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Message: <blockquote data-quote="terry pickford" data-source="post: 1710237" data-attributes="member: 53816">The way raptors are being decimated on Northern England's Grouse moors, in particular the goshawk and hen harrier, with only 3 productive pairs in Bowland last year of the latter, it would seem foolhardy for conservationists to support the legal eradication of the few eagle owls that have managed to evade illegal persecution by gamekeepers. From the evidence I have seen eagle owls do not pose a threat to other upland raptors in my view at this time; gamekeepers will see to it that they never will. The threat to existing raptor populations in our country has always been from their illegal persecution by the game shooting fraternity, not from the eagle owl. The UK authorities should focus their attention on this more important issue by working harder to bring such criminal activity under control before embarking upon an eradication of a species that is only perceived to pose a threat. There is a dangerous assumption being made here by so called invisible experts that the Eurasian eagle owl was never indigenous in the UK and never will be. How can anyone say that with a 100% certainty!  On the balance of probability there is a higher chance that a small number of eagle owls from Europe in the last few hundred years did exist, and that some of these birds certainly may have stayed to breed. If any owls originating from Europe still remain, if the proposed cull goes ahead we will never know the truth, these birds will be eradicated with all the rest. That in my view would be a tragedy, because we simply do not know leaving more than a little doubt until further research is undertaken to establish the truth.</blockquote>

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