Wildlife enthusiasts and pigeon fanciers have been locked in a long running dispute for many years now. Environment Correspondent Linda McKee explains what is causing the feathers to fly

For years now, Northern Ireland has been a byword for people who didn’t want to be in the same room. But that’s all changed now, according to Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama et al.

And they have a point — 10 years ago, who would have thought the DUP would end in government with Sinn Fein?

But Northern Ireland still has its cold wars — and one of the oddest is still being battled out between the wildlife and pigeon racing fraternities.

Conservation groups such as the RSPB and Northern Ireland Raptor Study Group are worried about the steady decline of the peregrine falcon over the past 30 years and believe that persecution plays a significant role.

Matters came to a head in the past few weeks when NIRSG chairman Jim Wells expressed his suspicions that a live pigeon found tethered close to a peregrine nest in Glenarm was the work of individuals in the pigeon racing fraternity.

After 30 years of avid study, he insists he knows every peregrine nest in Northern Ireland and the numbers come to just 82 pairs nesting this year.

Claims by pigeon racers to justify a proposed cull — that there are 500 pairs of peregrines and 50 on the North Coast alone — just don’t stand up, he says.

“I have offered pigeon men £500 to their favourite charity if they can take me to a peregrine nest we don’t know, and no-one has ever taken me up on that,” he says.

Although Mr Wells allows that the majority of pigeon men are law-abiding citizens and it’s a few bad eggs who are to blame, accusations like this do incense the pigeon clubs, who feel they are being singled out unfairly.

Robert Reid, secretary for the Irish Region of the Royal Pigeon Racing Association, says he has lost three or four birds to predation in the past week alone, but nobody seems to take any interest in the problem.

And he says he has known his colleagues to get the blame for all sorts of strange things, including family pets going missing.

“I don’t know why people are blaming the pigeon men. They forget that during the war it was the pigeon men that helped to keep things going,” he says.

“To me, the electricity wires are a bigger problem than the peregrine or the hawk is. There are more obstacles than just the peregrine or the hawk, although they are definitely taking the songbirds out because I see them taking them out of my garden.”

The upshot is a years’ long Big Chill between the two camps, with both sides claiming they have tried to negotiate in the past but have been snubbed.

Mr Reid says there are lots of pigeon men keen to have a word with Mr Wells and his conservation colleagues, but they won’t meet.

“I want to know what he has against songbirds and pigeons,” he says.

“We’ve been trying to get in touch with with some of these organisations this long time and they don’t seem to want to bend at all.”

Meanwhile, notwithstanding a few haranguing matches on the doorsteps when he’s canvassing for election as an Assembly member, Mr Wells says there’s been no dialogue — “They won’t speak to us”.

But he’s hopeful that both sides can come together for talks this autumn when the racing season is over and promises that the conservation groups will be trying to help the pigeon fanciers reduce their bird losses, with ideas such as varying race routes and times and supplementary feeding of peregrines at nest sites to reduce their hunting.

“It'll be with the responsible groups who are organisations, though — it won’t be with the irresponsible element who are carrying out these illegal activities – they aren’t affiliated to anybody,” he says. And he’s hoping that if tempers can remain unruffled, it could mark the thaw of the long cold war — and a brighter future for the peregrine.

“I am more than happy to talk to the pigeon men. I’m hoping it will be the start of a build-up of understanding between the pigeon men and those responsible for protecting wildlife in Northern Ireland,” he says.