The following article was published in the 10 August 2011 edition of Country Life:
The Scottish Gamekeepers’ Association (SGA) is renewing calls for licences to control buzzards. In a survey of some 950 gamekeepers across Britain, 76% said buzzards had a detrimental effect on game birds and 63% said they had a negative effect on wildlife. Sparrowhawks and goshawks were considered a similar nuisance, but marsh harriers, merlins, barn owls and ospreys were viewed more benignly, and the majority of keepers said kestrels and red kites had little or no adverse effect. More than 70% said badgers are a serious problem and the figure for pine martens was even higher on those estates that have them. Charles Nodder, political advisor of the National Gamekeepers’ Organisation, commented: “The idea that keepered land is a raptor desert is nonsense. But keepers understand the countryside and there is a clear indication that certain species are prevalent and having a deleterious effect on wildlife”.
The SGA came close to getting buzzard-control licensing in 2009, but incidents of raptor poisoning – including that of a golden eagle – weakened the case. SGA chairman Alex Hogg says: “We’ve lost the plot when it comes to the control of buzzards, badgers and ravens. Their populations need to be properly assessed each year and, if necessary, action should be taken to redress the balance. There’s no doubt buzzards have changed their predatory habits in the past 30 years. ‘Rogue’ buzzards have learned to predate chicks – and not just game birds: I saw one take three lapwing chicks. We don’t want to shoot every buzzard in Britain, we just want to control the rogue ones, but birds of prey are ‘sexy’ birds and nobody wants to take the first step to control them”.
The encouraging aspect of the survey was the spread and volume of wildlife; 83% of shoots reported the presence of lapwings, 75% had skylarks and 79% cuckoos. The geographic area covered – 1.3 million hectares (3.2 million acres) – is significant, too: five times that of the area of designated nature reserves, more than 13 times that of the RSPB reserves and nearly 60% of national parks.
The ‘survey’ referred to in the article was the ‘survey’ we discussed here on 21 July 2011. Since then, the report has been made public. You can read it, along with an interesting and entertaining discussion about its credibility, here.
Raptor Persecution UK 
Sorry, but I just don’t believe in the term “Rogue Birds of Prey”, as far as I’m concerned, they all behave naturally.
However, I do know that rogue Gamekeepers do exist, but who is going to control them?
It was not a proper survey they asked keepers opinions of what wildlife they had and whether they thought it was detrimental or not. So no real scientific basis for this nonsense at all just keepers prejudicial opinion. One hopes that the powers that be will sus this out quickly at treat it with the contempt it deserves. When are these half wits and I use the term deliberately going to start to understand basic ecology?
There have been several studies of buzzard predation at pheasant pens over the years – in response to just such calls as this. Strangely, when scientists are involved no mass killings ever seem to happen. Looks like the usual – we want the scientific result we asked for – rather than objectively looking at the problem….The main problem of course is the balance of the countryside being upset by relaesing millions of half tame prey items into the wild.
Keepers are not interested in understanding Ecology basic or otherwise, all the they think about is maximizing profit for there estate and their “Masters” the owners and managers. This means destroying, by any means, any Bird, Mammal that is a threat to there game birds. Until an estate Owner/Manager is jailed for these crimes the killing will continue. This means that the Police/Courts/Sheriffs/Judges etc. etc. need do their jobs properly, which I don’t believe will happen unless the Politicians force them to do so.
It amazes me how short sighted and selfish some of these Gamekeepers can be, around here we are plagued with Rabbits. local Rugby union club has had to relay its pitch several times at great expense and the local primary School has had its Vegatable plot cleaned out by them, The local wanabee Gamekeepers keep killing foxes, Stoats and Weasels to protect the Pheasants they put out annually without regard for the damage escalating Rabbit populations are causing due to lack of natural predation. God help the local Buzzard population if this goes ahead. Its the same with Corvids, they complain there’s to many yet their main predator “the Goshawk” they also want to control. with regards the survey, Self praise is no praise. It compares the work of some 5,000 full, part-time and wannabe gamekeepers with the work of the RSPB reserves yet conveniently fails to mention the work done and area covered by RSPB members, some 600,000 members took part in the big garden bird watch survey, thats 600,000 people putting food out for birds on a regular basis, providing nest boxes and planting wildlife friendly enviroments without having to pay someone to write something nice about them
Hello,
Not having a copy of Country Life to hand, would the someone be able to post the author and title of this article please.
G
The article isn’t attributed to a particular author – it is within a section called ‘Town & Country’, which is basically a collection of news items. This section is edited by Kate Green. The article is called ‘Change the law on buzzards’ and appears on page 57.
Thats ace.
Thank you very much.