Rooks

[Suzi]

Apparently there are Rooks in the Hauraki Plains area with two seen most recently two weeks ago flying over Primrose Hill to the south-east of Paeroa, towards Te Aroha.

Last year two were seen just north of Paeroa flying towards Thames, and two years ago a dozen were seen near Netherton on the Hauraki Plains. (Informed of these sightings by a Paeroa resident).

Not sure if DOC is onto this and if they are on a list of pest birds that get eliminated ? Does anyone know ?

Suzi

[Neil Fitzgerald]

I've heard of quite a few around the Cambridge area a year or so ago. EW, the Regional Council considers them a pest and has been hammering them. I requested details of research and publications that justifies their pest status and the large amount of money spent controlling them, but nothing was provided. I haven’t been able to find any research on rooks in NZ and would love to see it if anyone knows of some.

[morepork]

http://fairfaxmedia.newspaperdirect.com ... iewer.aspx

Link to this weeks Rodney Times, page three article on Rooks.
It claims 2 were recently seen seen in Helensville area and claims that the Rook is "a nationally declared unwanted organism under the 1993 Biosecurity Act".

Derek

[Eila]

Commenting on David's comment about control being a shame as there are only a few and they add interest -
Time was there were only a few possums...and stoats... and heather plants... and.... and...

[Neil Fitzgerald]

That is a fair point Eila, however there is plenty of research supporting the need to control those species for native biodiversity, and none that I am aware of for rooks. On the other hand there has been work done on magpies—which might be the closest thing we have ecologically—showing their effects on native wildlife to be insignificant.
I'd like to see the work done for rooks.

[Graham Saunders]

I used to play cricket for the Civil Service team in Northern Ireland, whose home ground was at Stormont in Belfast. On the estate was also a wood with a rookery. From round about the middle of summer the cricket ground would be ruined by the presence of a large number of conical holes about 2 inches long and half an inch in diameter, caused by the rooks searching for leather jackets. The damage to cricket pitches is reason enough to exterminate them!

[Neil Fitzgerald]

Exterminating cricket is reason enough to encourage them!

[Graham Saunders]

Just to annoy Philistine Fitzgerald:



... The only type of Crow to do good on a cricket pitch.

[Graham Saunders]

Neil, I think the question of whether Rooks are a pest is answered in The Field Guide....

If they are a pest they should be eradicated.
Even if they are not an actual pest they are a perceived pest. And for diplomatic reasons it would be prudent to cull them. I would imagine that any farmer who fears his livelihood drastically reduced by them would not take kindly to being told that he couldn't kill them. He may be less inclined to assist in a future conservation effort for a rare endemic species of flora of fauna if he'd been upset by birdwatchers.
And why would we want their continued presence? So desperate twictchers could get another tick? Is New Zealand's avifauna so impopverished? ... Think of it another way, if they were to be eradicated you've got a blocker!

[Neil Fitzgerald]

"The Field Guide..." being Heather and Robertson? Hmm, "They sometimes also damage ripening peas, and because of this Rooks in Hawke's Bay were declared a 'pest of local importance' in 1971 and 35,000+ birds were poisoned or shot in the next 6 years. The damage was much reduced on the Heretaunga Plains, but this control caused the rapid expansion in range of the species."
Sounds like a fairly weak justification to me, and its success debatable. On the other hand, their main prey are grass grubs, flies and porina moths, which are all amongst the worst of our agricultural pests.
I'm not saying they shouldn't be controlled if they were a real pest and the money spent on them was worth it, but I'm not convinced they are that bad because no work has ever been done to prove it, and there is no indication that they could be eradicated even if we wanted (like water on a fat-fire ‘control’ often makes the problem worse). There is a finite pool of money and resources, so money wasted on rooks is money that can’t be spent on other things (e.g. conservation). Tens of thousands of dollars spent controlling rooks around the Waikato will not have made any positive difference to any native bird, but tens of thousands of $ spent on rat control has led directly to the huge increase in tui around Hamilton. I know where I’d rather have my rates go.
It’s the magpie story all over again. Well, that's my opinion. I welcome anyone to present some facts and change my mind.