Stuart Housden: Better protection for our birds of prey is vital for them and us

Such moments are fleeting; blink and you may miss them. But so awe-inspiring are these sights they will stay with you for the rest of your days.

The bird of prey's symbolic significance reaches back to the earliest societies. Central to iconic design and heraldry around the world, this newspaper pressured the Scottish Parliament for the adoption of the golden eagle as a new national symbol. If you ask about great wildlife-watching moments, the arresting vision of a bird of prey is a central, recurring theme.

Fiercely spectacular, apparently unassailable, birds of prey are actually incredibly fragile. It is a rule of ecology that the higher up the food chain an animal sits, the more scarce it must be. Habitats must be healthy and able to support an abundance of prey. Even in the absence of interference, a bird of prey's position in the ecosystem is more precarious than most; and yet the behaviour of some people in Scotland continues to increase the risks.

Birds of prey are naturally long-lived and slow-breeding. When people trap, shoot and poison them, they cannot breed fast enough to make up the losses and the entire population is put at risk. The sorry catalogue of Victorian extinctions in Scotland – red kites, sea eagles, ospreys – bears testament.

Today I will be handing in a petition to Frank McAveety, the Convener of the Scottish Parliament's public petitions committee. It calls on the Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to increase its efforts to stop the illegal killing of birds of prey, to celebrate our internationally important wildlife heritage and to commend those who encourage these spectacular wild birds.

Submitted on behalf of our 86,000 members in Scotland, it is further backed by 22,000 spontaneous pledges gathered from supporters in all walks of life across the country. It shows that people in Scotland feel blessed that these birds are present.

In spite of this, bad things keep happening to Scotland's birds of prey at the hands of humans. Provisional figures suggest that, with 46 incidents, 2009 had the highest number of poison abuse cases confirmed by independent analysis from the government's Science and Advice for Scottish Agriculture agency (SASA). These include both of our native species of eagles, red kites, buzzards and owls.

But there is clear scientific evidence, including powerful work by the government's own conservation adviser, Scottish Natural Heritage, that figures for confirmed cases of illegal killing of birds of prey represent a fraction of the actual total – and that this illegal killing is adversely affecting the size and distribution of these populations.

Our raptor populations are an integral, inspiring and internationally significant part of Scotland's natural environment and our petition calls for more money and focus from government to support the rapid and rigorous investigation and prosecution of wildlife crime by the police and our courts. Further action is urgently needed if this persistent problem is to be resolved.

These species are also worth millions to our rural economy, bringing tens of thousands of visitors each year specifically to watch our most thrilling wildlife spectacles will. To tolerate the on-going persecution of these birds is to allow the erosion of that identity, and lowers both our self-respect and our standing abroad.

I believe that to cherish birds of prey is to cherish all life. They need our environment to be healthy and right; rich in all its forms and when you set eyes on one, it is a celebration of nature itself.

Stuart Housden is director of RSPB Scotland.