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Asian Carp and Chips twice, please, mate

Trusts, eh?

Suggest a few of you seriously start thinking about being no longer forelock-tugging deferential and start nailing your local farmers and landowners vis-a-vis their land management and farming practices. Then, and only then, will you have rivers that will breed and hold barbel. As for otters ... well, nowadays they tend to be an object of obsession for those who, like Jethro Tull (the band not the creator of the excellent Norfolk crop-rotation system), are still living in the past.
 
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Paul Boote said:
Carry on with your "old boy" and your otter mania in my absence here, Colin Gordon. Try Fishing Magic - there you might get an audience.
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"Otter mania" no Paul, you're so wrong about me, I believe that otters belong on all of our rivers but by the same token I believe that mink, signal crayfish and cormorants should all be 'dealt' with and our rivers brimful of indigenous (to it) fish.............. I can always dream.......





Ta-ra Paul.
 
I kind of find myself agreeing with Paul, the fact that a species was once "indigenous" doesn't wash as a good arguement. Wolves and bears were once indigenous but I don't see anybody rushing to reintroduce them.

Although, acutually ...http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/wildlife/7330504/Bears-lynx-wolves-and-elk-considered-for-reintroduction-into-British-countryside.html

I guess if there was a market for bear skin hats and bear meat then somebody would want to farm them and it would happen, "they won't escape, 'onest guv". Then when they did escape I'd be surprised to find anybody saying that they were once indigenous so leave them alone, they'd be "dealt with" extremely quickly. Cherry picking species to reintroduce is never a good decision without the predators that once kept their numbers in control.

This would have been an interesting experiment had it been allowed to happen http://discoveringthehighlands.com/2010/01/11/alladale-estate-applies-for-zoo-licence-northern-times/ but of course when people talk about reintroductions they only want to see the cute fluffy creatures http://www.ramblers.org.uk/scotland/ourwork_scotland/access/casestudies/reintroduction-wolves.htm http://www.walkhighlands.co.uk/news/alladale-estate-discussion-with-the-mcofs/00184/
 
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Paul Boote said:
So nice of you to drop in then leave after a thorough whipping, Colin. Love you.
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Dream on; I'm bored not beaten, old boy. I just ain't got your staying power when it comes to monotonous pointlessness but if you classify that as a victory, well nuff said really.
 
I think the objections to Alladale are rather more to do with loosing access to a large area of the highlands, rather than wanting to see "fluffy" or none "fluffy" creatures re-introduced. Certainly as far as the Mountaineering Council of Scotland are concerned. Several decent bothies and some quality winter climbing would be restricted if this zoo ever gets the go ahead.

Turning parts of the highlands into zoo's for long extinct animals is not a good idea. Particularly when many of the existing species which are not yet extinct, such as Salmon and Wild Cats are threatened by continuing habitat degradation. Salmon farming is destroying wild salmon and sea trout on the west coast, wind farms, golf courses and other developments destroying the habit of the wild cat on the east.

As was the case with otters, improvements to the environment before a species becomes extinct is rather more sensible than fencing it off to create zoo's for peoples favourite species, be these fish or wolves.
 
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the topic (is) was more about people importing something into this country, which has the ability to breed/reproduce very successfully to the detriment of the existing bio-diveristy of the countryside. We just do not have enough protection, imported plants for peoples gardens, exotic animals as pets, mink for fur, crays for food, they all arrive and due to poor controls they either bring in diseases which affect destroy our native species, or they escape and do the same. i think anyone importing ANY sort of animal with the ability to reproduce should have to provide secure, approved containment and where applicable, proof of disposal. i believe i read somewhere a while back about marbled crayfish being imported for the pet trade( some very strange people out there) and marbled have the ability to reproduce even if you only have 1 of them (hermaphrodite??) i am sure someone more learned than me can corrct me there. We all know where they will end up, they just should not be allowed in the country and if people smuggle them in give huge fines or make them responsible financially for the clean up. i have just had a scary image of someone coming through customs and trying to act normally with a crayfish in their undies.
 
Six weeks ago a good mate of mine who has old friends in and who also does business in High Wycombe phoned me on his mobile from a park (?) in the town: "Paul, I somehow have just hand-caught - grabbed - an effing great lobster after my youngest, Daisy [just 7] spotted something at the edge of the river [the Wyc or Wye]. What do I do with it?"

"Put it in the boot of your car, inside a bag if you've got one, then drop it in here on your way past back to Ealing / Acton."

Enormous, it was. We took it back to his place, and barcecued it the same evening.
 
We BBQ-ed an otter that night too, but it was so filthy we gave it to my mates' posh young neighbours whose Daddies own something in the Country (I believe it is Oxfordshire or somewhere). They didn't think much of it either, but put in a doggy bag for Mummy and Daddy whom they were going down to see the following day...
 
Phew! I had had if not exactly nightmares but certainly uncontrollable bouts of premonitory nervous twitching about The Dangling Crimes suddenly going big and strong on some new outfit's Asian Algae Boilies and taking on a perma-grinning columnist (who will also, when required / on demand, thunder about Feral Underclass Otters) to sing the fish's and the new baits' and the new rods' and the new reels' and the new lines' and the new rigs' and the new Yurt-U-Like Bivvies etc's praises. Appears that sense has won out, for once, and we've had a lucky escape.
 
Punctuation is for those uncertain of their writing ability, Julian. An intended lack of it tends to keep the nervous and semi-colonic on their toes.
 
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