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Duck cull is 'pointless slaughter'
The Director of an animal rights group has made a passionate plea for Wiganers to resist the "pointless and grotesque slaughter" of the area's ruddy ducks.
Andrew Tyler, director of Animal Aid, claims the arguments for the cull can no longer be justified, and that the killing of 140 ducks, which was given the go ahead by Wigan Council earlier this week, will be brutal.
Mr Tyler argues that the reason given for the cull, the cross-breeding of the ruddy's with the white-headed duck, an endangered species not native to the UK, in places such as Spain, is no longer a serious problem.
Mr Tyler said: "If the killing proceeds, it will be a brutal, ugly business."
The ruddy duck was brought to this country from North America in the 1940s by the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust, as an ornamental species.
A few birds escaped and bred in the wild, where their numbers increased to several thousand, and some of these migrated to Spain and mated with the rare white-headed duck.
Mr Tyler said: "The white-headed duck was rare because it had been hunted and its wetlands habitat destroyed by people.
"Conservation zealots at RSPB headquarters decided that the product of this union between the ruddy and white-headed was offensive.
"Labelled an impure hybrid, it had to be hunted down and destroyed, in other words, it is killing in the name of blood purity. But nature is not pure, or fixed, the mating of close genetic kin, hybridisation, is a fact of bird life."
Since the white-headed was recognised as being in danger, action has been taken in Spain to preserve their main breeding grounds and the population has since grown from just 20 or 30 birds to between 3,000 and 5,000.
As a result of warmer British winters, it is believed the ruddy duck migration to Spain has virtually stopped, with only four ruddys spotted, and killed, there in 2006.
Mr Tyler said: "As a consequence, hybridisation, which should never have been seen as a problem, is probably no longer taking place."
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Weather for Wigan
Saturday 26 May 2012
Today
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Temperature: 10 C to 23 C
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