Another shot buzzard found dead: central Scotland this time

Another shot buzzard has been found dead, this time near Thornhill, Stirlingshire.

The bird was found on the road (A873) near Loch Ruskie on 2 February. A later examination revealed it had been shot.

Central Scotland Police have put out an appeal for information – see here, although this doesn’t seem to have been picked up by the press as the appeal is dated 14 Feb 2013.

We believe this is the same buzzard that was reported to us by a blog reader on 2nd Feb. The person who found the bird had noticed that its injuries looked to be consistent with being shot, and they took it home, put it in the freezer and wrote to us about it. We passed on the info to the relevant authorities and it’s pleasing to see it was followed up. Well done to all those involved and particularly to the person who found the bird and had the sense to collect it and report it.

So, in the space of 48 hours we’ve blogged about two police appeals for information about two illegally-killed buzzards. Neither of these birds will appear on the 2013 poisoning maps – giving a pretty clear example of how unrepresentative those maps are in terms of reflecting the extent of illegal raptor persecution incidents.

Welcome to the Year of Natural Scotland.

Again, Environment Minister Paul Wheelhouse, we ask you when you’re going to take the action you promised you’d take if persecution incidents continued? How about now?