A CONSERVATIONIST has hit out at a duck cull in Notts.

North American ruddy ducks were killed this week at Colwick Park as part of a control programme by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra).

Defra says the European-wide cull of the duck is needed because it breeds with the white-headed duck in Spain to the point where that species is now under threat of extinction.

But Darren Matthews, a member of Netherfield Wildlife Group who is studying countryside management at Brackenhurst College, claims the cull was being done on a "scientifically flawed" premise.

Mr Matthews, of Bourne Mews, said: "The North American ruddy duck does not interbreed with any of our native species and causes very little or no disruption to our ecological balance.

"The evidence that the ruddy duck from the UK is migrating to Spain and causing the decline of the white-headed duck is not fully proven."

A Defra spokesperson said the cull had been carried out across the UK since 2005 at more than 80 sites.