David's Daily Diversions

Poachers

Eastern European gangs are stealing from the Queen. Sounds like a storyline for a film script? Well, not exactly. They aren't breaking into palaces, nicking painting or jewellery. They killing and roasting swans.

All of the swans in the UK belong to the Crown. It has been that way for a long time. Killing, or even injuring, a swan carries a £5,000 fine or six months in jail.

Now these gangs comprised principally of asylum seekers are poaching the birds by luring them into baited traps. We are not talking about the odd swan here and there. The Metropolitan Police and local communities have noted a serious drop in numbers. They are being taken from parks and rivers all over the London and Southeast England -- even from such high-profile places as Hyde Park.

I have to agree with editorial comments in The Sun (which carried this as a full front page article), "If people want to come here from other nations, then let them respect our way of life. If they want to behave like savages, let them get back where they came from."