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Thursday, October 28, 2010

U.K. Fires Forcing Bird of Prey Extinction?

Hen harriers return to the same nesting site each year, said Carter. Though it's possible that the birds might resettle somewhere else, locating a suitable site and laying eggs all over again takes up a great deal of energy. In addition, "some areas have very little suitable mature heather left," he said.

Targeted burning of breeding sites has been a problem in previous years too, said Carter, who noted records of birds being shot and poisoned as well. Hen harriers in Northumberland were killed in 1999, using a banned pesticide concealed in bait.

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Gamekeepers believe that hen harriers do serious damage to red grouse populations, said Hughes,"[but] it's unfeasible to imagine that half a dozen pairs of hen harriers can be responsible for the demise of grouse in England, that number hundreds of thousands each autumn," he said. There is no evidence that hen harriers are responsible for depressing breeding populations of red grouse, though it is plausible that they can depress the "shootable surplus" when grouse are at the low point in their natural cycle, he said.

Once Common

Despite their decline in England, the birds have had more success in Scotland. Even with persecution on grouse moors, breeding pairs there number 500 or more. Hen harriers are also found in other parts of Europe and the United States.

The species was once common in much of the U.K., and breeding records exist for many counties from the early 19th century. However, by the turn of the 20th century, the only remaining populations were on the tip of western Scotland, and the Island of Orkney.

Following the Second World War—and potentially due to the fact that many gamekeepers were conscripted to fight, and didn't return thereafter—the species made a partial comeback. Northern England was re-colonized in the 1960s, and by the 1980s there were as many as 25 successful breeding pairs resident.

However, a combination of bad luck and intensifying persecution has meant that numbers have plummeted in England since the 1990s.

"There is the very real danger, that the species will become extinct as a breeding bird [in England] in the next few years," said a statement from English Nature.

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