I read the article about
farmers and wildlife charities joining forces to bring back the lapwing.
Lapwings have suffered a catastrophic decline over the last 30 years. Why
another costly study? Since 2007, the RSPB has been working to maintain and
strengthen the largest remaining population of breeding lapwings of the Welsh
uplands in Hiraethog. The project aims to attract more pairs to breed, while
also learning lessons about the best ways to manage the land for nesting adults
and chicks. Thanks to the help of farmers and partner organisations, Habitat
management work has been carried out on 15 farms. This includes targeted
grazing and creating more suitable habitats for chicks to find food. The RSPB
will not look at predators as a cause or causes of decline in lapwings. This is
why we are getting these negative results. The RSPB should ask farmers what
happens to nesting peewits and they will tell you that if the crows don't get
their eggs, then foxes and buzzards will kill adults and chicks. The RSPB's
approach to conservation isn't working. At present farmers in stewardship
schemes get paid solely for habitat improvements.
If the farmers and the
RSPB were also paid for achieving improvements in wildlife numbers, they might
adopt other measures such as predator control to achieve these ends.
The RSPB and other
conservation organisation will not admit that increased predation levels are a
problem because this puts them in a conflicted position.
Their revenue would be
at risk if they the RSPB were to carry out research that identified a real need
to control predators because membership support could fall.
About 350,000 deer have
been shot in Scotland because they were destroying habitat.
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