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In the battle of the birds, whose side are we really meant to be on?
Flourishing, protected populations of raptors are wreaking carnage on
Britain's songbirds - and ripping apart the RSPB
Simon Jenkins The Guardian, Friday May 9 2008 Article historyAbout
this articleClose This article appeared in the Guardian on Friday May
09 2008 on p36 of the Comment & debate section. It was last updated at
15:06 on May 09 2008. The best bit in the television series Planet
Earth had a snow leopard chasing a goat across the frozen Himalayan
wastes. Up hill and down they went, with the camera in dogged pursuit,
as the frantic goat leapt, dived, first escaped and then was run to
death. Hurrah at nature red in tooth and claw, the viewer was invited
to shout. Score one for the snow leopard and nought for the boring
goat.
The same moral unilateralism was on display this week in Worcester,
where there was only one show in town. A pair of peregrine falcons had
migrated from the cathedral to nest in neighbouring St Andrew's
steeple and hatch four chicks, giving new meaning to living "on a wing
and a prayer".
Forward control units of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds
raced to the scene. The fire brigade was alerted. Webcams were put in
place. The authorities put up marquees and camera sites, and awaited
the twitching hordes. If the peregrines of Derby cathedral were
anything go by (a quarter of a million webcam hits), this will be a
tourist bonanza. When wild comes to town, town goes wild.
Peregrine falcons are not blue tits but ornithological F-16s, the
fastest creatures on wings. They can spot prey a mile distant and
boast a diving speed of 150mph. Lithe of limb and fearsome of
countenance, they besport a grey helmet and black handlebar moustache
that would win them a role in any first world war Red Baron movie.
Peregrines, like other British birds of prey, came near to extinction
as gamekeepers struggled to protect their grouse moors and pesticides
infected the food chain. Then the passage of the Wildlife and
Countryside Act 1981 proved a spectacular vindication of conservation
law, to the fury of moor-owners and the regular imprisonment of those
weird hobbyists, egg collectors. Only in jail-mad Britain is bird-egg
collecting an imprisonable offence.
Legal protection of raptors brought back to the skies not just
peregrines but ospreys, red kites, hen harriers, goshawks, buzzards,
golden eagles and sparrowhawks. There are now believed to be 200
breeding pairs of hen harriers in Britain, and 1,402 pairs of
peregrines, many nesting in the towers of office blocks, cathedrals
and even London's Tate Modern. The arrival of an osprey guarantees a
torrent of cars and caravans, lenses and camcorders. The RSPB has a
million members and the currently fashionable raptors are big-time
leisure.
Needless to say, to every action there is a reaction, but in this case
it is one that poses a real moral dilemma. It has split ornithology
between the raptor and the songbird lobbies. The RSPB is the only
place where hawk v dove is no cliche.
The harsh truth is that birds of prey are what they say, and the prey
is mostly other birds. You name it, they eat it, with a taste for
lapwings, finches, plovers, curlews, skylarks and oyster catchers,
many killed on the wing. Nor do they turn up their beaks at duck,
pigeon, seagull, grouse or ptarmigan. Even as Worcester was cosseting
its avian terrorists, the authorities warned owners of racing pigeons
to keep them indoors. Long gone are the days when killing a pigeon was
like shooting a postman (which is what the pigeon often was).
Peregrines are relatively choosy. Their preference for pigeons and
seagulls has made them welcome to many towns infested with these
pests. But kites, which can be seen wheeling over the M40, are
reportedly devastating the Chiltern small mammal population. Hen
harriers wiped out Scottish grouse moors. As for sparrowhawks, I am
told that they consume at least one songbird a day, not least those
belonging to a chagrined Prince of Wales. When Queen Victoria
complained about birds befouling the Great Exhibition, the Duke of
Wellington replied briskly, "I suggest sparrowhawks, ma'am."
The letters columns of the Times have leapt predictably to life. KC
Murray, of the songbird party, complained this week that the RSPB had
"fallen into the hands of extremists who are obsessed only with birds
of prey, and who wish to use my and other members' money to promote
policies that lead to the death of other bird species".
He cited the genocidal carnage unleashed by raptors on redshanks,
goldfinches, bullfinches, chaffinches, sparrows, dotterels, golden
plovers, curlews, skylarks and meadow pipits. Worse, goshawks were
stemming the return of that furry favourite of the north, the red
squirrel.
Murray's RSPB is clearly a place riven between raptor and songbird
factions, between leather-booted, bomber-jacketed bikers racing round
the corridors and Laura Ashley-dressed maidens warbling lark song by
the watercooler. There was no way the raptor lobby was going to stay
quiet in the face of Murray's attack.
Ernest Garcia duly divebombed Murray at 150mph out of the sun.
Claiming to have been twice as long in the RSPB, he roared that "the
often-voiced lament that the bad birds are eating all the good birds
has more basis in sentiment than in science". Murray was apparently
nothing more than a tit-loving wimp. The rising number of raptors,
wrote Garcia, could only be due to a rise in the prey population. This
Malthusian ornithology cannot be correct. It is like saying grouse
numbers must be increasing or there would not be more hen harriers to
eat them.
Anyway Garcia wants to lay off the raptors and concentrate on cats,
which he hates. "Predation by cats has a very large effect on songbird
populations. Unlike wild cats, domestic cats occur locally at
densities far above what could be possible in nature, since they are
supported by food handouts at home. In effect, they are subsidised
predators that kill millions of small birds and other animals every
year."
The only moral of this story is that human intervention is everywhere.
I cannot see how a subsidised predator is a greater offence against
nature - or this law of the jungle - than a legally protected
predator. Perhaps the government should introduce cat-eating condors.
The lesson of the natural history bombardment at present is that
managing the planet, especially our crowded corner of it, involves
painful choices, as between snow leopards and goats and hawks and
sparrows. The RSPB's current pro-raptor line is that bird of prey
densities are below the "carrying capacity" of their habitats. In
other words, live and let die. Besides, the legally encouraged return
of raptors is popular after centuries of persecution.
I accept that the sight of kites and buzzards wheeling in the sky over
the Welsh mountains is thrilling. But the arrival in British towns of
these cannibals, however majestic, is a heavy price to pay for the
loss of songbirds. I also loathe the uncontrolled seagulls, magpies
and Canada geese that infest the places where I live. They are the
grey squirrels of the air.
If I must express a preference, it will always be for song over
spectacle. The sight of a bird is a delight, but its song is the very
music of heaven. So keep the raptors in their place. And I promise to
keep the cat under control.
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