Sir

With the Scottish government giving Beavers protection to join some other species, they along with some conservationists groups appear to be completely blinded to the damage they are doing to many other species i.e the disappearance of a great many ground nesting birds (protection of badgers, buzzards, Sea Eagles.etc) and the ever increasing livestock losses that some farmers are suffering financially, the beavers causing widespread damage to trees, river banks and field drainage systems affecting crop yields and quality in some parts of Tayside and Perthshire, with no financial compensation involved.

This will eventually be widespread across the whole of Scotland if not the UK. The Scottish government appears to have an abundance of money to throw at many of these species for their protection. A great many of the smaller rivers, streams, ditches and drainage systems etc. all over Scotland were manmade hundreds of years ago and have to be maintained properly.

With the protection of beavers about to happen, they will multiply rapidly and be totally out of control like some of the other protected species.

This decision goes right to the top of the Scottish government – the First Minister and Roseanna Cunningham. Other countries in Europe have certain times of the year where all of these raptors and predators are controlled, e.g Sweden, Germany and Poland, where they realized the damage to many groundnesting birds and to the disappearance of certain species and the need to help control disease such as rabies, being one that we do not have yet.

Decisions like this require strong leadership and positive decision making – I cannot see this in the government or its departments until there is some disaster happens and then it will be too late.

Patrick Sleigh

Bovaglie

Hillhead of Daviot

Inverurie

AB51OJA