Throw songbirds a lifeline

Sir, – The last sentence of AA Macdonald’s letter (The Scottish Farmer, August 26) ‘protect the countryside and a way of life, to keep nature in balance with the rest of our environment’, will strike a chord with genuine conservationists.
The fact is that nature is out of balance and unless there is more human intervention, the gap will keep widening until we find a countryside bereft of many familiar sights and sounds. 
I talk of the unprecedented rise in the number of predators, both avian and mammalian, which are inflicting untold damage on our diminishing farm and songbirds, as well as threatening the livelihood of some farmers as a result of predating their livestock.
While the number of waders, such as curlews and lapwings, continues to decline and garden birds such as tree sparrows (down 95%), song thrushes (down 58%), spotted flycatchers (down 89%) are all heading in the same direction, plenty of birds are doing well, including crows, jackdaws, magpies and some birds of prey, all of which either compete with or eat birds or their eggs. 
There has also been a huge increase in domestic and feral cats, grey squirrels, foxes and badgers (50,000 in the early 1980s, now over 1m), all of which also eat songbirds, their eggs and nestlings, so it is not surprising the population of our iconic birds continues to decline. 
The idea of reintroducing the likes of lynx and reinforcing pine marten numbers to an already pressurised countryside can only create even more havoc amongst endangered species. Who or what is to blame for this sorry state of affairs? 
The easy answer for armchair conservationists is to point the finger of blame at farmers, citing habitat loss and modern farming. However, this is misleading as millions of pounds are directed each year through agri-environmental schemes. 
Yet, despite all this money and activity in the countryside, numbers of birds continue to decline. One of the reasons for this is that having created a paradise for farm and songbirds, they have created an even bigger paradise for all their predators.
How do we begin to restore the balance? Experiments have shown that predator removal can bring positive results. However, if only one or two species are removed, others take over. It is high time that governments, north and south, review as a matter of urgency, the protected status of certain species which have become so numerous and without any enemies themselves, that they are wreaking havoc on vulnerable prey.
Sparrowhawks, for example, account for more than 50m songbirds annually and when the badger population in this country is now over 1m, no ground nesting bird is safe. 
When protected status of some animals and birds was first introduced their numbers were at a historic low. Now, they are all apex predators and over the years their numbers have rocketed to such an extent that some, like buzzards, are to be seen in large numbers everywhere. 
There is no longer any justification for protected status on some animals and birds. Nobody is advocating their elimination, but their numbers need reduced if a balance is to be restored.
Until conservationists and politicians have the resolve to do something about this and stop introductions of species which have no place here, the sight and sound of our best loved birds and animals may become a vision of the past.