Today Post::When Pets Become Pests ...

It’s not every day that a London bird makes the evening news on Italian TV. But the other night there was a short feature on the bird which is probably now the most frequently seen visitor in my London garden - the rose ringed parakeet.

I posted about them two years ago, the last time I was in London, talking about how they are increasing exponentially and the problems they are causing. This year they were even more in evidence. The population is now generally supposed to be about 30,000 with the RSPB predicting 50,000 by 2010 - all descendants of escaped pets (or if you believe some reports, of a flock which escaped from Shepperton Studios during the filming of the Bogart/Hepburn movie The African Queen. Whaat?! You mean that river was really the Thames??)

I always look forward to seeing them in the garden when I go back. They’re great to watch : colourful and very funny. They’re clowns who give a circus performance every time they fly in. But I can see why - and this is what got them onto the Italian news - they have now officially been listed as vermin. Which means that they can now legally be killed, under general license, by landowners who can show that they are damaging their property.

And they do cause damage, as my neighbour - who has four or five fruit trees in her garden knows. I doubt if she got a single item of fruit this year which didn’t have a large lump taken out of it.

OK, maybe if they’re in your garden you put up with it. I would, and my neighbour didn’t seem particularly bothered. Even if she was, the new law certainly doesn’t give householders carte blanche to start killing the birds. The general license list specifies particular reasons for which specific birds may be killed, including damage to crops, health and safety risks, and threats to other wildlife. Anyone killing a bird on the list without one of these reasons faces a £5,000 fine or a six-month prison sentence. For the ring-necked parakeets, one of the reasons accepted is crop damage. Fruit trees in the back garden may not count as “crops”, but the birds are causing considerable problems for commercial fruit growers in Kent and other areas, and I can well understand that they might consider culling.

The second justification specified is because of the threat to other wildlife. The parakeets have also been accused of causing a vast reduction in the numbers of other species of birds. They nest in hollow trees and have simply moved into all the available space, leaving nothing for the other species. Controversy rages about how true this is, but something is clearly displacing the tree-nesters. I said two years ago that the woodpeckers and nuthatches seemed to have disappeared from the garden. But at that time the owls were still holding their own. This year there were none, for the first time ever since I was a child.

So the parakeets have joined pigeons, crows and magpies - the last two also clearly on the increase from the numbers I saw - on the list of official pests, together with a couple of other new additions, such as the Canada Goose - again regarded as a danger to crops, and also a public health and safety problem.

The London Wildlife Trust has opposed the placing of both birds on the list, while the RSPB has suggested that there is a need for more evidence of the impact the parakeets have outside urban areas. And amongst Londoners, opinion is divided. The parakeets were once called “the grey squirrel of the skies” - an apt description. Like the grey squirrels, they’re a non-native species which has become dominant, displacing native species. And like the grey squirrel you either love them or you hate them.

Me? Well, I’m the one who feels guilty if she kills a few red spider mite, so you can imagine … But as I said in a recent post, I love seeing grey squirrels in the garden - and I guess that goes for the variety from the skies too.

Explore some more …

How do parakeets survive in the UK? BBC Website

Is it time to start culling parakeets? The Guardian

Britains’s naturalised parrot now officially a pest The Independent

Statement on Monk and Ring-necked Parakeets Natural England

No open season on shooting parakeets, says RSPB Wandsworth Guardian

Are parakeets threatened with control? London Wildlife Trust