Tonight’s BBC’s Inside Out programme will feature an investigation in to raptor persecution that’s taking place in the Peak District National Park.
This is a regional programme (BBC East Midlands) starting at 7.30pm but will be available on iPlayer shortly afterwards (see here).
To coincide with this programme, the Derbyshire Wildlife Trust has today called the low number of raptors in the National Park “a national disgrace” and blamed activities relating to the driven grouse shooting industry (see BBC news article here).
The article also mentions the footage that we published in April 2016 appearing to show an armed man sitting close to a hen harrier decoy on a National Trust-leased grouse moor within the National Park. This resulted in the National Trust terminating the grouse shooting lease four years early and searching for a new tenant. The National Trust has come under increasing public pressure not to lease the moor for grouse shooting and the campaigners are expected to be included in tonight’s Inside Out programme.
Part of the Peak District National Park (mostly the grouse moors of the Dark Peak area) has been recognised as a raptor persecution hotspot for many years (e.g. see RSPB ‘Peak Malpractice‘ reports here and here). As a result of the ongoing concerns, in 2011 the National Park began hosting a Bird of Prey Initiative where ‘partners’ are supposed to have been ‘collaborating’ to increase bird of prey populations. It has failed miserably. In 2015 it was announced that none of the project targets had been met (here) but that the Iniative was going to continue with “renewed commitment” and “new rigour and energy“. Strangely, we haven’t heard any more results from this so-called partnership initiative since then, although Rhodri Thomas, an ecologist with the Peak District National Park Authority gave a very honest presentation at the Sheffield raptor conference in September 2016. His opening words were:
“Has the Initiative worked? Well, we’ve not met the targets that we’d set for 2015, we’ve not met them by a fairly substantial amount in some cases, so I think the answer from that point of view is a fairly clear no“.
Meanwhile, cases of confirmed illegal raptor persecution have continued to emerge (e.g. a shot peregrine that was found critically injured next to a Peak District grouse moor in September 2016. It didn’t survive its injuries).
Don’t forget – BBC 1 (East Midlands) Inside Out tonight at 7.30pm.
Sticking with the Peak District National Park and alleged wildlife crime, did anyone see yesterday’s news that the Crown Prosecution Service has decided there will no charges relating to the alleged snaring of badgers that was filmed by the Hunt Investigation Team on the Moscar Estate earlier this year? Interesting.
Also of interest, to us, was the name of the spokesman for Moscar Estate who was cited in the article: Ian Gregory. Surely not the same Ian Gregory of You Forgot the Birds notoriety?
Raptor Persecution UK 
Will the CA et al call for the presenter of this programme (and/or others) to be sacked? They certainly would if it was Chris Packham!
Great news !
The steady drip,drip of information regarding the criminal basis of driven grouse shooting is finally getting media coverage.
Of course, their apologists & all the usual suspects will spout the usual drivel about bad apples, lack of evidence, unreliable raptor surveys & tags.. etc. etc.
They can’t fool all of the people all of the time.
Interesting times indeed !
Keep up the pressure !
We have been informed by the BBC that this programme (with a 10 minute piece on the impacts of grouse shooting in the Peak District) will be going on out BBC East Midlands, BBC West Midlands and BBC Yorkshire & Lincolnshire tonight at 19:30. It may also go out nationally within England on BBC HD.
However, it is likely to also be available online for 30 days or so on those channels here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/5wFFrcMD0chDjSZVDQPVgqh/inside-out
If you have freesat BBC East Midlands is channel 952
interesting comment on the BBC website, the last line I have quoted is particularly interesting:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-derbyshire-41416772
from the website:
Steve Bloomfield, director of operations at the British Association for Shooting and Conservation, extolled the environmental benefits the industry can bring, but condemned those who have brought the profession into disrepute.
He said: “You can run a shooting estate and you can develop the habitat and provide a surplus for shooting without breaking the law and we totally condemn anybody that persecutes wildlife in any way.
“If it continues then obviously people will continue to question why grouse shooting continues.”
Is this the first crack in the omertà. Are the BASC realising that their sport in under threat from a minor aspect of it, which is only pursed by the few, who don’t really have an interest in the general sport of shooting and wild-fowling, and are more interested in the social event.
If so then it’s about time the BASC realised that by continuing to blindly support DGS they were tainting the rest of their pastime.
Or are these just more empty words.
What a fantastic feature – there was no way that it was unbalanced (but you know who will claim it was), and the net effect was not good for grouse moors at all! That’s it just honest reporting and the DGS lot are up to their necks in crap of their own making. Ian Gregory was particularly nauseating in yet again trying to shift blame somewhere else, this time towards the (hoi polloi) out enjoying the countryside without killing anything. Strange that not only are foxes given short thrift on grouse moors, but ramblers etc have never exactly been welcomed either yet hen harriers do particularly badly there.