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Should Starlings be blasted from the skies ?


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If the Italian olive growers get the EU to put them on the list of birds that can be hunted they will be .

It seems they cause a lot of damage to growing olives.

We had better stock up reports are of a big increase in the price of olive oil to come our way soon

http://www.oliveoiltimes.com/olive-oil-business/europe/after-olive-fruit-fly-and-blight-the-starling/44933
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I regularly had a grandstand view of the swarming starlings - murmuration - from my office window. A wonderful, mesmerising sight. The only downside was their acrobatic performances tended to take place above our car park and left me with some cleaning up to do.
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[quote user="Alan Zoff"]I regularly had a grandstand view of the swarming starlings - murmuration - from my office window. A wonderful, mesmerising sight. The only downside was their acrobatic performances tended to take place above our car park and left me with some cleaning up to do.[/quote]

Like you, we have enjoyed the murmuration of starlings for many years in and around the main town square and round and about the towers of town. We twice rented an apartment built close to one of the towers, and the sight and sound was terrific.

I would hate starlings to be added on to the list for shooting and eating. I know about problems with black scale on local olives and of vinegar fly, but shooting starlings just seems so unnecessary and cruel.
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Sounds a bit like the fate of the Passenger Pidgeon.

Millions upon millions of them in North America were considered vermin and were slaughtered in their millions.

It turns out that once the population of the birds reached a critical point (which was still in the millions), the whole population crashed and became extinct in a very short time.

Starling poop can be horrible but at least they eat up plenty of bugs

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I can't see why the Italian producers should worry about not being able to produce enough oil.

All they will have to do is what they have 'apparently' done before, import it from where ever they wanted and rebadge it, or so I have read in the book "The Olive, a noble fruit". Apparently, one year they exported about 3 times the oil than they had trees for. N African oil in't bad though if it's badged as extra virgin cold pressed. Our N American cousins apparently love it and paid squidgins for it [:-))][:-))]

As said, the starlings were probably here before the farmers and do they really expect the birds to move away when those farmers are supplying the grub [8-)]

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