Letter: Wildlife truths

P Bateson (Letters 7 June) makes a valid point about wildlife persecution in Scotland. Scarcely a week goes by without some reference to it in our press; one could be forgiven for thinking it is rampant.

Undoubtedly there is still some persecution, and that is too much, but the constant suggestion that it is rampant is patently untrue to anyone who travels our countryside and looks up in the sky. I can pretty well guarantee to see buzzards and ravens every day. If I can see them then so can the gamekeepers who are meant to be exterminating them.

Until Malta entered the EU, trapping birds, usually songbirds, was legal and common practice. The scale was vast and the tradition ancient. It still goes on though the authorities are tackling it rather more seriously now.

To have our countries likened to each other in this sense is breathtakingly wrong. Reducing any crime to zero is very difficult; why should wildlife crime be any different? Exaggerating the scale of the remaining problem, as Mr Bateson suggests, can do more harm than good

Hector MacLean

Kirriemuir

Angus