Month: April 2014

Ross-shire Massacre: police searches underway

Bird poisoning farm searchesThe Inverness Courier is reporting that up to ten police cars and vans pulled up outside a number of farms in the Conon Bridge area this morning. The police officers were reportedly searching farm houses, outbuildings, barns and bins.

A Police Scotland spokesperson is quoted as saying: “Police are currently conducting searches in the Conon Brae area as part of ongoing enquiries into a wildlife crime investigation regarding the death of 17 birds of prey consisting of 13 red kites and four buzzards. Landowners in the area are cooperating with the searches“.

Inverness Courier article here.

Also reported on STV here.

Also reported in Ross-shire Journal here.

Previous posts on Ross-shire Massacre here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.

Ross-shire Massacre: reward rises to £26,000

Well this is good to see. A group of landowners and farmers from the Moray Firth area have pledged £12,000 to the reward for information about the mass poisoning of at least 18 red kites and buzzards near Conon Bridge.

This donation takes the reward to over £26,000, following contributions of £5,000 by RSPB Scotland, £5,000 by an anonymous donor and over £4,000 raised so far by donations from the general public.

News article in the Northern Times here

What’ll be interesting is whether this extra £12,000, if unclaimed as a reward, will be donated to the RSPB Scotland Investigations Team, as the rest of the reward money will be. Probably not, given landowners’ organisation Scottish Land and Estates‘ constant criticism of the RSPB’s investigations work.

Let’s hope the lure of a £26,000 reward will draw out somebody who may be shielding the criminal(s) involved in this incident.

If you’d like to donate to the reward fund, please go HERE.

Previous blogs on the Ross-shire Massacre here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.

Ross-shire Massacre: death toll rises to 18, and counting….

This is the story that just won’t go away.

This morning we reported that a 13th dead red kite had been found (see here).

Now, a 14th red kite has been uncovered in the Ross-shire Massacre, bringing the total of confirmed dead birds to 18 (14 red kites & 4 buzzards). We fully expect this figure to rise again.

As the death toll grows, so does the reward fund, reflecting the public’s increasing frustration and anger. If you’d like to donate, please click HERE.

Previous blogs on the Ross-shire Massacre here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.

Red Kite F8 Ross-shire Massacre

Ross-shire Massacre: death toll rises to 17

The number of dead raptors found in the mass poisoning incident at Conon Bridge, Ross-shire, has now risen to 17 corpses following the discovery of another dead red kite.

So far, 13 red kites and four buzzards have been dead.

The search of the surrounding area continues.

If you’d like to contribute to an on-line fund to help increase the reward for information (currently stands at over £13,000), please click this link HERE.

[£5,000 donated by RSPB Scotland; £5,000 donated by an anonymous donor; £3,000+ (to date) donated by members of the public].

If the reward goes unclaimed, the funds will be given to the RSPB Scotland Investigations Team to help their important work.

Previous blogs on the Ross-shire Massacre here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here

Red Kite F8 Ross-shire Massacre

 

Official statements about the Leadhills poisoned peregrine

Following on from Saturday’s blog post about the poisoned peregrine that was found in the Leadhills area and the appalling response from the police (see here), we expected to read some official statements today from the likes of Environment Minister Paul Wheelhouse, PAW Scotland, Police Scotland, National Wildlife Crime Unit, Scottish Land & Estates, the Scottish Gamekeepers’ Association etc etc.

Here’s what we found:

NOTHING.

Why did we expect a response? Well, partly because of all the rhetoric we’ve been fed over the past few years about how stamping out wildlife crime is a priority for Police Scotland, for the Government, for SLE, for the SGA etc etc, and partly because this particular incident is number 45 on a long list of other raptor persecution incidents reported from the Leadhills area since 2003 (and we know there are many more incidents that went unrecorded because we’ve reported some of them ourselves!).

We know that over 50 of you have emailed the Minister (thank you) to demand some specific action, including an inquiry into PC Everitt’s alleged refusal to accept this incident was probably a wildlife crime, and to insist that SNH now use their new powers to restrict the use of General Licences in the Leadhills area.

The Minister has 20 working days in which to respond. For those of us who wrote to him over the weekend, that means he has to respond by 2nd May 2014. However, we know from previous incidents that the Minister usually waits until the very last day of that 20-working day period before he actually does respond. If we were cynics we would think that these delayed responses were designed to ‘wait out’ the public’s anger which will probably have subsided by the time the 20 working day deadline has expired.

We also know from past experience that the Minister will likely tell us that he can’t comment about Police Scotland procedures (e.g. “it’s a police matter and it would be inappropriate for me to comment”) and that he can’t comment about the potential withdrawal of General Licences (e.g. “it’s an SNH matter and it would be inappropriate for me to respond”).

He might surprise us but none of us are expecting him to. So, in anticipation of a feeble, question-dodging response, we thought we’d bypass him and go directly to those agencies ourselves.

If any of you are also interested in doing this, here are some useful contact details:

To find out why Police Scotland and the NWCU failed to act when this crime was reported to them, there are three key players to contact –

The Police Scotland Wildlife Crime Portfolio is led strategically by Assistant Chief Constable Malcolm Graham. Email: Acc.CrimeMCPP@scotland.pnn.police.uk

Police Scotland Wildlife Crime Portfolio Lead Officer is Det. Sup. Cameron Cavin. Email: Cameron.Cavin@scotland.pnn.police.uk

Police Scotland Wildlife Crime Coordinator is Sgt. Andrew Mavin. Email: Andrew.Mavin@scotland.pnn.police.uk

We’re sure all three gentlemen would love to have the opportunity to explain what happened (or more to the point, why nothing happened) and how their failure to respond fits in with their much-publicised approach to tackling wildlife crime (see here for details).

To ask SNH whether they will be enacting the new enabling clause in the 2014 General Licences and thus restricting their use in the Leadhills area, contact the Chief Executive of SNH, Ian Jardine. Email: ian.jardine@snh.gov.uk

We’re still interested in what the Environment Minister has to say about it all, of course. For those of you who haven’t yet emailed him to demand robust action, here’s his email address: Ministerforenvironment@scotland.gsi.gov.uk

They might all think that by keeping quiet for a few days we’ll all forget about it and move on to something else. They’d be pretty stupid to think so.

Poisoned peregrine found nr Leadhills boundary: police response appalling

Peregrine poisoned Leadhills Feb 2014In the middle of February, a member of the public found a dead adult peregrine falcon in suspicious circumstances close to the boundary of Leadhills Estate in South Lanarkshire.

The person who found it immediately ‘phoned Police Scotland and asked them to attend. The person was told that it wasn’t a police matter. The person queried that response and asked the Police to double check. The Police said ‘No, definitely not a police matter, call the RSPB’.

The member of the public was clued-up enough to know that it wasn’t an SSPCA matter because the bird was already dead (and therefore the SSPCA had no powers to investigate). So the person called the RSPB for help.

According to information provided to us by the member of the public, the RSPB called the National Wildlife Crime Unit (NWCU) and spoke to PC Charlie Everitt, who allegedly told them it wasn’t a police matter as there was no evidence of a crime having been committed. The RSPB asked if they could retrieve the corpse and permission was granted (this permission is needed for any RSPB-collected evidence to be admissible in a future criminal case, as the RSPB do not have any investigatory powers).

The RSPB collected the dead peregrine and submitted it for a post-mortem and it then went on to SASA for toxicology analysis.

We’ve been waiting to hear the results of those tests before we blogged about the incident.

Yesterday the results were made public – the peregrine had been poisoned (the name of the poison has not been released). However, the news didn’t come in the form of an all-singing-all-dancing Police Scotland press release. It came out, almost buried, in a BBC News article about the mass poisoning of red kites and buzzards in the Black Isle (see here).

We have several serious concerns about this incident.

First of all, the Police Scotland response. The operator who took the first telephone call didn’t realise that this was a police matter. That’s almost forgiveable – perhaps they were new, inexperienced, whatever. It’s not good enough though – had the member of the public not been clued up enough to know that they could contact the RSPB, this incident would have gone un-investigated and unrecorded.

Of greater concern is the alleged response of PC Charlie Everitt of the NWCU (pictured on the right of this photo, shaking hands with SGA Chairman Alex Hogg as they sign an MOU for greater partnership working on wildlife crime). For those who don’t know, PC Everitt is employed as the Scottish Investigative Support Officer at NWCU and one of his main roles is to focus on raptor persecution. Here is a description of his full role as documented in the Scottish Government’s report Wildlife Crime in Scotland, 2012:

“The Scottish Investigative Support Officer (SISO) plays a significant role in partnership working and is jointly funded by SNH and Police Scotland. The SISO post (held by PC Charles Everitt) focuses on issues of significant threat in Scotland (raptor persecution and the illegal taking of freshwater pearl mussels). In addition, he leads and furthers investigations by providing expert advice, acting as a single point of contact and by providing corroboration to Wildlife Crime Officers” (see here, page 30).

PC Everitt is well aware of the long list of recorded raptor persecution incidents in the Leadhills area, and especially the frequency with which poisoned baits have been found. Here is our list of 44 known reported incidents in this area between 2003-2013. The latest poisoned peregrine becomes #45:

2003 April: hen harrier shot

2003 April: hen harrier eggs destroyed

2004 May: buzzard shot

2004 May: short-eared owl shot

2004 June: buzzard poisoned (Carbofuran)

2004 June: 4 x poisoned rabbit baits (Carbofuran)

2004 June: crow poisoned (Carbofuran)

2004 July: poisoned rabbit bait (Carbofuran)

2004 July: poisoned rabbit bait (Carbofuran)

2005 February: poisoned rabbit bait (Carbofuran)

2005 April: poisoned buzzard (Carbofuran)

2005 June: poisoned rabbit bait (Carbofuran)

2005 June: poisoned rabbit bait (Carbofuran)

2006 February: poisoned buzzard (Carbofuran)

2006 March: poisoned buzzard (Carbofuran)

2006 March: poisoned pigeon bait (Carbofuran)

2006 April: dead buzzard (persecution method unknown)

2006 May: poisoned rabbit bait (Carbofuran)

2006 May: poisoned rabbit bait (Carbofuran)

2006 May: poisoned egg baits (Carbofuran)

2006 June: poisoned buzzard (Carbofuran)

2006 June: poisoned raven (Carbofuran)

2006 June: 6 x poisoned rabbit baits (Carbofuran)

2006 June: poisoned egg bait (Carbofuran)

2006 September: 5 x poisoned buzzards (Carbofuran)

2006 September: poisoned rabbit bait (Carbofuran)

2006 September: poisoned rabbit bait (Carbofuran)

2007 March: poisoned buzzard (Carbofuran)

2007 April: poisoned red kite (Carbofuran)

2007 May: poisoned buzzard (Carbofuran)

2008 October: poisoned buzzard (Carbofuran) [listed as ‘Nr Leadhills’]

2008 October: poisoned rabbit bait (Carbofuran) [listed as ‘Nr Leadhills’]

2008 November: 3 x poisoned ravens (Carbofuran) [listed as ‘Nr Leadhills’]

2009 March: poisoned rabbit bait (Carbofuran)

2009 March: poisoned raven (Carbofuran)

2009 April: poisoned rabbit bait (Carbofuran)

2009 April: poisoned magpie (Carbofuran)

2009 April: poisoned raven (Carbofuran)

2010 October: short-eared owl shot

2011 March: illegally-set clam trap

2011 December: buzzard shot

2012 October: golden eagle shot (just over boundary with Buccleuch Estate)

2013 June: significant cache of pre-prepared poisoned baits found in woodland next to grouse moor

2013 August: red kite found shot and critically-injured in Leadhills village

Based on the bulging intelligence file available, PC Everitt, the lead intelligence officer for raptor persecution crimes in Scotland, should have immediately suspected this was a potential poisoning incident and should have either attended the scene himself or at the very least, directed a local Wildlife Crime Officer to attend. Why didn’t he? That deserves an inquiry.

Another concern is the pathetic publicity of this incident. Was it a case of ‘this is a good day to bury bad news so let’s sneak it out while everyone’s focusing on the mass poisoning incident in Ross-shire’?, because that’s what it looks like.

However, the biggest concern of all is that here, yet again, is another illegal raptor poisoning incident in the Leadhills area. The scale of these crimes in this one area is phenomenal. The number of criminal convictions in relation to the number of incidents is disgraceful – only two convictions have ever been secured here – and both involved gamekeepers employed on the Leadhills Estate.

With the number of confirmed poisoned raptors in Scotland this year already at 17, no more evidence is required to show that government initiatives and partnership working is wholly ineffective. Environment Minister Paul Wheelhouse MUST respond robustly and we must hold him to account.

We urge you to email Mr Wheelhouse and demand the following action:

1. Launch an inquiry into why Police Scotland told a member of the public this was not a police matter, and publish the findings.

2. Launch an inquiry into PC Everitt’s alleged response to this incident, and publish the findings.

3. Launch an inquiry into Police Scotland’s media response to this wildlife crime, and publish the findings.

4. Launch an inquiry into why illegal raptor persecution continues to flourish in the Leadhills area, and publish the findings.

5. Insist that SNH uses the new enabling clause in the General Licences to withdraw their use in the Leadhills area with immediate effect.

6. Insist that Mr Wheelhouse stipulates the exact time scale he intends to use to ‘see whether his new enforcement measures [introduced in July 2013] take effect’.

Environment Minister’s email address: Ministerforenvironment@scotland.gsi.gov.uk

Ross-shire Massacre: Your opportunity to contribute to reward fund

The RSPB has set up an on-line donation page where those of us who want to show our disgust and outrage at the Ross-shire Massacre can contribute towards the ‘reward for information’ fund.

The reward was initially set up by RSPB with a £5,000 contribution. This has now been increased to £10,000 thanks to an anonymous donor. Here’s our chance to further increase the reward.

If the reward is unclaimed, the funds will be used directly for contributing towards the RSPB’s Investigation Unit – a small team of dedicated professionals doing their utmost against the powerful, well-funded and influential game-shooting industry.

If you’d like to show your support, and ramp up the pressure on the poisoning criminals who continue to commit these atrocities, you can donate here.

RSPB press release here.

Previous blogs about the Ross-shire Massacre here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.

Some light relief, thanks to the SGA

Following the news of the last few weeks, we’re all in need of some light relief.

Thanks to our friends at the Scottish Gamekeepers’ Association, we’ve got some.

The following was posted on the SGA’s facebook page this morning – it’s about their latest so-called ‘scientific’ study of waders on grouse moors. Whoever chose this image to illustrate this particular story is a genius. Thanks for the laugh, SGA!

SGA 1st wader counts

Fatally-injured spring-trapped buzzard, West Yorks: police appeal for info

Buzzard spring trapped Winscar Reservoir 2While all the media focus has been on the mass poisoning of 16 raptors in Highland Scotland, it’s business as usual in other parts of the UK.

West Yorkshire police are appealing for information after the discovery of a spring-trapped buzzard near Winscar Reservoir back in February.

Walkers found the buzzard in distress and unable to fly. When they approached it they discovered its leg was caught in a large spring trap. They removed the trap and took the bird to a vet but its injuries were so severe it had to be euthanised.

The buzzard was less than a year old and had hatched at Dove Stone, an RSPB/United Utilities Partnership site. It had been ringed as a chick by the Peak District Raptor Monitoring Group.

More details of the crime and police contact details here.

 

Ross-shire Massacre: more media coverage

BBC News video footage here, including an interview with the RSPB’s Black Isle Red Kite Officer, Brian Etheridge, and a local resident calling for a jail term for the poisoner(s).

A detailed article in the Guardian, written by Severin Carrell here, providing good background information about the poor conservation status of the Black Isle Red Kite population.

Previous blog posts on the Ross-shire Massacre here, here, here, here, here, here and here.

Photo of a red kite by Claire Marshall.