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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Kincraig" data-source="post: 3757135" data-attributes="member: 142707">You and I won't agree about the blog. I've read it extensively and I don't believe that the author shoots, or supports grouse shooting. I also strongly suspect that you feel that I too speak "the language of grouse-shooting propaganda", with the assertion that I am "anxious to show that Ospreys target expensive game fish". How do I know that the osprey was catching trout? Because I was in a boat right beside it fishing for the same species! There are no pike in that loch, just trout, char and a very occasional salmon. Pike are taken by osprey elsewhere, of course (easy prey given their habit of sitting still just under the surface on sunny days) but not on that loch. Trout up here are not an expensive game fish, there are many lochs that are either free or charge a nominal fee. It's different in the beautiful and world-famous streams of Hampshire, but a lot of trout are stocked there and the brownies up here are wild and plentiful. I've fished in that loch when the osprey hit the water within 25m of the boat, a sight that thrills all of the fishermen that I know. The day that I described with all of the raptors was exceptional, but maybe part of the reason for my luck is that I was there all day and the fishing was lousy, so I sat in the boat with binoculars instead, just watching the deer and the birds. The osprey are common there, as are the peregrine and buzzard. The goldie's are less common but frequently seen and the sea eagle is regular there nowadays.I don't shoot grouse and have no desire to, and I don't have any desire to shoot pheasants either, but I do shoot some/most of the meat that I and my family eat (mostly rabbits and roe deer). I like to know that the meat that I eat is healthy and has lived a proper life, not stuffed in a barn with no natural light and a poor diet with lots of antibiotics. Partly as a result I have a keen interest in the natural world, conservation and the balance of nature, although I've been a bird watcher since I was a child. What I have realised from the reading I do is that there is rarely an easy answer in conservation and often the law of unintended consequences prevails. The RSPB have found that themselves, and are killing foxes and crows in exactly the same ways as the sporting estates (often using ex-gamekeepers to do the dirty work with the instruction to keep quiet about it). One of the local farmers at their reserve at Loch Insh was telling me all about the fox cull just a few weeks back. Conservation is not always pleasant but the RSPB obviously believe that conservation is enhanced when predation is kept down.You and I will agree that raptor persecution should be stamped out and that guilty parties should have the full weight of the law brought to bear against them. All shooters that I know (and the few keepers that I know too) agree with that, and I hope and believe that the tide of illegal persecution is turning. There are still cases of illegal persecution - I read today of a keeper in Cumbria taken away for killing two owls. Disgusting.As I mentioned, the law of unintended consequences often seems to be there with nature conservation. I suspect that if your wish to see the back of grouse moors comes true there will be negative effects for many species. Time may yet provide an answer.</blockquote>

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