IN making his exaggerated claims about sparrowhawks, Brian Tattersall of the Royal Pigeon Racing Association says that a few decades ago they "never had any problems with sparrowhawks" (Letters, May 17).

He fails to point out that the reason for this was that at that time sparrowhawks had almost been wiped out by the pesticides that were being used in agriculture to make big profits for agribusiness and which were poisoning our environment (These beautiful birds have also been persecuted by people who think like him).

Mr Tattersall says that sparrowhawks are terrible because they kill and "tear apart" small birds.

But many of those small birds themselves kill and tear apart worms and insects.

Should we protect the worms and insects by wiping out the small birds?

Perhaps he would also like to see lions and tigers become extinct. After all, they make such a nasty mess when they kill their prey. Or does he only want to wipe out those species that he claims are spoiling his fun?

P WEBSTER, Queen Street, Whalley.

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