Water Bird

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BucknutZ

New member
Morning

I know a guy in Harties that complains about this bird (picture attached). According to him this bird has a huge impact on his bass stock and he often shoots them with a 4.10 single barrel shotgun.

 

Is it possible for a certain species of birds to cause such a drastic impact on fish populations? According to him 1 bird eats about 10 fingerling bass a day?

There were about 8 - 10 of these birds that probally lived in the close varsinity of his small bass dam - he says they were sorted out but every now and then a bird of this species passes by and stops for a meal.

 

Can this really be such a problem?

 
 

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Ryan

Sealiner
That is an African Darter - theyare Not as big a threat as the White Breasted Comorant but yes they will definately have a big impact on fish stocks especially fingerlings.

Flashers are proberly the best for of deterent. A flasher is a series of small mirrors (often broken bit) hung on a string and allwed to flash and spin in the win hung at various points over the dam - this is probably the most effective way of keeping birds out but it is not a long term soloutiuon
 
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BucknutZ

New member
Will mention the flashers to him. Wonder if in the case of a small dam like his if it won't work if you put a net over the dam.
 
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Loams

Sealiner
Personally I think it's piss poor that someone kills an indigenous bird species to protect his alien fish. No wonder the government wants to eradicate bass from SA.

You can also tell this guy that the African Darter is a monogamous bird which means that the bird finds and breeds with one partner for the rest of its life.

My 2c
 
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Ryan

Sealiner
[color=#006600]Loams[/color] wrote:
Personally I think it's piss poor that someone kills an indigenous bird species to protect his alien fish. No wonder the government wants to eradicate bass from SA.

You can also tell this guy that the African Darter is a monogamous bird which means that the bird finds and breeds with one partner for the rest of its life.

My 2c
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So long as the partner is alive - in the event of death they will take another pardner
 
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Loams

Sealiner
[color="#0066cc"]Ryan[/color] wrote:
[color="#006600"]Loams[/color] wrote:
Personally I think it's piss poor that someone kills an indigenous bird species to protect his alien fish. No wonder the government wants to eradicate bass from SA.

You can also tell this guy that the African Darter is a monogamous bird which means that the bird finds and breeds with one partner for the rest of its life.

My 2c
Click to expand...
So long as the partner is alive - in the event of death they will take another pardner
Click to expand...
Ag shush man, I left that out on purpose!!!

Also their IUCN listing is fine, but that's not the point really. I think us Bassers should take careful stock of our behavior if we want to impress on government that our sport does not damage biodiversity.
 
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BassFisher

New member
I wonder which eats more bass? The cormorant, or the bass themselves. We all know bass feed on their own kind, and I am pretty sure they eat more bass than the birds do... I think shooting birds just because you've seen them eating a few bass is actually quite sad. Next thing someone is going to want to shoot a fish eagle for catching a bass... Loams is quite right, bass fishermen make lives very difficult for themselves by not taking the environment into consideration.
 
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BucknutZ

New member
I too agree that killing the birds is wrong loams. I think he also realized it and therefore searches for an alternate route of protecting the fish.
 
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Alpster

New member
Johanvc wrote:
Next you will hear of people shooting people because they are catching Bass
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Aye Johanvc. I've wanted to do that a few times when I saw "people" using gill-nets down the river from my uncle's farm catching anything including bass.
 
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necrovis

New member
I think this is poor shooting of birds as they pose a potential (threat) to bass.Let nature take its course, as you have said a few fingerlings a day, where there may be thousands, This is the darters special niche in the ecosystem which regulates nature, it is not just the darter that poses a threat.There will still be thousands that will survive.

This is just a normal cycle that occurs in nature and this is a huge problem that human interfere with this cycle.These darters only do what they have to to survive and if each and every oke that has a bass dam starts shooting these birds, soon we are going to have a problem on our hands.
 
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Bigmouth

Senior Member
Its pathetic, why interfere with nature?

I also think that these birds does not have an influence on the angler.

The spot I fish at roodeplaat has quite a few of these birds swimming around and the fish were still biting eventhough they were being chased by these birds.

And in anycase, shooting the bird proves that you can not compete with nature and that you are a bad looser.

Rather move on to another spot and leave the birds alone
 
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BucknutZ

New member
Bigmouth wrote:
Its pathetic, why interfere with nature?

I also think that these birds does not have an influence on the angler.

The spot I fish at roodeplaat has quite a few of these birds swimming around and the fish were still biting eventhough they were being chased by these birds.

And in anycase, shooting the bird proves that you can not compete with nature and that you are a bad looser.

Rather move on to another spot and leave the birds alone
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Please refer to the original post........

Rather move on to another spot?? - It's he's property.

Proves that you cannot compete with nature?? - He cannot compete....not me.

 
 
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