I have personally seen a glut of sparrowhawks and red kites and am amazed that goshawks are being added, like a fox into a henhouse, into so many areas of woodland where they have been absent since Tudor times!
Those who promote such practices are quick to speak about 'the balance of nature' and similar failing to see the extreme damage they do.
The problem here is mankind. Our presence on these islands has 'skewed that balance' by being responsible for the tragically plummeting numbers of songbirds. When you then promote species which feast on these birds which are already under massive pressure - it is almost as if you wish to seal their fate!
Note the letter below from the Yorkshire Post:
Published on Monday 22 August 2011 00:00
From: RL Lofthouse, Forest Gate, Otley, Leeds.
I HAVE followed the letters between your columnist Jo Foster and the conservationists concerning Red Kites in Yorkshire with great interest.
What Jo says is true and having farmed in the Wharfe Valley all my life I would like to make a few points.
Two years ago, on a field just outside Otley, the lapwings reared 26 young birds to almost one month old and they were ringed by the local BTO ringer. The kites turned up and took the lot. There are now no pairs of plovers nesting on that field. This year I went to four sites where the hay meadows were being cut. On each occasion the same thing happened.
The kites saw the grass being cut and came for lunch.
On field one, between Otley and Burley, three clutches of curlews, a four, and six chicks were all taken. On field two, at Clifton, 13 kites arrived and took one clutch of curlew, one hen partridge with nine chicks and some pheasant poults.
In field three, at Menston, one clutch of curlew was taken, and in field four, pheasant poults. These people have let a big problem into the countryside and now have no answer to it. RIP the curlew and other ground nesting birds.
