Keen readers may find themselves wondering what happened to Orkney's stoats? You remember the essay, in May 2019, when Virtuous Missy and her Shuffly colleague visited mr ishmael to request permission to lay stoat traps on his land:
And
if someone has decided that the stoats have to die, in desperate agony,
alone, poisoned in a box, in order that the birds may flourish, well eradication takes on a newer, higher meaning than when Europeans decided that the Jews must be poisoned so that the Aryans may flourish.
I wish I'd asked Virtuous Missy if her stoat eradication plan was a whatchamacallit, a Final Solution.
Animals,
peoples, oceans, doesn't matter; some I-Know-Bester, like today's
doorstepping halfwits will shit all over Creation and say it's for the
best, no, really it is.
No, mate, yer fucked, it's Zyklon B for you.
It's the birds, they need lebensraum.
Wossat? No, mate, you don't need it just as much as they do.
Listen,
mate, we're the master race around here, alright, the Devil, if you
like, and what we say goes. And that's why the planet is in such good
shape.
Yeah, thousand-year EuroReich,
no problem.
The Stoat Eradication Final Solution Project, officially known as The Orkney Native Wildlife Project, has run into a few problems. The project is intended to protect ground-nesting birds and the Orkney Vole, (Microtus arvalis orcadensis) a population of the common vole (Microtus arvalis).
Orkney voles are about 10% larger than voles from other populations of the common vole. It was introduced to the Orkney archipelago by humans in Neolithic times. The oldest known radiocarbon-dated fossil of the Orkney Vole is 4,600 years old.
Stoats being efficient little killers, voles and ground nesting birds have been taking a hammering and Humans are going to sort it all out through the Orkney Native Wildlife Project (ONWP) a partnership by NatureScot, RSPB Scotland and Orkney Islands Council, with additional funding by the National Lottery through the Heritage Lottery Fund. It declares that:
(Our) aim is to ensure that the unique native wildlife of the Orkney Islands is safeguarded for the lasting benefit not only for the residents and visitors but also for the nation as a whole.
The Eradication Plan involved laying down 7,000 traps wherever Virtuous Missy could obtain permission so to do. The Project was surprised by the level of resistance they encountered. Fermers quite like the idea of stoats. They don't eat grain, but they do eat rats, who do eat grain. So, a plus there for the stoat. And a big stoat could have a go at eating a baby wild goose. The geese are a big problem for Orkney Fermers, descending from the skies in mad flocks and eating a field of newly-sprouted barley down to bare earth in seconds. Quite a few Fermers refused permission to lay traps on their land until the Scottish Government took the Geese Problem seriously. So Virtuous Missy and her chums took to laying their traps on the verges by the sides of roads.
Then Covid struck. The Stoat-killers were taken off the job. The traps lay, untended, by the side of the road. Harris used to take quite an interest in them, and I would drag him away, assuming some little creature was inside, dead or dying. The Wildlife Folk tie themselves in knots justifying their policy of the genocide of one species in order to protect other species. It is controversial, even within their own ranks - within the RSPB’s membership, one section is opposed to the killing of animals.
When the operation started up again, the traps were found to have effectively killed a lot of animals: four cats killed and one seriously injured, 242 rabbits, 48 mice, 18 hedgehogs, 10 Orkney Voles (remember them?) and nine frogs and toads. This certainly enraged a part of the Orkney population and police were involved after what was described in the media as "a sustained attack by vandals and thieves following other species of animals, including cats, being killed by traps."
Apart from all this collateral damage, how many of the legitimate target have been killed? The Herald reported on the 14th January 2021 that 780 stoats had been killed. The following day, the Orkney Native Wildlife Project claimed that 891 stoats had been killed. Statistics, eh?
There's a lot of stoats still at large. So the stoat-killers have escalated and have expanded their workforce to include three stoat-detection dogs: Spud the Labrador, Thorn the English Springer Spaniel and Scout the Sprocker Spaniel.
Spud, Thorn and Scout have been trained in the North West of England, at some expense. Stoat poo-poo was collected by Virtuous Missy and sent to the dog training centre to enable the training. The Orcadian newspaper carried a job vacancy advert on the 4th February for a Stoat Detection Dog Handler, one of a team of three - a full-time, 4 -year contract (they're not envisaging an early solution to the genocide). The successful applicant is required to have excellent wildlife identification skills, strong navigational skills, the ability to read Ordnance Survey maps, be able to walk long distances, work for prolonged periods in the field and have one or two of the stoat detection dogs to live with them.Remuneration is between £21,718 and £24,293 per year.
You'll be relieved to learn that Spud, Thorn and Scout are not actually expected to rend limb-from-limb the stoats that they detect. The idea is that they run about until they smell stoat poo-poo, at which point they wait until the dog handler turns up and places a trap on the spot indicated.
The cost of the scheme is £6 million, until they use that up and need some more, which, doubtless, will be forthcoming.
Nation as a whole, I hope you're grateful.
9 comments:
They are solving the wrong problem. What limits the prevalence of wildlife generally is the availability of food and habitat. The numbers reach an equilibrium. So killing a few stoats will have the effect of the stoat population becoming more productive - the randy little devils. Also, the law of unintended consequences comes into play, as you indicate. In my neck of the woods, although its Sydney, there is a lot of bush land (Sydney is amazingly green and wild, particularly on the North shore). People complained of foxes. So the local councils put down fox bait. Leaving aside the unintended kills (dogs etc) this lead to a big surge in brush turkeys and rabbits, and possums and rats.
Orkney's stoat eradication campaign, mr mike, is based on New Zealand's. I have no idea how successful that was. I suppose our stoat killers would argue that the stoats are a new factor in the wildlife of Orkney - having swum across the Pentland Firth fairly recently, and they have thrown the balance of species here out of kilter, as they have no natural predators, there being no foxes in Orkney. Orkney is like a massive chocolate box of delights for them, and a shortage of food is unlikely, given the wealth of indigenous wildlife and the large migrant populations of birds.
My own view is that the Project is doomed to failure, given the stoat reproduction rate, and is ethically wrong. Probably contrary to the Prime Directive. And bloody expensive.
No foxes in Orkney?
You will probably have heard the old story about the visitor to Ireland who hearing that there were no snakes in Ireland, observed to a local old boy that it was because St Peter had cleared them from the blessed isle. "No", replied the old boy, "sure why would we need snakes in Ireland when we already have the British?"
Jesus, you heathen eegit ye. Sure, wasn't St Peter someone else.
If Pink Fairies had ever played a festival in Ireland they'd have had to change the lyrics - "there goes that snake" I imagine.
(I hadn't noticed, mr mongoose, if it's any comfort.)
v./
It matters not, mr v, but a long time ago having all the saints lined up was a requirement. Likewise who else here has ever read a Catholic catechism? I was issued with mine when I had the temerity to attend a proddy secondary school. I'd only been to Mass about 1100 times.
Hey ho. Eight weeks now. I'm as mad as a box of frogs, I reckon. How about you?
'Twas St. Patrick, so it was, him with the aversion to snakes, ye damn wee divil. There's some say it was a metaphor and Patrick (aka his birth name, Maewyn)was ok with snakes, but not so much with ancient Irish Paganism - the snakes being a metaphor for the bad old days which he vanquished by replacing Paganism with Christianity. Some Pagans wear a snake necklace in mourning on St Patrick's Day. Fun Facts.
Now, the Catechism, mr mongoose - not only have I read it, but I was required to learn it by heart, as we had a Catechism lesson each morning for half an hour, when we were tested on our knowledge of our great religion as encapsulated into 107 Questions and Answers, giving the Catholic brat a pat answer to any questions and challenges from non-Catholic acquaintances (variously known as heretics, pagans, Proddy-Dogs you'll burn in hell). Here's a sample:
Q. Who Made you?
A. God made me.
Q. Why did God make you?
Q. God made me to know him, to love him and serve him in this life and be happy with Him forever in the next.
Jesus, God the Feudal Lord, or wot?
Tryna keep busy, mr mongoose, thanks for asking, and not in a boxed frogs style as far as possible. The editing lark helps. Speaking of which, mr ishmael used "bursted" in one of his pieces (London bin bags, as seen on a couldn't-get-away-quick-enough visit) - is that an Irish English usage, by any chance? Shorter OED cites it as archaic and/or dialect, but doesn't specify. Not terribly important, natch, just curious.
cheers
v./
I am afraid I have not heard "bursted" on my travels, mr v, but then my lot are the polite, quite lot rather than the babbling brooks of Dublin and the like.
Yes, mrs i, whole swathes of it learned by rote and repetition. And then after all that, they thought I'd forget and be "turned" by exposure to, indeed, they proddy dogs. The CofE Reverend Kelly who took RE at the grammar eyed me as an exotic bird indeed, full of strange and "What do you mean you already know some Latin, mongoose?" Know Latin? I used to be able to sing the bugger.
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