Every time Scottish Natural Heritage tries to take back control of the narrative surrounding its appalling decision to issue a raven-killing licence to a bunch of grouse moor owners and gamekeepers, ‘just to see what happens’, it digs itself deeper and deeper in to a disastrous PR hole.
Just when you thought SNH couldn’t cock this up any more than it already has, and with a public petition against the raven cull now standing at over 90,000 signatures, this happened:
On Saturday, BBC Radio Scotland’s Out of Doors programme aired an interview with Nick Halfhide, Director of Sustainable Development at SNH, whose briefing had obviously included the instructions ‘Make sure you talk about saving waders. Waders, waders, waders. Don’t worry about the science, because there isn’t any, just talk about saving waders’.
The programme is available on iPlayer for the next 27 days (here, starts at 35:33 mins).
Here’s the transcript:
Euan McIlwraith: ….Earlier this week I spoke to Nick Halfhide, Director of Sustainable Development for SNH on that decision to grant the licence.
NH: We’ve given a licence, a one-year licence, to control up to 69 ravens down in Strathbraan in Perthshire to remove ravens, but it’s actually about saving waders, that’s what this is about. Wader numbers have declined by more than 50% in the last 20 years and they’re a red-listed species. Ravens, taking 69 out of a population of over 15,000 won’t make a dent in that at all so this is about saving waders.
EM: How often do you issue a licence for the culling of raven?
NH: We’ve issued a number of licences in recent years to cull ravens for agricultural purposes, for lambing and that sort of thing, this is the first one we’ve issued specifically for waders. But we do issue under General Licence for control of other corvid birds so that’s crows as well as other birds that are having a strong impact on things like waders.
EM: We’re on a moor at the moment, a heather-clad moorland. What is the problem with ravens? What’s the impact they have?
NH: What they do, and you’ll have heard this from gamekeepers, in some areas they come as a flock and they will sweep down and they will take away either the eggs or slightly later the chicks from breeding waders and they’ll take out that year’s population of new birds. That’s essentially the problem here.
EM: There’s two levels of argument going on here. One it’s legitimate protection for wading birds. The other one is for grouse, because the ravens will take grouse chicks and grouse eggs as well, so the shooting estates will benefit.
NH: They will undoubtedly benefit from them although as I understand in that part of the world grouse are doing rather well, but what we’re concerned about as a conservation organisation are the waders and as I said, they’ve reduced by 50% in the last 20 years and that’s very significant. Red-listed, can you imagine going up into the hills and not hearing that distinctive curlew cry and seeing that wonderful display that you get from lapwings and that’s what, that’s our main focus here.
EM: Is it lapwing, curlew habitat, you know, because part of the problem is the circle that draws around this protection area or this cull area includes three rather large grouse moors.
[Map showing amount of grouse moor in the Strathbraan raven cull area, by RPUK]:
NH: Yeah but this is prime habitat we’re talking about here for lapwing and curlew. There are good populations there at the moment, we wanna make sure they remain good and they export birds out in the future. The fact it’s a grouse moor, it is a grouse moor but there’s also improved agricultural land, there are, these habitats are intertwined and that’s where the lapwing and curlew are strong at the moment and we want to keep it that way.
EM: So you don’t feel you’ve been duped then?
NH: No not at all. We’re delighted that we’ve got land managers helping us to save these birds and ultimately it’s great that we can maintain populations on small reserves but its the people out in the countryside, gamekeepers and farmers, we need to get them on board because they’re the future of these birds, not just keeping them on small reserves with fences around them, that isn’t the future.
EM: Were you surprised at the reaction from both sides of the argument?
NH: We were surprised that it got this high profile but we understand that there are passionate people in this field and we got lots of support for this action but we’ve also heard lots of people who find it difficult, and we understand killing things is difficult. But we also understand that if we’re gonna save these waders, we do need to kill some birds, whether they be ravens, and indeed the conservation NGOs regularly kill other birds, crows, on a much larger scale than we’re talking about here, so it’s a well-known tool to help our most endanagered birds.
EM: ‘Cos one of the criticisms that was suggested to me was why not study them in depth, do the science, before a cull, rather than seeing the impact after the cull?
NH: Yeah, there’s lots of science on this already and the science in 2010 showed there was maybe a weak link but still one that was worth, worth further investigation. So we had a choice, we can either do more science, which is always welcome, or, we can get on and do it. Science is partly about rigorous scientific studies but its also the knowledge of people who work on the land on a day to day basis, and what they’re telling us, the evidence they give us, is that ravens are causing a problem here, so let’s trial it, and this is just a trial, see what happens, and we’re gonna have some really comprehensive monitoring. Is there a link that says yep, we’ll carry on with the trial and we maybe need to do some more science to look at this in more detail alongside it.
EM: Has it got the potential to be rolled out across Scotland, across many grouse moors because as you say, it is waders’ habitat as well?
NH: We need to look and see what this trial comes up with first. I think rolling it out it’s far too early to say, this is fairly site-specific, but what we would welcome is other groups of land managers on a large scale coming forward and saying, you know, we’ve observed a particular problem in our land, can we trial it and see if we can get these waders, ‘cos this is about waders not about ravens.
EM: Yeah but would it not make more sense for all the groups to get together like the RSPB, the Raptor Study Groups, and the landowners, to put in a joint application? It seems to be folk either side of the fence which naturally leads to conflict.
NH: Yeah, we would welcome a joint application but I think we need to wind back a little bit here, 2016 we did get everyone around the table, Understanding Predation, and that was about bringing together that various different interests. The hard science, the experience of people on the ground, the conservation bodies, the public sector, to agree the way forward and one of the things that that agreed was we did need to do more trials to see what happens and we can learn from that as well as continuing with the hard science, the hard evidence gathering.
EM: You’re kind of piggy in the middle here, there’s some pretty heavy politics.
NH: That’s our role, we’ve here to help bring everyone together because, you know, we’re Scotland’s leading nature body, our role on behalf of Government and behalf of the people of Scotland, is to get some of these more polarised discussions in a safer place so that we can do difficult things, because, it’s all about the waders, and that was what Understanding Predation was about and our role is to push that through, get people to the table, but not also to shirk from making difficult decisions, when it’s in the interest of the waders.
EM: Is this going to happen, because lots of people are lobbying Ministers, from either side of the argument?
NH: Well that’s what we need to try and move this forward, we need to take the heat out of this, we need to take the personalities out of this, we need to stop people sending in some really vicious stuff to us about this, let’s cool it all down, let’s move forward, let’s bring the evidence together, and great, get everyone round the table, let’s have more trials whether it’s about ravens or other things so we can really test to see what we can learn from this kind of approach.
ENDS
Good grief.
What on earth is going on at SNH? Since when has this supposed scientific statutory agency ignored peer reviewed science, sidelined important stakeholders, and instead made policy decisions based solely on made up stories spewed out by an industry with a well-known reputation for its hatred and intolerance towards predators?
Well, since now, judging by Mr Halfhide’s comments.
What next? A cull of sea eagles because they might take small children and babies (see here)? A cull of goshawks because they’re “non-native” (see here)? A cull of red kites because they’re “annihilating sand martins” (see here)?
Please keep writing (politely) to Environment Secretary Roseanna Cunningham, urging her to intervene and suspend the raven cull licence, even temporarily, while we await the findings of the SNH Scientific Advisory Committee’s licence review. Emails to: cabsececclr@gov.scot
And if you haven’t already signed the petition against the raven cull, please consider adding your voice to 90,000 others here.
Raptor Persecution UK 