Month: November 2013

On Wednesday, Environment Minister Paul Wheelhouse gave evidence to the Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee (RACCE) at Holyrood about the government’s 2012 Wildlife Crime Report. We said we’d be watching the proceedings with interest, given Scottish Land & Estate’s claim that raptor persecution receives too much media attention (see here).

We did watch the live session and on the whole we thought that Wheelhouse did quite well, although we did think that some of the questions put to him by some of the RACCE Committee Members revealed a certain level of influence from those with a vested interest in game-estate management.

Quite a few questions related to the ‘setting up’ of estates and ‘interference’ of legal traps by supposed animal rights activists – in fact one of the panel tried to push him into admitting that it was a ‘legitimate concern’ (for estate owners/gamekeepers). Wheelhouse, though, was pretty firm in his response. He argued that it was legitimate to discuss how big a problem trap-tampering is because currently there isn’t any evidence to support the assertion that it is even a problem, although he did acknowledge that of course, trap-tampering was possible.

Trap interference/damage was one of the issues raised by SLE in their evidence to the RACCE Committee (see here) – they claimed it was ‘another group of increasing wildlife crimes’ that should be included in the Government’s annual Wildlife Crime Report. Trap interference and/or damage is a pretty interesting definition of what constitutes a wildlife crime, don’t you think?

And apparently, trap interference is not necessarily a criminal offence anyway, let alone a ‘wildlife crime’! Here’s what lawyer David McKie wrote on the subject in the last edition of the SGA’s member newsletter (McKie often acts as a defence agent for gamekeepers accused of wildlife crime) –

“As a matter of law, there is a significant difference between interference and vandalism.

Vandalism would involve the breaking of a crow cage trap by someone punching or kicking a hole in it, for example, or the deliberate smashing up of a Fenn trap. It would also include the cutting of snares.

Interference does not necessarily involve a criminal offence….That can involve the removal of traps from their set location, the release of decoy birds or the pulling of snares.

The police can probably not charge the individual with interference“.

Fascinating! And before anyone tries to accuse us of encouraging trap interference and/or damage, this information is published here purely for the purpose of intellectual discussion.

It emerged during the RACCE session that BASC is currently conducting some research to evaluate the scale of trap interference/damage so we’ll look forward to seeing those results – we’ll also be looking closely at the methods they used to make their evaluation – especially if the research is based solely on the word of gamekeepers.

Anyway, for those of you who missed seeing Paul Wheelhouse at the RACCE Committee on Wednesday you could always watch the Holyrood TV video archive (here – only available for 28 days). There is also an official text report of the meeting available to download: RACCE wildlife crime 27_11_2013

See if you can spot the bit when Angus MSP Graeme Dey claims that wildlife crime policing in Tayside is the ‘gold standard’!!!

Tomorrow (Weds 27th Nov), Environment Minister Paul Wheelhouse will give evidence on the government’s Wildlife Crime Report (2012) to the Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment  (RACCE) Committee at Holyrood.

The session will begin at 10am in Committee Room 3 and can be watched live on Holyrood TV (see here).

An interesting piece of written evidence has been submitted for the RACCE Committee to consider (see here, scroll down to page 11). It comes from Scottish Land and Estates and they are basically saying that raptor persecution receives too much media attention whereas poaching should be the focus of enforcement and publicity. They justify this by saying that poaching is the most commonly recorded wildlife crime (as shown in the government’s 2012 Wildlife Crime Report).

What they don’t say is that raptor persecution is clearly happening on a scale far greater than the police-recorded figures – so much so that its effect is having population-level impacts on species such as golden eagles, hen harriers, red kites and goshawks. Population-level impacts are not caused by ‘a few incidents’ – they are caused by widespread, systematic incidents. They also forget to mention the cack-handed way Police Scotland continue to deal with reported raptor persecution incidents, leading to poor recording and what we would call less than reliable figures.

It’s not the first time that SLE has tried to stifle media attention on raptor persecution incidents. Earlier this summer, CEO Doug McAdam wrote to the Environment Minister to complain about news coverage of certain crimes against raptors. So too did an ‘Industry Co-ordination Group’ – believed to include the following organisations: BASC, Scottish Gamekeepers’ Association, Scottish Countryside Alliance, Scottish Association of Country Sports and Scottish Land and Estates. A Freedom of Information request revealed the Minister’s responses, and all credit to him as he told them to piss off and focus on the real issue, that is, trying to stop the continuing illegal persecution of raptors in Scotland (although obviously he didn’t phrase it like that).

Here are copies of his letters: FOI Scot Gov 2013 media coverage raptor persecution

It’s no surprise that SLE want to put a stop to damaging media reports about raptor persecution incidents, especially if such incidents take place on estates owned by SLE members. It’s also no great surprise that they should be so interested in poaching; some of us think that poaching isn’t actually a wildlife crime at all – it’s more about ‘theft’ from super-rich landowners that just happens to involve wildlife. It doesn’t make any difference to the deer or the fish whether their death is caused by someone operating with or without the landowner’s permission, but it matters a great deal to the landowner, either because they’re losing money (from people who will pay to kill deer and fish)  or because they just don’t like the idea of someone else taking what the landowners perceive to be their property.

But is there another reason why landowners want to reduce the amount of media coverage that raptor persecution incidents receive? Look closely at the penultimate paragraph in the Minister’s letter to the Industry Co-ordination Group –

“You mention the decision by Natural England to issue licences to control buzzards and your view that there should be open debate on how or whether, we manage common raptors. As far as Scotland is concerned I have been careful to remind anyone who asks about our position, that the provision allowing control of avian predators remains on the statute book and that SNH as the licensing authority will give careful consideration to any application. As far as debate is concerned, I am happy to discuss issues that are raised with me, but as you will be aware, the continuing levels of illegal persecution will inevitably and understandably produce an emotional response to this question from many members of the public“.

Surely the game-shooting industry’s intention isn’t to keep raptor persecution incidents out of the media to fool the general public into thinking that illegal persecution has stopped, in order to smooth the way for buzzard-killing licences to be issued?

We’ll be watching the Minister’s speech with great interest tomorrow.