Survival of the cutest
Tue, 10 Aug 2010 12:30 pm – Posted by Mandy | 7 Comments
Blogger: Forest & Bird’s Lower North Island Field Officer Aalbert Rebergen
Avian citizenry in this country is a mind-boggling, byzantine thing - something that is given and then snatched away at the whim of government based on fickle, flimsy criteria.
Rook, photo: creative commons
Take for example – the rook – an introduced bird that was brought here to control insects and remind settlers of home.
It comes from a family of hooligans - such as jays and crows – and shares their hoarse cry and plucky demeanour.
Reviled by many, this bird has been the target of much persecution, and many would like to see it wiped from the face of New Zealand care of a few humanely-aimed bullets.
Needless to say, they’re at the top of the list of regional council’s undesirables – up there with magpies.
Sure, they cause a little damage to agricultural crops (they’re so smart they squirrel walnuts), but so do introduced birds like yellowhammer, goldfinches, chaffinches, redpolls and sparrows.
It sure makes you wonder what Orwellian scripts these councils are following – colourful and pretty: good; dark & screechy: bad?
Like the rook – the squawky spur-wing plover (a native bird!) too has fallen out of favour with the government, and has now been shifted to the unprotected list because of its danger to airspace.
Does this bird deserve to be on this ‘hate list’ - why don’t we just lift protection within two kilometres of an airport, or add some deterrents like some well-placed shubbery?
The long and short of this is that we’re essentially judging avian citizenship on set of rather thinly-veiled superficial characteristics – their good looks, their cuteness and the beauty of their song.
There seems to be a serious double standard going on here, and as a rook-lover and spur-wing plover enthusiast, I think we need to pour some light on our selective morality when it comes to what’s deemed a pest, and what’s not.
Lets give these birds some clemency please!
I certainly miss the rooks that used to be around Banks Peninsula- they added a lot of atmosphere. They pretty much kept to themselves in small rookeries with no population explosion. Sad to see the regional genocide of these birds. Love rooks !
This report is very fair: Rooks should be retained in New Zealand. Someday they may be found to have a useful role in Europeanised areas not far from Banks Peninsula.
Rooks were considered useful insectivores under pre-1950s farming conditions, as I understood them in Ireland. With the post-WWII changes to agrochemicals and prairie farming systems they changed their feeding preferences. At least, that is when this highly social creature became demonised as a pest in the British Isles. Presumably we copied this rather than doing detailed ecological studies.
Rooks are fascinating, and obviously clever. Observing them is an education. Keeping a young Rook when found in need of help, as I have twice, was as enlightening as keeping a Pup or Kitten, perhaps more so because they have huge personalities and interact strongly with people.
The secret of “keeping” a young Rook is to feed it on demand on a perch (no cage needed) until it fledges. Then give it total freedom to the outdoors and to your indoors. It will stay with you only until the following Spring. The day will come when an attractive mate flies bye - and “your” pet will “disappear”, becoming just one more big black bird. But, if before then you “teach” it a name or a few words, you may hear it again or get reports from your friends who will also have fond memories of it. This happened with my second one, called “Whacker” after my grandfather.
Seriously, on what authority are these birds exterminated? Surely birds(or anything else) do not get on these Regional Council pest lists without some serious authority behind it, research on their impact. There has been little if any research on the rook in NZ, only the opinions of ornithologists like WRB Oliver who did not see them as a threat to native birds and only a minor agricultural pest. Why go after the rook, why not the yellowhammer, another minor agricultural pest.
So do those who want to save European Rooks also want to save Australian Magpies?
As I recall it the Landcare Research study on the impact of magpies on native birds concluded that rather than expending huge amount of energy trying to get rid of magpies to save native birds, we’d all be better off putting the energy into the control of rats and stoats such as by bait stations and traps. Landcare was of the view that this would be a much more effective way to save native birds.
Apparently although magpies will attack intruders including native birds around the magpie nesting areas, they don’t actually kill significant numbers of native birds.
Magpies do a wonderful job of biological control of pasture pests such as grassgrub and Porina.
Rooks certainly devastated the nut crops of Banks Peninsula particularly walnuts.
Certainly, to a seriosuly homesick ex-pat, Rooks afford a greater degree of nostalgia than say, Cirl Buntings
Pleased to see the well-reasoned comments in this article. I once regarded Magpies and Mynas as a scourge on our property. Then we had two drought years where we were eaten bare by black crickets on the grass. The Magpies and Mynas spent the entire season rushing about the lawns picking-off the crickets. We had no other method of controlling them.
The point I’m making is that although these destructive pest birds should not be here, neither should the pest insects etc. We must accept that this is a recently hugely modified environment in New Zealand. The balance of nature for the future is currently re-establishing itself in new order. Who knows the place that each organism will occupy in the new New Zealand? Try as we might with razor wire barriers and 1080, it just MIGHT be natural controls, albeit foreign, that could save us from disaster. Leave those Rooks alone!
I’m with you Aalbert. Save the rook! I spent several years living in Aberdeenshire in the north east of Scotland. In a village called Hatton of Fintray there was, I was told, the largest rookery in Europe. It held 90,000 pairs and to see these birds was a wonder indeed. To hear them even more so. They were fearless but I have noticed that the few rooks I have encountered in NZ, mainly in Hawkes Bay, are extremely wary. All corvids are intelligent and I am sure our birds know we are out to get them. But it was a thrill to see them here and in good light they reveal a wonderful glossy purple sheen, not the ugly black crow that they are often portrayed as.