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Poisoning ravens in the park
By adamg on Mon, 02/15/2010 - 11:50am
Channel 5 reports the National Park Service is telling ravens on the Cape: Nevermore. Workers will build fake piping-plover nests in the Cape Cod National Seashore and fill them with hard-boiled chicken eggs laced with crowicide to kill the birds going after endangered plovers.
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Comments
NEVERMIZZLE!
Quoth tha raven, NEVERMIZZLE!
Pedant
Surely, furry sir, that would be corvicide. I've never used that word, but there's a wonderful root for those birds.
Follow-up from original — avicide DRC-1339.
A murder of crows
The phrase takes on an entirely different meaning here, doesn't it?
Any specific reason
why the Parks Department hates science? Would they poison a bunch of cats who were attacking chipmunks and mice?
Chipmunks and mice are endangered?
Is this some obscure trivia
The birds are endangered for a reason
Because nature is taking is course. If these birds don't want to be attacked by ravens, they'll have to migrate or die.
If by nature...
You mean "us". Plovers were first hit pretty hard because women wanted their feathers in their hats. Then, we started taking over all of the coastline that they nest and breed in for our own waterfront housing boom.
The ravens probably wouldn't normally eat enough to matter...if we weren't already responsible for knocking the plover levels down to the dangerously low amounts there are today. Hell, the ravens may not even prefer to eat these eggs...except that we've destroyed or screwed up their preferred food...I don't know.
We sorta feel responsible since the plovers wouldn't be in this situation if we didn't screw things up in the first place. Besides, if the ravens don't want to be poisoned by us, they'll have to change their diet or die...right? I mean, the ultimate irony is that we're just another predator of nature taking its course on everything. But it's not like the raven's going to be endangered just because we keep them from eating plover eggs.
Not crazy about the method of getting rid of them, however...
Kaz is right. Flora and fauna populations are askew largely because of human actions. Certain birds are also overpopulated because they're meant to have a tough life hunting and maybe eating a couple times a week, but they now have access to all the food waste dumbasses are tossing in trash cans instead of composting. Ever wonder why you see swoopy-type birds in abundance in the middle of the city where there surely aren't enough visible rodents for them to survive on?
So women are to blame once again?
I'm on board with that explanation.
poisoning of ravens
You are not going to change the fact that people have built on the coastline. In Maine they are trapping and killing foxes, skunks etc. Now they are poisoning other birds. What happens when all these dead ravens end up all over the place and other animals eat them? If piping plovers cannot survive without all of this interference from bird watching audobon people then so be it!