Fed up with wanton killing of songbirds

reddogge

reddogge

Member
Joined
Mar 8, 2005
Messages
1,207
Reaction score
902
Location
Finksburg, MD
I belong to several archery/bowhunting forums and lately there have been a couple threads about killing songbirds with bow and arrow. I suspect these people are young and just getting involved with traditional archery and trying to kill SOMETHING to make them feel like they belong.

One guy bragged and took pictures of nailing a woodpecker to a tree with a flu-flu arrow. Another guy said something black appeared in front the target so he shot and hit it. It turned out to be a male ruby throated hummingbird. These kind of threads sicken me for both wanton killing and killing songbirds. What is more infuriating is the more immature members of the forum egg them on and make jokes about it.

I try to point out it is immature, illegal and just plain disgusting but I get shouted down by the wannabee bowhunters. I'd like to find a Federal source to report the next one I read about and see their butts burned.
 
Register to hide this ad
I would agree. I have no idea why anyone would want to kill any kind of bird that you can't eat.
 
We have somebody in our community who was recently taken to task for putting poison out for the birds. It wasn't like they were targeting pigeons, it is that ALL birds are unwelcome in their yard. Really? :confused::confused::confused:

I had never experienced this attitude before until I heard it from my ma-in-law. She would complain when there were grackles in her yard. When I asked her why, what was the problem, she did not provide a coherent answer. I think it's a control thing again.
 
One little kid left to his own with a bb gun can wipe out a whole neighborhood. I figure these bird shooters are about as stupid.

I hope they post their great adventures on facebook.
 
When I was a kid

I took a long shot at a bird that I didn't expect at all to hit and down it went. I felt like total hell and never came close to doing anything like that again. I've hunted twice since then but never killed anything then decided to quit altogether.


When I was young I often had packs of blue jays fighting outside my window and I felt justified to kill them but never did. I don't think you can call a blue jay a 'songbird' but very loud pests. They are beautiful to look at though.:)
 
Woodpeckers are a federally protected bird under the North American Migratory Bird Act.

Just an FYI...........

All migratory birds are protected by federal law!!
 
rwsmith said:
When I was young I often had packs of blue jays fighting outside my window and I felt justified to kill them but never did. I don't think you can call a blue jay a 'songbird' but very loud pests. They are beautiful to look at though.:)
Click to expand...

I call them tree gulls. They have that raucous, aggressive demeanor. But they're handsome rascals and don't deserve killing.

I happily subscribe to the belief held by a great many paleontologists that dinosaurs became birds.
 
In Michigan, the DNR allows the taking of English sparrows and Starlings, both of which are non-native species. Both of these will harass and kill the Eastern Bluebird, which is adored by my wife. Did you know a Crow can pick up a Starling carcass and fly off with it? Recycling, the natural way... We love our native Michigan birds, and Bluebirds have been safely nesting in our back yard for the last four years.
 
Cpl Ken said:
In Michigan, the DNR allows the taking of English sparrows and Starlings, both of which are non-native species. Both of these will harass and kill the Eastern Bluebird, which is adored by my wife. Did you know a Crow can pick up a Starling carcass and fly off with it? Recycling, the natural way... We love our native Michigan birds, and Bluebirds have been safely nesting in our back yard for the last four years.
Click to expand...

Same in Tennessee............Starlings seem to suddenly get sick and die from lead poisoning in my backyard.

Don
 
We have cherry trees.
THEEE day that the cherries mature a swarm of Gold Finches show up and eat ALL of the cherries!
Maybe 25 years ago my son, the kid next door, and myself went out with bb guns and tried to run the birds off. We each shot a few but the others didn't care one bit - they just kept eating cherries....
I told the kids to quit.
The boy from next door kept shooting.
I told him to stop shooting because it wasn't making any difference.
He said, "That's OK - I just like to kill things." :eek:

He's spent most of his life from the time he was a young teen till lately in prison for one thing or another. He'd get out and do something else and be back in again.

Surprised?
 
DeadAye said:
We have cherry trees.
THEEE day that the cherries mature a swarm of Gold Finches show up and eat ALL of the cherries!
Maybe 25 years ago my son, the kid next door, and myself went out with bb guns and tried to run the birds off. We each shot a few but the others didn't care one bit - they just kept eating cherries....
I told the kids to quit.
The boy from next door kept shooting.
I told him to stop shooting because it wasn't making any difference.
He said, "That's OK - I just like to kill things." :eek:

He's spent most of his life from the time he was a young teen till lately in prison for one thing or another. He'd get out and do something else and be back in again.

Surprised?
Click to expand...

I think it's called "Dahmer Syndrome" these days.
 
I planted $75 worth of corn seed the 400# bear and deer herd ate it. The bear ate all the fruit on my pear, peach and Apple trees too.
I feed the deer, bear, Turkey's, etc plus the birds all winter.

I just need to feed them more.

I taught my kids with the BB gun, IF YOU KILL ANYTHING YOU WILL EAT IT. You will not kill anything for no reason that's senseless. You kill it you eat it.
 
rwsmith said:
"Because they are GRACKLES, you fool!"
Click to expand...

There's nothing wrong with grackles. Around here they keep the Starlings down from what I've seen. Don't get the hatred for crows unless you grow wheat.;)

We've got lots of ravens that will scavenge stuff around untidy humans. They're only doing what comes naturally, cleaning up. Between them and the Turkey Vultures the roads are kept clear of dead animals up to coyote size.
 
Killing for the sake of killing is not cool.

For food, or to protect food, or protect people, that's totally fine.

Just to kill an animal for the sake of killing it is wrong IMHO. I'm not a big fan of trophy hunting. Like song birds, I'd much rather just look at the animal through a pair of binoculars rather than shoot it just to decapitate it and preserve it's head on my wall.

It's a shame to hear about those people hurting those song birds, I wouldn't hesitate to report them at all.
 
Now I've been waken up early in the morning by wood peckers pecking on the wall outside our bedroom. Went out and threw things at them but being migratory birds and against the law to kill that's as far as I would go. My luck I would get caught by the migratory bird police and lose my firearm rights. I guess some don't care or just to dumb to know it's illegal to kill certain birds until they get caught. Glad there are no bald eagles where they live. Now nuisance birds are a different story when legal to eradicate. I hate Common Grackles and the European Starlings, when one comes by and call all there friends they clean out the bird feeder in less time then it takes me to fill it.
 
I agree about grackles and starlings, but they aren't song birds.

I don't mind having Jays and Mocking Birds around though.
Cardinals have one of the most musical chirps. I wish they weren't so shy.

I had a couple of mourning doves land on my shed a while back. I hear them all the time but very seldom see them!
 
I was around 9 or 10

when I received my Red Ryder BB gun. This was in rural AL and I could shoot sparrows. I was pretty good but once I took a pot shot at a backlit bird on the clothesline and to my regret saw it was a now dead male bluebird. It filled me with remorse and since then I made sure of my target. I did not like Blue Jays as they would prey on other birds' nests. The BB gun was pretty worn out but I drew down on one at about 15-20 feet and saw the BB hit it in the breast and bounce off... I remember thinking I had to get a bigger gun!! The Blue Jay looked at me like I was an idiot and flew off. That Christmas I got a Winchester 55, which I still have. I was not given free reign with it and could only shoot it under close and immediate supervision by my father. We moved to Maryland and it has been shot very little since then. Dad was pretty frugal and I think it was under $20. new. So that's my songbird story. :o:o
 
Here in PA and I would assume most other states, all birds are protected and as stated above, many of them are also protected by federal law. Turn the idiots in to your state's wildlife agency for prosecution.
 
Problem is these people live in different states. The forum is like this, we all live in different places. The two birds I've read about recently have been protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty of 1918. At least some of the members are taking the hummingbird killer to task now telling him he knew exactly what he was shooting at and it wasn't an accident.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Back
Top