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Britain's got talon: we must defy the
sea-eagle lovers.
Reintroducing birds of prey into the wild
merely gives environmentalists a passing thrill.
Magnus Linklater
Editor, Scottish Edition of The Times
www.land-care.org.uk
©Magnus Linklater
This article was originally published in The Times on 24th September 2008.
It is reproduced here with the kind permission of its author and of the newspaper.
We saw our first red kite this summer, sailing serenely across the Perthshire sky, its six-foot wingspan dipping above our heads as it adjusted to the thermals carrying it high above the trees.
A few weeks later we saw our first sea eagle, its eight-foot wingspan dipping above our heads etc. As we already have ospreys, hen harriers and more buzzards than you can shake a stick at, our bird book is pretty exciting these days.
Just a bit too exciting for some. Scottish farmers on the West Coast complain that they have been losing lambs to sea eagles since the spring, some showing signs of having throats torn open, their bodies dropped from the talons of these birds of prey. The numbers are disputed but the anger is real enough.
Undaunted, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds continues its mission to “reintroduce” these majestic species to our islands, describing it as one of the greatest conservation projects of recent times. Red kites are now so common in England and Wales that they are no longer a matter for comment. Another planeload of sea eagles from Norway arrived in Scotland last month, and a consignment was shipped to Ireland to be greeted by placard-waving protesters. The trade is going the other way as well, with about 40 golden eagle chicks taken from their nests in Scotland and sent to Ireland.
It's an odd business, this drive to repopulate the country with predators. The rationale is that at some unspecified period in the past - estimates vary from 200 years to 5,000 years - Britain had large numbers of these birds, that they were hunted out of existence by ferocious farmers and landowners, and that we are duty-bound to restore nature's balance by bringing them back again. Thus, kites and sea eagles are being imported, along with long-vanished species such as the beaver and possibly the wolf to re-create some imagined past.
There is a fallacy here. Nature's balance was thrown out of kilter long ago, perhaps when man started clearing the forests, driving out wolves and bears, perhaps when yeoman farmers enclosed land in the Middle Ages, used lime to enrich the soil, drained hills and fields, introduced sheep.
Each had its effect on flora and fauna, sometimes to their detriment, sometimes to their advantage. The rise and fall of bird species such as waders, divers, larks, hedgesparrows and treecreepers have been affected by man's intervention in the environment, and, although we can affect that at the margins, there is no turning back the clock.
Yet the environment agencies behind the importation of birds of prey argue that, irrespective of the changes wrought in the landscape of Britain over the centuries, a mythical balance should be re-created, with raptors helped to re-emerge as a dominant species. Far from this being a process of natural selection, it is an entirely unnatural change, forced through in the name of conservation, giving special protection to a few favoured species. And only the predators are offered this status - lesser birds, however threatened, do not feature in the import-export business. This is not so much survival of the fittest as the propagation of the cruellest.
That is not to say that birds should not be protected. The survival of the corncrake in Britain, the careful monitoring of barn owls, lapwings or black grouse, all are worthy tasks, showing a proper regard for balancing nature and human progress. But when environmental agencies, with a minimum of accountability, promote a particular species while ignoring the reality of what is happening on the ground beneath, conservation has gone awry. It ignores the one species whose survival is an essential part of the equation: man.
Hill farmers, attempting to rear lambs at a time when they are on the verge of bankruptcy, will inevitably see these species as a threat to their farms. Bird-lovers, who watch small birds disappearing from their birdtables, sacrificed to the talons of sparrowhawks, are powerless to do anything in their defence. Promoters of wind farms, encouraged by one arm of government as a source of alternative energy, find their plans knocked back by another, which tells them that they threaten the future of eagles and kites. Foresters, attempting to preserve red squirrels, see goshawks picking them off as if there were no tomorrow.
River-owners are aghast at the prospect of beavers undermining their banks, but are told that the animals will be introduced nonetheless. Landowners watch as their grouse are destroyed. No one can stand up to the overweening power of the conservationists, for whom the predator is king, and whose word is law.
At a time when the world's economy and its climate face unprecedented crisis, the forced introduction of birds of prey in mainland areas where farming and other activities are being carried out is an expensive luxury. It has no obvious benefit beyond the frisson it gives to environmental agencies and passing tourists. Far from aiding conservation, it obstructs it. The time has come to call a halt.
©Magnus Linklater |
