Sir

Numbers of any species goes up and down for many reasons beyond anybody’s control and the hen harrier is no different.

Conservation groups should be grateful for the ways in which grouse moors are managed with a good number of grouse for raptors as a result, thanks to many years of research into grouse management from ticks (that can affect people as well, with lyme disease) and the management of parasites on the young grouse.

2016 was a very bad year for grouse with two late heavy falls of snow that chilled the eggs (since Harriers nest on the heather, that also may have affected their numbers to) so there were far fewer grouse that resulted, I believe, in 70-80% of grouse shoots cancelled, resulting in a large loss on income in these communities, with less grouse for the hen harrier as well as other raptors. I am sure that an eagle or common buzzard would not pass by a young harrier for lunch, as has been well documented with young ospreys being taken from their nest by buzzards.

If the management of moorland was not carried out properly, heather moors would grow out of control and risk major moorland fires with all the risks that carries to wildlife, people (hillwalkers and climbers etc) property and businesses that does not bear thinking about.

Conservationists need to realise that you cannot have wall-to-wall raptors and predators in the UK – very little would survive. As I have said before, wildlife should be about species management, not about species protection.

Patrick Sleigh

West Fingask

Oldmeldrum