The Government organisation Defra has recently announced that, due to pressure from the pheasant shooting industry, they plan to invest £400,000 in destroying buzzard nests and capturing adult birds. These wild birds will then be kept in captivity.
Martin Harper, Conservation Director for the RSPB, has put the nonsense of this plan into a few crucial facts:
- An independent report by the British Association for Shooting and Conservation (BASC) found than 1-2% of the 40 million non-native game birds released each year are taken by birds of prey (and that’s all birds of prey, not just buzzards). For comparison, more than 7% are run over on the road.
- There are plenty of ways of reducing the number of game birds taken by buzzards that are both more effective and more humane, e.g. more vegetation cover for captive-bred birds, birds-scarers and diversionary feeding.
- There is a great deal of evidence to show that another buzzard will fill the place of any that is killed or taken, so capturing buzzards to prevent them killing pheasants won’t work anyway.
- Buzzards are a native species whose numbers have only recently begun to recover from persecution over the last two centuries. Pheasants, on the other hand, are bred purely for sport and industry.
Andy Hay (rspb-images.com)
I for one am outraged that my taxes are to be spent on further persecution of this wonderful bird. I will be writing to my MP to urge them to oppose this measure in parliament.
Please, please do the same and make sure Nature’s Voice is not drowned out by the calls of those wishing to persecute wildlife for their own gains.
You can find out how to contact your MP here
See what Martin Harper has to say on the subject and get some ideas of what to put in your letter here.
Thank you for Stepping Up For Nature.