Berlin's Reintroduction Of Goshawks In City Parks A Model For UK; Mesopredator Control To Benefit Songbirds
Firing off rapid keck-keck-keck cries that rang out through a park in central Berlin, the goshawks soared high above the trees and circled before swooping down to chase off a ragtag bunch of crows that had begun to mob them from below. “It’s basically a flying Batman bringing law and order to the city,” said conservationist Paul O’Donoghue, peering through binoculars at two breeding pairs of the large pale-bellied birds as they dipped and dived through the sky. “They’re like stealth bombers.”
The goshawk is an apex predator – and, if O’Donoghue has his way, it will soon be bringing awe and delight to British cities as well as German ones. In the UK the fast-moving raptor, which was hunted to virtual extinction and only began to recover in rural regions in the 1960s, is still widely persecuted on shooting estates and grouse moors.
In other parts of Europe, the goshawk is thriving – even in bustling capitals such as Berlin, Amsterdam and Prague. From Berlin’s Viktoriapark, where a large nest sat in the crown of a tree less than 100 metres from a large war memorial, the “phantom of the forest” hunts pigeons in the street and even perches on rooftops. The birds have adapted to the busy traffic – although tall glass buildings still pose a threat – and are far more at ease with the steady stream of dogwalkers, runners and schoolchildren than their forest-dwelling counterparts would be with humans.
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He hopes they will come to the rescue of Britain’s beleaguered garden birds by preying on mesopredators such as crows, magpies, and jackdaws, whose populations have grown unchecked and threatened birds further down the food chain. Their presence should have an immediate effect on the “brazen” mid-sized birds that peck off smaller ones that people love, says O’Donoghue, pointing to a similar effect documented in wolves. “It’s what’s called an ecology of fear. Everybody knows the big guys are in town.”
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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/oct/03/it-proves-this-can-be-done-berlin-the-blueprint-to-bring-goshawks-to-uk-cities