecking at their eyes and stomach — the blood and the suffering has to be seen to be believed.
I'd believe it, if there was a scientifically valid source to be had.
In 2012, fashion model Kate Hillman was stunned when a red kite swooped on her five-year-old dog Vinnie as they walked in fields near her home in Maidenhead, Berkshire.
‘The claws went out and it tried to pick up my dog,’ said Kate, whose pet weighs 4½ lb. ‘The bird was huge — about five times the size of Vinnie.’
Like I said, don't take your hamster outdoors.
If you really need to keep a tiny, defenceless pet, why not a rodent or rabbit, instead? Pretty sure their ecological footprint is smaller than a dog's, and they're cuddlier, anyway.
If the red kite is protected for all time and its population continues to rise, it will cause the extinction of several varieties of farmland bird. The conservationists will, of course, blame ‘changes in farming practice’, instead of facing up to reality.
Pretty sure changes in farming practice have been
documented to cause local extinctions. Has this guy ever heard of science?
But it’s not just kites that are soaring. Buzzard numbers have risen by 438 per cent since the Seventies.
From which number? Two?
On the Isle of Wight, I met knowledgeable countrywoman Sheila Hiscox, who has seen four red squirrels taken from her garden by buzzards.
Is she sure those were buzzards, and not Goshawks or escaped Red-tailed Hawks?
There are 600 breeding pairs in Britain, but the RSPB wants its numbers to soar.
How many of these pairs breed in England? And where is the number from, anyway?
Under threat: Smaller vulnerable wild birds such as the sparrow could be under threat if birds of prey that hunt them continue to be protected and increase in number
What...
Hen harriers nest in moorland and on grouse moors. And many believe the charity’s backing for the birds — which kill not only grouse but lapwings, golden plovers, curlews, dunlin, ring ouzels, wheatears and other inhabitants of grouse moors — is a politically motivated attack on the ‘toffs’ who own these moors.
Well, it'd be nice to see a source for Hen Harriers preying on these species, and having a negative impact on their numbers. See the video linked
right next to the article about "Two Osprey chicks are taken by a buzzard caught on camera"...
Gamekeepers are regularly — and unfairly — demonised for seeing off hen harriers by the politically correct conservation bodies (and, no, I don’t shoot grouse). Last year three hen harrier chicks disappeared from a nest and the culprits were found — but they were never blamed publicly by the RSPB, for they were buzzards.
Well spotted, Hen Harriers are subject to predation by other raptors. So why does the author feel the need to "control" them?
Then there is the supreme killer, the sparrowhawk, which was not protected until 1961. It needed help to save it from agricultural chemicals (DDT and Dieldren, now banned).
So changes in agricultural practice can be harmful, after all?
But why are they still protected? There are huge numbers
Where? We haven't seen them in this article.
The RSPB insists that these raptors are not a danger to smaller endangered birds. But in 1986 in his book on Sparrowhawks, ornithologist Professor Ian Newton suggested that there were approximately 40,100 pairs in Britain, and that each pair would need 121 lb of (wild bird) meat a year to allow them to live and breed.
The thing is that not every Sparrowhawk gets to live and breed. Many of them are eaten by other raptors, or have their nest plundered by corvids. Weird how that works.
That’s 4,852,100 lb of wild birds a year, or 2,166 tons for the sparrowhawk population. That translates into 24 million blackbirds. Or 88.2 million sparrows. Or 9.7 million lapwings.
That's why small birds produce a surplus of offspring. Provided their source of food doesn't get destroyed by poisoning...
Gulls attacking a chihuahua puppy is one thing, and the perpetrators need to be taken in hand.
This is rich. The author is effectively demanding that any potential threat to a hamster-sized "dog" should be prevented from existing. I call that decadent.
Conclusion: no sources, lots of subjective wording, hyperbole... this is bad even by yellow press standards.
