We might win a few small skirmishes but we are certainly losing the war!

[qball]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/soaring-populations-put-four-species-122531585.html

“Ring-billed gulls, house sparrows, European starlings and barn swallows have been identified as the most prolific birds out of a total of 9,700 different species.”

“Those most prolific species included the house sparrow, at 1.6 billion, the European starling, at 1.3 billion....”



And the pellet shortage isn’t helping either!!! 

 

[Twinkees_n_Pb]

Time to put away your springer and bring out that belt fed SK19.

 

[dizzums]

its probably a good thing with the declining populations of about everything else youd be overrun with insects ... if theyre not a destructive pest to your property specifically, or you are paid by someone that does have a problem, then your only justification to kill something is your hungry, so fire up the grill lol ... its stuffed tweety bird fritters tonight lol ..

 

[jdanvers]

↑

 

[fdales17]

Fritters sound amazing !

 

[qball]

its probably a good thing with the declining populations of about everything else youd be overrun with insects ... if theyre not a destructive pest to your property specifically, or you are paid by someone that does have a problem, then your only justification to kill something is your hungry, so fire up the grill lol ... its stuffed tweety bird fritters tonight lol ..

you are 100% right on that. Wasn’t for Starling’s destructive behavior it would be hard to shoot them. They eat tons and tons of insects. However the house sparrow has ZERO redeeming value, given where I usually see them I wouldn’t touch them with glove let along eating them.


Although Stirling fritters do sound good! 

 

[Longfellow]

its probably a good thing with the declining populations of about everything else youd be overrun with insects ... if theyre not a destructive pest to your property specifically, or you are paid by someone that does have a problem, then your only justification to kill something is your hungry, so fire up the grill lol ... its stuffed tweety bird fritters tonight lol ..

One thing I like about removing hosps via my bird feeder is that a cowbird or a finch will show up upon the absence of a hosp. Cowbirds are in direct competition w/ hosps. This is beneficial to my garden because cowbirds eat aphids and other insects that would be likely to harm my plants. Hosps eat aphids too; but, only when they're nesting and they give the insects to their nestlings ... which is a two edged sword ... yeah, aphids are being eaten, but at the cost of a larger local population of hosps.

Relax, 1.6 billion hosps means the population is going up. Not down.

 

[harrymoreland]

Sounds like a win win to me, progressively target rich environment, with exponentially more reason to target them.

 

[Blackpaw]

Well, I consider this a CALL TO ARMS!!!! SO recruit a friend to join the battle especially against the Devil’s Minions (starlings)!

 

[Peashooter]

I think the American government should send plane tickets to all European airgunners every year, so they could go over and clean up the mess their forefathers did.

Hell they could set everything up on E mail, and then send a C- 5 Galaxy for all i care ( to save money ) ill even pay for the Transport to Germany myself, or where ever the flight start.

I would gladly come over a few weeks every year to make my mark, i am sure there are some nasty critters to shoot, and some nice people to meet.