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Farmers would terminate gulls with extreme prejudice
TheCopenhagenPost
December 15th, 2015
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This article is more than 9 years old.
Plagued by birds that eat expensive feed and sicken livestock, farmers want to load up
Look out, fellas, Farmer McGregor’s packing! (photo: Arnold Paul)
Organic pig farmers say they are being plagued by flocks of gulls that land on their fields, eat up to 1,500 kroner’s worth of pig food every day, and carry diseases that can sicken their livestock.
They want to employ a 6mm Remington solution.
“A flock of seagulls flying between herds poses a potential risk,” Bertel Hestbjerg, the operator of a large organic pig farm south of Holster, told DR Nyheder.
Permission denied
Hestbjerg said that farmers are especially worried that the gulls could cause dysentery among their livestock. The gulls can eat up to 500 kg of pig feed a day. Despite those issues, nature authority Naturstyrelsen has declined to give Hestbjerg a permit for a gull hunt.
“You are allowed to shoot gulls in the cities for waking people up,” he said. “Isn’t it reasonable that I could shoot two or maybe ten here?”
READ MORE: Controlling seagulls and strengthening peregrine falcon numbers
Jacob Friis from Naturstyrelsen said the damage and risk of infection from the birds is not enough to justify hunting them down.
“Unless there is a current outbreak in the herd or in a nearby herd, there is no risk of infection from wild birds,” he said.
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