Shooting birds

[MantaRay]

I am disgusted to find a number of videos on YouTube showing birds being shot with air rifles. These include blackbirds, pigeons, and seagulls. Is this practice legal in this country and if not could the video be used as evidence?

[murraymints]

you can still see birds on fences shot on farm land presumably to scare off other birds from the fields...so must be ok for such a public display...although if kids were to be shooting in urban areas may well be not so acceptable

[jomifl]

Some birds such as wild pigeons are fair game, blackbirds are not. Some birds such as crows and rooks are regarded as vermin(by ignorant morons) so it legal to shoot them. To shoot on somebody's land requires permission from the landowner.

[grffindoor2011]

What's worse, a pigeon having it's head blown off that will never mean anything to you or 2000 chickens all in small cages dying of malnutrition ready to be served up on your plate with peas and carrots.

[Old_Geezer]

I'm unsure comparing situations that some may find undesirable, is that helpful. The implication being that at any point in time society may only consider a single issue, the one thought to be most important/urgent.

[MrIncredible]

Not sure about Blackbirds and pigeons, but we have a major problem at work with seagulls nesting on our roofs and becoming quite aggressive when there young are born (not to mention the poop everywhere) we was told that they are protected and were unable to cull them, Instead we bought in a man with a hawk to fly around.....it made no difference!

[buildersmate]

One doesn't typically aim for the head of the pigeon - a good body-strike usually does the trick.

[Old_Geezer]

I suspect you're not supposed to feed the hawk. It needs to fend for itself.

[Mosaic]

To me, the real point is that sickos are filming it and putting it on Youtube - I'd complain to Google (ooh let's bang our heads against a brick wall) for starters, and also to RSPCA. I don't have an objection to humane culling but filming it seems weird and nasty - which attracts the weird and the nasty. I also believe from experience that people who indulge in cruelty and sadism towards animals do so because they can't -yet - get away with doing it to people. So nipping these blighters in the bud might ultimately prevent kids being harmed.

[tonywiltshire]

I do not understand people who kill animals for so-called sport; this includes fishing, even where the fish is thrown back with a large hole in its mouth.
If numbers of animals need to be controlled this should be done by culling, not by those who consider it sport.

[ojread2]

pigeons are vermin - perfectly fine to kill them disgusting things that they are

[Graham-W]

It's also OK to shoot magpies if you can prove they were killing wild birds young or taking their eggs.
I can't condone the filming of it and subsiquent display on youtube. That's just sick.