Feral Indian Parakeets in UK

[Guest guest]

Dear Kerrybear,

Thanks for posting this item. I recently came across

a news item on feral Rose Ringed Parakeets in UK that I am attaching. These

birds, in all probability, were imported into Britain from India. Now there

are suggestions to kill them and the Royal Society for the Protection of

Birds is said to be in favour of the killing. Do you know anything about it?

 

Would be grateful if you could share something on this. If anyone suggested

shooting all human immigrants, there would be an outcry, so why is it

acceptable to kill feral animals? It is humans who have taken those birds

from India to England and should bear responsibility for the migration and

the consequences.

Best wishes and kind regards,

 

 

http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/wildlife/article2381071.ece

 

Invasion of the parakeets

By Michael McCarthy, Environment Editor Published: 22 March 2007

 

It's been a case of pretty polly up to now, but it may not be for much

longer. Government scientists are to investigate the activities of the

flocks of rose-ringed parakeets breeding in London's suburbs, amid rising

fears that they may be harming native British bird species.

 

The brilliant green parakeets have hitherto been a popular sight in the

parks and gardens where they are to be found, squabbling and dashing from

tree to tree, in a broad swath of south London from Croydon in the east to

Esher and beyond in the west. But since they first began breeding in the

wild more than 40 years ago, their numbers have built up to a point where

now some ecologists fear their population is exploding, with potentially

damaging results. It is feared that the parakeets, which nest in holes and

crevices in trees, may be displacing British tree-nesting species such as

woodpeckers, nuthatches and starlings.

 

There is as yet no hard evidence that this is taking place, says the Royal

Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB). But as a precaution the society

has asked the Government to investigate the risk from the parakeets under

its recently launched strategy for dealing with invasive non-native species.

 

 

The strategy is focusing on troublesome plants such as the rapidly-spreading

Japanese knotweed, whose eradication from the Olympics site in east London

alone may cost millions of pounds, and invertebrates such as the Chinese

mitten crab, which is doing much damage burrowing under the banks of the

Thames and other rivers.

 

The rose-ringed parakeet,Psittacula krameri, which is native to a great belt

of land stretching from Africa across to India and the Himalayas, is the

most obvious bird which in Britain today could be seen as invasive and

non-native.

 

No one knows how it came to start breeding in London, although it is certain

to have been the result of the accidental or deliberate release of captive

birds. One persistent theory is that an entire flock escaped from Shepperton

Studios in Surrey in 1951, during the filming of the adventure drama The

African Queen, starring Humphrey Bogart and Katherine Hepburn.

 

They are now particulary plentiful in west London, especially in the wooded

stretch of the Thames from Kew to Hampton Court; they have become a

permanent feature, for example, at the Royal Botanic Gardens, where their

sharply-loud screeching call and long flight silhouette are as distinctive

as their brilliant emerald plumage.

 

The ecologist Tony Drakeford thinks their population must be in excess of

30,000, and rapidly expanding. He is convinced they must be displacing

native birds. " Recently I went to Bushy Park where there thousands of

parakeets and very few native birds, " he said. But he thinks it may be too

late to do anything about it. " A major cull would meet with a lot of

opposition, " he said.

 

News reports of the Government inquiry, to be carried out by the Central

Science Laboratory, have prompted local paper headlines that a cull is

imminent, backed by the RSPB. But an RSPB spokesman, Andre Farrar, denied

the society was backing any mass killing. " We have simply asked the

Government to study the situation, " he said. " Some people think they are

doing harm, but as yet there is no hard evidence that they are. "

 

If it were proved that the parakeets were causing a reduction in the

conservation status of native British bird species, " then a cull might be

the right answer " , Mr Farrar said - pointing out that of the 1,200

globally-threatened species of birds, 340 were threatened by introduced

non-native species.

 

But, he said, at the moment the RSPB was not calling for any cull, merely

for an inquiry.

 

 

 

On 14 Mar 2007 19:47:16 -0700, Kerbear <kerbear2 wrote:

>

> Hi to all you Rocking Activists!

>

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>

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>

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>

> Much thanks and big love!

>

> KB xXx

>

> (More details in the attached mail - oh and please CROSSPOST!)

>

> -

> Linda Furness

> Linda Furness

> Wednesday, March 14, 2007 3:24 PM

> YOU CAN HELP PICAS...........

>

> Please can we all try the website again now as it should be working ok.

> linda

> **********************

>

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>

> Could I ask you to please email anyone/everyone you know, in the UK and

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>

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>

> His website address is: www.picas.org

>

> -------------------------

>

> Internal Virus Database is out-of-date.

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> Version: 7.5.446 / Virus Database: 268.18.3/700 - Release 24/02/2007

> 20:14

>

>