Scottish Natural Heritage will be organising a major conference later this year to discuss the results of their five-year Species Action Framework programme, which ended in March 2012.
‘Managing Species in a Challenging Climate: Scotland’s Species Action Framework’ will be held 22-23 November 2012 at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh.
There will be two presentations specifically on raptors; one on the white-tailed eagle and the other on the hen harrier.
The hen harrier presentation should be fascinating, especially as it’s being led by Des Thompson (SNH) and Simon Lester (head gamekeeper at the Langholm Moor Demonstration Project). A recent (2011) SNH-commissioned report (later attributed to JNCC, presumably for political reasons) on the conservation status of the hen harrier identified illegal persecution as one of the key constraints affecting hen harriers in Scotland, and particularly when associated with grouse moor management (see here). However, at the recent 2012 police wildlife crime conference in Scotland, Des Thompson claimed that “the great majority of these [grouse moors] are well managed” (see here). An interesting statement and completely at odds with the findings of the hen harrier conservation framework report as well as with the findings of the SNH-commissioned 2008 golden eagle conservation framework report (see here). Hopefully there will be an opportunity to question Des at this conference, and also Simon Lester – especially about the lack of transparency on the fate of all those satellite-tagged hen harrier chicks from the Langholm project (see here and here).
The Species Action Framework conference programme can be viewed here
Details on how to book your place at the conference can be found here. It’s worth noting that the registration fee rises after 13th July 2012.
Raptor Persecution UK 
In the past few years, I’ve been involved in attempts to safeguard a SSSI on the Ayrshire coast, a SSSI that SNH are responsible for protecting but they seem to be wanting rid of it. They claim that the SSSI has only had 160 species of bird but I can guarantee that the true figure is approaching 200 (and may even have surpassed that). If they can’t account for 40 species of bird on a SSSI, then I’m not surprised by their grouse management claims.
Enough of this nonsensical shooting driven drivel…what is needed is a full blown Conference or series of conferences to discuss the very existence of managed grouse moors and driven grouse shooting in the scottish uplands. There is more than enough evidence of criminal mismanagement of wildlife and habitats in these areas for their to be a debate about their very existence.
Lets have the real facts of crime [and lack of punishment]; economic facts on the different uses of such land at present and most importantly of all…a real debate on alternative uses of such land.
The big problem with that idea is ..who would chair it?…The “establishment” conservation bodies such as SNH are now so entangled with the shooting establishment that a neutral chair would seem impossible to find.
Dave you are about as far from a neutral position as is physically possible and to suggest yours is the voice of reason is nothing short of laughable!
I think DD makes some very valid and indesputable points – there has quite obviously been “criminal mismanagement of wildlife and habitats in these areas” and most definately the “economic facts on the different uses of such land at present and most importantly of all…a real debate on alternative uses of such land” would make very interesting reading indeed. Laughable? 50 or even 25 yeas ago a total ban on foxhunting would also have seemed laughable – and before than cock fighting and bull baiting. Things progress however and perhaps in another 25 or 50 years shoots and the vast areas of land given over to then might raise a smile (or more probably a grimace) in our descendants. Population increase, demographics and popular leisure activities will, in any case, lead, sooner of later, to a decline of large “sporting” estates as the shoots, and the restrictions on them become more onerous – remember Kinder Scout?
The land does not owe the owner a living and it and its resources belong to everyone.
Pip
Thanks for that Pip but dont agree that large sporting estates , in Scotland, are likely to decline anytime soon…due to any population increase or movement…they are the last bastion of feudalism [apart from the House of Lords and the aristocracy] and will be defended by their owners and supporters to the last grouse butt.It should be remembered that, by their own admission, most grouse moors actually run at a loss. So economic change isnt doing the trick either.
Those would be the kind of matters to discuss at such a Conference as I suggest.