Conservative MP accuses RSPB and other conservation organisations of 'running countryside into ground'

                                                                    

Bill Wiggin believes the RSPB has failed to safeguard breeding curlew on its reserves

TWENTY years of failure!

That's the end-of-parliament report of Conservative MP Bill Wiggin on the RSPB and other conservation organisations.

Sir Bill (55), an Eton contemporary of former prime minister Lord Cameron, told a Commons debate on endangered species: "I was fuming this morning when I read that the Woodland Trust, the RSPBs, the National Trust and the Wildlife Trusts have been complaining about species loss. 

"These people own half a million hectares of land between them and have an income of £871-million, so there is no excuse for their getting cross with everybody else when they have so much ability to protect habitats themselves."

The MP for North Herefordshire, who is a shooting enthusiast, continued: "What we have seen over the 23 years is a decimation of the variety of pesticides used, which is welcome. 

"However, the hop growers complain to me that the European Union allows far more pesticides than we do. 

"We see the Government taking steps in the right direction and yet we have more - I must not get this word wrong - corvids (after a Covid crisis, it is very easy to get in a jumble). 

"Corvids are magpies, crows, jays and all the types of bird that prey on our other species.

                                        

Magpies - not liked by Sir Bill

"We have seen decimation of the curlew population. 

"There has not been a curlew fledge for 11 years on RSPB reserves.

"Yet on grouse moors, where predators are controlled, we have seen huge results. 

"Some 97 per cent. of curlew nest failures were the result of predation by mink, foxes, gulls and crows, but red-listed, ground-nesting birds have a 71 per cent success rate in areas with predator control.

"The zoos show that if we manage species, we can bring them back from the brink. 

"The gamekeepers and the areas protected for shooting grouse are more successful at protecting rare breeds. 

"It is not okay to go back to the old mantra of, 'Shooting bad, conservation good'.

"This is about management. 

"If we want species diversity and success, we have to manage. 

"I hope that, having expressed that thought about population pressure and management, any future Government will consider very carefully allowing unlimited migration of people or indeed foreign species."

"If we look at golden plovers or grey partridges, we see that they do better with management through predator control. 

"If we do not stop things from eating the species that we care about, they will not be there. 

"It does not seem to me to be okay to criticise the Government when there is so much that we can all do. 

"People can feed the birds, but if they do, are we just going to encourage more corvids or will we see our precious songbird populations increase? 

"The evidence is that, if we look after the birds, their populations succeed.

Food around the year, conservation of habitat and predator control are a three-legged stool. If we get that right, we will see success. 

"If we continue to stand back and allow these organisations that have failed for the last 20 years to continue to run the countryside into the ground, we will not have the diversity that we all want."