New ‘biodiversity scheme’ in Scotland involves persecution of crows, foxes, stoats and weasels

A healthy habitat includes predators. Predator numbers are largely controlled by food availability. Are there other artificial sources of year round food available that would hold predator numbers high enough to impact at an unnaturally high level on chicks?

Ground nesting birds are always vulnerable to predation hence their highly effective cryptic plumage. I doubt that there are many circumstances where ground nesting birds are ever likely to be abundant naturally. Apart from certain islands.

It is the nature of things that foxes and corvids do not have natural predators themselves but their numbers are mainly defined by resource availability. Controlling numbers of a successful species only leaves availavable territories for others and can create a number of problems due to the disruption of their social structure.

I feel that many "conservationists" have largely become a rather unsophisticated group of target driven box tickers that can create the very problems they say they are trying to solve. (I suppose if you do that you are guarenteeing yourself a job!)

Posted by: susan foster | 05 Jul 2010 14:25:54

In October 2008, the Game & Wildlife Conservancy Trust put out a press release entitled “New study links loss of waders and hen harriers to loss of gamekeepers and grouse”. A marvellous conflation, it was one of an increasing barrages of self-justification that have been put out by the sport shooting industry. This one was about Langholm Moor, which is part of a private estate in Dumfriesshire, SW Scotland. During the 1990s, public money was poured in there, as it was the main site of the Joint Raptor Study that investigated the relationships between hen harriers, peregrine falcons and red grouse. The study showed that the number of hen harriers and peregrines rose under the usual regime of habitat management from heather burning, and through control by gamekeepers of predators of ground nesting birds such as foxes and crows.

It has to be said that what was probably unique about this study was the undertaking by the estate not to illegally control hen harrier numbers (a species supposedly protected since 1954). Thus this was good news on two counts for the hen harriers, with predation by both man and wild animal removed, except that the numbers of meadow pipit, their main prey, plunged as did skylarks. However, curlew and lapwing numbers actually increased in spite of the rise in hen harriers. The increased number of hen harriers did however result in a dramatic decline by half in the number of breeding red grouse. In 1998, a year after the study finished, grouse shooting was no longer commercially viable on the moor, and so gamekeeping was withdrawn by its owners.

Guess what happened then? As this news release said, hen harrier numbers plunged back down again, and lapwing were virtually lost, whilst snipe and carrion crow increased dramatically - the latter by four-fold. The assumption was that foxes returned in the absence of their control by gamekeepers, and it is they along with crows that got the blame for the drop in hen harrier numbers, as well as the lapwing. What is not clear from this source, or others, is what happened to the grouse population during this unkeepered period, nor of the curlew population.

In these situations, everyone is keen to draw their own lessons and messages from study, and which fit with their particular vested interest. Thus the RSPB were keen to highlight that hen harrier, one of their iconic raptor species, was not to blame for losses of wading birds such as curlew, lapwing and golden plover. The Game & Wildlife Conservancy Trust was keen to show that predator control through gamekeeping was essential in maintaining high numbers of hen harriers, and therefore had a role to play in wildlife conservation as well as in maintaining game shooting. But there was still the tricky problem that hen harriers gorge on red grouse.

Public money was then poured into Langholm Moor again - £973,491 from Scottish Natural Heritage, and £168,052 from Natural England – under a programme entitled the Langholm Moor Demonstration Project, a continuing exploration of how to resolve conflicts between moorland management for raptors and red grouse. Gamekeeping was restored in 2007, and the “huge backlog” of heather burning was put under way. Also resumed was the “Legal control of crows, foxes and stoats” so that it was routinely carried out again. Claims were made within months that all these measures led to best breeding success in five years for hen harriers. However, a new wheeze was introduced in this project to sort out how they were going to mitigate the effects of a flourishing population of hen harriers, whilst at the same time run an economically viable grouse shoot. The solution they come up with was diversionary feeding. Thus hen harrier breeding pairs were given carrion (dead rats and day-old chicks) in order to reduce their predation on grouse.

You may be asking yourself why public money was being used to restore a grouse shoot on private land? Well, the project was being delivered by a newly formed company, the board of which is made up from the various funding partners, including SNH and NE. The company employed the gamekeepers, and the eventual income from the reinstated grouse shooting would fund the continuing scientific monitoring, as well as the habitat management and predator control. Thus it would appear that it is not purely a profit motive, but here’s the real reason – Langholm Moor is designated as part of the Langholm – Newcastleton Hills Special Protection Area (SPA). To no surprise, the species for which it is designated for protection under the EU bird directive is the hen harrier, and the data form for the SPA says the site has 2.7% of the breeding population of Britain. The SPA designation was applied in 2001, during the period when no game keeping was taking place, and it puts an obligation on our Government to ensure that the land in the SPA is managed in a way that favours the hen harrier.

Thus the decision had been made by our statutory conservation agencies to use public funds to reinstate the routine killing of foxes, crows and stoats on private land through the vehicle of reinstating the management and use of the moor for grouse shooting. How do you then get shooting interests to stop the illegal persecution of the hen harrier so that they don’t eat the grouse? By someone going out and dropping dead rats and chicks near the hen harrier nests.

So let’s add this all up. Obviously, the dynamics of wild nature in determining species populations is not to be given any chance here. Instead we have dead foxes, crows and stoats. Then we have dead rats and chicks that are bred somewhere else and delivered on site. And we also have dead grouse, not from the predation by hen harriers, but from the idiots who like to go out and shoot birds. Any of this meddling with nature on a grand scale make any sense to you?

Isn’t this just the usual numbers game in both game and wildlife conservation: maximising grouse numbers so that they can be shot at, and maximising hen harriers at the expense of foxes, crows and stoats. And do you think that more than a £1m subsidy of public money to restart a shooting business is good value when in all likelihood it will equate to over £50,000 per extra breeding hen harrier? And isn't this a bit two-faced for SNH? The previous year, it reduced its annual grant to the National Trust for Scotland's Mar Lodge estate because some of the grant had been used to help finance shooting days for private clients instead of for conserving and protecting the estate's natural environment.

So I reiterate, Special Protection Areas designated under the EU Birds Directive for upland bird assemblages rely on predator control so that reporting to Europe on the status of the birds can show "no deteriotation". It is no surprise that the location of sporting estates in the uplands mirrors the location of the SPAs. What a sick way to “conserve” nature.

Posted by: Mark Fisher | 04 Jul 2010 17:49:41

Gentle humour (with some basis in truth) is obviously lost on Mark. But then most things seem to pass him by. In fifty years time, we will look back at attitutudes like those he has and wonder were we really so brutalist as a species in furthering our own agendas? Did we really deny the dynamics of wild nature in determining species populations? Did we really fool ourselves that "scientific proof" that predator control increased the numbers of upland birds actually meant anything or was even a moral thing to do?

Do I kill anything that I don't eat? When Mark starts eating foxes, corvids, mustelids etc, then I might think he has anything remotely worthwhile to say.

Posted by: Mark Fisher | 04 Jul 2010 16:35:07

@Mark Fisher- I'll leave your daft claim to be simultaneously a hunter-gatherer (in the wilds of Tesco no doubt) and a defender of the rights of individual animals not to be killed by us horrid humans.
Yes, individual threatened birds such as twite, whinchat or ring ouzel are more important than individual foxes or crows. This is species conservation we are talking about here, not Rolf's Animal Rescue...
As I said in my previous post, there is solid evidence from situations worldwide that targeted predator control can work for conservation outcomes. What would you propose instead? The fox and stoat-driven extinction of small upland birds?

@Amanda- Your comment is hot air. Even if Merlins ever approached the population sizes of the predators to be targeted for control (which would mean their numbers increasing X100+) they are protected by strict legal measures, so no, they will never be targeted for control. Your idea of not intervening at all would mean that birds like twite would not just be hunted by the odd merlin but would have to contend with corvids, foxes and mustelids too. Predator control will benefit both twite and merlins. Think I'm wrong? Prove it...

Posted by: Mark | 04 Jul 2010 06:28:51

I've noticed that one of the animals that would apparantly benefit are Merlins. They are of course a bird of prey and would predate many of the small birds in the area. Does this mean that they would be persucuted once they become sucessful.
This idea is absolute nonense. The environment needs both predators and prey. Thats the way nature is and has always been.

Posted by: Amanda | 03 Jul 2010 19:20:49

Actually, I see myself more as a hunter-gatherer than a "class war" "vegan" or just concerned about "animal rights". I am concerned about the rights of all species against such utiltarian views of people who tell me "to get over" predator control, the sick argument of people who presume to make choices not given to other species. Who says that the life of a grouse is more important than a fox? Well, we all know the answer to that. And we also see the sickening justification for predator control from the sport shooting industry under the guise of contributing to "nature conservation".

Posted by: Mark Fisher | 03 Jul 2010 10:14:11

I get really annoyed when I see news stories and comments such as those here which conflate class war (what else can you call the tribal dislike of sporting estate owners?) and animal rights ideology with conservation. Our wildlife is in such a precarious position and conservation is so resource-poor that indulging is these distractions is dangerous and self-indugent.

So this project will lead to conservation resources going to rich landowners involved in legal bloodsports? If we are purely concerned with conservation then the relevant questions are 'is this evidence based?' and 'is it the most financially efficient way to achieve these biodiversity outcomes?'. If the answer to these is 'yes' (which it may not be) then who actually gets the money is irrelevant so long as its legal.

If you are a class warrior who wants to see the end of privileged landowners taking public resources then go campaign directly on that- the conservation money they get is just the tip of the iceberg. Don't use the conservation movement (which has to work with landowners for the good of wildlife wether you like it or not) as some socialist trojan horse. While the majority of uplands is owned by such people conservation much work WITH them or nothing can be achieved and species will die out.

I am deeply concerned that animal rights ideologues are increasingly trying to pass themselves off as the voice of conservation and environment. They are no such thing. Has there ever been an ideology so apparently friendly to conservation in theory but so disastrously harmful in practice? Humans have been interfering in the landscape since the end of the ice age, changing habitats, undermining some species and boosting others. Conservation is, if nothing else, a movement to prevent extinction but now suddenly the animal rights ideal dictates that individual creatures such as fox, crows, weasels which have done very well out of the human interventions over time are as precious as the future of the rarest species. But the evidence shows that trying to conserve species on the brink without including predator control in the mix is a waste of time, money and rare creatures. Yes, thats right- research shows this clearly. Maureen McGill's daft comment above "I`ve never heard of killing wildlife to save wildlife do anything but damage" besides being an argument from ignorance is demonstrably wrong. There is clear evidence from around the world that such interventions can work if well delivered- many species breeding on RSPB reserves today such as avocet are only still here due to crow and fox control. Killing works- get over it.

Animal rights is a recipe for extinction. The taboo on killing anything (which is ironic hypocrisy when pushed by non-vegans) ties the hands of conservationists, denying them one of the most effective tools to manage wildlife populations. The furore over the hedgehog cull in the outer hebrides is a prime example- if the animal rights thinkers got their way then ground nesting waders on the Uists would be fully wiped out. Animal rights dogma needs to be kicked out of conservation practice otherwise we face a future of lobotomised conservation science and a slew of avoidable extinctions.

Posted by: Mark | 03 Jul 2010 00:24:20

One does not need to be an expert in conservation to detect an advantage here to certain groups. I`ve never heard of killing wildlife to save wildlife do anything but damage.

Posted by: Maureen McGill | 02 Jul 2010 15:18:36

This is the scary thing. Forget about our own wildlife unfriendly nature conservation laws, Special Protection Areas designated under the EU Birds Directive for upland bird assemblages rely on predator control so that reporting to Europe on the status of the birds can show "no deteriotation". It is no surprise that the location of sporting estates in the uplands mirrors the location of the SPAs. There is no provision in the Directive for SPAs to be de-designated.

www.self-willed-land.org.uk

Posted by: Mark Fisher | 01 Jul 2010 09:22:19