[Closed] Squashed pheasants

I'm seeing a lot of dead squirrels on road rides at the moment. Can't remember seeing so many before.

I can only imagine that it due to a big increase in population.

In contrast there appears to be less dead pheasants than usual, although I did is a beautiful dead male today with apparently no marks.

North Surrey/Kent

Judging by what I see on my XC rides, there are just more pheasants out there this year, which you'd expect to result in more squashed pheasants.

Hundreds round here in North Yorkshire, & I’m ‘guilty’ of killing one this week.
The bloody things are suicidal.

I can guess that more are being released as it’s shooting season 😒

The bloody things are suicidal.

They forget which way they are supposed to run. They aren't very smart.

I think October is the start of the pheasant shooting season. Thousands get released from pens in and around the Surrey Hills at this time of year. Freshly released pheasants are even more bird brained than usual. I can't imagine it's much sport or challenge to shoot something so unprepared for survival in the wider world. I think evolution would have "fixed" them if it wasn't for the intervention of shoots.

Around 60 million pheasants and partridges are released each year in the UK. They are causing a huge imbalance in the ecosystem so until this changes (unlikely) the more killed the better
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/oct/30/pheasant-and-partridge-classified-as-species-that-imperil-uk-wildlife

think evolution would have “fixed” them if it wasn’t for the intervention of shoots.

Didn't they evolve in the jungles of Asia?

Lack of cars and guns in their native habitat probably explains a lot.

I have killed two in the last month. the first two in my entire life. I think lockdown might of given alot of animal populations a boost.

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mikeyp
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Around 60 million pheasants and partridges are released each year in the UK. They are causing a huge imbalance in the ecosystem so until this changes (unlikely) the more killed the better
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/oct/30/pheasant-and-partridge-classified-as-species-that-imperil-uk-wildlife/blockquote >

Exactly. 60 million non native pests released with impunity. Yet try and let one beaver loose…

 

I believe the correct term is tenderised.

Thousands get released from pens in and around the Surrey Hills at this time of year.

Nope, they would have been released back in the summer.

Pheasants are chickens in a party frock

Lockdown will have made no difference to the numbers by and large.

Wonder if the increase 8n road kill is related to dusk now being at busier traffic times.

It’s down to hundreds of thousands of them being released as young birds from pens. The only life they’ve known is in a pen so they have no traffic sense, life experience etc so you end up getting them all over roads and getting run over. They are extremely damaging to native wildlife and habitats so squash as many as you can or even better lobby gov. To ban they’re continued release

According to mikeyp's link they have introduced controls from this year.

Regularly driving the A30/303 and the M5, the most common debris I used to see along the centre barrier was hi-viz tabards, tyres, pheasants and badgers. Occasionally I’d see a dead buzzard, but that was a rarity.
Pheasants and badgers definitely seemed to be a seasonal thing.

It's been a long time since I've seen tape cassettes with strands of tape blowing melancholy in the wind by the side of the A roads and motorways.

@ernielynch There's not a snowbals chance in hell Natural England will enforce them though. Simply not tesourced for it.

My dogs (Pointer & Vizsla) aren't complaining about the amount that's out near me!!

Also know one actually knows how many are released or how many survive over winter.

Fair enough stabiliser, although Wild Justice which apparently mounted a legal challenge which resulted in the announcement of controls appeared to have been partially satisfied :

"This is a good first step in bringing the unregulated shooting industry under control,” said Mark Avery, co-founder of Wild Justice.

We were at fountains Abbey in ripon yesterday,  and there were thousands of them. Never seen as many just roaming around! Didn't realise we were in shooting season though, so guess that's why they were in such large numbers. Plenty squished by the roadside too

They are pretty much responsible for the decline in our Adder population

Yep, pretty normal. Absolutely everywhere round here too. Both alive, and splatted ones.

Also no doubt interlinked with the population growth of Red Kites - looking out our windows towards the main roads is like a scene from one of those Jurrasic Park sequels with the Pteranodons circling overhead.

Squirrels too, loads of them everywhere, more than I remember.

I understood that the beater's day, at the end of the season, was to get the low-fliers shot so that they didn't impart their self-survival habits to the next season's flock. Thing I've noticed A LOT in recent times is the increase in the rat population and the stench of rotting rodent anywhere near food outlets. Never a mention in the press.

If I inadvertently squash a peasant I have Jeeves discretely scrape the body off the Range Rover and dispose of it...

I understood that the beater’s day, at the end of the season, was to get the low-fliers shot so that they didn’t impart their self-survival habits to the next season’s flock.

lol funny but not true in any way 🙂

Yup it's release time . It's also getting into the time the deer start to get hit on the roads as well. Young starting to roam further.

Loads and loads more in the last couple of years here too (north Kent), really huge change in numbers.

We have a couple of large-ish local shoots, and the guys running it say because of Covid lockdowns and the absence of shoots recently, lots of birds now 'wild'. They're also very 'happy' (their words) to see the wild ones numbers reduce becasue they're causing problems, bit of disease, and spoiling the posh shoot!