The ecological value of reintroducing white-tailed eagles to Britain | Letters

Prof Ian Convery and Rebecca Wrigley respond to concerns that the eagles would destroy seabird populations

Your article (Reintroduction of white-tailed eagles puts seabird colonies at risk of wipeout, say experts, 8 November) raises important questions, but overlooks a fundamental point: eagles and seabirds coexisted around Britain’s coastline for thousands of years before eagles were driven to extinction through human persecution. Predation and disturbance are therefore not novel ecological pressures, but historically established interactions that have been absent from much of the British landscape for over a century.

There is a danger here of accepting an ecologically impoverished landscape as our conservation baseline. Seabird colonies have existed in the absence of a native apex predator, but that does not necessarily make predator-free conditions either natural or desirable. Restoring eagles is not simply about recovering a charismatic species; it is about restoring lost ecological relationships and processes.

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