Has the world gone mad?

mex

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Nigel
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It's spring and migrant birds are starting to arrive in the UK to breed. Hedgerows, trees and even sandbanks are being netted by developers to prevent the birds nesting and therefore allowing building work to commence. I don't know about you, but I find it abhorrent.

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Quite sad really.
 
No shock to me, the Gov sell of land it owns all the time. Most of it is untouched mod land that then gets developed on destroying the wildlife that has been there.
They couldn't give a monkeys.
 
Humans are definately going to kill the planet!! The question is how long mother nature will resist before she gives up and we are all doomed
 
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I think this is terrible!!
On the other hand, better to stop them nesting in the trees and hedgerows now rather than wait until they are actually nesting and raising chicks and a bl**dy great developer comes along with a chainsaw - Grrr!!!
Hopefully the birds will find a safer nesting site.

BTW, when I first saw the tree shot a few days ago, I thought it was an April Fool :eek:
 
It's spring and migrant birds are starting to arrive in the UK to breed. Hedgerows, trees and even sandbanks are being netted by developers to prevent the birds nesting and therefore allowing building work to commence. I don't know about you, but I find it abhorrent.

Quite sad really.

Presumably if building work is about to commence then the birds would be disturbed anyway. Or if it had commenced prior to the breeding season the bird would have no nesting sites.

The real blame here is the ongoing fast rise in the UK population. The number of new homes and infrastructure being built year on year throughout the UK is simply staggering and the green spaces in and around villages, towns, and cities are being continually encroached.
 
Presumably if building work is about to commence then the birds would be disturbed anyway. Or if it had commenced prior to the breeding season the bird would have no nesting sites.

The real blame here is the ongoing fast rise in the UK population. The number of new homes and infrastructure being built year on year throughout the UK is simply staggering and the green spaces in and around villages, towns, and cities are being continually encroached.

The netting is put up to prevent birds from building nests, at which point building work would have to stop. Similarly nets are now put up around older buildings eaves to stop bats from entering the roof space!
 
The netting is put up to prevent birds from building nests, at which point building work would have to stop.

It serves a logical purpose - not exactly 'mad'. Less development would mean less nets. Law to stop nets would mean sesaonal development - no change in net loss of habitat.

And as for nets to keep out bats - I'm guessing the legal situation with dealing with them makes that a common sense precaution as well.
 
It serves a logical purpose - not exactly 'mad'. Less development would mean less nets. Law to stop nets would mean sesaonal development - no change in net loss of habitat.

And as for nets to keep out bats - I'm guessing the legal situation with dealing with them makes that a common sense precaution as well.

Logical I suppose if you are a developer.
 
A horrendous situation.

Great that you have been able to photograph it. These pictures need to be shared far and wide.
It's like people are unable to comprehend why it's done.
Are you proposing road widening and other projects are only done from October to February or not done at all.?

The areas which have been netted are pretty trivial but are near busy areas where lot of people can see them.
I suspect very few birds nest in a lot of those areas anyway.
 
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Are you proposing road widening and other projects are only done from October to February

Would it be beyond the " fabulous, wonderful and limtless" abilities of man???

Probably so, as when it comes to life on this planet, he/she is the dumbest of all !!
 
A horrendous situation.

Great that you have been able to photograph it. These pictures need to be shared far and wide.

They are not my shots, but like you I was shocked by it.
 
It's spring and migrant birds are starting to arrive in the UK to breed. Hedgerows, trees and even sandbanks are being netted by developers to prevent the birds nesting and therefore allowing building work to commence. I don't know about you, but I find it abhorrent.

Not sure what the work is, but it is extremely unlikely they would have got planning permission without some mitigation being provided. For example. there should be new sand martin nest banks provided near to the ones being lost. The trees look relatively young and part of the mitigation should have replaced them with alternative trees. Both prepared in advance of the development work. The same should also apply to the hedgerows. But the details of the mitigation will depend on the value placed on them by the impact assessment.

I agree it's sad, but its probably only affecting a small number of birds (based on these photos) and the netting is to not only to prevent nesting birds stopping the work, but also to avoid accidental injury to birds, should a nesting bird go unnoticed.

It's very far from perfect, but we do have some from fairly strict laws/procedures to help minimise impacts on wildlife from development. At least we do now, but they rely rather heavily on EU Directives, so who knows what will happen in the future.
 
The developers are side-stepping laws that were designed to protect wildlife. They weren't designed to make it easier for developers.

The laws have unintended consequences - nothing new there.

Here's a guess - the developers carrying out the extended covering/netting to protect their position are probably disrupting a lot more birds and wildlife than if they were just allowed to go about their business and it was just accepted that a few nests would get disturbed in the process.

Instead when the law gets heavy handed then the reaction from businesses is to become less flexible and more prescriptive and ensure they remain compliant.
 
Probably end up in land fill after.
Can't comment on this particular net, but environmental consultants, who are generally employed to do this sort of work, are obviously very environmentally aware, and it would be reasonable to assume the net would be biodegradable or have a recycling plan.

Having said that, after reading some of the background to the story, I do wonder to what extent environmental/ecological consultants were involved.
 
Would it be beyond the " fabulous, wonderful and limtless" abilities of man???

Probably so, as when it comes to life on this planet, he/she is the dumbest of all !!
Was that about work only allowed in winter, what gain would there be from one more year of possible nesting by a small number of birds.
Most new developments have significant landscaping and replanting, in many cases that could be better for wildlife than some battered old roadside hedge drenched in dirty road salt.
 
Can't comment on this particular net, but environmental consultants, who are generally employed to do this sort of work, are obviously very environmentally aware, and it would be reasonable to assume the net would be biodegradable or have a recycling plan.

Having said that, after reading some of the background to the story, I do wonder to what extent environmental/ecological consultants were involved.


You'd think so but who pays the bills? The developers.
 
Was that about work only allowed in winter, what gain would there be from one more year of possible nesting by a small number of birds.
Most new developments have significant landscaping and replanting, in many cases that could be better for wildlife than some battered old roadside hedge drenched in dirty road salt.
The problem is that artificial landscaping, no matter how environmentally conscious, will take considerable time to be able to support the same diversity of wildlife as the previous habitat. The wildlife that previously lived there will suffer before it can recover. There's more harm than good
 
You'd think so but who pays the bills? The developers.
Yes, indeed it is the developers who "do" pay the bill for doing things like this.

Sometimes willingly, as they want their developments to be environmentally responsible and sometimes with a bit of persuasion, from their environmental consultants, planning authority, statutory body etc, and/or because its a legal obligation in getting planning permission.
 
The wildlife that previously lived there will suffer before it can recover. There's more harm than good

But what do you do?

People need houses to live in, roads to get to work on, hospitals when they get ill, sea defences to stop villages being washed away, windfarms for green energy etc etc. I'm not sure how we survive with no development, and you can't have development without some disruption, damage and risk to the environment, so what we need is responsible/sustainable development, where we carefully balance the needs and risk to the economy, society and the environment.
 
But what do you do?

People need houses to live in, roads to get to work on, hospitals when they get ill, sea defences to stop villages being washed away, windfarms for green energy etc etc. I'm not sure how we survive with no development, and you can't have development without some disruption, damage and risk to the environment, so what we need is responsible/sustainable development, where we carefully balance the needs and risk to the economy, society and the environment.

Birds do not breed all year round, the breeding season should be a 'no-go' time for this sort of disruption.
 
Birds do not breed all year round, the breeding season should be a 'no-go' time for this sort of disruption.
They could cut all the hedges and trees down months in advance, rather than net them if you liked?
The only reason this has suddenly become a cause celebre is the sites tend to be in high profile locations near roads and other busy places - where few self respecting birds will nest anyway.
 
Birds do not breed all year round, the breeding season should be a 'no-go' time for this sort of disruption.

That is the starting point for planning when work might be done, and there are 'guidance" calendars published with the periods of the year (for birds and other species) when works should be avoided, and specialist ornithologists employed to give advice on species like Crossbills that breed outside the normal breeding season. But of course you also have issues during the winter months as we are an important country of things like over wintering wildlfowl and waders.

But some construction works are also seasonally constrained, but in my example I was really thinking of permanent losses of habitat because the habitat now has a hospital or . super market on it.

Many sites have ecological concerns every month of the year, and some compromise has to be arrived at in planning the construction work.
 
They could cut all the hedges and trees down months in advance, rather than net them if you liked?
The only reason this has suddenly become a cause celebre is the sites tend to be in high profile locations near roads and other busy places - where few self respecting birds will nest anyway.

No the hedges and trees should be retained unless it is proven that it is essential rather than convenient that they be moved.
The reason it has become a "cause celebre" (your words not mine) is because it is plainly wrong to threaten an already seriously threatened species that has every right to live on the earth we all share.
 
Birds do not breed all year round, the breeding season should be a 'no-go' time for this sort of disruption.

There's no need to worry though.

When certain species become practically extinct, man, again with his infallable abliities, can breed them in captivity :rolleyes: and yet again feel "sad" about what has / is happening to our beautiful planet and natures gifts ( Not that we deserve any one of them imo!)
 
Thankfully Norfolk council have seen sense and will be removing the upper levels of netting.

https://www.itv.com/news/2019-04-09...up-to-prevent-sand-martins-nesting-in-cliffs/

In the Norfolk case the reason seems to be around preventing coastal erosion at that particular point on the coast due to its proximity to homes and the gas terminal. It’s interesting the council got advice from the RSPB who seem may have advised the cliff to be covered in material without gaps to stop entanglement of birds. It would be interesting to see if people outrage is concerning the type of material used or the blocking of nests whether it’s by netting or another material. There has been a lot of talk regarding the use of netting and the entanglement of bird in those nets.

Whilst I can understand what they were trying to do it highlights how we interfere with nature for our benefit. Thoughtful development is still possible whilst working around nature but sadly it costs more. The comment about bats is a good one, whilst I can understand people don’t want them in building due to their protected status and the cost that goes with that does anyone put up alternatives for them, such as bat box, when they block off the building access? Or is a case as not my problem.

If we left nature alone it would likely repair our wrongs (just look at the area around Chernobyl). We need to start to think of our impact in this world. For our convenience we are sadly killing the planet, at some future generations aren’t going to have anything left.
 
There's no need to worry though.

When certain species become practically extinct, man, again with his infallable abliities, can breed them in captivity :rolleyes: and yet again feel "sad" about what has / is happening to our beautiful planet and natures gifts ( Not that we deserve any one of them imo!)

Yep ... Tree Sparrows, for example, have declined by 95% according to the RSPB!
 
They could cut all the hedges and trees down months in advance, rather than net them if you liked?
The only reason this has suddenly become a cause celebre is the sites tend to be in high profile locations near roads and other busy places - where few self respecting birds will nest anyway.
Social media also plays its part too. A photo can be shared much quicker than in the past. Certain things now go viral and people get outraged without really understanding what is actually going on. Lots of people get outraged but never actually do anything other than typing on a keyboard because someone else will sort it.
 
No the hedges and trees should be retained unless it is proven that it is essential rather than convenient that they be moved.

That's exactly what happens, at least on every project I have worked on over the last 30 years. We would debate the need for every single bit of habitat loss with our clients, and then debate them again with the statutory conservation and non-statutory conservation bodies to agree the choices.

If we couldn't agree, then it was up to the planning authorities to decide whether the potential environmental damage was offset by the social and economic benefit, or not when deciding to approve or deny the planning application. Actually, even if everyone did agree, the planning authorities might still turn it down, which happened a few times with me.

Having said that, I don't want to give the impression that everything is rosy with the process, because it isn't, but far more work goes into these things than most people realise.
 
That's exactly what happens, at least on every project I have worked on over the last 30 years. We would debate the need for every single bit of habitat loss with our clients, and then debate them again with the statutory conservation and non-statutory conservation bodies to agree the choices.

But this action of netting areas is clearly circumventing that 'debate' ... stop them nesting so no nesting bird problem and who cares if the species disappears as long as the 'client' is satisfied. We ignore the welfare of wildlife at our peril.
 
But this action of netting areas is clearly circumventing that 'debate' ... stop them nesting so no nesting bird problem and who cares if the species disappears as long as the 'client' is satisfied. We ignore the welfare of wildlife at our peril.

I did actually question in an earlier post, as to whether environmental consultants had been involved with this case , as it seems a very extreme approach. But there might be a very good reason why this had to done, its impossible to decide without all the evidence.

But you are making a massive error in believing "all" developers/clients have no concern about wildlife or the environment, but they do have a wide range of priorities that they are trying to balance. There are also terrible clients of course, and we were "sacked" on at least two occasions because the client didn't like what we were telling them. On one of these occasions we were almost immediately re-employed by the RSPB to work on the same development. Not so lucky on the other occasion.
 
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