Shooting estates only have themselves to blame for rural ecology imbalance

Published on Thursday 7 August 2008 21:28

What cheek the Scottish Countryside Alliance and the Scottish Rural Property and Business Association have to assume they speak on behalf of the many thousands of hunters, from home and abroad, who support the "commercial" shooting industry they claim is in trouble because of increasing raptor numbers (your report, 5 August).

They pretend they are concerned about protected or fragile species such as breeding waders in upland environments suffering as a consequence of raptor population densities, then they speak of buzzards and goshawks, raptors that affect lowland shooting industries. But the report released on 7 August by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, Scottish Natural Heritage and the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust puts that old tale to bed.

The truth is that their members – landowners who run upland and lowland commercial game shooting ventures – are really concerned that they lose large numbers of the unnaturally amplified and concentrated densities of game birds, in which they have invested a great deal of money.

It is not an ecological problem; it is a political problem because there is no legal control of the release of game birds in the UK or elsewhere in Europe. Each July in the UK, more than 50 million game birds are released into the wider countryside. While I am completely at ease with the release of game birds to support a rural industry, the bags of game birds being released and shot on commercial estates is becoming unsustainable, ecologically and in terms of the value of these birds as food.

With only around half of all released birds shot, the SCA and the SRPBA need only look to their 25 million-plus unshot birds and lack of rabbit control for the reason behind increasing raptor numbers.

The only ecological problem that needs to be looked at is the behavioural ecology of landowners so they can be encouraged to cap game bird releases and be happier with lower grouse bags. Equally, compromise from conservation agencies, perhaps with a raptor quota system, to allow a rural upland income and raptors to coexist, would be appropriate.

Every game shooting agency in Europe is looking to a sustainable future, it's time British landowners and unethical shoot managers followed suit.

(DR) TOM C CAMERON

Wensley Drive

Leeds, West Yorkshire

After vigorously defending their integrity following recent reports accusing them of illegal bird of prey killings, it seems a strange move for the Scottish Countryside Alliance to call for the right to kill these birds.

Tim Baynes of the SCA goes as far as to admit "some landowners feel forced to take illegal action". Is this a public admission that birds of prey are being illegally persecuted to protect the interests of shooting estates?

There has long been suspicion on gamekeepers and landowners where bird of prey persecution is concerned and they will now struggle to defend themselves in light of this rare outbreak of honesty from the SCA.

LOUISE ROBERTSON

League Against Cruel Sports

Rosyth, Fife

As the organisation which represents nearly 3,000 landowners in Scotland, the SRPBA would like to make it clear that its members are not "demanding the right to kill birds of prey", as your headline suggested.

Our organisation and members wholly condemn wildlife crime and we are committed to working with our partners in the countryside and government to ensure everything possible is done to eradicate such acts.

DOUGLAS McADAM

Chief executive, SRPBA

Musselburgh, East Lothian