The province of Zuid-Holland wants to cull 6,500 widgeon which, according to farmers are ’eating crops and shitting everywhere’. But 28 nature protection organisations say this is pushing an endangered and protected species to the brink, according to a report in the Volkskrant.

Widgeons, along with Grey geese, Barnacle geese and Canadian geese, visit the Netherlands in winter and farmers in Zuid-Holland in particular consider them a pest.

According to farmer Basjan Niemantsverdriet the birds are feasting on the winter wheat he is sowing. ‘I don’t mind if they’re here for a day or two but in autumn and winter they are eating my daily bread up to three times a day,’ he told the paper.

The provincial authorities of Zuid-Holland are now considering a cull of 6,500 protected widgeon, which is allowed if the economic damage caused by the birds warrants it. However, according to 28 nature protection organisations, the widgeon is on the danger list ans should be left in peace.

‘The widgeon is not doing well,’ Susanne Kuijper of Natuur- en Mileufederatie Zuid-Holland told the paper. ‘Since 2000 the numbers of wintering widgeon has gone down both nationally and in individual provinces. (..) It doesn’t make sense to shoot 6,500 widgeon. The natural benefits outnumber the economic benefits.’

Compensation

Farmers who suffer damage from the foraging birds are offered compensation but that is not what they want. ‘Compensation means a mountain of paperwork,’ the paper quotes farmer Niemantsverdriet as saying. ‘We just want to sell a good product.’

Apart from measures such as a laser pen, which also frightens off other species, and destroying a number of widgeon eggs, a cull remains a necessary evil, according Niemantsverdriet who claims the organisations are not coming up with sustainable solutions.

‘Widgeon don’t have any natural enemies in the Netherlands. And we are not exactly waiting for the introduction of foxes and wolves either,’ the NOS quotes him as saying. ‘It’s not an easy problem to solve.’