RSPB scientists to create new super-predator

News emerged today that a shadowy team of RSPB scientists have been tasked to create a new avian super-predator, a nightmarish hybrid between a Cormorant and a Hen Harrier.

“It’s going to be every angler and every shooting estate’s worst nightmare,” said a gleeful Dr Montgomery Moreau, the lead scientist for the project. “Picture, if you will, an omnivorous hybrid that’s as happy catching carp as it snaffling grouse chicks. The incorporation of waterproofing into the Cormorant is a definite advance, as is the increased aerial manoeuvrability. This bad boy can hunt fish like an Osprey.

“At the same time, instead of faffing around tearing up prey items into little bits on a grouse moor, the Cormorant-like ability to swallow prey whole in a couple of quick gulps means the new hybrids will be able to literally scarf down entire broods of newly-hatched Red Grouse.

“It’s going to be carnage in the uplands and in the lakes. Why are we doing this, you might ask? Well, partly because we’re just bored of justifying the perfectly natural actions of species like Cormorants and Hen Harriers when faced with an unnaturally dense food source.

“But mainly just because we can”.

Edward Prendick, a plainly confused supporter of comedy pro-country sports lobbying group You Forgot The Birds blustered, “Yeah, well, we’re going to make a hybrid of our own, so there! It’s going to be a cross between a gamekeeper and a farmer!

“Meaning it’ll be completely at home handling illegal pesticides, competent with a shotgun, brilliant at sourcing massive amounts of public subsidy, and adept at currying favour with politicians. The only problem we can foresee is hybrid sterility...

“Because, as anyone who knows the first thing about country sports would tell you, anyone who likes shooting animals for fun invariably has a tiny, tiny penis”.

GWCT concerned about missing gamekeepers

The Gamekeeper Welfare Conservation Trust (GWCT) aired concerns today about the fate of satellite-tagged gamekeepers that have mysteriously vanished in the past few months.

The young keepers all had satellite tags attached to them earlier this year by GWCT staff operating in the uplands of northern England. At the time of writing, only three of the nine keepers tagged are known to still be alive – of the remaining six keepers, two are known to have died of natural causes (believed in both cases to be overindulgence in Farmers Weekly, the Shooting Times, and NFU press releases). But of the remaining four keepers, there is no sign.

“Their disappearance is mysterious, to say the least,” remarked Arthur Balsam, spokesman for GWCT, “and at worst, is deeply suspicious. Had some natural mishap befallen them, their satellite tags should have continued to transmit the location of their remains.

“But they’ve gone completely off the radar. It’s almost as if someone has shot them and stuffed the satellite tag down a fox earth where, were it to be found, it would absolve the guilty party of all blame, and implicate the fox instead”.

The gamekeepers’ disappearance is particularly worrying for one species in particular, the highly endangered Hen Harrier, a species that to all intents and purposes stands on the brink of extinction as an English breeding bird.

“We’re really worried,” said Tom Logan, a Hen Harrier from the Pennines. “Without a viable population of gamekeepers, who will protect us from all the threats we face? From the rapacious foxes, those wicked badgers, and not to mention all those mysterious shotgun wielding louts who seem to delight in randomly shooting us?

“Thank goodness for the efforts of those committed custodians of biodiversity, the gamekeepers, is all I can say. I just hope these young missing keepers are okay after all.

“We’d like to hope that, against all the odds, they return to the moors to breed with one another again next year”.