A questionable topic...

Red Billed Queleas is a cute, small, red beaked bird that has the power to destroy a farmer's land.




Do I have your attention?  Wondering what super power these birds have?
I like to believe that their super power is mating and sticking together as a family...
Doesn't sound like a common power but it's a powerful one...

These birds mate during rainy seasons, their young are born right before the end of the rainy season and just as they are mature enough to leave the nest, the grains and seeds are ripe and feeding can start.
One bird alone will eat it's weight in seeds per day, which can be 15-20g, doesn't sound like much...  Now multiply that with 30 million because these birds create supper colonies that can have that many birds.  Work that out and you'll find that they eat up to 600 tons of grain a day, that can be why farmers call these birds feathered locusts.
Seeing these birds fly by can be an experience you'll never forget since that experience can take up to 5 hours...

Two intense infestations have been reported, one in Queensland, Australia where it is illegal to keep these Queleas as pets, the second was in Namibia, Africa.

If farmers see these birds, they follow them in order to find their breeding spot, if the farmer finds that they breed on your farm, it is your responsibility to find and exterminate them.  In South Africa, the government will fund this operation because these birds destroy crops that could be used for people but are now destroyed which becomes a big problem in poor African countries.

In 2010, this happened to Sondela, they found the breeding spot which is something to see since there can be up to 500 nests per tree, amazing huh?  Well, they got a plane, some poison and sprayed the buggers.

This year, once again, the farmers saw a flock of queleas fly into Sondela and we were sent to find them.  Obviously, we checked the area they were found in last year but to no avail.  Next we checked all the swamps on the farm and finally found them on our hunting grounds near a swamp.  This time it's not as easy as spraying them with poison, since a lot of other organisms are contained in the water.  Last year only a few other animals also died but a lot more will die, like fish and micro-organisms, if we spray over the water.  It's our project to find a new method.

Well here's an idea, the Egyptians had the same problem and they used whips, which they hit against the ground and the crackling sound chased the birds away....  Now, how to use a whip without hitting yourself....?

So the question is, do we kill these birds because they're a problem to the agriculture part of our country and take away the lives of innocent little birdies?

Interesting side note: Cattle Egrets also prey on these birds since they are small enough.  Maybe we can bring in a few of their natural predators but then again, one can only eat so much and 30 million seems a bit too much.