MoshDubber asked:
Thinning out the numbers of some Red-Eyed Turtle doves after returning from a holiday trip. These birds have become a major pest in my country, and if you want to know why i shoot them, read this: An Extract from a study done on Red-Eyed turtle dove and Laughing dove as an agricultural pest by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln: “In South Africa, the laughing dove (Streptopelia senegaleusis) and the turtle dove (Streptopelia capicola) have been identified as major pests on sorghum which is the main cereal food item for the population, and loss to the doves has assumed a lot of importance. Questionnaires were sent out to farmers. Preliminary results compiled from answers to the questionnaires indicated that a large variety of crops including rice (Oryza sativa); maize (Zea mays); cowpea (Vigna unguiculata); groundnut (Arachis hypogea); sorghum (Sorghum guineense) and soyabean (Glycine max) were attacked at various stages of growth, planting, seedling, and harvesting by the red-eyed turtle dove (Table 1). The planted grains were dug up immediately after planting and swallowed whole. During the seedling stage of growth, the cotyledons were pecked and the germinating seed dug up and consumed. The extent of damage depends on the population of doves in the crop land. Damage was severe in many instances; sometimes it was total. The most common form of control is human scaring which is fast becoming obsolete because scarers are no longer available and they are very expensive to b…/b
