I am sure there are two factions here. I recieved both positive and negative
comments to my previous post providing information on dispatching starlings.

I think folks will find it rather interesting to read that the bluebird
folks on the east coast have little problem killing exotic, introduced
species. See the links below including the poll.

http://www.whazsup.com/poll2.shtml
http://www.sialis.org/hospdispatch.htm
http://www.americanartifacts.com/smma/per/pellet.htm

The second link suggests that folks are so tired of having their bluebird
and martin boxes raided by house sparrows, with both the babies and the
parents being pecked to death, that they would suggest trapping the birds
live, placing them in a bag and smashing them on the pavement. After seeing
some of the pictures of the native birds pecked to death, I guess I can't
blame them, but certainly a quick pellet would be a more humane way. Some of
the content is pretty gruesome and yet real advice from credible bluebird
websites and folks out east.

In any event, I was just sharing some info on how to encourage more
woodpeckers, chickadees and nuthatches to the suet feeders. And one way to
do that is to remove the harsh competition presented by exotic, introduced,
non-native bird species. Bioloical control where humans are the control
agent. These very aggressive, non-native birds are having a detrimental
impact on our native wildlife. It has been suggested that the english
sparrow in some areas was one of the causes of the decline of bluebirds out
east. I would be interested in what some of the professionals have to say
about our own bluebird decline in western washington during the 1930-1980's
in this regard. It might be a possible factor.

-Ken

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