Unscientific, unjustified and developed without consultation with conservation or animal welfare groups. This blog looks at why the license to cull 300 ravens in Perthshire must be withdrawn immediately.
For a long time, I thought ravens were naturally upland birds. I associated their ethereal and atmospheric croaking with days in the mountains in Wales and Scotland. What I didn’t realise then was that their limited distribution was a hangover from aggressive persecution.
Ravens were pushed to near extinction in Britain by the early 20th Century. Considered vermin, they were persecuted on an enormous scale until they were forced out of the lowlands and clung on only in small pockets. They were finally given protection in 1981, and in recent times persecution has been restrained for the most part and the population has begun to recover. They’re returning to the lowlands, and even appear to be entering urban environments, with ravens now back in Edinburgh and Stirling.
Here the story should end. Conservationists and policy-makers should pat themselves on their backs and marvel at the efficacity of Government intervention in preventing extinction. Predictably, however, it doesn’t.
The raven has long had a PR problem, as their collective noun – an unkindness of ravens – clearly demonstrates. Farming and gamekeeper communities have not embraced their return, accusing these dark manifestations of evil of preying on lamb, wading birds and – heaven forbid – game birds. There is no space for nature to be cruel in our uplands, it seems, only man. The media have covered the growing hysteria with relish. Attack of the killer ravens, shouts the Mail, whilst the Scottish Farmer warns that ravens are running riot and killing for fun. Killing for fun? Ravens are meant to be intelligent. Surely, they understand that only humans are allowed to do that…
Inevitably this has led to increasing clamours for culls, and these appear to have landed on sympathetic ears within Scottish Natural Heritage, the Government agency charged with protecting nature. Last week it was revealed by Raptor Persecution Scotland that they had licensed the cull of 300 ravens over a five-year period in a large area of Perthshire to the east of Loch Tay. The Scottish breeding population is somewhere in the range of 2,500 to 6,000 pairs, so this is without doubt a large-scale cull. Whilst the details of this licence have yet to be made public – such is the opaqueness of much ‘wildlife management’ in Scotland – the cull is, in the words of an SNH spokesman “a large-scale collaborative trial which will help improve our understanding of factors affecting key wader species, populations of which are declining at an alarming rate.”
Waders are declining at an alarming rate, and this is a large-scale cull, but the helpfulness of this statement ends there. If SNH want to improve their understanding of the role raven control could play, their starting point should probably be the academic literature rather than the keys to the gun locker. As many have pointed out since the announcement, researchers from the RSPB and University of Aberdeen published a paper in 2010 that assessed the link between recovering raven populations and wader declines. It concluded that there are “no significant negative associations between raven abundance and population changes in upland waders, and so does not provide support to justify granting of licences for the lethal control of ravens.”
Perhaps that’s why the RSPB weren’t consulted on this ambitious ‘research’. Which brings us to the collaborative nature of the ‘collaborative trial’. The collaboration appears to have been restricted to shooting and farming interests, with SNH failing to consult key conservation organisations including the Scottish Raptor Study Group, who monitor ravens and birds of prey in the area, and the RSPB, let alone animal protection groups like OneKind.
In fact, we are unaware of any assessment of the impact this cull will have on the welfare of ravens. SNH have a commitment in place to “use peer reviewed scientific evidence to underpin our welfare considerations and where appropriate develop staff guidance to help understand the range of ethical views within particular welfare issue.” It will be interesting to see how this has been applied to the raven cull, and indeed what method of killing is being advised.
Both the RSPB and the SRSG have been damning in their response. The RSPB expressed outrage at the news and are calling for the licence to be withdrawn. It’s important to understand that the RSPB is not opposed to corvid control in principle – 487 crows were killed on their reserves in 2016/17 for conservation reasons – which makes their response all the more serious an indictment on the credibility of this proposed cull.
Then there’s the scientific credibility of what is proposed. The area where this cull will take place selected itself and is a well-known hotspot for wildlife crime, there is no control site to compare it to, no independent monitoring in place… the list goes on. I think we can be confident that the findings of this trial will not be making their way into a scientific journal.
In the absence of a better explanation then, the real motive for this cull, as the RSPB note, appears to be a desire to protect high densities of red grouse that are needed for recreational shooting. Like the mountain hare culls, illegal raptor persecution, and the widespread killing of foxes, stoats, weasels and other corvids like crows, it looks like ravens are set to be yet another victim of the perversities of managing so much of Scotland’s uplands as a playground for grouse shooters.
What you can do
- Sign this petition
- Email Mike Cantlay, Chair of Scottish Natural Heritage, and explain why you think SHN should withdraw the licence – chair@snh.gov.uk
I wrote to Mr Cantlay a few days ago:
Dear Mike Cantlay,
I’ve read the report about the SNH granting a licence to shoot ravens in an area already known for widespread raptor persecution, with much alarm. I’ve also read your ‘reasons’ for doing so, which are unclear and positively flaky, suggesting ulterior motives and a sucking up to an unspoken vested interest.
Sadly in England we have seen exactly this sort of thing before, by way of the badger cull. A policy that posed as ‘science’ when it was nothing of the sort, Licensed by Natural England against opposition of some of it’s own ecologists who could see the wider ecological perils of this action, and their objections resulted in them losing their jobs. Then the first year of ‘culling’ failed even NE’s criteria of effectiveness, cost effectiveness and humane killing, but still the badger cull roll outs continued escalating each year, and all monitoring was scrapped.
The common denominator in both the English badger cull and in Scotland’s proposed raven ‘cull’ is the hunting industry. And given the area proposed has already seen some appalling raptor persecution, it should therefore, be the last place a raven cull should take place. NE has lost all credibility, please ensure SNH doesn’t follow their lead.
Sincerely,
Ama Menec – Sculpture and Environment and Animal Protection Coordinator for the Totnes CLP.
Dear Mr Cantlay
I am writing to you regarding the SNH prosal to cull 300 Ravens. These are my thoughts and i hope you will take a moment to read them.
There was a recent story that ravens had killed numerous new born lambs somewhere in Scotland. Is that what this is all about? I have a very small number of sheep myself which we lamb indoors where possible. I can imagine that being really difficult to achieve if you had hundreds of ewes! Although it’s not impossible for sheep farmers (in certain areas) to spend money on shelter to ensure the safety of their investment. Whats happening here? Are the ravens hungry? If so, why? Has something they rely on been lost or changed ie:change to habitat? Have they got youngsters and therefore themselves needing additional feed? Has climate change meant that the ravens have their young at earlier or later times? Are the lambs being born at different times? Seasonal shifts are going to cause more and more clashes eventually so is there a clash here? Have the lambs been introduced into the area and werent there before? Newborn lambs are openly at risk of being predated by birds and foxes etc, there’s no mistake of that. You can’t necessarily blame the raven for that likewise leaving your hens out and not expecting them to be taken by a fox! I too would be distraught to find my lambs mutilated with their eyes pecked out but nine times out of ten there’s an answer. I remember the magpies stealing our hens eggs every day for about a week but it eventually stopped as quickly as it started and i think they had young in the nest. I think that when these things happen there is an unbalance, a reason that we must consider carefully before taking any kind of culling action. These birds are strongly protected but when you overly protect, the numbers will rocket and maybe the habitat they are in cannot sustain those larger numbers? It’s how things go! Our reaction is then to cull en mass because it becomes a ‘problem’. This is not management, and more needs to be done to sit and discuss the basics of man v nature. We interfere, we cause imbalance.
Kindest regards
Centuries of habitat destruction is the problem here. The balance of nature has been systematically destroyed by agriculture and deforestation.
Upland Britain, overrun by sheep and devoid of forest and other natural habitats that should be there encourage corvid over population. The excessive carrion resulting particularly at lambing time provides ample food supply that would not naturally be available.
The same issues apply to grouse moors and lowland livestock farms. Lack of habitat for nesting birds increases vulnerability from all predators, including man.
On lowland livestock farms excessive silaging and incessant hedge flailing, removal and degradation from livestock browsing has resulted in unprecedented habitat destruction.
Restore wildlife habitat on a landscape scale and the true balance of nature will return. This is not rocket science, this is common sense.
People and politicians must stand up and be counted. Stop romanticising British farming and the pastoral countryside, it masks a tide of environmental destruction responsible for the loss of countless species and biodiversity on an unprecedented scale, and contributes massively to climate change.
Grouse moors and sheep farming must be eradicated from all upland Britain. Rewilding, refoestation, restoring the natural balance, must happen, and urgently.
Sheep and gamekeepers, the scourge of the planet!
Restoration of estuarine natural habitat must also happen. Rewild these areas. Create buffer zones against farming, where vegetation can develop naturally, providing improved habitat for nesting birds, so they have somewhere to hide!
I would like to thank everyone who has signed, shared and supported my petition to stop this dreadful and very ill thought out cull, SNH should be ashamed of themselves and need to do the decent thing and withdraw the licenses and put a stop to this nonsense now.
They and many organisations are trying to keep in with the landowners who will kill anything to protect game shooting, we as a nation of animal lovers are saying yet again that enough is enough.
Here in South East Wales we regularly patrol on the ground to stop indiscriminate, often illegal shooting of deer, badgers and general wildlife crime.
Much of this shooting goes on under the nose of a largely oblivious public.
Native Red and Roe Deer ( and Badgers ) are being killed illegally at night using hard to detect shooters using thermal imagers and sound moderators on rifles.
Natural Resources Wales appear to be operating a shoot on sight policy for re colonising Roe and Red Deer, both indigenous species making a historic return following centuries of absence.
Welsh Government panders to the Welsh farming community, perpetuating upland destruction due to sheep grazing and poor forest management and general land use policy.
Even trying to delay and deter Beaver reintroduction, which is now accepted in Scotland and England.
WYE VALLEY FOREST PROTECTION GROUP
PLEASE STOP KILLING OUR WILDLIFE. THANKYOU.
PLEASE STOP KILLING OUR WILDLIFE. THANKYOU.
Why are we continually intent on destroying the ecosystem in this world? Please look at this again and find alternatives to yet another killing spree of this countries wildlife.
I think there has been some very interesting and intelligent comments made re: the proposed culling of Ravens, which certainly opens up a whole new argument as to what is happening to our wildlife and habitats in this country.
It strikes me as a lay person, but someone who has deep concerns at the persecution currently unfolding in all parts of our countryside, that these problems as highlighted, need to be tackled “as one”
Raptor persecution, Badger culls, hare killing, habitat destruction, wildlife crime, hunting (which supposed to be illiegal) etc – the list seems to be growing all the time.
Can our many animal welfare , conservation groups of all kinds, get their best brains together (a kind of “problem solving” summit) and share intelligence, solutions, which they see as the only way forward, and present their findings and solutions to all the political parties for their manifesto’s.
As with the plastic in our environment, if well respected organisations such as the RSPB , One Kind and others get together, share resources, surely when the truth is out, the majority of the British people will listen and hopefully act.
Dear Mike Cantlay,
One would ask that the licence for culling Ravens on such a scale issued to the Strathbraan Community Collaboration for Waders be revoked until all parties have been consulted and the methodology of assessments and judgements leading to this controversial decision examined as to dismiss any flaws or bias within the decision making process. The provision of safeguards and impact assessment is essential for said actions, given a historical background of dubious events and circumstances that could otherwise damage the wider interests of the Scottish heritage, the loss of iconic wildlife that attract so many visitors, people’s perception of care over its welfare and likelihood of an observation.
My planned visit to Scotland later this year is to do just that, shall I bother.