Sid was one of the successfully-fledged hen harriers at Langholm this year. He was satellite-tagged on 3rd July and his movements have been mapped and shared on the Making the Most of Moorlands blog all summer.
In late September Sid flew to North Yorkshire. His satellite tag stopped transmitting from an area of moorland near Hawes. The location has apparently been searched but there’s no sign of Sid or of his sat tag.
Nobody will be surprised by this news, nor the proximity of his last signal to driven grouse moors. Cue outpourings of ‘sadness’ from the usual suspects and the long list of possible explanations for his ‘disappearance’ apart from the most probable one.
The petition to ban driven grouse shooting has reached 18,000 signatures. It’s time it had some more – sign here, for Sid.
Photo of Sid, from the Making the Most of Moorlands blog.
Raptor Persecution UK 
It’s ultimately the shooting mob that are to blame. ‘If it flies, it dies’ is not just endemic to Maltese bangers. And gamekeepers are given carte blanc to kill anything that might compete with Grouse or Pheasant by landowners, who spout on about the law of the land when it suits them in other, less privileged, arenas.
Presumably the physical disappearance of the satellite tag is the result of alien abduction.
Interesting to see that more and more harriers are disappearing on ‘Red legged’ ground as one of the Bowland birds did. Remember that out of 47 birds at Langholm only 2 were tagged by Natural England. So have we lost 10, 15, 20, 30 of the other young birds!!
Reblogged this on Mark Goodwin Photography and commented:
And yet again another sad story of a missing hen harrier. If you haven’t signed already please sign the petition to ban grouse shooting! If you read this Reblog to the end (it’s very short) there is a place for you to link to the petition.
Many thanks for your time.
3 sat tagged young down already, a blatant two fingers yet again to normal law abiding society. at what point will our governments act, they have a responsibility to protect these birds, these birds are receiving no protection. the untouchables are laughing at us while our wishy washy politicians pick up fat pay checks for doing nothing apart from threatening them with the naughty step. Taking a general license off someone who has no regard for the law anyway is not going to make the slightest difference to that person. Get real
its sickening this shooting of our hen harriers. If I ever seen anyone shoot a hen harrier I would not be responsible for my actions. If I had a gun I would shoot these idiots myself. Sorry this infuriates me.
The only way we are going to stop this is for the Authorities to engage in real time monitoring so that the culprits can be caught red handed.