A BTO research report, which looks quite good to me, is being used, wrongly, by SNH to justify further Raven culls.
The report, essentially, says that killing a few Ravens won’t make any difference to the Scottish Raven population level. That is certainly true (and I give you that finding freely – no charge!).
However, as SNH must know, they can only issue licences to kill Ravens if there is evidence of serious damage to livestock etc etc – this report does not address that point at all.
The SNH press release:
A report published today reveals that raven populations in Scotland are in a healthy condition.
The report, published by Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH), was commissioned to ensure the number of licences issued to control ravens won’t affect the population in the long term.
SNH issues licences to control ravens when they are causing serious damage to livestock, particularly lambs.
There has been an increase in the Scottish raven population of over 50% over the past 20 years, with Scotland holding the majority of the UK raven population.
Robbie Kernahan, SNH’s Head of Wildlife Management, said:
‘It’s our job to encourage healthy populations of native species as well as support rural businesses. Ravens can cause serious damage to livestock, particularly lambs. Where this is a serious problem, and there is no other solution, we issue licences for farmers to shoot and scare the birds. This research shows that the number of ravens killed under licence won’t put the Scottish population at risk. However, we will continue to monitor so we can adjust licence numbers when we need to.’.
Andrew Midgley, Environment and Land Use Policy Manager at NFU Scotland said:‘NFU Scotland welcomes the publication of this report. The licencing system provides a very important mechanism through which farmers can seek to prevent wildlife, which is legally protected, from causing serious agricultural damage.
Farmers apply to SNH for a licence to deal with a problem and it is for SNH to make decisions about granting licences on the basis of its knowledge of the population and species ecology. It is therefore vital that SNH has up-to-date population information.‘
To download the full report, see https://www.nature.scot/snh-research-report-1012-population-modelling-scottish-northern-raven-population
ENDS
Let us hope that SNH is never put in charge of the Scottish legal system – killing a few people won’t make any very noticeable difference to the Scottish human population but we have laws against it. We don’t say – ‘yehh, go on, a few murders don’t matter, there’ll be lots of people left’ – the laws are there because society has decided what it values.
It’s a pity to see BTO data – most of it collected by volunteers like myself – used in this way. When we are told that the BTO collects the data for the bullets for conservationists to fire we shouldn’t expect those bullets to be fired at the very wildlife which the volunteer data collectors thought they were protecting.
I’d be interested to hear from the BTO what they think of Raven culls. Was the BTO given the opportunity to comment in this press release and, if so , why did they not take it? But no, SNH chose the recipients of Raven-culling licences to comment on this piece of science in an entirely predictable way.
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Mark
The legislation actually allows for the issue of Licences to prevent serious damage, etc. There does not therefore need to be evidence of serious damage having had occurred or occurring in order for a Licence to be issued. The same applies to things like preserving air safety. You don’t have to have had a plane brought down by a bird before you can be issued a Licence to control birds on an airfield where you believe they will have that effect unless you control them (after you’ve ruled out practicable non-lethal options).
Robn – and how are you going to provide evidence of the possibility of serious damage if you have no evidence of serious damage? But the point remains, the status of the Raven population isn’t going to get you very far in this discussion is it?
What about the precautionary principal which is supposedly enshrined in EU environmental policy?
The cull in question was being used as a trial to see if killing was effective at helping waders. From what field workers in the area have written in comments here and on RPUK, it would mean eradicating the whole Raven population of that area. Roll it out across the whole country and you have more than killing just a few Ravens.
Robin’s suggestion is like the precautionary principal in reverse.
Indeed Prasad it is exactly the precautionary principle reversed.
I see Ravens everyday here in Mid Wales, where yes some farmers get licences to control Ravens. Yet the lambing fields around here are inhabited by a few ravens amongst the ewes and new lambs and yet I have never seen a Raven attack a lamb ( they are lambed in sheds so they have no opportunity to attack the ewes giving birth (except for our three ewes who always lamb outside but its hardly a decent sample size). What the ravens are eating is afterbirths and any lamb or ewe that dies.
However this is all irrelevant to the Strathbran cull because that was claimed as an experiment to determine whether a reduced raven density would assist improving wader productivity. Much more likely to help that wader productivity would be some habitat management— rewetting, allowing some fields to develop wet rough areas where chicks can hide and where there will be more wader food. I can remember not that long ago a conversation with a Nidderdale AONB farmer complaining about crows and kites taking all the waders out of a couple of damp fields. Said fields were bowling green short due to high density
sheep grazing even a middle aged old fart like me would be able to see almost every wader chick in the field without trying very hard. I said that the kites and crows were just taking advantage of a ready food source his sheep density was creating and that the waders had been fine when the previous grazier grazed the fields with a few beef cattle. Habitat is probably the key to maintaining wader numbers look at the results from RSPB Dovestone. Killing protected wildlife speculatively should be anathema to us all and SNH, whatever the effects or not on national populations!
Besides this is all an excuse for some grouse moors to kill ravens because they think they take lots of grouse eggs and chicks. Yet work in the past has shown that Magpies and Carrion Crows are much better at that than Ravens. ( I cannot unfortunately remember where I read about that!)
fyi like/dislike not working again, at lest not for me
Same with me Jbc (using “Chrome”) but if I refresh the page after choosing like/dislike and it registers.
I have cleared out my cache.
What i find staggering is that SNH would find the need to make this study.
What is different from this and a report studying how culling would effect Buzzards or in the future White-tailed Eagles.
The grouse lobby could use studies like this to legitimatise the culling of Hen Harriers or to make Redpath/Murphy/Merricks like ‘compromises’.
This is the agency which is supposed to be protecting the environment!
Exactly the plan…report released to soften the ground in advance of the announcement of this years Strathbraan licence. SNH are intent on ignoring the advice of their scientific advisers, the views of wildlife experts, the local community and the 250k folk that signed the petition and will pressing on with the same crazy political experiment in gamekeeper appeasement.
Has anyone ever produced independent peer-reviewed evidence of Raven attacks on healthy lambs? You see this prevention idea peddled extensively but it is all anecdotal. Where is the science?
Yeah. I wondered about that.
Simon/Wendy
I asked Martin Harper about this on his blog (many very interesting articles on the RSPB website by the way, I use RSS to obtain a selection)
here
https://community.rspb.org.uk/ourwork/b/martinharper/posts/a-response-to-news-that-licenses-have-been-granted-to-shoot-ravens-in-england
Too long to quote here, probably.
Very interesting, I wonder how this will be viewed by volunteers who monitor raptor species. I imagine that there will be some interesting conversations between the Scottish Raptor Study Groups and the BTO and SNH with regards to future monitoring.
I’ve read the report and it’s aims, including “provide information to inform decisions made by policy makers, regulators and managers regarding the management of raven populations.”.
It then set out aspects of Raven ecology which were covered by the report.
Why did SNH not try to inform policy makers of the the issues for farmers.
It did say: “Ravens come into conflict with people over their interactions with livestock, due to their ability to kill, injure and harass livestock, particularly recently born lambs and lambing ewes. The geographic extent, regularity and economic effects of such attacks are poorly understood but, at least in some cases, the impacts reported by individual sheep farmers can be high.”
I’m fairly sure that the issues covered in the report are well known and understood.
Why did the report not try to quantify the poorly understood aspects by carrying out a funded and correctly set up study into that?
Weird?
Not really. Just what I would have expected from SNH.
It may been what we might have expected of SNH Alex in its current sad way but we should expect, indeed demand much better of them in terms of rigorous science and a more rigorous approach to licensing of killing protected wildlife. Currently the whole thing is not transparent and is totally shameful.
I had direct evidence, eye witness account, of the mass killing of ravens when licences were given to a shooting estate on the Western Isles in the late 1980s/early 1990s…they had a caveat attached to the licence, a “bag limit” of a dozen birds. They killed 150. The worst effect of giving out licences like the recent one at Strathbraan is not just the impossibility of monitoring what goes on but the fact that in encourages raven killers all over the country.Imagine being caught and pulled up in a scottish court for killing a raven in say, Dumfriesshire..any competent defence lawyer would point out the Strathbraan situation and say my client could have got a licence for this but was confused/too late in asking/thought anyone could now kill them. Ive seen this happen too. As has been seen for many years now anti-raven rhetoric from such as the SGA does get through.
Yes it really looks like Buzzards have been hit more after the culling licences were given in England but that is just from looking at the crime reports, so it is only anecdotal.
In the same way you can evidence the risk of an aircraft coming down or corvids taking song birds or Buzzards pheasants etc. You don’t have to evidence the specific birds. It’s been like that since 1982 as I’m sure you’re aware Mark
Robin – those Blue Tits look pretty evil to me – let’s ensure they don’t cause any serious damage. And we can pay the BTO to reassure us that the population can take it. No need to get any evidence of serious harm, I’m a real country person you know.
It’s not a suggestion it’s been the law and every Government policy since the current law came into force in 1982
Mark, I’m simply pointing out the law and subsequent Government policy not trying to make any other points. Nor am I looking to insult anyone. When you were at the RSPB your staff would have been using the Licences they had issued under the same legislation and polices to allow them to control certain will birds to conserve other birds.
Robin – me too. The law allows licensed killing of species, which would otherwise be illegal, when specific conditions are met and that can’t simply be conjecture of harm.
in this age of technology and media, surely if there was evidence of dastardly Ravens eating lambs alive we’d have seen plenty of it by now. If we can manage to capture rare & elusive snow leopards hunting in the high Himilayas, or life deep on the sea bed of the frigid Antarctic Ocean, if a 4 year old can post a video to YouTube and a pensioner can capture badgers in their garden on a trail-cam then why have we never seen the Raven threat which is so frequently claimed?
Perhaps because it rarely, if ever, happens?
Can you imagine turning up in court with no evidence other than anecdotal claptrap or old wives tales?
SNH and NE are a complete joke.
This is the thin end of the wedge, get a licence, shoot as many as you can – who’s checking? No one! Next it will be Buzzards being treated in the same way. Sea Eagles after that? Red Kites?
Hmm, how coincidental! A BTO report is also being used by Natural England to support its claim that there is no risk to any bird species on protected sites or in the wider countryside from badger culling operations and related trophic cascade effects such as ballooning numbers of foxes filling their vacated niche. It is an unpublished report and although relied upon in internal NE guidance, according to NE (and, rather to its shame, the BTO) it cannot be released even confidentially for fear of prejudicing publication rights.
One might sympathise if this was some ground breaking research into population dynamics, but we all know pretty well that it is almost certainly no more than an analysis of BBS data at an extremely coarse grain (e.g. the dataset for one c.200km2 area where badger culling takes place compared to another where it doesn’t). One flaw is that such data is inevitably focused on songbirds and thus excludes the groups of species most likely to be at risk. It also completely misses the possibility of effects on wintering species, such as wildfowl.
If localised (but potentially extremely significant at that scale) effects on vulnerable ground nesting species or important over-wintering sites are occurring as a consequence of badger culling activities, does anyone (least of all the BTO) think this is likely to be captured in such a coarse grained analysis of BBS data?
I suspect this is the reason why this report is being suppressed. NE don’t want to reveal that their case that ‘there is no evidence of anything bad happening amongst any species’ actually has no support in this study. The protection of copyright and publication rights get-out clause is awfully convenient – especially as the BTO can have no real intention of publishing such a banal study in any peer reviewed journal as it does nothing to further ornithology as a science and merely exposes how BBS data cannot be used to determine any more than long term national trends. It is next to useless at detecting localised population fluctuations over a couple of seasons.
Of course the BTO (at least) will have known all this when asked by NE to undertake this folly. This is probably another reason NE don’t want the report unwrapped: if the BTO have any sense they will have littered it with caveats and qualifications about the worth of the exercise.
I have come to expect poor science to support flawed policy from NE and its whip-masters, but for the BTO to remain silent on such abuses of its data is really worrying. Come on chaps – your integrity is at stake here…
Gill – lovely comment, thank you.