Tristan wrote:

Well here is a typical usenet group answer. Give up the smokes so yo
can enjoy your pond and fish longer.....now for my view. Smoke em if
ya got em, and waste the heron so your fish live longer and yu can
enjoy them. Fish don't have a choice if they want to become food for a
heron but a human does have the choice to choose.......

LOL - actually I gave up the job as more detrimental to my health than
the fags....fags are next on the agenda (woops 18 months on).....and
some of the trout from that farm are currently residing in my
freezer....but I do miss watching the "wild fish" in the stream and lake
and the birds that came to prey on them. I guess the money issue comes
into play whether looking it commercially or as pets....when it comes to
pets we then look at our own attachment to these creatures...as I've
said I don't have a pond (yet) but I would be incredibly ****ed off if
I'd just spent £90 on a lovely, big, koi to see it become heron
fodder...but I couldn't shoot the heron - gun laws far stricter over
here so I would have to be going with other advice given....not only is
it down to gun laws but when your neighbour truly lives in your back
yard you just couldn't do it....woops there goes their cat - shame I'm a
bad shot (very extreme example)...

Like I posted previously. given sufficient realestate for herons, its
not uncommon to see more thanone. I can take you to place here where
they are literally lined up along the shorelines.

I am now greatly looking forward to putting these questions to the owner
of the fish farm in question (technically he is my step-brother but
without wandering too far off-topic it is not a relationship I want to
acknowledge as that and him neither).....I also am greatly interested in
how such a venture works.....maybe not technically ponds but hopefully a
subject of interest to us all....

Gill
rec.pond lurker since Nov 2003 and very occassional poster - don't have
a pond at the moment just a great interest in them - enjoying what is
now an on-topic discussion