Larson Traps

exracehorse said:
There are lots of cages with single crows or rooks, on our hacking routes this year. What is the point of it ? Does the bird just die inside? Bearing in mind it’s 26 degrees. Or does the landowner dispatch.
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The cage will have 2 sections, one with the calling bird in it which will be fed and cared for. The other half to trap the troublesome birds which will be dealt with daily.
 
The call bird attracts others. Usually it is eventually also dispatched.

The call must have food, water, shade/shelter and be checked at least twice daily.
 
Burnttoast said:
In my view they are unbelievably inhumane even if 'well-managed' (and frequently they are not) but that's humans for you. They are used to protect game bird populations, rather than native passerines, primarily.
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There are no game birds where our ones are, they are to protect the ewes and lambs from being predated upon by corvids, if ewes are stuck in their backs corvids can and do start pecking at their anus and the fleshy underside of the tail, sometimes they continue until they pull out the insides of the ewes or lambs or they die from loss of blood, they will also remove lambs eyes or tongies whilst they are still alive if they are weak and unable to get up and run. We lost 2 good gimmers to crows this year when the soft fleshy side in front of the stifle was opened up and caused the guts to spill out, another has managed to carry a lamb to term with a herniation from this.
We have 4 ewes with half tails and ewes with one eye missing due to corvids.
They also (along with seagulls) predate on ground nesting birds such as wagtails, oyster catchers and curlews taking eggs and young.
 
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I'm Dun said:
I'm not a soft and fluffy person, but these things are utterly disgusting. We know how intelligent and social these creatures are. They grieve for their dead and bring gifts for people who feed them. To do this to them is inhumane and cruel.
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I agree they are intelligent and social birds but how else do numbers get controlled?
They do a lot of harm to wildlife.
 
twiggy2 said:
There are no game birds where our ones are, they are to protect the ewes and lambs from being predated upon by corvids, if ewes are stuck in their backs corvids can and do start pecking at their anus and the fleshy underside of the tail, sometimes they continue until they pull out the insides of the ewes or lambs or they die from loss of blood, they will also remove lambs eyes or to guess whilst they are still alive if they are weak and unable to get up and run. We lost 2 good gimmers to crows this year when the soft fleshy side in front of the stifle was opened up and caused the guts to spill out, another has managed to carry a lamb to term with a herniation from this.
We have 4 ewes with half tails and ewes with one eye missing due to corvids.
They also (along with seagulls) predate on ground nesting birds such as wagtails, oyster catchers and curlews taking eggs and young.
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Oh god. That sounds awful.
 
twiggy2 said:
I agree they are intelligent and social birds but how else do numbers get controlled?
They do a lot of harm to wildlife.
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They are wildlife. And had coexisted with other species for millennia before we got involved.

I used to do a lot of hedge surveying for various bodies, academe and conservation, and in my areas there was almost no habitat that was suitable for passerine nesting in terms of being safe from corvids. All that's required in such cases is that people stop managing the countryside to within an inch of its life, allow inconvenient corners to scrub up, cease flailing hedges annually until you can put an arm through them and shake hands with someone on the other side etc.
 
Burnttoast said:
They are wildlife. And had coexisted with other species for millennia before we got involved.

I used to do a lot of hedge surveying for various bodies, academe and conservation, and in my areas there was almost no habitat that was suitable for passerine nesting in terms of being safe from corvids. All that's required in such cases is that people stop managing the countryside to within an inch of its life, allow inconvenient corners to scrub up, cease flailing hedges annually until you can put an arm through them and shake hands with someone on the other side etc.
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Where I live there is an awful lot of scrub, it's definitely not managed to within an inch of its life, hedge does not naturally grow here where rhe ground nesting birds nest due to flooding in the winter, the ground nesting birds like a mix of vegetation and we are encouraged to top the vegetation in strips to encourage them, the chicks cannot get around in overgrown vegetation so have to come out into the open, as said corvids are very intelligent and due to that they will actively seek out nests and young as they are such easy prey, corvids numbers are rising and all other bird numbers are falling.
Corvid number need managing in many areas
 
The covid species are predators, they absolutely decimate nest, egg and small birds. It is not possible to encourage the food level species without controlling apex predators. We celebrate red kites but afaik, every colony is artificially fed. There’s not enough food levels to sustain our obsession with covids/ birds of prey. We are a funny lot sometimes.
 
twiggy2 said:
Where I live there is an awful lot of scrub, it's definitely not managed to within an inch of its life, hedge does not naturally grow here where rhe ground nesting birds nest due to flooding in the winter, the ground nesting birds like a mix of vegetation and we are encouraged to top the vegetation in strips to encourage them, the chicks cannot get around in overgrown vegetation so have to come out into the open, as said corvids are very intelligent and due to that they will actively seek out nests and young as they are such easy prey, corvids numbers are rising and all other bird numbers are falling.
Corvid number need managing in many areas
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Yes I don't dispute they 'need' managing (mostly near me they are shot tbh, or sometimes just winged and left to flounder around in ditches), although the reason they need managing is because we've made habitats that are basically death to anything but clever generalists/opportunists. We provide them with ready food sources (game birds/lambs/roadkill/shot pheasants, pigeons, other corvids) and at the same time remove good habitat for ground nesters (hay meadows, wood pastures, coastal marshes), so the corvids thrive and everything else struggles. Is it even vaguely acceptable to cause that kind of stress and suffering to highly intelligent birds in a pretty ineffective attempt to ameliorate the harm we've done to ecosystems? Unless we put some habitat back we're always going to be locked in this struggle.
 
There used to be lots of small birds in my suburban garden, various tits, robin, sparrows and goldfinches. A pair of magpies moved in about 4 years ago and now there are no small birds. There are now 6 magpies, pigeons and seagulls. I saw one eat all the young Robins a couple of years ago. Although the traps are cruel I can see why they are used.
 
Burnttoast said:
Yes I don't dispute they 'need' managing (mostly near me they are shot tbh, or sometimes just winged and left to flounder around in ditches), although the reason they need managing is because we've made habitats that are basically death to anything but clever generalists/opportunists. We provide them with ready food sources (game birds/lambs/roadkill/shot pheasants, pigeons, other corvids) and at the same time remove good habitat for ground nesters (hay meadows, wood pastures, coastal marshes), so the corvids thrive and everything else struggles. Is it even vaguely acceptable to cause that kind of stress and suffering to highly intelligent birds in a pretty ineffective attempt to ameliorate the harm we've done to ecosystems? Unless we put some habitat back we're always going to be locked in this struggle.
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That's a bit tricky as environments you mention are not what the ground nesting birds are here for, they are not ones they would use, there are no game birds (the 17500 acre estate counted 8 brace of grouse or similar last year), rarely road kill, shot birds lying about and fit lambs are not really ready food sources so we did for the description but still have big corvid issues, I expect that now the ground nesting birds have been decimated that the attention will turn to lambs, possibly as I have seen elsewhere with them attacking lambs whilst they are being born so the lambs eyes and tongues are removed before they hit the ground when a ewe has a difficult lambing, shooting corvids is not very effective unless you shoot the nests out qhen they are full of young and the adults have gone to roost, that's not legal anymore and isn't really anymore ethical than a larceny trap?
 
Burnttoast said:
Yes I don't dispute they 'need' managing (mostly near me they are shot tbh, or sometimes just winged and left to flounder around in ditches), although the reason they need managing is because we've made habitats that are basically death to anything but clever generalists/opportunists. We provide them with ready food sources (game birds/lambs/roadkill/shot pheasants, pigeons, other corvids) and at the same time remove good habitat for ground nesters (hay meadows, wood pastures, coastal marshes), so the corvids thrive and everything else struggles. Is it even vaguely acceptable to cause that kind of stress and suffering to highly intelligent birds in a pretty ineffective attempt to ameliorate the harm we've done to ecosystems? Unless we put some habitat back we're always going to be locked in this struggle.
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We provide ideal conditions for ground nesting birds and also need to control corvids - here, more magpies than crows as we probably have more ravens than crows and the Ravens predate a very healthy population of skylarks. Magpies and crows will take the eyes and soft tissue of any struggling animal: we've lost big lambs to some very bold corvids that will enter our barns to prey on poorly but well grown lambs. It is very distressing to find a lamb or ewe blind and under attack.

I had my elderly pony pts when her time came, knowing that I could at least prevent that. We are trying to support our ground nesting birds and corvid control is a very important part of that, as is fox control. Larsen traps absolutely should be set up correctly and checked twice daily. They are not nice but they can work as humanely as other methods I think. I love the intelligence and sociability of Corvids and am sad that they need killing to protect other vulnerable species.
 
druid said:
The call bird attracts others. Usually it is eventually also dispatched.

The call must have food, water, shade/shelter and be checked at least twice daily.
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Around us they're left in the baking sun with no water, food, or shelter. For all I know they may be checked twice a day, but presumably that's only to check they're still there.
 
twiggy2 said:
That's a bit tricky as environments you mention are not what the ground nesting birds are here for, they are not ones they would use, there are no game birds (the 17500 acre estate counted 8 brace of grouse or similar last year), rarely road kill, shot birds lying about and fit lambs are not really ready food sources so we did for the description but still have big corvid issues, I expect that now the ground nesting birds have been decimated that the attention will turn to lambs, possibly as I have seen elsewhere with them attacking lambs whilst they are being born so the lambs eyes and tongues are removed before they hit the ground when a ewe has a difficult lambing, shooting corvids is not very effective unless you shoot the nests out qhen they are full of young and the adults have gone to roost, that's not legal anymore and isn't really anymore ethical than a larceny trap?
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I'm a bit confused - the habitats I mentioned are exactly what ground nesters preferentially use (which varies by species) and it's those that have been removed, which is mainly responsible for the enormous drop in numbers of those species since the war. Obviously predator management is now needed to avoid losing some of them altogether. That doesn't mean Larsens aren't inhumane for the birds concerned because of the extremely unnatural situation the call bird is in (and the welfare issues of neglected traps). As I said, where I surveyed control was by shooting and it wasn't uncommon that I would come across several grounded/dead crows around one small wood that was used for pheasant rearing on each visit - I presume they found shooting effective enough. Sheep have also been documented damaging nests and eating eggs when they're sharing a space, so they aren't necessarily benign either.
 
Burnttoast said:
I'm a bit confused - the habitats I mentioned are exactly what ground nesters preferentially use (which varies by species) and it's those that have been removed, which is mainly responsible for the enormous drop in numbers of those species since the war. Obviously predator management is now needed to avoid losing some of them altogether. That doesn't mean Larsens aren't inhumane for the birds concerned because of the extremely unnatural situation the call bird is in (and the welfare issues of neglected traps). As I said, where I surveyed control was by shooting and it wasn't uncommon that I would come across several grounded/dead crows around one small wood that was used for pheasant rearing on each visit - I presume they found shooting effective enough. Sheep have also been documented damaging nests and eating eggs when they're sharing a space, so they aren't necessarily benign either.
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In the area of Scotland I am in, we don't have hay meadows or coastal marshes and never have. The woodland meadows whilst woodland exists it is commercial or artificial so contains not many meadows but those that are there are not utilised by the ground nesting birds here, they appear to prefer rashes and grasses strips interspersed with short grassy areas. The sheep here are also held off the areas most utilised by the ground nesting birds for longer than the recommended 6 weeks despite the estate not being able to claim subs for this, it's down because everyone here wants the wildlife to succeed, allowing one or 2 predators to do the damage that corvids and seagulls do is not going to achieve that.
Larcen traps have their failings for sure but shooting just doesn't seem to achieve the control needed here.
No other traps or baiting are not legal either.
 
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We live on a SSSI with some rare ground nesting birds. There are lots of jackdaws and magpies but everyone seems to manage. We did have a nest of blackbirds disappear last in our garden year but it could have been squirrels magpies or jackdaws or sadly local cats. I understand farmers need to protect livestock but surely there are more humane ways.
The small birds round here are doing fine as are the nightjar and Dartford warblers.
 
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