Illegal killing blamed for hitting red kite numbers
ILLEGAL killing is severely hampering efforts to increase the number of red kites in the north of Scotland, according to new research.
Experts say that although birds are thriving in an area of England where they were reintroduced in the 1980s, a similar project in the Black Isle is struggling. The study, conducted by RSPB Scotland, is published in the journal Biological Conservation.
Red kites in the Chiltern Hills in Buckinghamshire reached about 320 breeding pairs by 2006. But in the Black Isle, where equal numbers of young birds were released in 1989, numbers reached just 41 pairs over the same period and by last year was up to just 49 pairs. Experts now fear the same human persecution that first drove the species to extinction in Scotland in the 1870s, is still taking place today.
Research has shown low survival rates among the Black Isle birds in their first and second years, with illegal killing almost entirely to blame.
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