Eagle killed by bait laced with poison ..............

[El Annie]

.............A rare sea eagle has been found deliberately poisoned on Sir Cameron Mackintosh’s Highland estate, police confirmed yesterday. The female eagle, which died after eating bait laced with pesticide, was discovered by a hillwalker in the Morar peninsula, near Mallaig, in the west Highlands. Police believe that the dead bird was the remaining eagle of a breeding pair and that her mate was killed the same way at the same spot last May.
More information -
Times
Scotsman
BBC

Farming and birds: an historic perspective....................

Changes in farming have always had a profound impact on the countryside. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Parliamentary Enclosure and arterial drainage led to the loss of large areas of semi-natural habitat, but while species such as Great Bittern Botaurus stellaris, the harriers Circus and Black Grouse Tetrao tetrix certainly declined, the impact of these changes on the majority of farmland birds was surprisingly limited.This was largely because mixed farming systems developed at the same time. 'High farming' proved beneficial to many farmland species, raising fertility and providing new food supplies, particularly in winter.
More information - British Birds

conserv@tion today - http://www.habitat.org.uk/news1.htm

Annie

[Johnny1]

Annie reading of the poisoning of the Eagles makes me so angry and fills me with contempt for these morons, I wish more could be done to protect birds of prey but every year we hear of poisonings, eggs being smashed or stolen and sitting birds being killed on the nest.

[Andrew]

Makes my blood boil like water on lava!!!

[simontucker]

Malky

Why do they need to poison anything? That is the root of the problem: gamekeepers think that they can kill anything that gets in the way of Lord Inbred killing as many grouse / pheasant / whatever as possible.

In my view after the first poisoning MacIntosh should have been warned and after this one he should have his land confiscated and handed over to the Scottish Wildlife operation - he does not deserve to keep it as he obviously allows, even if he does not explicitly condone, his keepers' activities.

[winkle]

Simon T.

Would you have a problem with RSPB controlling preditors?

The aims are more or less the same.

[simontucker]

The aims are NOT the same. In general this country has no predators that need controlling, except for in very special circumstances.

Hedgehogs in inappropriate places and general management of natural resources being undertaken to ensure the greatest diversity and well-being of wildlife is one issue, the destruction of wild animals because they interfere with h. sapiens leisure pursuits is another. The last time I looked the RSPB was not using or advocating any methods of indiscriminate slaughter - like poisoned baits or leg traps - but lethal injection (hedgehogs) and shooting (ruddy duck).

I am disappointed that anyone posting to this board could even try to tie the RSPB's actions to those of criminal gamekeepers. Poison baits are criminal regardless of what they are left out for. Don't misread, I am not saying that all gamekeepers use criminal methods - but many do.

[winkle]

RSPB routinely control both bird and mammal preditors.

Source - RSPB staff members and quite high up ones, too.

I was working on the North Kent Marshes when it was in the experimental stage. Elmley was one of the controls where no culling would happen. I was also at a public meeting not too long ago where a senior RSPB reserve warden was bemoaning the fact that they could not get a licence to "remove" a Badger that was causing havoc.

If the aim of controlling preditors is to maximize productivity for what the land holding is being managed for, then the aim is the same.

I was not condoning the use of poison, but responding to the blanket slagging off of gamekeepers. There are bad eggs, there are in any profession, but have always found it more productive to work with and educate keepers not run them down.

[simontucker]

Malky - I suggest that before you try to be any holier you actually read what I said. You would not suggest that Ythan was a special circumstance? I would.

Winkle - persecution of birds of prey is almost exclusively a hobby of criminal gamekeepers, farmers and their allies - which is not the same thing as saying that all gamekeepers are criminal. I don't have statistics for the number of non-criminal gamekeepers who do not persecute birds of prey, but every persecuted bird of prey is a criminal act whomsoever carries it out, be it gamekeeper, farmer or other criminal.

Whereas there are plenty of farmers making obvious and well-publicised efforts to be good citizens with a genuine respect for the environment and the requirements of wildlife, I have not come across any similarly promoted initiatives working with the keeping profession to sustain and increase the number of merlin, golden eagles, red kite and hen harrier - but plenty of stories of persecution which can be put at their door.

[winkle]

I could take you to a couple of keepered estates in Kent that were only too happy to help when we were exploring the possiblities of introducing Red Kite.

One of the estate managers phoned me with great exitement and pride a couple of years ago, to tell me they had Buzzard nesting on the estate.

I have lost count of the number of estates and farms we have put Barn Owl boxes up on.

A landowner that was prosacuted a few years ago for poisoning Marsh Harrier is now working closely with EN & RSPB on Sheppey, along with other landowners, because of education.

Can't speak for other parts of the country, but that's been my first hand experience in East Kent.

It took a long time to gain the confidence of landowners, and the attitude that all farmers and gamekeepers are all two headed monsters does not help moving things forward. I know you did not say that, but I continally encounter it from armchair conservationists.