Charlie Brooks (we've crossed swords with him before - see blogs of 17 and 24 July) wrote a wickedly wrong-thinking article in the Daily Telegraph at the weekend suggesting that the Campaign for the Farmed Environment was doomed to failure unless predator control was part of the solution. This is just nonsense and, worryingly, might undermine the effectiveness of the NFU's and CLA's efforts.
Now there is no doubt that sometimes killing predators can aid the recovery of threatened species - we carry out predator control (ie we kill them!) on a small proportion of our 200+ nature reserves - mostly of foxes and crows. But for us it isn't where we start - it's a measure of last resort rather than of our first resort. But that's our choice just as it is the choice of other land managers to do more widespread predator control. Of course, if you are looking to shoot pheasants or partridges then each fox that is around is reducing the number of birds you can kill in the autumn so shooting estates generally carry out massive levels of predator control of foxes, stoats, weasels, magpies and crows. And that is entirely legal.
Mr Brooks's article has provoked some correspondence in the letters page of the paper including a letter from the RSPB.
Our success at Hope Farm shows what can be done - farmland bird numbers have increased very dramatically over a 10-year period because we have made the right relatively small tweeks to the farming practices - without predator control - and these measures have allowed impressive increases in bird numbers. Maybe they could have been even greater if we had spent money on predator control - but our results show how unnecessary that spend would have been. I'll bring you up to date with this year's bird numbers at Hope Farm tomorrow.
Sure you are right Mark but seeing magpies destroying lots of young in gardens makes it an emotional issue,of course I am sure the bit about spending money on predator control is a red herring as surely plenty of responsible people would do it free.
Sad no feedback from farmers on previous blog but makes me think that they can't find your blog and probably all the information on the link,a real pity and while the RSPB has no responsibility to get this information to farmers everybody would be the winner if they could manage it.Another suggestion is to get a flyer printed and get NFU to post when sending post to farmers or/and advertisers send it out with their leaflets etc.Perhaps interestingly I only found your blog from someone on Mull Eagles had commented and then I looked to see what it was.Would it be financially viable to go to agricultural shows for one year as even some of the one day shows get about 20,000 people.Perhaps even have an award presented on that day for improved conservation on farms in that area.I feel sure there is a lot of things would be helped if the information gets over especially as farmers wives are perhaps more into conservation than husbands and they have quite a say in everything on the farm.Hope more food for thought.