One good tern

What a heart-warming story you reported (Scotsman, 8 July) about the Arctic tern which had lived to the grand old age of 32, and in that time had flown more than a million miles moving between the Arctic and Antarctic.

Perhaps the success of its longevity

was due in part at least to the fact that in this country it appears to have spent its time on a nature reserve, where it would have received a degree of protection from predators.

Outside nature reserves where predator control is undertaken, birds of all kinds, whether they be seabirds, farm or songbirds all face unnatural levels of predation

from other birds as well as mammals.

Because so many of these predators enjoy protected status, and as a result have no enemies, they have multiplied enormously, while their prey species have gone in the opposite direction. The balance between prey and predator is now so firmly in favour of predator that some species

of birds are heading fast for the extinction door.

Conservation has been likened to a three-legged stool, the three legs being represented by food, habitat and predator control. If one of those legs is missing, and it is usually predator control, then the whole stool collapses.

For the balance to be redressed it is essential that governments reassess the protected status of some species, while also encouraging farmers and landowners to carry out predator control as a normal part of conservation.

In years to come it would be gratifying to read about birds such as curlew, lapwing and oyster catcher living to a great age in the wild rather than in a nature reserve, but before this is likely to happen the problems of predator control need to be addressed.

COLIN STRANG STEEL

Galashiels, Selkirkshire