Cull the culling

In his letter, “Predator control key to balanced wildlife” (12 August), Alastair Harper suggests culling anything which prey on them is the way to stem the decline in wading birds. He says foxes, corvids, gulls and “selected avian raptors” are “breeding out of control”.

The opposite is the case. There are few, if any, controls on the killing of foxes, small predatory mammals and more than 20 species of birds, mainly corvids, which can be legally culled under the Government General Licensing scheme.

The General Licensing scheme is not policed and no figures are kept for the number of people killing birds under the scheme nor for the number of birds killed each year.

Cullers include back garden trappers who catch crows and magpies then bash their brains out against the nearest wall, and individual farmers and gamekeepers who annually trap or shoot foxes and corvids in their hundreds. The toll on native species of predators killed legally in Scotland every year is likely in the tens of thousands.

Despite campaigns to legalise raptor culling it is still illegal to kill buzzards, hawks, falcons, harriers and eagles. Despite this, an unknown number are deliberately and illegally killed by trapping, poisoning, shooting and nest destruction every year.

Predator and prey animal numbers naturally fluctuate. If there are a lot of prey animals then predator numbers flourish until prey declines and predator numbers fall allowing prey species to recover.

This is how it has been since before modern humans intervened to artificially increase numbers of animals we hunt for food or sport.

That’s why it is now rare to see many native species of predator but common to see non-native prey species such as pheasants.

Rather than increase persecution of native predators it would make more sense to determine if any decline of wading birds is unnatural and, if so, what is causing it. If anything needs controlled in Scotland it is the unrestricted killing of birds under the General Licensing scheme.

John F Robins

Animal Concern Advice Line

Dumbarton