Mandelson and the Eagles

What can the Labour Party's disgraced 'Prince of Darkness' have in common with eagles?

Both are case studies in putting the cart before the horse. The latest Mandelson chapter began with the Government announcing him as 'Our Man in Washington' before he had been vetted and (not) cleared. Cart, horse, catastrophe.

Which brings us to the eagles. The Government has announced the reintroduction of golden eagles into Northumberland, with a generous budget of at least £1 million. It did so before bothering to ask the people who own and work the land where the eagles will live whether this was a good idea. Less newsworthy than the Mandelson debacle, but the result of the same metropolitan high-handedness: problems that need never have existed.

To this can be added the North Pennines National Landscapes 5-Year Plan (the old AONB), which sets out an ambition to introduce sea eagles into the same area where the Government's golden eagles will go. Again, no prior consultation. After the plan was written there was what is ironically called a "consultation": the fig leaf produced once the announcement has been made and there is zero chance of changing anything. The decisions had already been taken.

To these we can add the now-completed consultation on the release of 66 sea eagles in the Lake District over five years, with the expectation of a permanent population of 134 birds. Credit where it is due: here, at least, the cart and horse were pointing the same way. The consultation was not preceded by a Government commitment and £1 million from a cash-strapped Treasury.

The Lake District consultation was, on the face of it, impressive, "engaging" 24,500 people. For more than 20,000 of them, that engagement consisted of a leaflet through the door, the same logic by which the Monster Raving Loony Party or the Greens (is there a difference?) might claim to have engaged with you because you binned their flyer.

A much smaller number, 1,787 Cumbrians, actually filled in the questionnaire. That is 0.32% of the county. Of these, 78% supported reintroduction. Just 285 were said to be farmers or landowners, and they were apparently the least enthusiastic group. No surprise there.

Quite how unenthusiastic, we have been unable to discover. In a document stuffed with figures, almost the only one missing is the percentage of farmers and landowners who thought it was a great idea to release an apex avian predator into a landscape that, to them, offers little for an eagle to eat beyond their lambs.

The project is adamant that this fear is unfounded. Sea eagles, we are told, will never lift a tiny Herdwick lamb off the fell. But the people who promoted sea eagle releases in Scotland were equally scornful of the idea that eagles might take the lambs of larger breeds in the Highlands and Islands, and that did not end as promised. They may be right this time. But many of the people directly affected have yet to be convinced that an eagle will resist the urge.

The promoters' confidence rests on the claim that the Lakes offer plenty of eagle food. Things must have changed, because that was not the case for the golden eagles that bred in the Eastern Lakes in the 1970s and 1980s. They died out when it became illegal to leave dead stock on the hills, and as red grouse and rabbit populations declined. The adult birds could not get enough food to raise chicks, or in some years even reach breeding condition.

The promoters say sea eagles will mostly eat fish, waterfowl and seabirds, supplemented by deer carrion, rabbits and hares, all described as "widespread in the Lake District." That last claim may be technically true, but across most of the Lakes the spread is thin enough that the Haweswater golden eagles starved out for want of them.

Here we get to the interesting part. The European experience suggests that what sea eagles actually eat is whatever is available. In some places it is mostly cormorants; in others, mostly coots. That is a serious problem for rare species that breed in colonies. The last colony of Caspian terns in the Baltic may be lost because of persistent eagles returning to an obvious and defenceless food source.

The last lesser white-fronted geese in Norway are attacked by eagles as they moult, when they are flightless on their traditional lakes. Driven ashore, they are taken by foxes. Female eiders are literally sitting ducks: they cannot outrun an eagle when they leave the nest, and on the rare occasions they escape, gulls, crows or ravens have already eaten the unprotected eggs. As a result, a steady increase in sea eagle numbers is producing a steep decline in eiders.

Sea eagles are formidable seabird predators. A cliff full of guillemots or a moor full of nesting gulls is the next best thing to a buffet. Why cast about for a "widespread rabbit" when there are thousands of meals anchored to a colony? It will be interesting to see how the Lakes' only seabird breeding cliffs at St Bees accommodate whatever portion of those 134 sea eagles find their way there. On the brighter side, those trying to protect ground-nesting birds from 20,000 lesser black-backed gulls in Bowland may come to bless the project. When the eagles discover an all-you-can-eat buffet ten minutes' flying time from Morecambe Bay, the results could be game-changing.

Even grouse moor owners and keepers might learn to love them. Eagles are intolerant of other raptors and will kill or drive off harriers, buzzards, kites and even goshawks. The stated reason for the absence of nesting hen harriers on the RSPB's vast moorland estate at Abernethy is precisely that the resident eagles will not allow them to settle. And because eagles of both species are great carrion-feeders, diversionary feeding is simplicity itself: leave a deer carcass somewhere out of the way and they stay full and harmless, while still beating up the smaller raptors for the sport of it.

But all this is beside the larger and more important point: that government, particularly this government, treats the views and knowledge of rural communities as worthless, and certainly less important than the latest fashion in the conservation industry. The decisions have been made. The golden eagles will be released in Northumberland next year. The budgets are in place. The money will be spent. We may not be able to afford to defend the country, but we can find a million pounds to move golden eagles fifty miles south.

The Lake District sea eagles will, we are inevitably told, deliver a tourist bonanza as visitors flock to see them. Quite why adding more people to the 23 million who visited the eagle-free Lakes last year is a good idea is left unexplained. The place already seems to be bursting at the seams; annual visitors outnumber Cumbrians by roughly fifty to one. Then again, the impact on wildlife may be limited: the 23 million have already driven most of it away.

Northumberland and the North Pennines are different. These areas still have wildlife, in large part because of grouse moor management, the private resources committed by moor owners, and the work of the gamekeepers. One of the ironies of this whole business is that the RSPB and its fellow travellers tirelessly insist that grouse moors are "burnt, barren and bare" wildlife deserts. If that is true, why has the Government identified this as the best place in England to support a sustainable population of apex avian predators?

Anyone who looks at this time of year can see that these moors teem with life. They remain the last large landscape in England where ground-nesting birds do really well, fledging enough chicks to maintain their numbers and even spill into the wider countryside. Those birds are highly susceptible to disturbance when they are incubating or rearing fragile chicks. If the predictions are right, the eagle may pose a direct threat to some of them; but the hordes of tourists tramping across the heather, dog and disposable BBQ in tow, will be far worse.

None of which matters. A minister who has never spoken to anyone who actually works the land in these places, and who would be offended if such a person approached her at a cocktail party to discuss curlews and gamekeepers, has made up her mind. She has adjusted her budget by a million and has probably already fixed the photo-op, personally releasing an eagle called Mary sometime next year. Oh, and we nearly forgot: she has also promised a consultation. But don't worry. That won't affect the timing of the photo-op. You would have to be very naïve to think it ever does.