Three adult ospreys at Rutland Water are to be fitted with GPS tags in an effort to act as a deterrent to would-be persecutors. Three male ospreys disappeared from the area between 2010-2011 and the project team suspects they may have been shot.
It’s a sad reflection of our attitude to raptors when the primary reason for fitting sat tags is as a persecution deterrent, not research. Not that a sat tag will deter those with an interest in killing these birds, but at least the project team will know where the birds have gone down.
BBC news article here
For those interested in the fantastic osprey reintroduction project at Rutland, project officer Tim Mackrill has recently written a book about it (see here).
Raptor Persecution UK 
Pathetic..shooting ospreys..however the mention of fishermen may be wide of the mark..when an osprey was shot near a pheasant pen in the Borders in the 90s, “the word on the street” was that an underkeeper had mistaken it for a goshawk. All just big hookie beaks to some people…Hopefully the tags will help sort this one out..
These ospreys are live on camera 0600 – 2000.
Forgot to add the link:-
http://www.ospreys.org.uk/webcam/
What they fail to mention 2 Adults were tagged in 2011 and both came to grief. I do not like these trackers and the record for tracking juveniles is appalling. I do not think birds should be flying with harnesses and aerials on their backs that should not be there.
Tags and rings never looked right to me, but I am simply not remotely qualified to judge whether they have any detrimental effect on the birds. I would like to hear what those with appropriate expertise have to say. If there are significant undesirable effects I would have expected to have heard of them before now.
I fully support any effort to stop the shooting and poisoning of raptors. Tracking is not the answer and it was 2011 when RW first did this and as I said both birds perished. This is not new news. I also am not sure about whether these harm birds but it will be interesting to find out. How can you put a harness and aerial on a bird that has a difficult time to survive migration without these.
I have been following tracking of Ospreys for few years and as I said the return rate of young is grim. Two Rutland birds in 2011 perished. AW a fantastic and experienced bird. 09 was thought to be taken by an eagle owl. We do not know and all guesses with both.
I am 100% behind Raptor persecution and poisoning and shooting needs stronger sentances but a lot of this tracking of young birds I think is for commercial reasons. I hope not with adult birds.
What is not said that the tracked juveniles the survival record is abysmal. This is done for profit, Ospreys are increasing and if important the RSPB would pay for it. Regularly sites ask for donations. Please check out the stats for this? Ospreys are interesting and there Is no need to track and the survival rate is shocking.
I am not a ringer, but I do think that a great deal of knowledge has been gleaned from various ringing, marking and satellite-tracking projects. The return rate for young Ospreys may well be on the low side, but can we be sure that this isn’t just down to normal mortality in young, inexperienced birds? A Cuckoo, fitted with a tracker on 1 June 2011 is still going strong, has completed three return migrations from the UK to Africa, and has taught us a great deal about Cuckoo migration and wintering grounds.
We have also been educated about various wildfowl migration patterns (vital in attempts to stop windfarm developments in certain areas), and again many make return journeys year after year.
I don’t believe the harnesses or the trackers themselves pose much of a problem.