The fiasco that is wildlife crime reporting in Scotland continues today with the release of the Scottish Government’s poisoning stats for the second quarter of this year (i.e. incidents from April, May and June).
These stats are published by SASA (Science and Advice for Scottish Agriculture), a division of the Scottish Government. A few years ago they used to publish the figures in a timely way – these days they’ve introduced a delay of approximately six months. Here they are.
The stats are quite interesting. Take note of the number of buzzard deaths attributed to ‘probable starving’. These are the buzzards that are supposedly devouring gamebirds quicker than you can say, “Quick, pass the Carbofuran”. But, there’s something far more interesting in the report than that….or rather it’s not in the report…
For some reason, several known poisoning incidents are ‘missing’ from the data. We know that these incidents took place in March, April and May in Highland and Tayside. For one of them (a poisoned buzzard in March), this incident should have been reported in the stats for Q1 (Jan, Feb, March), but it wasn’t. We didn’t challenge that because it was reasonable to assume that a police investigation/raid may still be on-going and any publicity about the poisoning might have compromised a police operation.
But, now it’s October. These poisonings took place 7, 6 and 5 months ago, respectively. There hasn’t been a whisper of a police press statement about any of them. Why not?
And now the Scottish Government’s quarterly poisoning report has been sanitised to remove any mention of these incidents. Why is that?
Who stands to benefit from the concealment of these incidents? Certainly some organisations with a vested interest in wanting the public to believe that poisoning incidents are still on a downward trend, when actually they are not – they are on the increase from last year’s figures but of course nobody wants to admit that and if the figures aren’t in the public domain then they don’t have to admit to it!
Who told SASA to remove the data on these incidents? Was it Police Scotland?
Why don’t we ask them. Let’s ask Sgt Andrew Mavin, who is the Police Scotland Wildlife Crime Coordinator and who is quoted as saying, “Tackling crime, keeping people safe and building confidence is at the centre of everything the new service in Scotland stands for and this is exactly the approach we take to wildlife crime” (see here).
Is it really, Sgt Mavin? Then how do you justify the concealment of these poisoning incidents from public scrutiny? Why didn’t Police Scotland issue a press statement about them? Why didn’t Police Scotland shout it from the rooftops that highly toxic and illegal poisons are being left out in the countryside putting peoples’ lives at risk? Did Police Scotland ask SASA to remove these incidents from their public report? How can we have any confidence in Police Scotland when we find out that serious crimes are being kept hidden from the general public?
Here is his email address: andrew.mavin@scotland.pnn.police.uk
And while we’re on the subject of official cover-ups….we’ve been having a closer look at the Scottish Government’s Wildlife Crime Annual Report (2012) that was published last week (see here). We’re still not ready to write a detailed review on that report but we did notice something that’s relevant to today’s blog – the 2012 poisoning figures given in that report number three incidents. Conveniently, at least one other poisoning incident is ‘missing’. It involved the death of a raven and a crow and the discovery of poisoned meat bait and 2 rabbit baits, and it happened in the ‘Borders’ in May 2012. We blogged about it (here).
Why was this incident excluded from the Scottish Government’s so-called ‘official report’ on wildlife crime in 2012? Was it because no raptor species was reported as being poisoned? In which case, in the 2013 report are we going to see the exclusion of the 35+ poisoned meat baits found in gamebags on Leadhills Estate this year, because no poisoned raptor was actually found?
Let’s ask Environment Minister Paul Wheelhouse: ministerforenvironment@scotland.gsi.gov.uk
Dear Environment Minister,
Please can you explain why confirmed wildlife poisoning incidents are being concealed from the public and excluded from official government reports?
Thanks.
Raptor Persecution UK 
We are personally aware of two buzzards found dead at Leadhills in 2012. Both came back as ‘starved to death’. One of these birds was discovered by Project Raptor. We were already very suspicious of the toxicology results on this bird, but became even more concerned when we later heard that another buzzard had been found at Leadhills a while before our discovery and the results from that bird’s tests by SASA also came back as ‘starved to death’.
The bird we found was tucked under a tree by a river, about fifteen meters from some set snares. It looked as though it had been dead less than twenty four hours. The bird looked healthy. There was a slight chemical smell coming from it, a little like bleach. The bird was dry except for the head area which was slightly damp, but it hadn’t been raining. There is no doubt in our minds that that bird had been placed there. No sign on the ground indicated that it had got there itself.
Could these two buzzards have died from a poison that SASA do not test for?
SASA’s report for Jan-Sep 2012 (https://raptorpersecutionscotland.wordpress.com/2013/01/18/another-poisoned-buzzard-in-scotland/) had a similar tone to it, and I commented on the unlikely “starvation” issue then, and the possibility that they are only testing for certain poisons. Referring to case number 13086 in this latest report, it would appear that they do only conduct tests on a limited number of poisons.
Considering that Alex Hogg, Chairman of the Scottish Gamekeepers Association, stated on the BBC Countryfile programme (1 July 2012) that he lost 1000 pheasant poults out of 3800 (it was originally out of 700!!!) to Buzzards in the space of a few weeks, and the vast majority of game estates claim that Buzzards are responsible for the losses of hundreds of thousands of game birds, as well as the widespread decline in waders and songbirds, then the whole starvation issue has to be questioned. Of course, there is the possibility that Alex Hogg was lying in this case, and that the wider game-shooting industry has peddled the Buzzard lie for a number of years.
However, I do believe that some of these Buzzards did die from starvation, but I also believe that the lower levels of poisons may have contributed to this. In much the same way as a swan suffering from lead poisoning can still walk and swim, but will do so in a lethargic manner, it will struggle to feed itself as a result, and I truly believe that a similar thing is happening in raptors, certainly in respect to impaired faculties resulting in an inability to feed properly or manoeuvre effectively. But then again, there could easily be unknown poisons being used in the countryside, leading to many of these “starvation” results.
SASA’s 2009 report has the grand total of five Buzzards dying from starvation, their 2010 report documents four Buzzards dying in this way, six in 2011 and eight in 2012. Compare these records with the 17 documented starvation records from January to June 2013 alone. There are many other unattributed deaths in addition to the starvation totals, so why the huge and sudden increase in Buzzard starvation incidents?
But anyway, leaving aside all the “starvation” records, there is another questionable record in the report;
13085 – A member of the public found this dead buzzard. A chemical smell was reported to be emanating from the carcase but the chemical was not identified during the analytical investigation. A
very low residue of difenacoum was identified in liver tissue from the bird but the cause of death remains unknown.
This one was from Fife, and found in similar circumstances to Project Raptor’s find at Leadhills, so is this more proof that unknown poisons are being used in our countryside? Or could it be that the landowning and gamekeeping interests know that SASA are only testing for a few poisons, so have deliberately switched their poison of choice? Given the cosiness between the government and its agencies with the shooting industry, it would be easy to accept this latter suggestion.
But there is another worrying aspect to the way SASA reports certain items, and it does appear that they are choosing to shy away from using abuse in some instances, and this inconsistent methodology could account for some of the 27 reported unknown or starvation Buzzard deaths. The following (12018) was in the 2012 report;
“A horse died following 3 days of colic symptoms. There was concern that it might have been poisoned. However, no pesticides residues were detected in the samples tested. Several weeks later a dog from the same household started fitting and died within 20 minutes. Residues of strychnine were confirmed in the samples tested from the dog. The source of the poison has not been established but abuse is suspected.”
Now compare that to 13083 from this latest report;
“A dog walker found this badger dead in the entrance to a sett. The police were informed and the carcase was collected for examination. Extensive bleeding was evident from the trachea and other locations in the carcase during the post mortem examination and the analytical investigation confirmed the presence of residue of bromadiolone, at a level normally considered to be within the anticipated lethal range, in liver tissue. Therefore it is likely that anticoagulant rodenticide poisoning contributed to the death of this badger. This incident has been categorised as unspecified as the source of the
bromadiolone is unlikely to be established.”
Both sources of poison could not be established, yet one (most probably a creature belonging to a wealthy, horse-owning family) is categorised as abuse and the other (relating to a wild carnivore and sometime enemy of the shooting industry) is categorised as unspecified.
In response to the Jan-Sep 2012 report, I flippantly remarked that SASA were another SNH. I’m now firmly of this belief, and to quote the oft-used phrase, it’s as bent as a nine-bob note!
I am not in the least surprised to learn of this. It is my opinion that the government, judiciary and police are keen not to upset, what they believe, is the cash cow of the shooting estates, many individuals in these professions are also likely to have a vested interest.
It just makes you wonder how many other poisoning, shooting, trapping, nest stamping, nest burning etc, etc, Raptor persecution crimes are being swept under the carpet and not reported officially. It’s often been said on this forum and in many other places, that the miniscule amount of Raptor persecution incidents that are actually discovered and reported is just a tiny percentage of the large scale slaughter of our so-called protected Raptors. This slaughter is actually taking place every day of the year, year in year out and our environment protection agencies and our illustrious police force and justice system do nothing about it. Who is it that’s pulling the strings of these people who are supposed to be in charge, maybe it’s time to find out and make it public knowledge.
What a farce, they can all stand around in a circle patting each other on the back, suppress the truth and what happens for each of the players, the Government claim their new hard line measures are paying off even though in reality they haven’t done anything, still no news on the viarious liability case recently discussed. Minister gets a pat on the back for allegedly reducing crime. Police crime figures go down, they claim its due to them and get a pat on the back, Gamekeepers claim they’ve always condemned this from day one and if only they could be given the green light to kill Raptors under license then we could all live in utopia, they too pat themselves on the back because the figures have dropped and the few instances discovered have probably been planted anyway. Usual spin, keep up the brilliant work exposing these jokers. The one worrying aspect is the lack of anything coming from RSPB Scotland, lets hope their not being bought off!
Your last sentence worries me as well, Merlin. RSPB certainly do seem a little cowed in this respect lately.
Its the RSPB agm this weekend in London. It would be nice if questions were raised in any otber business regarding this and the ongoing debacle regarding the siting of the bird fair