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ESSENTIAL DESTINATIONS

MONTH: November/December 2007

Reintroducing red kites despite hunter opposition

 

DUBLIN, ULSTER -- The Golden Eagle Trust, Welsh Kite Trust, and Irish National Parks & Wildlife Service in July 2007 released 15 pairs of red kites in the Wicklow mountains, in an attempt to rebuild the long extinct native kite population--but someone shot one of the kites just six weeks later, during National Heritage Week.

The shooting followed a series of killings of birds of prey in County Down, Northern Ireland, including a peregrine falcon who was hatched in County Antrim in early 2006 and found dead near Sprucefield in October, and a buzzard who was found poisoned in the Drumbanagher area, near Newry.

"There was a case of alleged persecution of peregrines in the Mourne Mountains earlier," recalled Royal Society for the Protection of Birds conservation officer Claire Ferry.

Stephen Philpot of the Ulster SPCA noted "an increasing number of such attacks on protected species."

Unlike in the U.S., where opposition to predator protection and restoration from hunters and ranchers has been vocal and politically organized, overt opposition in Britain and Ireland has been almost nil. Yet while "Shoot, shovel, and shut up" is a political rallying cry in the U.S. west, in Britain and Ireland the practice has long been observed.

Red kites were exterminated in southern England by 1859, and in Ireland, northern England, and Scotland by 1880. About 40 pair survived in Wales. "Volunteers guarded the nests from egg-collectors," recalls Independent environment editor Michael McCarthy. "The first Welsh kite protection program started in 1903, and is the longest continuous conservation project in the world."

Ninety-three Welsh kites and others imported from Sweden and Spain were released in England and Scotland between 1989 and 2004. There are now nearly 1,000 breeding pairs in Britain, believed to be the only nation in Europe in which the kite population is growing. Only one pair is known to have nested in Ireland.