Wood pigeons are a prized part of our wildlife heritage. For many of us, its familiar cooing call is a sound immersed in nostalgia and synonymous with the countryside.
Mainly grayish in colour, with patches of white on its neck and wings, it is a frequent visitor to our gardens. Alas, it is also a creature much misunderstood and misrepresented, by people who either fail to grasp its true role in the ecosystem or have a vested interest in blasting it out of the sky.
Legislation on shooting
A big test of the Green Party’s clout in government will come at the end of this month when a decision must be made on whether to allow all-year-round shooting of wood pigeons.
The open season for these birds theoretically runs from November to January, but, yielding to pressure from the pro-blood sports lobby, successive governments have granted a derogation permitting gun men to kill them for twelve months of the year.
The excuse for this annual unrestricted slaughter is that the birds cause extensive damage to crops – a wildly exaggerated claim unsupported by any real evidence apart from anecdotal accounts and pub talk.
This year, the government has no excuse for allowing an extension of the pigeon-killing season. A report prepared for the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) indicates strongly that pigeons only take a serious interest in cereal crops post-harvest, when the fields are in stubble and thus provide the birds with richer pickings.
‘Luring’ wood pigeons
Another powerful argument against an all-year killing spree is that shooters are deliberately planting crops to lure pigeons to where they can shoot them; a bit like the way hunts introduce foxes into areas where they have become scarce to ensure continued hunting.
Added to this cynical abuse of the much trumpeted ‘right to hunt’ is the incidental targeting of protected species by the pigeon shooters, including hares, songbirds, and the beleaguered stock dove which has declined drastically in the countryside over the past two decades.
Hopefully the heritage minister will listen to the voices of reason, science and compassion this year instead of to those baying for blood, however vociferous or politically well-connected they might be. Our wood pigeons deserve a break.
Longer term, I hope people will simply stop killing them. If they want ‘sport’ , they can shoot clay pigeons; the test of skill is the same. The only difference is that they won’t be depriving a harmless bird of its brief but precious existence.
From John Fitzgerald, Campaign for the Abolition of Cruel Sports