CURLEW CONCERN

Ian Coghill’s article [Will the curlew cease to call?, March issue] was probably the best article that I have read in years, reflecting the incredible knowledge, perspicacity and wit of this wonderfully eccentric Englishman, who has had more experience of watching and enjoying our countryside than almost anyone I know.

As someone who lived and worked in Wales for more than a decade towards the end of the 20th century, I was amazed at the dearth of bird life there, even in the more remote moorland parts, compared to what I saw and still see in the valleys in the north of England that are surrounded by grouse moors. Ian has put his finger on the farcical belief that we can have healthy populations of a wide range of bird species without effective predator control; we cannot and that lie has to be nailed.

Landowners and farmers are consistently quoted as being the cause of the decline, which is only in part true, and climate change has now been added to the list. In reality, predators have a massive adverse effect on vulnerable bird (or animal) populations, curlews being a great example.

Ian has done a great service in naming and shaming the RSPB. Government should look at its track record at Lake Vyrnwy. There are many landowners and tenants who have quietly done so much more than the RSPB, and yet their successes usually go unnoticed; they do not have an effective PR department!

Mark Osborne, by email

Ian Coghill’s article highlighted the RSPB’S reluctance to carry out efficient legal predator control. He considers that the RSPB is more concerned with raking in

millions and, in his words, “they rely for their funding on the public believing that without them the UK’S wildlife is going to hell in a hand cart”.

Two or three years ago I visited the Ynys-hir RSPB reserve in Mid Wales, which comprises saltmarsh and extensive oak woodland and is an SAC and RAMSAR site of international conservation importance. On arriving at the visitor centre in the woodland I was horrified to see swarms of grey squirrels on and around their bird feeders. Field readers, of course, know that squirrels predate on the eggs and nestlings of woodland birds. I asked why they did not cull the squirrels and the answer was “our members wouldn’t like it”.

It seems that the RSPB cares more about protection of its income than the birds. Geraldine Hobson Dorset