Date published: 2008/11/19
The BBC says:
The number of birds of prey killed illegally in Scotland is "deeply troubling", a conservation group has said.
Crimes against the birds remain at "worryingly high" levels, according to the latest report from RSPB Scotland.
It comes days after it emerged that a white-tailed eagle was found poisoned near the Glenogil estate in Angus in May.
The charity said such crimes were damaging Scotland's raptor populations.
The Birds of Prey Persecution 2007 study showed that crimes against the birds had dropped since the previous year but remained high.
There were 69 allegations or reports of poisoning in 2007, compared with 98 in 2006.
Of these, 37 were confirmed as pesticide or poison abuse killing or threatening raptors, down on 42 the year before.
It was the worst year on record for red kite poisoning, with 12 birds dying.
...
Many of the raptors are killed by people trying to protect grouse populations on country estates, who perceive the birds as a threat.
The figures have dropped (perhaps that is just a stastical fluctuation) but the RSPB still has to send out an alarmist press release, which the BBC obligingly prints. And the figures do not seem particularly "worryingly high", but pretty much anything that happens to birds is considered "troubling" by the RSPB, because they are concerned more about birds than about people. And of course although the academic middle class people that make up the RSPB see benefit in having these birds around, it is equally obvious that estate owners might well "perceive the birds as a threat". Is the RSPB willing to compensate these owners for losses?
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