Pest control with airguns

[mundaire]

Inder had brought up the subject of Schedule V animals (under the Wildlife Protection Act), which are legally classified as "vermin" and can thus be shot without breaking the law.

Inder, this one's for you - an interesting (short) article on "ratting" with airguns:

http://viriato.net/airgunning/hunting/sr.html

It's a reprint from Air Rifle Hunting by John Darling. There are other interesting airgunning articles on the same site, with a couple of decent (free) PDF downloads as well.

Now you just need to find yourself a farmer with a rat problem... considering that almost 50% of all foodgrains produced in India are eaten by the critters, should not be too hard...

Cheers!
Abhijeet

[mundaire]

And here's one on shooting crows with an airgun:

http://www.airgunhunters.com/article_crows1.html

Cheers!
Abhijeet

[dev]

Velly nice. Fun to read but its really difficult with air rifles as they are very sharp eyed and spot anything that doesn't fit in their landscape very fast.

In my idle youth crows once took a fancy to bombing me while I walked to the bus stop to college. Got so bad that one needed a chap with a staff for protection. Its eerie how silently they can fly till you feel the peck on the cranium.

Got to know later that they had a nest on the route and attacked everyone who passed.

Dev

[snIPer]

If you have a good hide then you can shoot a crow and then leave it out as a decoy (mount on a stick) that will attract more crows and they you can have a nice time

[jonahpach]

If you have a good hide then you can shoot a crow and then leave it out as a decoy (mount on a stick) that will attract more crows and they you can have a nice time

NEVER Shoot a crow! This is a warning to all of you wanna be hunters out there! As a 14 year old I did it once and have lived to regret it. Them blamed crows will call up all their neighbours and start to really crow at you! They'll surround the building you take shelter in and make a real ruckus untill you get out (wearing a full face helmet is a good idea) They'll even remember you a whole week later! Maybe it is a good idea if you want to be famous in your neighbourhood..

If you dont believe me try it!

Jonah

[sudhaiob]

jonahpach
this reminds me of a true incident which occured to me way back in the late 1970's. there was a crow which was unique in the sense one of its wings drooped a little and could thus be identified. this particular crow was a very crafty one and should have been seen to be believed. as crows were fair game i had been stalking it unsuccessfully with a model 27 diana (bought for the sum of Rs. 800/-) I could not come an inch near him to direct a shot at him. it was as though he was possessed of a sixth sense. the best part of it was that he would recognise me from a distance and follow me with profanities. He was finally despatched with .22 lr as he was in the habit of sitting out of the range of an airrifle and mocking me. the crow reminded me of a short story by Mark Twain about the cleverness of mocking birds (the name of the story eludes me at present)
regs
sudhaiob

[snIPer]

Ah Jonah i completely agree with you. have been thru the same road. Thats why i did mention the Hide always works. Secondly if there are any hungry cats around then that will further help.

[OverUnderPump]

Nice ones, I remember one from my days as a kid when we used to stalk some crafty crows. An older guy used to bring in his Airgun(don't remember the make now) to the designated sit-out position. The sit out used to be inside a house, the window of which opened up to the neighborhood trash can. The majority of the shots would hit the metal can and let out an almighty clank spooking all the crows, but slowly they'd come back. They were a nuisance as they would strew garbage all over the place during their jaunts. I remember one shot that I took when the crow was inside the bin and was poking his head out periodically to check the surroundings. It was a cloudy winter morning with not much visibility. I aimed carefully and took the shot, almost instantaneously I heard the clang and let out a sigh at having missed, the crow inside flew away. But wait, another one which was sitting on an adjacent wall dropped like a doornail. I was , didn't know what to make of it. We ran out to check what happened and after a lot of deliberation realized that it was the ricochet from the bin that had accounted for the crow.

regards

OUP

[Zafar]

Crows are the last of the bird scavengers left in india. If you have observed your neighbourhood for a decent enough time you will find that crow population has declined tremendously. So avoid shooting crow (or for that matter any birds or animal for fun). if our 'rulers' find it out, even airguns would be needing an arms licence.
i know 818 members of IFG could not make much diffrence to the birds population but lets do our bit

-Zafar

[OverUnderPump]

Not shooting at anything other than ART and TQ5 targets these days buddy.
Thats from my high school days, circa the early 90's


regards

OUP

[HSharief]

When I worked at HLL tea pkg factory and they had the exterminator over, part of his bag of tricks was an airgun which he used to dispose of some critters and birds. Mostly birds which he cd'nt reach upto the rafters high up on the inside of the roof of the shop floor. Was fun to watch him and he wd'nt let anyone touch the airgun, it was his most expensive piece of equipment I guess.

[Vikram]

Crows are the last of the bird scavengers left in india. If you have observed your neighbourhood for a decent enough time you will find that crow population has declined tremendously. So avoid shooting crow (or for that matter any birds or animal for fun). if our 'rulers' find it out, even airguns would be needing an arms licence.
i know 818 members of IFG could not make much diffrence to the birds population but lets do our bit

-Zafar

+1

Very well said Zafar. Crows are scavengers and as far as I know they are not pests like rats.They perform an environmentally useful function. I am not slamming any one or their approach to hunting,but I do not understand taking a life purely for fun.

Best-
Vikram

[mundaire]

Zafar, Vikram - the title of this post is "pest control" and not "hunting". And this classification of "vermin" is as per law - under Schedule V of the Wildlife Protection Act, three species are classified as vermin - the common crow, rats & mice. While I doubt if anyone would dispute the mention of rodents in this list, allow me to elaborate on why crows are quite properly classified as vermin... wait, I believe some else has done it a lot more eloquently and in more detail than I possibly could have done myself:

http://www.crowbusters.com/whyhc.htm

As you can see, besides damaging crops, crows do cause harm to the environment also. While no one is advocating extermination - some form of "pest control" would not be out of order I think.
Cheers!
Abhijeet

[OverUnderPump]

Zafar, Vikram - the title of this post is "pest control" and not "hunting". And this classification of "vermin" is as per law - under Schedule V of the Wildlife Protection Act, three species are classified as vermin - the common crow, rats & mice. While I doubt if anyone would dispute the mention of rodents in this list, allow me to elaborate on why crows are quite properly classified as vermin... wait, I believe some else has done it a lot more eloquently and in more detail than I possibly could have done myself:

http://www.crowbusters.com/whyhc.htm

As you can see, besides damaging crops, crows do cause harm to the environment also. While no one is advocating extermination - some form of "pest control" would not be out of order I think.
Cheers!
Abhijeet

Hmm, thanks Mundaire quite a read that, almost overlooked that aspect where they over-run the local bird populations. So real bird lovers should see that side of the coin too. Yes they do mop up some trash, but at what cost ? Just because the other birds don't eat garbage and crap, would you term them as expendable in favor of the crow ? Thats a biased conservation call.

Most of the neighborhoods in Delhi and NCR dont have much garbage lying around these days, thats the reason for the absence of the crows. Go to places where there's an abundance of garbage, you'll find plenty of them. They simply move away to greener pastures. And as the topic says,"Its Pest Control" not "Complete Extermination". Sorry for going OT, but if we really want to save scavengers, we should be looking at the Indian Vulture which is slowly dying out, now thats really a sad story.But then, they are a reviled lot and no-one really cares about them as they eat carrion..eh? http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news ... tures.html

regards

OUP

[yash3_great]

While Abhijeet is not wrong at all, problem arises when the time comes to draw a line. What starts as pest control can easily escalate into endangering a species. While crows are vermin, they are equally good scavengers as well. I fear, the vermin hunt might effect the scavenging facilities if encouraged. There is no harm in taking down a crow if it is proving a nuisance to your property. But regualr hunting for fun might be a point of concern if done on large scales.

In big cities like Delhi and Mumbai, I think the pigeon population has taken over the crows in number. The pigeons are more palatable as well