‘Don’t kill rooks’

This 25 March 2016 video is about rooks near Emmen town in Drenthe province in the Netherlands.

According to another Dutch province, South Holland, only 850 rook couples nest on its territory. Far less than the expected 2000 couples.

Still, the South Holland provincial authorities want to shoot rooks because of supposed damage to agriculture.

According to the South Holland Wildlife and Environment Federation NMZH on 28 March 2017, these rare birds should not be shot.

In its appeal against the provincial authorities’ decision, the NMZH argued that it occurs only very occasionally that rooks harm agriculture and only on a small scale. According to NMZH it is much better to compensate farmers if there is damage than to give permission for structural killing of rooks. Moreover, rooks also play a very useful role for agriculture because they eat harmful insects, such as leatherjackets.