Recent accusations from the raptor lobby of misinformation and hysteria by the SGA on raptor issues has me thinking, kettle, pot and black.
A recent story concerning the successful fledging of two eaglets from Remony Estate in Perthshire is a case in point.
The fact that the eagles have fledged is good news but the implication in the story that this is a rare event because it happened on a grouse moor is completely and deliberately misleading. A large portion of all eagles fledging takes place on grouse moors across Scotland. Many grouse moors do not have the isolated nesting habitat which is required by eagles so it should come as no surprise they don’t nest there. (Although there are many ill informed raptor anoraks out there who won’t accept this)
Where they do nest they have the same if not a better success regarding chick production as elsewhere in Scotland. This year one of the many nests in the Angus glens area produced three chicks, all of which fledged. This was obviously a very unusual occurrence as we are told that even two is rare. Not surprisingly, the raptor lobby, which were very aware of this success, did not see fit to publicise this story.
Could it be that because the Estates in Angus are not part of any countryside watch scheme and because they prefer to stay independent, they do not merit good publicity in the eyes of the raptor lobby?
After all if all the upland estates with successful eagle nests received the same level of patronising gratitude that Remony received the raptor lobby couldn’t continue to lambaste them in the press.
Most of the other drip drip feed to the media is also laced with half truths and omissions, take the eagles to Ireland issue. The public have been led to believe that the reason only chicks from nests with two are taken for reintroduction is because one chick will eat the other, so by removing one you have effectively saved its life. This is definitely a case of being economic with and stretching the truth.
Young eagles will eat their siblings but only if the food source is inadequate or one of the chicks is a weakling. This infanticide usually takes place in the first couple of weeks not when both chicks are almost fully fledged and ready to leave the nest, which is when these extra chicks are harvested for reintroduction.
Although the introduction of these chicks to Ireland is a laudable but slightly flawed exercise the public were again fed limited information. It was well known in raptor circles about the level of poisoning in Ireland because over there it was perfectly legal to use poison to control foxes and crows etc. This potential danger was never admitted to and when the SGA finally brought it to every ones attention we were severely vilified in the media by the raptor lobby. Even to the point that the Irish eagle expert, Lorcan O’Toole, accused us of doing this only to divert the attention away from the problem of poisoning in Scotland. (no Lorcan our concerns were genuine) He stated at that time that poisoning in Ireland was not a threat to reintroduced birds. Checking recent figures, I wonder if he feels he may have been “mistaken”.
If you were to read all the media reports you could be forgiven for thinking that raptors only breed safely on reserves. The truth is there are possibly 500’000 raptors in the UK and 350’000 of them will be breeding successfully on land used for game sport shooting of some kind. This fact is completely ignored by those attempting to take the moral high ground.
The public can see for themselves the huge increase in raptor numbers over the last half century and accordingly are now questioning the “grave danger” hype being trotted out at every opportunity.
Those within the raptor lobby who continually highlight persecution are dwelling purely on the negative aspects of raptor issues. Although whatever persecution is taking place needs to be seriously addressed, their needs to be a more honest approach by the raptor lobby and a bit more time spent on promoting the positive elements of raptor successes.