Rare farmland birds put at risk by ban on shooting crows and magpies
SIR – The BBC’S Chris Packham has scrambled down from atop his bus shelter to pronounce another great victory – the revocation of the general licence to control pest bird species (report, April 25).
As a result of years of care, our farm holds some of the highest populations of red-listed farmland birds in the county – possibly the country for yellowhammers and linnets.
Controlling magpies in April and May makes a significant contribution to our successful strategy. It is not unusual for us to take over 100 individuals a year on less than 200 acres in those critical two months.
While the polyphagous magpie will happily feed on the heaps of filth casually discarded by man for most of the year, it’s nestlings are reared on the nestlings of other songbirds.
Plainly this revocation could not have come at a worse time. Far from helping conservation, Mr Packham is likely to be responsible for the second coming of a “Silent Spring”. Peter Hall
Marden, Kent
SIR – The decision by Natural England to revoke with immediate effect general licences to control pest bird species, such as crow and magpie, comes at a time of year when it does most damage to the prospects of a number of endangered species.
I chair a group of farmers around the National Nature Reserve at Martin Down, Hampshire, with one of the last remaining breeding populations of turtle dove in the country.
We give this species priority (alongside others such as the harvest mouse and the small blue butterfly), and have worked in partnership with Natural England to provide water, feeding sites and protection for the birds from crows and magpies (by controlling their numbers at this time of year). This has shown Natural England (a top-down, do-as-you’retold organisation) that working with us farmers and landowners from the bottom up produces positive results. But such a partnership requires trust, which is slow to build and easy to destroy.
In pandering to the campaigning group Wild Justice in this way, in the middle of the breeding season, Natural England has not only damaged the turtle doves’ chances of survival, but has also damaged, perhaps seriously, the trust that we had been building with the organisation in recent years. Tim Palmer
Chairman, Martin Down Farmer Cluster Salisbury, Wiltshire
SIR – A legal challenge has resulted in Natural England revoking, at very short notice, the general licences under which crows and other avian pests can be controlled.
With the countryside currently full of nests containing eggs and fledgling birds, with young lambs at their most vulnerable to attack by corvids, and with fields full of emerging crops, this revoking of licences could have not come at a worse time for wildlife and farmers.
The people responsible for forcing Natural England’s decision are little more than anti-shooting activists who style themselves as conservationists. By effectively preventing the control of already abundant predators and agricultural pests, they have proved themselves to be anything but. Charles Smith-jones
Landrake, Cornwall
SIR – Natural England’s decision effectively to ban farmers from killing wood pigeons will, I fear, mean that the cheapest, most nutritious and most flavoursome meat will no longer be available. My local farmers’ market sells pigeons from East Anglia at £2.50 each.
Wrapped in a slice of bacon, they simply need roasting for five minutes – delicious, ecologically sound and perfectly safe, as long as you look out for the occasional shot. John Torode
London W1