A barn owl has been shot dead in Leicester over the Xmas period.
It was found in an out building with bloodied chest feathers. A veterinary x-ray revealed three shot gun pellets embedded in its torso.
Full details on Paul Riddle’s blog here.
Thanks to @emilyjoachim for the info.
Raptor Persecution UK 
Not even a beautiful bird like the Barn Owl is safe from these faceless uncaring arseholes. If only the police and the courts could grasp the untold damage they allow these morons to inflict on our precious wildlife by allowing them to get away with it.
Sickening….We hear about a Tawny Owl shot on 24 December, and now a Barn Owl today. Doesn’t take rogue ‘upland management’ to take out all the birds does it.
There is every chance this was an accident. Very unfair to immediately assume it was a deliberate act
Because someone was discharging their shotgun at night without knowing their target or exercising due care as to unintended targets? Your “accident” sounds, at best, like negligence. You know soldiers can be drummed out of the army for negligent discharges, I think it is fair to say that even if this was not intentional targeting, it is still serious enough to cost the culprit their gun license.
Any person with a shotgun, killing protected species deserves the full force of the law. Accident? Which cloud do you live on?
A new low:(
In the space of a week a Buzzard a Tawny Owl and a Barn Owl have been shot, the gun license was introduced to make sure only sane and honest people have access to guns, on application you have to get two references from creditable persons to say you are fit to own a gun. The gun license system is obviously flawed if three people in entirely different areas think they can openly flout the law for their own selfish agendas, I’ve previously stated the gun laws are a joke, anyone can go on a commercial shoot and borrow a gun and shoot the whole day, no previous experience necessary, no previous knowledge of wildlife or what your shooting at, there are plenty of shoots holding corporate days! If there’s money to be made out of it you can bet the needy greedy at the top of the chain will be involved in it and doing their utmost to protect their investment. The gun laws need changing, taking a license off a gamekeeper makes no difference if he goes straight back to his job and borrows a gun when necessary. these laws are now ineffective and outdated
Who said it was shot by a legally held firearm.???
Gun licences are excessively funded by the general public.
The cost of issuing a licence is about 4x the revenue raised.
Guess who benefits most? The filthy rich.
If it was an accident, the shooter could have hit anything. The gun was discharged negligently. Needs to have his license confiscated. Best of luck but investigations will be tricky as country people pull rank!