Cuphandle, you noted that:

[but if a human being climbs into our house, with evil intent at night, while we are sleeping, we are NOT allowed to defend ourselves with a gun!....Note the subtle difference?]

Recently a new law was enacted by Israel's Knesset (parliament), called the "Dromi law", that de-criminalize residents and farm-owners that shoot a burglar. See details in http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1214132676067&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull

Interestingly, this law covers only human burglers, probably based on the assumption that they can differentiate between good and evil. Shooting protected animals (that threaten only property, but not lives) would still be considered a criminal offence.

As usual, Ludwig's on the money here: this licence to kill/cull is simply a sop to farmers who have a real problem that, while it's not directly of their making, is not going to be solved by slaughtering swans,

I think that Gibo's rant here is even more appalling than usual - he's now painting farmers in general as "evil", along with the vast majority of our society that he regards as depraved. Unlike Gibo, I not only live and work with farmers, but I also know that they are generally not very evil and, while typically trigger-happy with respect to pest management, are generally open to alternative solutions if these are both viable and properly explained.

The real problem here is the destruction of the Gippsland Lakes. Whether or not a few lucerne farmers are having a hard time is very small bickies compared to that ecological disaster.

Interesting! Lets do the maths on this!

EVO

Cuphandle, farmers are not walking talking charities - they ARE there to earn a living. What's the bet that you are one of those people who whines when farmers receive assistance for natural disasters....

Why on earth dont we just let the swans starve - that's what would be happening if humans were not growing crops for them to feed on. Its perfectly natural, even if its not very nice.

I'll be the first to agree that a cull is not effective unless well planned and there are strategies to deal with continuing numbers. However as any farmer who uses roo shooters knows, once a population of animals gets used to shooting, little effort goes into keeping them away - scare guns will normally do the trick for a while. This is the methodology used by rice farmers (bloody annoying when trying to sleep at night with scare guns going off all the time). Every now and then it needs to be supplemented with the real thing to reintroduce the effectiveness.