ONCE again facts are ignored to promote the protection of raptors ("Attacks on birds of prey down despite 'worst ever' poisoning", The Herald, April 1).
The Partnership for Action Against Wildlife Crime (PAW) repeats the strategy of including in its statistics incidents which may or may not have involved a crime to bolster their statistics. The poisoning of raptors in the Black Isle described as "worst ever" was comprehensively investigated by Police Scotland and found to have been an accidental poisoning.
No sane person would dream of defending the illegal destruction of wildlife, but am I alone in finding there is a contradiction in the focused protection of certain raptors? I wonder who decides that one species is more worthy of protection than another? Why are quarry species of these privileged raptors deemed of less or no value in comparison? There appears to be a hierarchy even within raptors as the Scottish Raptor Study Group reports a 67 per cent decline in kestrels caused in part by the increase in numbers of the "favoured" raptors.
I hesitate to suggest that this could possibly be because wildlife charities value certain species more than others for their funding and political campaigns, but it certainly is illogical at best.
David Stubley,
22 Templeton Crescent, Prestwick.
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