Monday, April 25, 2011

Monk Parakeets to the Rescue?

This may sound ridiculous, but one way of scuppering National Grid's plans to destroy our landscapes with hideous pylons would be to park a car on top of every one of them. I'm sure you can see how this would work - even if you might enquire how we could get a car up there - 150' in the air. Well its not as far-fetched as it sounds. Mother nature often produces the answers. Enter the Monk Parakeet.

About 150 of these colourful raucous and very greedy parrot-like birds are on the rampage in the Home Counties, following escape from captivity in the 1990s. They are reported as being a problem for two reasons. Firstly they devour copious amounts of agricultural crops, and secondly they build nests the size of family cars on top of pylons. In the US, these nests on electricity pylons have caused serious damage. And there's the added bonus that the Monk Parakeet can develop a vocabulary of several hundred words to tell us what they think. They would need only two to convey to National Grid the thoughts and message on the lips of everyone in mid Wales.

No comments: