Perilous Times
Attack of the killer ravens: Flocks are suddenly slaughtering lambs
- what is going on?
By JANE FRYER - Last
updated at 23:24pm on 4th May 2008
High in the darkening sky, a flock of enormous ravens swoop and
swirl - narrow black wings stretched wide, heads protruding forward and
huge hairy beaks scything through the air.
Every few minutes they let out deep, throaty, honking calls
as they soar effortlessly, circling around until, finally, they spot
their prey and swoop.
But forget dormice, voles or even small furry rabbits; these
sinister looking birds are feasting on something far larger - newborn
lambs.
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Raven attack: Farmers report a rise in the number of calves, lambs
and sheep pecked to death
And instead of hanging around for a few discarded bones or a
forgotten carcass to pick and claw at, they've started killing live
farm animals - by pecking them to death, in horrific scenes reminiscent
of Daphne du Maurier's The Birds, turned by Alfred Hitchcock into one
of the most chilling movies of all time.
Throughout Britain, traumatised farmers have reported a sudden
and disturbing rise in the number of livestock being attacked by
ravens.
Farmer John Kirk, 50, from Nethybridge, near Aviemore, has lost more
than 40 animals in the past few weeks.
"It's like something out of a horror film. They are horrible,
horrible birds. They see the young lambs and just fly down and help
themselves," he said.
"Sometimes you find a carcass with the eyes and tongue pecked
out, but sometimes all you find is the skin. They peck away until
nothing is left." And while some animals have been pecked to death,
others have been left to die in agony after birds have feasted on their
eyes, tongues and the soft flesh of their underbellies.
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A raven stands perched on its latest kill
The worst-hit areas are in Scotland and Wales, but there are
also reports of random attacks across the South-West and the Lake
District.
The Scottish Isle of Mull has been badly hit, with one farmer losing
20 lambs in a fortnight.
Another, Robert Millar from High Catterdale, Kintyre, said:
"We've had 12 to 15 lambs attacked. It's got to the stage where you
have to lamb indoors, or you don't stand a chance."
And Jimmy Mills, a farmer from Stratherrick, south of
Inverness, has lost seven lambs in just three days: "The lambs are born
at 1pm and by four o'clock they've been taken to bits by the ravens,"
he says.
According to Johnny Hall, of the National Farmers Union of
Scotland, it's no longer just lambs: "Raven attacks have become a huge
problem across a wide area of the country.
"We have substantial evidence of them attacking adult sheep
and calves, too. The attacks are so horrific that it's causing mental
suffering to people who find the animals."
The worst thing is, there's not much the farmers can do about
it. Ravens are protected by law, so farmers can't shoot them as they
would other vermin.
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They can be killed on special licence - due to a condition in
the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 - but only if the Government
deems it appropriate.
But farmers say the system is designed for the "odd rogue
bird", not the huge swirling flocks of recent months, and are demanding
the law is changed.
The question is, why have ravens suddenly started to attack
livestock?
Experts cannot give a definitive explanation, but some believe
it is simply the pressure on food resources caused by the dramatically
increasing raven population.
In parts of Britain (Scotland, in particular) experts believe
numbers have increased five-fold since the late Nineties, and according
to the RSPB there are up to 6,000 breeding pairs in Scotland - almost
half the numbers in Europe.
Davy Thomson, vice-chairman of the Scottish Gamekeepers
Association, says it is not breeding birds that cause the problem, but
immature birds, scavenging in large packs.
"I've seen several hundred birds roosting together, and all
they do is hunt one side of the hill and then move onto their next food
source.
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Haunting scenes: A mass attack on the town's schoolchildren in
Hitchcock's The Birds
"Raven populations have increased massively in the past ten years,
and it's an absolute nonsense that we can't control them."
However, according to Dr Andre Farrar, spokesman for the Royal
Society For The Protection Of Birds: "Some reports of raven attacks may
be exaggerated, but they do kill things.
"They make a speciality out of scavenging and eating carrion.
In many cases their prey is already dead, but they're highly capable of
killing, so sometimes they'll finish it off themselves.
"But they get an unjustly bad press. Any big, black bird tends
to come down from history with a load of negatives attached. So the
raven has got a burden of cultural mistrust around it."
Such as its association with death, and its supposed supernatural
powers of prediction.
Irish folklore has it that each raven contains three drops of
the Devil's blood, and anyone who hunted them would be on the receiving
end of the Devil's fury and a lifetime of bad luck.
Its status as a bird of ill omen is confirmed by a cameo
appearance in Shakespeare's Macbeth - as the King nears the castle at
Inverness, Lady Macbeth utters the ominous words: "The raven himself is
hoarse that croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan under my battlements."
Legend has it that if anything happens to the six resident
ravens at the Tower of London - attended by a Yeoman Ravenmaster, and
treated to a daily feast of raw meat and blood-soaked "bird biscuit" -
England will be invaded.
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Aside from all the folklore, they're an impressive foe - up to
2ft long and worryingly adaptable: they can survive in Arctic,
temperate and desert climates.
Research published last year in the Scientific American also
showed the raven to be one of the most intelligent species on the
planet - up there with dolphins and apes and, unlike most other birds
and animals, capable of learning from their own actions and from
observing others' behaviour.
They're thought to be one of the few birds that can count, and
some have even learned to fashion leaves into special tools for
extracting grubs from crevices in trees.
In Japan, they were reportedly found dropping nuts onto a
dual-carriageway, then darting down to eat them once the cars had
cracked them open.
Although older ravens (they live up to 25 years) mate for life
and travel in pairs, young birds may form flocks of up to several
hundred - collective nouns for ravens include an "unkindness", a
"conspiracy", and a "murder" - which swoop on farm animals.
They were almost exterminated during the 19th century, but in
the past 20 years have made their dramatic comeback, partially because
they have been protected.
As Dr Farrar puts it: "A few years ago, you'd hope to see them
only in Scotland, or Wales, but now they're popping up in parts of
eastern England - they've even been spotted in Bedfordshire."
But he insists it's not all bad. "Ravens are truly spectacular
birds, with an amazing display flight - they flip over into a half-roll
and back again when they're flying - and have a deep sonorous croaking
call. They're stunning to watch."
Which all sounds rather poetic, but must be scant comfort for
the farmer rendered helpless as another dark, swirling, unkindness of
ravens starts circling in the skies over his lambs.
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