OT Ban on slug pellets coming up.

[harry]

In case you want to stock up.

[alan_m]

If the Government wants to protect wildlife in urban areas a cull of "domestic" cats would go a long way to solve the problem.

[Mr Pounder Esquire]

PLUS ONE!

[Jim]

Couldn't agree more. The stinky, murderous, furry bags of shit are in desperate need of thinning out.

[Chris Hogg]

I stopped using the metaldehyde pellets when the ones based on ferric phosphate came out. They keep my garden slug-free. No need to stock up on the metaldehyde types.

[T i m]

Or kept indoors / under the control of their *responsible* owners?

But again, what is it about harry where he only seems to care about himself, certainly not anyone else, including animal kind?

Cheers, T i m

[ARW]

The banning of fences with gravel boards would do a lot more.

[Steve Walker]

We rely on fences with concrete gravel boards to prevent our (estimated)

110 year-old tortoise from escaping.

SteveW

[dennis]

You just need a tunnel under them. Or cut a hole in them.

[Brian Gaff]

Now there are much kinder ways to deal with slugs and the poison is killing animals that eat dead slugs as well as making others ill. I think its a scandal they have not been banned for 25 years or so.

Brian

[alan_m]

The foxes seem to be able to dig under concrete gravel boards.

If you want to attract some forms of wildlife into the garden you don't have to ban the use of concrete gravel board - you just have to introduce a few small gaps/tunnels at ground level to neighbouring property.

[Davidm]

my wife brewed some up this last weekend.......house still stinks!!

[Chris Hogg]

So you watched the GW programme from Brum too :-) But they applied it at least weekly, which would I would regard as a PITA to do in my garden, rather like spraying roses against black spot and greenfly. I prefer to broadcast the ferric phosphate pellets across my flowerbeds once at the beginning of the season, which seems to clear them out and be good enough. Keen gardeners who grow lots of hostas or veg, like lettuces, may have a different view.

[Mr Pounder Esquire]

I had one for 26 years and a gifted one for about 12 years. Scooter and Atlas. I had to give them to a very good home as the new dog kept snapping at them. I'd a framed photo of Scooter on top of the telly. The guy who came to install Sky just stood there and stared at the photo :-)

[whisky-dave]

Didnlt tbey try that years ago, killing all the cats and we ended up with the plague spread by the increase in the rat population. Not that we have a rat problem nowrdays, but witout cats and lots of fast food outlets who would win foxes or rats ? When they did a study regarding the number of small mamals and birds cats caught it wasn't as high as thought and it was usually the injured and sick they caught. What's killing off these birds and animals is the lack of insects rather than preditors other than man. You can blame cats for chasing off golden eagles and on springwatch it was the weather and pine martins they were killing off the birds. A stork coming to the UK and nesting for the 1st time in 600 years isn't because of a few moggies had scared them off for 600 years.

Lack of habitate is more likely, in fact I;ve refused to mo or dig up the weeds in my garden and I'm prepared to leave my garden to become walthamstows first rain forest ;-)

[Richard]

Good man.

[tabbypurr]

Yup. Nature's built-in punishment for idiots that kill cats.

NT

[Andrew]

Where I live a cat with a large fluffy tail who patrolled everyones back gardens, now seems to have become a Manx cat. Maybe the fox that does the rounds of bird tables tried to dine on him.

[Andrew]

Someone will complain about your messy garden to the council and then they will send a jobsworth round to 'educate' you

[Andrew]

It's snails that seem to dine out on my Hostas every night, but they are easy to find and eradicate.