Farmer had ‘no option’ but to shoot swans that ‘cleaned my grass bare’

17 comments
  1. Stewards of the land.

    I’m sure there are farmers that care, but I’ve not met one and I’ve lived in the countryside most of my life.

    There as profit motivated as any other business owner

  2. >He said that the increase in swan numbers could be traced to rewetting the bogs in the Midlands which was forcing them to find a new habitat.

    Can anyone clarify what he means here? How does the rewetting make the habitat less suitable?

  3. “He didn’t realise the swans were protected species,” said Sgt McCarthy

    For someone with so much interaction with swans I find it impossible to believe he didn’t know they were a protected species.

  4. >Initially he had lost around €6,500 but that would have risen to between €15,000 and €20,000 if he had lost the full crop.

    I’d say twenty grand would be a good place to start for the fine then. Seriously, fuck this guy. Twelve swans because they eat grass? He should be punished harshly.

  5. How does anyone not know they are a protected species ? It was mentioned in school when we did the Children of Lír. Maybe we need to give a written test before we grant a gun or hunting license. No one hunts swans, he is lying.

  6. >“I had tried to hunt them off the field. It looked like I was going to lose a whole crop of grass,” he said. “At one stage there were nearly 400 swans in the field.”

    Unless there was some sort of international swan conference happening in the field I think this farmer is prone to exaggeration

  7. The man’s a nasty bollox, a swan couldn’t possibly eat anything like a cows worth of grass! Pig ignorant bollox

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