24/05/2012

Condemnation Of Plan To Capture Buzzards

A plan to allow buzzard nests to be destroyed and the birds to be captured to protect pheasant shoots has been condemned by conservationists.

The UK Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) is to research ways of keeping buzzards from targeting the game birds and says it wants to maintain a balance between captive and wild birds.

However, the RSPB said the idea of taking wild buzzards into captivity or destroying their nests was "totally unacceptable".

The bird protection society criticised Defra for spending hundreds of thousands of pounds on the project when money was tight for conservation measures.

Buzzards are thought to target pheasant release pens if they find there is a readily available source of food, and the government's conservation agency Natural England has received a number of requests to license the killing of the birds of prey, which are a protected species.

(H)


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