Are re-introductions justified?

I recently took a trip to Aston Rowant in Oxfordshire to see the Red Kites, and what a sight they are! Having read that they are there in numbers, I was still unprepared for the sight of so many of these beautiful birds in the sky at any one time.

Nevertheless, it crossed my mind that the sight would have been even more wonderful had the birds arrived there under their own wing-power.

When I lived in Somerset we would expect a few Kites crossing the River Severn from Wales every year, so it would probably have been only a matter of time before they reached what are obviously ideal conditions for them in Oxfordshire.

I still recall the thrill of seeing my first inland Peregrine, and my first Common Buzzard wheeling above a Devon hillside, after the population crashes of the 1960's and '70's, and the joy I had in watching the gradual recovery of both these iconic birds, would, I am sure, have been diminished had their numbers been artificially boosted by imports.

In the case of the Red Kites, and to a lesser extent the White-tailed Eagle and the Common Crane, you could argue that we are simply helping things along, as we have helped these same birds to virtual extinction in Great Britain. Left to their own devices, and with no interference from Mankind, the chances are that they would eventually re-colonise these iislands by themelves.

But what about the Great Bustard project? The last native bird was shot about 150 years ago. The chances of a natural re-colonisation are remote in the extreme, bearing in mind the distance to the nearest wild population, and the fact that the Great Bustard is recorded as only a very rare vagrant to these shores.

I saw one of the Salisbury Plain birds about 3 years ago at the foot of the Mendip Hills in the company of a herd of Mute Swans. Although it was exciting to see, it failed to stimulate the imagination the way a truly wild bird would have done. The large orange wing-tag bearing the number 15 may have had something to do with it!

Having said all that, I can still marvel at the grace and beauty of the Kites, and no doubt I shall be equally thrilled at the sight of a White-tailed Eagle, or to hear the bugling of the Common Cranes.