THE BBC has left Scots baffled after it wrongly claimed a bird which can be seen across the country has actually been extinct “in Britain since the 1900s”.
Viewers of the BBC’s News at One programme took to social media after the bizarre claim about ospreys – one of Scotland’s most magnificent birds.
But ignore whatever raptors you might have seen in famous nesting locations such as Loch Garten or the Loch of the Lowes.
As the BBC host told viewers: "The osprey has been extinct as a breeding bird in Britain since the 1900s, but numbers have now started to grow in England and Wales.
"A reintroduction programme over decades has proved a success, but there is still help needed when it comes to nesting sites."
A viewer would be forgiven for thinking there are zero ospreys in Scotland at all – let alone any attempts to reintroduce them.
But government agency Nature Scot estimates that there are in fact somewhere between 250 and 300 breeding osprey pairs in Scotland – the lion’s share of the population across the whole of the UK.
Ospreys were driven to extinction on these islands back in the 1800s, but they reintroduced themselves to Scotland back in the 1950s.
Reintroduction programmes in England and Wales have also had some success, with chicks hatching in both of those countries in recent years – making the BBC’s claim even more baffling.
It certainly confused Scots, who took to social media to note the error.
"There's ospreys within five miles of me here in Scotland. What are they gibbering on about?" one user wrote.
"There have been ospreys nesting at Loch Garten since I was a wee girl and I am a pensioner!" another added.
A third quipped that there would be "Scots sitting in their homes in Scotland thinking: 'What the hell are you on about?'"
Another pointed out that the BBC had even reported on osprey chicks in Scotland just hours before their news broadcast, with an article saying that two "Loch Arkaig-based chicks are struggling for food following reduced fish catches by dad Louis in recent weeks".
The incident made the Jouker think of another BBC blunder back in 2021, when it claimed that the Lake District was Britain’s “largest national park”.
Of course, the Cairngorms National Park in Scotland is bigger – but who counts Scotland? Apparently not the BBC.
Will the broadcaster be offering a correction? We’ve asked them.
UPDATE:
The BBC has responded, with a spokesperson saying: “We acknowledge the script could have been clearer in this case."
Well, that's a bit of an understatement.
