Culling crows

SIR – The RSPB is right to call in gamekeepers and follow the evidence (“RSPB defends crow cull as members fly off the handle”, report, August 7) that predation can and does have an impact on prey populations.

Our upland predation trials show that gamekeepers could increase curlew numbers by 93 per cent in just five years, but that numbers fall by 61 per cent without nest protection.

This is in line with a recent report by the Agreement on the Conservation of African-eurasian Migratory Waterbirds, which found that more than 70 per cent of curlew nests observed across Europe failed to hatch a single chick. Andrew Gilruth

Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust Fordingbridge, Hampshire

SIR – What a shame that the RSPB can only cull one bird to save another.

Every salmon fisherman would support a cull of cormorants, but because this would only save nontweeting slimy fish, the RSPB is not listening. Peter Day

Swannington, Norfolk

SIR – I applaud the RSPB’S pragmatic approach to a crow cull.

Any chance they could come to south-west London to do the same to the noisy, aggressive and attentionseeking parakeets that plunder the bird-feeders and deprive our smaller, natural species of food? Tony Parrack

London SW20