probably not a popular opinion here but several times this year a sparrowhawk has killed song birds in my back garden.
i would quite happily shoot it.
I'm the opposite, and wouldn't consider it for a moment; they are all native species, its what they've evolved to and it's part of reaching a natural balance.
But... if there were unnaturally high numbers of sparrowhawks because of human intervention of some sort, I'd then say that a cull may be necessary - or, better, stop the idiotic intervention and let a natural balance occur.
I can't say I totally agree with you there. Farmers, like gamekeepers, 'protect the land' for their profit; not for conservation, biodiversity, reduction in species loss ....
We have to find a better balance. We only produce about 50% of the country's needs for food, and farming takes up 70% of the land. We cannot intensify the production any further without destroying other aspects of the ecology.
There are good farmers I know, but most of my neighbours don't know the difference between a crow and a rook or a raven - it's black, they shoot it. As for the care of the animals, you should see the state of some of them! Don't assume I'm a towny complaining; I started my working life as a farm labourer.
The only two academic (i.e. planned and peer reviewed studies) that have been published (one in Scotland and one in North Wales) concluded IIRC that 90% of lost lambs was down to husbandry not predation! The guy that farms the fields next to me lost 2 lambs and 2 ewes in the space of a week (all within sight of my window) and we hadn't seen him for a month before that - but He'll happily spend his time shooting foxes.
What you write is utterly wrong in many cases, in fact of the vast majority of farmers I know. For the record I have never claimed subsidy, on principle. I certainly do have to make a profit, I find paying for things easier that way...
I '
protect the land'
and water to my cost because I believe it is right, and also because it gives me great pleasure to do so. I do so quite deliberately
for conservation, for biodiversity and for reduction in species loss, and I know others who do the same. I am proud to say I am doing more than most, but many, many others do far more than you seem to want to give credit for.
By value 60% of UK food is produced here, though by consumption 46% is imported. I think that if the average person were to see the books for the average farm they'd be astonished that anyone would put in the hours necessary for the remuneration received. We, the UK, could get far cheaper food if it was all imported, but you lose enormously important things in doing that, not least forex and food security and many familiar and much-loved landscapes - and you'll be peeing in the wind if you think that you'll get food to the same standard, particularly regarding animal husbandry, from the great majority of other countries.
Virtually everyone I know around here who farms could, if asked, name all six of our most often seen corvids, in English
and Welsh... and the common songbirds and waterbirds and pigeons and prey birds; and native mammals, reptiles, fishes and amphibians and a lot of invertebrates, And the grasses and sedges, and trees and a hell of a lot of herbs too.
Please provide links to the two papers you mention, I will be very interested to read them because that 90% figure really does sound like the sort of stuff I clear out of the cowyard. Only a fool would deny that there aren't some - a very few - appalling farmers, and I won't do that. But there are some quite appalling nurse, Barristers, mechanics, journalists and even ecologists...
No farmer is going to lose X number of lambs, with 90% of that being
his fault, and
not correct the stupid fault! You could put that purely down to enlightened self-interest if you like, but it's as much down to decent animal husbandry, a pride in one's work and simply being humane in not wanting young animals to die.
Just saying...