My petition calling on Natural England to stop sanctioning the killing of English Ravens has nearly 14,000 signatories to date, illustrating the strong public opposition to the cull.
Following two requests for a response from Natural England, I have finally received a lacklustre and curt reply which amounts to something of an insult to the thousands of people who have signed the petition and expressed their concerns. In what appears to be a 'copy and paste' statement, someone simply calling themselves 'Jim' assured me that this 'is not a cull'. The statement referred only to licences that were issued in the Peak District. No mention at all of Lancashire, Berkshire, Wiltshire and Dorset, the other areas where licences to kill these protected birds have also already been issued. Such a lazy response has done nothing at all to address the very real concerns of a disgusted British public who deserve more than this discourteous message. I am posting the entire statement here, just to illustrate that Natural England apparently do not hold the views of 14,000 compassionate and intelligent people in a very high regard. A standard bland and trite statement is frankly not good enough. The signatories of the petition require a respectful and full response to their enquiry. This is not it.
7 Comments
Jake Addy
2/8/2018 03:00:53 pm
Jim? Jim who? Why no last name? It is an odd reply indeed.
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Paul V Irving
2/8/2018 03:07:20 pm
I live in an area of Wales with lots of sheep and lots of ravens locally and the claims of predation on lambs etc is utter tripe. They eat afterbirths and still born lambs . This is an excuse to kill a bird they don't like because they see it as a big crow and crows are seen as a pest.
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Andy Young
2/8/2018 03:31:00 pm
What a load of cobblers!
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deane banning
2/8/2018 04:03:03 pm
Unbelievable that such lies can be tolerated. Also who protects the lambs when they are forcibly removed from their mothers by the farmers who then kill them? Spend a week in Wales and you will know what I mean. The crying of the lambs and mothers for hours and hours is heart breaking. And you know what? Not a sign of ravens.
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Dave Smith
2/8/2018 04:24:45 pm
I have witnessed ravens killing small birds especially fledgings. This is awful to see as it certainly not a swift death and takes some time. I would doubt that they could take on a larger animal and would realistically presume that they eat carrion, as I often see them and crows gorging on roadkill
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3/8/2018 04:35:54 am
The conditions for permitting a cull of Ravens are fundamentally flawed at the first hurdle. This is because most such licences issued by Natural England are stated to be to avoid mortality or some "loss" of lambs (or sheep) due to predation by Ravens. As an Ecologist who has researched Raven activity in lambing fields over seven springs, I can state categorically that they do not attack lambs, newborn or healthy. They do, as is generally known by ornithologists, consume dead lambs and any other animal corpses they find while foraging. As someone pointed out in an earlier comment, their main reasons for 'hanging around' lambing fields is to feed on afterbirths. During my research I witnessed the birth of approximately 600 lambs, all with Ravens in attendance, and recorded not a single case of any Raven predating a lamb, except if already dead or moribund. On a number of occasions I even witnessed ewes standing still and calm while a Raven delicately picked birthing material from the ewe's hind quarters! Vicious and ruthless killers? No way! Carrion Crows behave almost the same way, the only difference being that Ravens come first in the pecking order.
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3/8/2018 10:22:55 pm
Thanks for all the interesting and informative comments.
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