Back in mid-July we blogged about a dead buzzard that had been found near Heriot in the Scottish Borders – it had been shot, but the precise cause of death was not known (see here).
Fast forward to August and it has now been revealed the buzzard had also been poisoned and that this was the cause of death, according to the BBC (see here). The poison used has not been named.
Enormous credit, once again, to the local Police Wildlife Crime Officer Hannah Medley for pursuing this case and also for publicising the findings in the media. Credit also to the lab folk at SASA for managing to detect poison in what had previously been described as a badly decomposed carcass.
This confirmed poisoning now takes the number of known (reported) poisonings in Scotland this year above the published figure from last year, so hopefully we will no longer have to read the ridiculous claims from the usual suspects that ‘poisoning cases are significantly declining’. The facts show that they are doing nothing of the sort. How ironic in this, the so-called Year of Natural Scotland.
Unfortunately the public haven’t been allowed to see this year’s on-going tally as yet – we know of several poisoned birds that have not yet been reported in the media, even though the birds were poisoned much earlier in the year. We’ll have more to say about these cases later in September and we’ll be asking the usual questions of a particular Police Scotland division about why they’ve kept these poisonings a secret for so long.
Raptor Persecution UK 
Well done Hannah.
As if shooting the poor Buzzard wasn’t enough the sick sods had to make sure by poisoning it as well.
Perhaps the reason the police aren’t revealing the seriousness and scale of the illegal poisoning cases to the public is because they’re afraid it might cause a panic, then they’d have to do something serious about putting a stop to it !!!
For anyone who reads the fictional comic shooting times you’ll know how they like to put numbers and percentages at the top of one of their pages indicating how marvellous Gamekeepers are doing or how mismanagement from wildlife organisations are to blame for dwindling species, here we can actually do the header for them.
33% that’s the percentage illegal poisonings of birds of prey have already gone up this year.
Whilst on the subject of the said fictional comic did anyone see Alaisdair Mitchell’s “shiteshooter” comments from the previous week, he’s obviously read the blog on here “RSPB Investigations Team features in New Yorker magazine” (15th July)
and decided to do his own take on it, he starts by claiming 2 of his birding friends who he will call bert and fred, so as not to give their true identities go away to Mull on a birding holiday.
This caused much amusement in the pub were we were discussing this, he’s only given their first names so why does he feel the need to change them, we decided its obvious they must have obscure names like Montague and Tarquin, he ends his storey by saying either Monty or Tarks sends a cream egg through the post to wind the RSPB and the Police up and trick them into thinking it’s a wild birds egg, the Police and RSPB are then waiting at the address on the parcel when the said two show up. He then blames the RSPB for wasting Police time. Unbelievable.
In the pub at the same time as Shooting Times was being handed around for amusement, some of the young lads had a copy of the Sunday Sport, do you know the difference between the Sunday Sport and The Shooting Times. One is full of tits and unbelievable stories, the other comes out on Sunday.
There was a real case in the 90s of an egg thief [who has since been convicted of possession of wild birds eggs] getting a friend to post chocolate easter eggs to himself and then giving a false tip-off to the police. Sadly, the egg thief wasn’t prosecuted for wasting police time – as this blog shows its hard enough to get the police to take wildlife crime seriously…..the Shooting Times story seems very similar…which possibly means the author is acquainted with egg thieves??..wouldnt surprise me in the slightest..both groups are rabidly anti-conservation.
You have to wonder sometimes just what side of the ‘illegal raptor killing’ fence police Scotland are on. I would also like to say, well done Hannah Medley.
There are the WCOs, like Hannah, that are doing an admirable job in trying to uncover illegal practices – then there are those higher up the chain of command. Well done Hannah.