Eagle owls

Did you see the nature documentary about eagle owls on Beeb 2 last night? These amazing birds have started to recolonise the UK after being hunted to extinction a century or two ago. Well, probably, there were some commentators given airtime on the programme who claimed the bird was not native to the UK. One was I think from the British Ornithologists' Union, the other from the RSPB.

These morons are somehow able to ignore the fact that these birds can cross the North Sea before breakfast. They're all over northern Europe. Why wouldn't they come here? The very fact that they can survive here shows they belong here. They fly at 40km/hr. They can go where they like.

Besides that, there are documentary records of them having been in the UK up to the 19th century. Not definitive enough proof, though, for some people, apparently. And that might mean they're not legally protected from those disgusting individuals who think they have the right to destroy an entire species.

I'll tell you something that is definitely not part of the natural ecosystem. People making value judgements about what animals should be allowed to survive, that's what.

Apparently, though there was no evidence of this in the programme, the owls might endanger other bird species that are protected or in low numbers. Well, I'm sorry, that's how nature works. Animals eat other animals. The numbers of any species depend on a balance based on how much they manage to eat and how often they get eaten (among other things!). The best way to have a variety of wildlife is to allow complex ecosystems to develop. Not just rabbits and foxes. And to have big enough areas of wilderness. That way, everything survives somewhere (and has somewhere to go if predators arrive or conditions change - if it gets warmer in the south they can go north).

SteelyGlint reckons he can see through the pathetic excuse of a human being from the British Ornithologists' Union, in particular. He's making decisions as a birdwatcher, not out of any ecological insight or understanding. That is, he just wants the countryside to be full of the particular things he wants to see. Sick-making.

Here's a couple of points for these narrow-minded twit-chers to bear in mind:

(1) Our ecosystem in the UK has hardly any predators - none of a decent size (probably the eagle owl is now our most powerful predator). That's why, as could clearly be seen in the documentary, the grass was 1/2 inch long, and rabbits were running around everywhere waiting to be eaten. In Holland, the habitat around the eagles was practically a forest. Our towns and cities are overrun with pigeons because we won't allow a few hawks to live there. I took my Estonian better half to the New Forest recently and she couldn't believe how overgrazed it was. It's not really a forest, more somewhere a Hobbit might want to live. If we had some wolves and bears, say, the forests in the UK would be much more interesting (and store much more carbon).

(2) With global warming what can live here is going to change. Factor that into your English idyll. We might - actually we will - have to introduce (because we're an island) animal species and see what survives here. Otherwise we might end up with nothing more than a few snakes in 100 years or so. And we'll be shooting any birds that arrive as "non-native", "invasive" species.