The Yorkshire Dales Bird of Prey ‘Partnership’ has published its latest evidence report documenting the status of raptors and details of confirmed illegal persecution incidents between 2022-2023.
I wrote about the establishment of this so-called ‘partnership’ in 2022 (see here) and again in June 2023 when the RSPB walked out, citing familiar problems with the involvement of the Moorland Association (see here).
The latest report suffers from the same issues as previous reports, being data-poor for most species (making it impossible to evaluate the status of many breeding raptors) and in this report there seems to be some misleading detail about the apparent ‘success’ of breeding hen harriers in the area, which I’m pretty sure includes data from brood meddled nests where the chicks were removed from the wild, reared in captivity and then released elsewhere, so not quite the natural success that readers are being led to believe.
The report does however include details of the many confirmed and suspected ongoing incidents of hen harrier persecution in this area, which led to the police executing a search warrant on an unnamed grouse moor in the Yorkshire Dales National Park around the same time this report was published (see here).
It was also interesting to read about the disappearance of a young satellite-tagged white-tagged eagle (originally from the Isle of Wight reintroduction problem) in March 2022 – I don’t think I’d read about that before.
The latest report can be read/downloaded here:
To summarise, birds of prey are still being found killed and many are still ‘disappearing’ in this grouse moor-dominated National Park and it’s not clear to me what this so-called ‘partnership’ has achieved.
As David Butterworth, Chief Executive of the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority said in December 2023 (here) when he was responding to the RSPB’s 2022 BirdCrime Report:
“We are currently preparing a new evidence report on bird of prey populations in the National Park on behalf of the Yorkshire Dales Bird of Prey Partnership. We hope this report will be published in the coming weeks. Sadly all of this will count for little whilst the persecution of Birds of Prey continues“.
Raptor Persecution UK 
Depressing reading but I say again nothing is ever going to change until these crimes are regarded as serious, punished as serious and HoL and MP’s no longer own and shoot the areas or sit on the benches for the courts. Period.
Grouse shooting continues to be the strongest and most effective advocate for its own abolition. In the meantime it is welcome that National parks are waking up to the reality that whtever the landscape destruction of iconic wildlife is seriously tarnishing their reputation.
Thanks for continuing to update us. Its the same old delay tactics 🙄
Seems like this National Park is ‘special’ for all the wrong reasons.
should be a serious threat to remove its National Park status by government..until that happens no one will take the situation seriously..pressure from other Park businesses needed..
Sad to read the awful toll disappearances and killings. The game lobby might crow about increasing numbers of breeding hen harriers but there should be far more in the Park and Nidderdale. It was particularly sad to read golden eagle Merrick had been frequenting the area before she was believed callously shot and killed. Raptors are never going to extend their range to and within the park if they aren’t allowed to survive….
Large parts of the YDNP and NNL as the AONB is now called are dominated by Grouse moors, with all of the bad things we associate with grouse moors shown in this report to be happening in this area far far too often. There is no doubt that several of the harrier broods in each year have been interfered with by brood meddling with figures for some of the other nests looking highly suspicious too. I too am new to this disappeared White-tailed Eagle, why wasn’t this highly publicised?
The data on many species is very poor even the traditionally monitored Peregrine, not sure what is going on there. The So called Merlin partnership data is being deliberately withheld from all interested parties by the “Raptor worker” over seeing it ( J Orchel.) Many of the moors that are part of this used to be monitored by others including me but we have been effectively excluded by this scheme.
Whilst the whole” partnership idea is proving as it is elsewhere as a failing idea due to a lack of complete co-operation I suspect conservationists are reluctant to follow RSPB our of the door for fear the process will continue between NE, the Game lobby and Park/NNL authorities only. What is clear is that without proper data, and others are with holding data as well the whole thing is a farce.
I’ve just read the report. Well written, well organised and well referenced but it felt almost entirely passionless. Noted the apparent consensus about numbers of harriers presumed killed in that one area. Not hard for anyone to join the dots and see the picture emerge. Noted too in the raptor species summaries the phrase “widespread but at low density” used several times. Funny that. These are the best grouse moors there is – with the highest densities of grouse per acre anywhere in the UK (therefore the world) at any time in history. The DGS lobby is always bleating that moors managed for grouse are best for raptors. But this is another report that shows that the mirror opposite is true…the bigger the grouse bags a moor has to brag about – the less medium and large raptors it has – to the point in terms of breeding pairs (of harriers, peregrines, goshawks) of almost nothing. The situation can’t go on indefinitely, the next government has got to do something to break thid intensive “maximum bags-whatever it takes to achieve it” model, to restore the rule of law and promote decent, balanced, legal land management.
Excellent comments – I agree with every word.
Thanks
Cheers Mike. Last thought – in a perfect world the NP would have access to the stats (perhaps even some honest ones!) of the annual grouse bags from each of the Estates within its boundary, and it could include these numbers in its reports to illustrate the numbers of grouse & implied scale of the “management” effort we are talking about in the NP. I think the average neutral person would be shocked and quite disgusted at the excesses of driven grouse shooting as it is, especially in contrast with the pathetic raptor numbers in the exact same places.
“I think the average neutral person would be shocked and quite disgusted at the excesses of driven grouse shooting as it is, especially in contrast with the pathetic raptor numbers in the exact same places.”
In distantly-related but not irrelevant news, the RSPCA today announced
“We are honoured that His Majesty King Charles III has chosen to be our new patron. The Monarch has a passion for wildlife and is a powerful voice for nature and regenerative farming. As we celebrate our 200th anniversary, we look forward to continuing our close association with the Royal Family in support of animal welfare.””As we celebrate our 200 years of changing animals’ lives, we look forward to continuing our close and enduring association with the Monarch and the Royal Family steadfast in our belief that the UK is, and always will be, a nation of animal lovers, and optimistic at what we can achieve together for animal welfare.”
“Having a Royal Patron means that we’re able to elevate the cause of animal welfare in the minds of the public and inspire more people to create a better world for every animal.”
In a depressing report on the scarcity of raptors in the Yorkshire Dales some figures stood out for me:
“Ewing et al. (2023) found that illegal killing accounted for 27- 43% mortality of Hen Harriers under one year of age, and 75% aged between one and two years old.
Ewing et al. (2023) also concluded that is likely to be attributable to grouse moor management because
i) a 10% increase in grouse moor use resulted in a 43% increase in mortality risk;
ii) a strong overlap existed between mortality and grouse moor extent in 20 km squares, identifying hotspots of illegal killing in northern England and northeast Scotland;
iii) death due to natural causes showed different spatial and temporal patterns; and
iv) timing of mortality peaked around the shooting season and during breeding territory establishment.”
Regarding G814, the Roy Dennis Wildlife Foundation website makes no mention of it at all. The only record online I could find was posted from Milverton, Somerset “In November G405 flew to Cornwall and one of the females released in 2021 has flown over to Exmoor she has the leg ring code G814. The vast undisturbed landscape of Exmoor provides a great habitat for the Eagles.” but with no date.
And this: ”Raptor persecution is one of the UK government’s seven wildlife crime priorities… The data detailing all raptor persecution incidents in England and Wales that is published by the Raptor Persecution Priority Delivery Group (RPPDG) for England and Wales is available on the Defra MAGIC website. At present, only the details of confirmed incidents recorded between 2011 and 2015 are available.“
and “At present there is no requirement for the Police to record raptor crime because it is not defined as notifiable by the Home Office”
Ha!
I can add that wildlife crime involving firearms is also not recorded as firearms offences by the Police either.
It’s the same in North Yorkshire the birds are not safe on National Trust land until the end of grouse shooting hunting is banned nothing will change too much power and money involved.
As the saying goes, money is the root of all evil.
The fact that there are so many reports of illegal raptor persecution occurring in all the National Parks where grouse and other game bird shooting takes places suggests that there is something fundamentally wrong with the way the nations National Parks Authority are functioning.
I suspect the majority of the public have an expectation that the National Parks are places where the nations precious wildlife, and natural habitats are protected. The government need to wake up on this issue, and give the Parks Authorities the ability to suspend any activity where there is evidence that such an activity is attracting criminal behaviour, or activities are damaging the flora and fauna that the public expect the National Park to protect.
If that means that all shooting and land management activities are suspended on a shooting estate where there is evidence of suspected illegal raptor persecution, then so be it. From some of the conversations I have had it it seems to me that there is a correlation between the cluster sites where there has been a disappearance of satellite tagged Hen Harriers and activities associated with DGS. I don’t think that it will be by chance that many of these cluster sites are within the vicinity of one particular shooting estate. This in itself should be sufficient for the Parks Authority to step in and suspend all activity on that particular estate whilst a thorough investigation is carried out.
The fact that the government appears to be in denial as to regards the true extent of raptor persecution is simply not acceptable. It is very noticeable that the government seems very willing to quickly pass legislation to prevent activities which bring its own reputation into question, such as on the question of tackling the climate crisis, but ignores other matters such as ongoing persistent illegal persecution of raptors, or the continuing destruction and degradation of the natural environment and wildlife.
I believe fundamental change is now needed as to how the nations National Parks are managed, so that they offer proper protection to nations wildlife and rare plant species. It is obvious that such change will require new legislation, which I believe should include legislation similar to the Scottish Wildlife Management and Muirburn Bill, so that those shooting estates which engage in suspected criminal activity find they can no longer operate. Such a move could even be beneficial to those shooting estates which operate totally within the law, and where good conservation work is taking place, as they will no longer be at an economic disadvantage to the rogue estates where the emphasis is totally on creating unsustainable high artificial grouse populations in order to increase bag sizes and maximizing the number of shoot days the estate can offer its fee paying clientele. (a topic very well covered by spaghnum morose in his earlier comment on this thread).