Letter: Man's handiwork all over this dramatic reduction in wildlife

The answer he has received from Shropshire Wildlife Trust makes my blood boil. Relax he is told, new housing developments and loss of habitat are to blame, plant a hedge, grow some ivy, even put some food out!

The house/hedge sparrow, blackbird, thrush, blue tit, great tit, long tailed tit, wren, robin and many others all face the same enemy of avian predation, the uncontrolled magpie, whose population has exploded to the point of being unsustainable relative to native avian wildlife populations, no mention is made of this point.

Have a look around your local pools. Have you noticed the lack of moorhen, coot, grebe even kingfisher, you've got it, the otter in the main is the responsible predator.

All government entities maintain that all animals have the right to live and we cannot argue with that, providing they are kept at a sustainable level in balance with nature. We have reached the position of an unsustainable in-balance in magpie and otter already.

Two years ago a number of pairs of otter were released into the Rea Brook, disregarding the angling clubs who pay the riparian owners to fish his water and to stock with trout. Just so some entity can decide to decimate the water with indiscriminate release of predator species. Why? Because it is an EU directive that countries follow through with wildlife frameworks.

Last month we see in the Shropshire Star the proud announcement that the River Perry is to get the same otter treatment, with otter abounding. Irrespective of diminishing riparian prospective incomes with which to pay taxes that pay for the very same entities that can destroy his fiscal ability!

We stopped fox hunting with hounds. We now see epidemic urban fox populations abound with many recent attacks on humans as the fox gets bolder.

I now introduce the point what if the fox developed in the UK "rabies". Forget the urban fox you would get killed in the rush to eliminate them by the same entities that are playing with nature – our nature!

We all want wild, we all want fair play, we all want managed natural populations.

Let nature populate, as it can do it far better than us.

Sir John Roberts (a personal view), Shropshire Anglers Federation