Hare population is growing, not declining

I have been observing brown hares and monitoring their numbers in the area of North Yorkshire around Ripon and Harrogate since 1994. Throughout the period, there has been a steady rise in the size of hare populations in all types of habitats; moorland, pasture and arable. Also in areas where fox numbers have been controlled, the hare population has thrived.

From: Chris Procter, Bishop Monkton, Harrogate

From: RC Dales, Church View, Brompton, Northallerton.

IT is surprising that there has been no response to Mr Jack Caley's letter (Country Week, March 13).

He rightly denounced the Environment Agency's leaning towards the creation of swamps to which flood water from the rivers could be diverted. Climate change globally is already causing the loss of large corn-producing areas, and this is at a time when there is a growing world shortage of food. Every acre of productive and grazing land in this small island will become precious, and must not be lost to swamp conditions. Mr Caley from his experience emphasised the need to keep open waterways and ditches and to this could be added the creation of more water storage reservoirs – the common sense answer to the predicted alternatives of flooding and droughts. There are also too many steams with too much silt, and if this could be removed heavy water could be borne away with less possibility of flooding the adjacent land.

From: Allan M Grimshaw, Church Avenue, Dacre Banks, Harrogate.

I ALWAYS read Sue Woodcock's Dales Diary before I read anything else in the supplement. Her grasp of country life needs a tenacity which not a lot of people possess. I write this letter because she reminds me of a very dear lady who bred Sayawen goats and part-bred Arab horses at Meagill Hall Farm, Blubberhouses from 1966 to the early 1980s, a lady called Doris Briggs. She was of very small stature, barely five feet tall with pure white hair with a pronounced stoop. She came to Meagill Hall when her husband bought the farm for her. He was a very successful businessman, having founded and run for many years the Wharfedale loudspeaker company.

Carry on, Sue, life feels better when the sun shines.

Last October/November, I was asked to give a couple of talks about life in Nidderdale in the 1940s and 1950s. Over 100 people packed into Hookstone Hall and Ramsgill Hall. A very rewarding sight to see so many people interested in how we used to live and work.

From: J Roberts, South Kirkby, West Yorkshire.

Thank you, Sue (Dales Diary, March 20) for being brave enough to come out against the perceived wisdom that computers are all good and we, the 17 million, have a problem. They cause endless delay and distraction and are no help to me, especially when "it's slow today" (isn't it always) or "the screen's gone blank," "it's crashed" etc, etc. Whoever thinks computers speed things up and do a better job, is suffering from a touch of "the Emperor's new clothes." Now, I must get on.

From: Vera Svenson, Fairfield Avenue, Kirk-Ella, Hull.

I WAS very interested to read the letter from Barbara Sunderland about their frogs. For the last two years I have had my very small pond filled with frogspawn and then with hundreds of tadpoles. My problem is that the vast majority do not become frogs and are still swimming about the pond in November and December. Last year I saw only two tiny frogs. Can anyone suggest what I can do to help them to become frogs?

From: Bob Milner, Mellerstain Village, Gordon, Scotland

In breaking surface ice for the intended benefit of fish in her pond, Mrs Whalley (Country Week, March 27) may have been exacerbating the problems of her pond's wildlife. Water is at its maximum density when its temperature is five degrees C and at that point it sinks to the bottom of the pool. Colder water, being less dense, rises to the top – which is why ponds freeze on the surface, trapping milder water below and giving pond life a better chance of survival. Breaking the ice on the surface creates more open water and promotes further freezing. If this were repeated daily in a lengthy period of frost, the effect on pondlife could be serious.