Raptor risks

I was interested in Lucinda Cameron's rather sickly-sweet article on "flying barn doors" (20 August).

If these large raptors are spending their time "investigating the coasts, glens and firths of (eastern) Scotland" obviously somebody is providing their food supply, because, like all raptors, they are inefficient hunters and need a surplus of food to survive.

That surplus of fish, at one time their staple diet, no longer exists so they must be feeding on land, which begs the question: what are those hand-reared, semi-tame birds living on? If somebody turned a half-tame dog loose to fend for itself in the countryside they would quite rightly be prosecuted. But if RSPB, Scottish National Heritage and the Forestry Commission do the same thing dozens of times over as a money-milking publicity stunt, it is good news. Why?

Irvine Inglis

Reston

Berwickshire