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peter hayes

This is from last night's Scottish paper, The Herald.


AN ambitious and expensive project has been launched by Scottish Natural Heritage to encourage Orkney landowners to help halt the dramatic decline of one of the islands' birds of prey. If the executive approves the hen harrier recovery scheme, 90 farmers will be paid to recreate 1500 acres of grassland around nesting areas which have been grazed out by sheep. It should be launched in January and run for the next eight years. Based on other moorland management schemes, the cost will run to six figures and informal meetings with local farmers have shown a high degree of support on the islands. Scientists using satellite technology have pinpointed the cause of the worrying decline of the harriers - Britain's most persecuted bird of prey - as loss of vital rough grassland. The raptors have declined by more than 70% in the past 25 years on what was once the UK's harrier stronghold with more than 100 pairs. The scientist who headed the Orkney satellite research project, Dr Arjun Amar of the Game Conservancy Trust, will outline his findings today to the British Ecological Society meeting at the University of York. The harriers prey on voles, mice and small birds but are widely persecuted on the UK mainland for taking the young of red grouse on moorlands, leading to a long-running controversy over their deliberate killing by grouse-moor owners and shooting syndicates. The Game Conservancy Trust said yesterday it has been trying to find solutions to the conflict between conservationists who want the police to crack down on raptor persecution, and grouse-moor owners who want hen harriers culled to allow grouse to flourish for the guns. Its spokeswoman, Morag Walker, agreed yesterday there were ironies and these were highlighted earlier this week when SNH decided to cull 5000 hedgehogs on North and South Uist and Benbecula because they too predate on birds, the eggs and young of the internationally-important wading bird populations. An SNH scientist involved in the Orkney project refused to comment but Ms Walker pointed out: "This is a hugely difficult issue. "We have done much research with RSPB on the hen harrier grouse moor problem with the aim of bringing all sides together to solve the problems. "Hen Harriers are beautiful birds which happen to share a habitat with grouse. We want to ensure they both survive." The satellite images have revealed that Orkney farmers, who are improving their land to sustain more sheep and cattle, have encroached on the rough grassland, the preferred hunting habitat of the harriers. Farmers have increased the number of ewes on their grazing lands in response to the Common Agricultural Policy headage subsidy, with the unintended consequence that the rough grassland vital for the birds' survival is being grazed away. Hugh Halcro-Johnston, a farmer at Orphir on Orkney, said: "The hen harrier is important to people here and we welcome the efforts to reverse the decline. "We have red grouse on our moors and we shoot them but it is at the level of a hobby." -Dec 20th