Some one said the population of Osprey has "remained" at approximately 200 breeding pairs. Does anyone know when it reached 200 breeding pairs and what has changed at their wintering sites since then?
Clearly their numbers are no longer increasing in spite of the number chicks fledging .
Some of this could be due to young adults choosing to start a nest in other areas such as France.
Formerly known as Barbara Jean
My conscience requires that I post some information relevant to this dispute. My post is not a criticism of my very dear friends on this forum, and it's not an argument for or against tagging.
In my view, "educating the locals" is not a long-term solution for preventing early osprey mortality. It's not a logical reason for tagging ospreys, and it's not a good alternative to tagging. The following 2 posts explain why.
If you want ospreys to be safe in Africa, education and change need to begin at home.
Millions of NW Africans depend on fish caught by local fishermen for their food and livelihoods. Without fish, people fall victim to poverty and famine (which means they will desperately turn to other sources of protein, including ospreys).
Unfortunately, commercial fishing fleets from Europe, including Britain, and around the world have moved en masse into the coastal waters of northwest Africa (Mauritania, Cape Verde, Senegal, Guinea-Bissau, The Gambia, etc.).
These super-sized industrial factory ships are hoovering up NW African fish stocks by the 1,000s of tonnes, stealing the livelihoods of local fishermen and impoverishing communities.
EU taxpayers, including the British, are paying for this massive expansion into the fishing grounds of NW Africa by providing huge subsidies to these corporations.
Local African fishermen in small boats can't compete with the enormous factory mega-trawlers. Note: It would take 56 traditional Mauritanian fishing boats an entire year to catch as much fish as one foreign super-trawler can catch and process in a single day.
These industrial fleets use destructive fishing practices – dynamite, bottom trawling, and beach seining – that endanger local fishermen and wildlife. They've destroyed habitat and depleted fish populations on a massive scale.
I highly recommend this video.
Foreign commercial over-fishing is emptying the sea.The NW African coastal stock of bottom-dwelling fish is down 75% from 25 years ago. Fish are the main source of protein for the region's people, but many fish species are now so scarce that the poor can't afford them.
Research clearly shows that major fish populations are now collapsing, creating an unprecedented ecological disaster and destroying the lives of millions of people who depend on the sea. As this plunder continues, human famine is spreading alarmingly.
Famine and extreme poverty are now widespread throughout NW Africa. "Educating the locals" isn't going to solve the problem of ospreys being taken for food by local villagers. When people are hungry, they're going to eat whatever is available to them. If your own children were starving, you would feed them whatever source of protein you could obtain.
Ospreys will be at increasing risk from their own diminishing food supply and from human hunting. No education programme will mitigate the chief dangers to ospreys in NW Africa: drought, predation, and corporate thugs who are plundering the coast for profit, destabilizing the region and putting both people and wildlife at risk.
References for my posts above.
The Guardian newspaper website article
Greenpeace website article
The New York Times website article
Wildlife Extra News article
World Wildlife Fund article
The Ecologist website article
Oceana website report
The Guardian newspaper article
I recommend this video.
Diane Thank you!! So it appears we need to start pressuring and demanding that our governments stop subsidizing these mega fishing businesses and put an end to these industrial fishing factories, not only for the Ospreys, but for the people and other wildlife in Africa.
It won't be easy as all politicians do the bidding of the corporations who donate the most money to their campaigns. But when enough people demand changes the politicians listen to save their own jobs.
After years of demanding and protesting by people of conscience it is now against the laws of most countries to use wood from the rainforest for furniture or wooden objects.
The furniture & trinket makers went down kicking and screaming, but they went down and we still all have furniture ! If the Rain forests are lost so is the planet. Most of our oxygen is generated in the Rain forests . Plus life save drugs made from plants that only grow in the Rain Forests
Now we need to find other environmental groups working on this problem and join in their effort to stop this madness before there are no fish , wildlife or people in Africa .
You are absolutely correct. We can't educate starving people not to hunt any available source of food including our precious Ospreys . We need to stop the reason they have no food to eat
If anyone knows of environmental groups working to stop this Industrial Fishing travesty let us know . I will search for groups too.
My letter writing campaign will begin tomorrow !
All we need is to pass laws that forbid selling fish harvested by these mega fishing factories and it will end when they have no buyers of their fish
Thanks for posting this .
You're welcome, Barbara. And thank you!
Do you know if fish from those mega fishing factories are sold in the USA?
It looks like Green Peace will be getting a donation from me . I already donate to the World Wildlife fund
Barbara: I suspect that fish from the industrial fishing operations are sold in the U.S., but I could never find any references indicating one way or the other. I know that Greenpeace has been very active on this issue. They might be able to answer your question.
This is one of the foremost rules of business management. Learn to identify the "correct" problem .
All too often in our quest to find a solution to a problem we only tackle the result of the actual problem . In this case it isn't why they "may be" hunting the Osprey it is why don't they have enough food so they need to do this .
This would also explain the competition among the birds for food. There are fewer fish. If the local fishermen can't catch enough fish in the ocean they will fish in the lakes and rivers.
I don't have any data of when the Osprey population of breeding pairs stopped increasing, but I suspect it may correlate to the introduction of these mega fishing boats along the coast of West Africa.
I just Googled " Fishing off the coast of West Africa". There are numerous articles on the dwindling fish supply in the specific areas where our Ospreys spend their winters.
Thanks for all the posts in this excellent debate. For me it appears we won't know whether satelitte trackers have a detrimental effect on Ospreys until over fishing by European vessels in Western Africa is stopped. Thanks for posting the vids, Diane. If overfishing by European boats in Africa continues, local people and wildlife will continue to suffer, including Ospreys.
Warning! This post contains atrocious spelling, and terrible grammar. Approach with extreme edginess.
I just found that the World Wildlife Federation is working on this problem. The article mentions all the places the UK Ospreys winter
Diane,
Thanks for the posts - i had seen some of this info about overfishing, which I agree is very concerning.
For the record, I don't believe it's the case that the UK osprey population has "peaked" at 200 pairs though. In Roy Dennis' book "A life of ospreys", written in 2007, he shows the population had reached around 200 pairs in the mid 00's. This may be why the figure gets bandied about - people are referring to the book. Recently though, Roy himself has been quoting a figure of 250-270 pairs, as seen in this news article about Glaslyn. The population in France is also growing - see the chart on p.2 of this report.
I will try again to post the link for the WWF work in W Africa
http://wwf.panda.org/what_we_do/where_we_work/west_africa_marine/