Endangered Eggs

FALSE ADVERTISING

With Easter just around the corner, bucolic imagery of eggs and soft yellow chicks is being laid on thick in advertisements, from chocolatiers to supermarkets.  But it's a sad truth that neither eggs, nor the birds laying them are experiencing any green pastures or pastel-coloured bunting in the real world.

Numerically, chickens (the most common provider of eggs) are easily the UK's most common bird - around 40million of them are laying eggs as I write, with millions more broiler hens in warehouses across the country.  But they didn't get there by hopping around a sunny barnyard and letting nature take its course. 

The processes humans created to industrialise chickens' eggs are no miracle story - and are well documented on many other sites.  But in short, all commercial egg laying hens in the UK are intensively bred and fed to grow deliberate physical anomalies that make them more prolific and regular layers, to fuel the insatiable penchant for egg-based goods.

As a result of their unwieldy shape and size, and the frequency with which they are expected to lay (some animal welfare sites claim this is 18 times the natural annual yield of a hen), chickens' health and happiness inevitably suffers.  

In nature female chickens usually live between 8-12 years. Commercial egg layers live between 18 months-2 years before they become what the egg industry calls 'spent', and are industrially culled.  Many chooks are also bred to lay months before they would in nature, with obvious consequences.  Almost all hens in the UK are artificially inseminated so they will begin to lay.  Female chicks borne of this unhappy union go on to become future layers.  Male chicks are of no use to the egg industry at all as they cannot lay - so they are killed shortly after birth in huge numbers.  I won't detail the methods used here, as they're pretty horrifying - but it's definitely not something you'll see on any supermarket Easter ad.  

The RSPCA estimates that the UK egg industry kills around 45million day-old male chicks and 30-40million 'spent' female layers (those who can no longer lay) every year.  The numbers of hens dying in the warehouses of disease, injury, or exhaustion are not generally made public - but undercover filming by the vegan charity Viva! suggested it was likely close to 3-5million per annum.

But chooks are not the only bird made to suffer at human hands...

 

RARE SPECIES EGGS

Of course we don't generally eat endangered species' eggs - so they're spared at least that horror story.  But there is a huge market for collecting them, particularly for sale in the Middle East where many raptors for example, are illegally bred for hunting, sport, gambling, or the exotic pet industry.  Prolific thieves have been found simply hoarding thousands of rare breed eggs in their homes - one scallywag in Norfolk had amassed almost 3000 stolen directly from nests, including nightjars, linnets, house sparrows, turtledoves and yellowhammers.

Habitat loss means more wild predators such as foxes, rats, badgers etc... are forced from prior feeding grounds into nesting sites, where eggs and young birds are taken.  It also more readily exposes raptors: as their food sources become scarcer elsewhere and they nest near their remaining food sources, they are brought ever closer to egg thieves' more accessible stomping grounds.

Intensive industry and farming methods mean nesting birds (especially ground nesting species) are at risk of egg damage by equipment and chemicals.  In a recent report by the Zoological Society it was found that 'forever chemicals' used in industrial processes, chemical crop sprays and farming 'run-off' were actually weakening the shells and embryonic integrity of species such as oystercatchers, peregrine falcons, and curlews.

And of course humans remove woodlands and hedgerows for 'urban developments' too, leaving fewer safe spaces to lay eggs in the first place.

For bird species already on the brink of extinction, this spells utter disaster.  No eggs: no future generations.  

 

EGG STUDS

I decided to add endangered eggs to my collection, and have designed two simple stud earrings to begin with - Hen Harriers, and Bewick's Swans. 

Bewick's swans lay almost opalescent white eggs that I've chosen to replicate in a highly polished mirror finish.  Harriers lay more mottled eggs - but also very pale in colour.  So these studs have also been polished smooth, and decorated with a subtle feathering of oxidisation.

I'll hopefully be expanding awareness by adding to these over the coming months with other breeds - so keep your eyes peeled!

I've launched the new pieces to coincide with Easter - not because I want to spoil anyone's fun - but because it seems a most pertinent time to start the conversation - when eggs are already at the forefront of our minds.

But because I'm not a total fun-sponge, their subtle design means that they are easy to wear at any time of year -  plus you get to decide whether to pair them with the matching pendant, or wear them as a stand-alone piece.  You could even grab a couple of pairs to mix and match!  "How trendy!", as my mum would say!

 

Visit the Birdlife collection to learn more about these iconic species - and I (honestly!) hope you have an enjoyable Easter weekend, if celebrating it is something you like to do!