It seems that there is a continuing push for the intoduction of large predators, to the detriment of fish, which do not seem to count.
I am a conservationist at heart, but recently resigned from membership of my local Wildlife Trust. My reasons for doing so can be summarised in a few words: the various environmental organisations’ general obsession with predators and their apparent failure to see the way dry land and water, and the life forms they support, interrelate.
Even more worryingly, there seems to be a widespread lack of understanding about the link between predator and prey.
The final straw came when I was sent a Surrey Nature newsletter with a comment piece by the well-known conservationist and broadcaster Chris Packham. His general message was to say that conservationists needed in general terms to get their act together: to make a sustainable contribution to the wildlife cause ‘we (…) need to think big, on a landscape scale.’ No mention of waterscape at all.
A recent sorry spectacle was the appearance on BBC TV of an avian expert, in the shape of a senior officer of the RSPB. He was commenting on the drastic decline in small birds in recent years. Modern agricultural methods and pesticides came top of his blame list. In the course of the short interview, he mentioned that the numbers of sparrow hawks (an eater of small birds if there ever was one) had risen to 1950’s levels. No connection was however made between the two sets of statistics. Interestingly, the RSPB has recently had to agree, somewhat unwillingly, to the culling of some predatory bird species which are making huge inroads into the numbers of songbirds.
This obsession with spectacular avian predators has included calls for the import of sea eagles to the UK: a species capable of lifting a lamb, which forms a distinct threat to the livelihood of hill farmers. I well remember attending a lecture in the 1980’s given by an eminent scientist and former member of the ‘Think Tank’. The subject was the problem of acid rain and the outlook for the environment given reliance on fossil fuels. He was not really concerned, he said, about the disappearance of fish from lakes in Scandinavia, as he was not a fisherman. But he loved birds, he said, clearly quite oblivious to the link between the presence of fish and that of birds…
One of the crazier policies of the RSPB in recent years has been a determination to protect cormorants. Cormorants are extremely efficient feeders which will, given a chance, remove virtually all small fish from a given stretch of river, stream or lake. They have no commitment, as do resident kingfishers and herons, to a particular segment of the aquatic environment. They clean up, and then move on. And of course in the process drive out kingfishers and herons. And yet in the public mind the cormorant symbolises the return of the aquatic environment to a healthy state. Fish in rivers attract these birds, and rivers with fish in them must be healthy therefore. Yes, some maybe, but not all by a long way. What is beyond doubt is that these birds are now present inland in large numbers, and that the sea, clearly one part of the biosphere which is apparently beyond the ken of your average environmentalist, no longer holds any attraction whatsoever for them. Hardly surprising, as large tracts it of around the coast are virtually empty as a result of commercial over-fishing. There is always a bigger picture, which goes far beyond the bounds of landscape. The true big picture of course takes in the whole biosphere, not just terra firma.
None of these conservationists seem to think of threatened aquatic species. One of those most under threat is the Atlantic salmon. It has to contend with ill-designed barrage and river hydro-electric installations, pollutions, cormorants, diminishment of suitable spawning sites and genetic dilution of strains resulting from breeding with escaped farmed fish. Now this embattled species, if ever it makes it into its home river in order to reproduce, in addition risks being unceremoniously hauled out of the water by a newly-introduced predator: the otter. And what is more, its whiskery assailant will kill, take one bite, and then move on and leave the bulk of the carcass to rot or be picked over by scavengers. I find it tragic that a large fish like a barbel, which takes many years to grow to an appreciable size, can be wiped out in a few moments. It seems that the once famed barbel of the upper Thames have now disappeared following the re-introduction of otters.
Big fish in general could easily become a thing of the past if things continue like this.
There is another facet to all this of course: given a choice between underwater creatures which are a mystery to most people, and cuddly-looking mammals with dear little faces and pussy cat whiskers, most members of the general public will go for the latter. In a leaflet I have just been sent by the Wildlife Trust, such otters as there are in Surrey are described as ‘transient, lonely and looking for mates’. Need I say more?
And wholesale release of otters into the wild is hardly fair on the animals themselves. The world they inhabited when they last occurred naturally has now changed beyond all recognition. Urbanisation is rife; the human population has increased enormously. The eel, once the staple food of the otter, is experiencing a severe decline in numbers. There are far more roads with far more vehicles on them, as witness the huge (and to my mind rather tragic) road-kill of otters: well over a thousand in the UK in 2010, well over a hundred in Hampshire alone.
One of the crazier obsessions harboured by conservationists, including Mr Chris Packham, is a determination to reintroduce the beaver. Beavers became extinct in the UK around four hundred years ago. Their reintroduction would further threaten the survival of the Atlantic salmon – as if its woes were not already sufficient – as a result of beavers doing what they do naturally: damming watercourses. As I said earlier, the world is not what it was. There are a lot of people around who should get used to that simple fact.
Conservationists in the UK still have a lot to learn. They need to learn to see the environment in its full – and indeed somewhat ailing – entirety. Mere wholesale (re-) introduction of predators, whether spectacular or cuddly-looking, will not build bio-diversity; it will cause mayhem in what is essentially now a totally managed environment.
And they need to learn to see the whole picture: not just what happens on dry land, but in lakes, rivers and of course the sea; and to understand how these elements form an interdependent whole.
As I said to begin with, I am a conservationist at heart. I am a member of the Angling Trust, the single angling body which now represents us and fights our corner: on issues such as cormorants, otters and beavers; not to mention canoeists and destructive hydro-power schemes.
So visit the Angling Trust website today, or ring them, and join. And let’s get our own act together!
www.anglingtrust.net or Telephone: 0844 7700616
