While Natural England is busily keeping secret its plans for hen harrier brood meddling, unbelievably it has funded a new ‘study’ to find out what members of the public think about the Hen Harrier Action Plan!
Some of you may have received an email recently from an academic researcher asking you to fill in an online questionnaire, which is part of a ‘study’ that aims to “understand the different perceptions of hen harriers and examine support for the different measures proposed by DEFRA to recover the hen harrier population“.
The ‘study’ is being undertaken by the Universities of Bangor and Aberdeen, and is “funded by Natural England“. What this actually means is that you, the British taxpayer, has funded it.
We don’t know how much public money has been wasted on this pointless study, but a similar study proposed by researchers at the Universities of Aberdeen and Kent (to guage the opinions of grouse moor owners) was estimated to cost in the region of £50,000 (see here).
It’s kind of hard to see how public opinion of the Hen Harrier Action Plan will be of any genuine research value given that much of the detail about the six action points in this Hen Harrier Action Plan has so far been kept secret!
The questionnaire targets a certain sector of society and the cover letter says, “You have been chosen as a respondent because you are a member of an organisation with an interest in birds in England“. The survey’s question 2 gives an indication about which organisations have been invited to participate:
Many of the questions relate to the respondents’ views on each of the six action points listed in the Hen Harrier Action Plan, such as this one:
It’s a ridiculous question to ask because although in principle the first four of these measures could (and should) increase the number of hen harriers in England, they clearly haven’t worked even though most of the measures have been undertaken for years! For example:
Monitoring (“currently in operation“) hasn’t increased the hen harrier population.
Diversionary feeding (“currently in operation“) hasn’t increased the hen harrier population (and has yet to even be put in to practice by any grouse moor manager in England – see here).
Improving intelligence information and enforcement (“currently in operation“) hasn’t increased the hen harrier population (which is hardly a suprise when you realise that this particular measure is supposedly being led by the Raptor Persecution Priority Delivery Group [RPPDG] – the group that has taken years to produce out of date and inaccurate raptor persecution maps).
Nest and winter roost protection (“currently in operation“) hasn’t increased the hen harrier population.
Here’s another ridiculous question:
Again, none of the first four measures, which have been in operation for years, has resulted in the reduction of illegal hen harrier persecution.
It’s impossible to say whether brood meddling and the southern England reintroduction will reduce illegal killing because we haven’t yet been allowed to see detailed proposals for these two measures.
However, some questions are easier to answer:
We’re not publishing a link to the online questionnaire because undoubtedly it’ll be hijacked by those with a vested interest in making it look like the Hen Harrier Action Plan has widespread public support. Indeed, the questionnaire may already have been hijacked – the respondent is not required to provide any evidence of their identity, but only to indicate from which organisation they received the questionnaire. This will enable false claims that the respondent got the questionnaire from the RSPB or from the Northern England Raptor Forum (two groups that fundamentally oppose the Hen Harrier Action Plan), and thus their views that the Hen Harrier Action Plan is a brilliant thing will be falsely portrayed in the results as coming from members of these two organisations.
What a waste of public funds.
Raptor Persecution UK 
Oh go on, tell us where to find it. I’d like to counter the members of RSPB, wildlife trusts and BTO (who aren’t members of any of them ) by being a member of all the “opposition ” organisation but strangely being not in favour of brood management and Southern Introduction.
To say this is flawed is a huge understatement.
Complicated ennit?
Where is
“Do you feel that banning driven grouse shooting would enable Hen Harrier populations to recover and be a more sustainable solution?”
Not likely!
I’m sorry, but I see this as much, much worse than just a waste of public funds. I think it’s more likely to be a deliberate and calculated attempt to generate spurious data by means of a biased questionnaire to misinform and misdirect future actions.
I think this may be one case where the ‘conspiracy’ interpretation is more credible than the ‘cock-up’ one.
I am in complete agreement with your conclusion Alan and also agree with Circusmaxim, below, that it can be used to support further funding. Unfortunately to many it will all appear credible, unfortunately two university departments appear to be in that camp too!
Agreed , never underestimate the lengths this mob will go to , their whole way of life is ( hopefully ) on the line. They have access to some very Machiavellian minds and no shortage of funding .
We like to think we have them on the run , but the war still goes on ,I don’t care what the stats suggest, personally I think they are killing more and greater species of raptor than ever .They are almost certainly taking out HH roosts and using night vision equipment. We have rattled their cage and they don’t like it .
Lets keep plugging away but for Gods sake and don’t give them an inch.
I agree.
Why is this English survey being run by Welsh and Scottish universities?
I wonder if (as regards Scotland) it has any connection with the ‘independent academic’ closely involved with HHAP. Oh no, it couldn’t be, ‘independent academics’ never risk conflict of interest problems by eating their own dogfood at the taxpayer’s expense.
That would be the very least of the worries on this issue.
If the commissioning of the research is insufficiently detached from the doing of it, that is a significant concern. To me it is important to get clarity from NE on this because they seem determined to live withing their own little bubble, aided and abetted by academics who should know better. The government rulebook says plainly this should not happen and, if it is, they should be called out for it.
If the questionnaire is being sent out to the members of organisations listed in Point 2 then there will be more answers from those who support DGS . It seems to me that the organisations chosen show a bias towards shooting. I include HOT in the shooting camp as the executives seem to be more Counrtryside Alliance types now and many genuine conservation-minded folk have given up their membership of HOT because of this.
Waste of taxpayers money anyway.
Is this common, to select the participants of a questionnaire?
I know many on-line questionnaires are self selecting but this seems odd.
What on earth could you use the results of this leading survey for…. Potentially to support a lottery application. “We have consulted the public and their response was favourable…..”
The more I think about it the more certain that I am that this gerrymandered survey is being undertaken to demonstrate support for a funding bid. We could do with some real data to demonstrate the depth of unpopularity….. a petition?
Errrr – from where have they obtained the e-mail addresses for the respondents? Are they exempt from the Data Protection Act?
Hi Simon, sorry, should have been clearer. The researchers don’t have the email addreses of the respondents (unless the respondent chooses to include it on the questionnaire). The researchers have contacted a representative of each organisation and asked that rep to randomly select some members to participate.
I wonder if the participating organisations have been given an equal weighting in terms of respondents. The membership of the RSPB probably equals that of all of the others together.
I think before we can really tell just how mendacious this survey is or isn’t we have to know a few more details about the procedure for selecting the participants. In particular, we need to know how the target number for each organisation was determined, how the ‘random’ selection within each organisation was performed, and what safeguards were in place to prevent abuse.
My first reaction is that it smells very bad, but maybe RPUK can provide more information?
How would this pass each of the University’s ethics committee; which I assume is relevant, given the inherent flaws in the questionnaire?
Hi Richard,
There was a statement in the introductory blurb that said the “study has been approved by the Bangor University Ethics Committee”.
Couldn’t help but notice the similarities – and more tellingly the differences – between the organisation questions above and question 4 from an RSPB/Life questionnaire from earlir this year: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/henharriers. NE is a public body upholding the highest standards, so there’s plainly no chance that they would have taken a ‘neutral’ list of organisations used for a RSPB survey, then added and deleted a few names to make sure they get the answers they want.
You just could not make this up. Most surveys take place to garner information once there has been some measurable success.There hasn’t been any.
It is extremely easy to monitor the impact of the Hen Harrier Action Plan (HHAP) so far – just 3 successful nests this year in England and 3 successful nests last year.
None of these were on land represented by GWCT, Moorland Assoc, BASC, National Gamekeepers Assoc and the Countryside Alliance. If the aim of the HHAP was to stop Hen Harriers breeding, or even having the temerity to live on Grouse Moors then the expertise of these organisations goes without saying. They have currently achieved what they set out to do, to exterminate the Hen Harrier from grouse moors in England.
You can see Natural England’s headline next year – The HHAP was a great success but unfortunately the patients continued to die.
Like I just said on the other HHAP blog – Lewis Carroll is alive and well and working for NE! The question of weighting of responses will be of equal significance to the weighting of invitees. Will we be told how many responses come from supporters of the various named organisations. I must admit to liking the suggestion that we get hold of copies and complete them as though we’re representatives of the dark side. No doubt they’ll be doing this, so why shouldn’t we?
One reason for doing that is to help discredit the survey method itself. It’s cheap and cheerful so far as the ‘academics’ are concerned but they can still charge shedloads of money for doing it because its a bit trendy. Of course it’s even easier to charge shedloads of money if you are influencing the procurement decision too. This kind of survey may have a place in some work but not remotely in this kind of area, where only a small part of the population have any idea what it is about and where, therefore, the parties can simply compete to distort the results. So I’m with Dylanben on this let’s go for it.
That’s pretty pathetic, just the kind of daft wheeze that reinforces the arguments of persecution apologists who claim that raptor conservationists are planting fake evidence on them and making stuff up. The fantasy logic that you think the other side will be doing it is no excuse. Faking data is exactly the sort of thing the “dark side” frequently accuse us of, providing written evidence on a blog that you think such methods are acceptable is to say the least unhelpful, and indeed slightly worrying because one wonders how low you would stoop to try and ‘win’ the argument. I expect your posts will no doubt end up being quoted as evidence of the untrustworthiness of those who seek to protect raptors, dragging us all down with it. Thanks a bunch.
The box ticking with the questions asked are clearly to elicit a response from individuals who aren’t likely to have any depth of knowledge in the subject. Right away NE are playing politics. This type of survey can never get to the heart of the issue. Why cant we simply stick to the factual evidence based on research ? – I recognise it has become a bit of an “arms race” along the lines of “my expert is better than your expert”, but it shouldn’t have to be opinion based, less likely to come up with solutions, more likely just a numbers game intended to neutralise the comprehension of politicians, enabling them to sit themselves, less controversially, on the fence.
The only things that will reduce illegal killing of Hen Harriers is there being either less of them to kill, or the driven grouse shooting industry stop killing them. I suppose legalising the killing of Hen Harriers would also stop the illegal killing. Where in any of this are there measures to stop the illegal killing?
I am flabbergasted! I know nothing technical about statistics and information gathering, but can see at a glance that this is the worst ‘survey’ ever produced! Complaints needed at the highest level!
Just when I thought NE couldn’t get worse!
Interesting that they want NERF’s input now that it is all agreed and signed off. Where were they in asking the opinions of the the raptor workers when they were putting the plans together?
So where is this diversionary feeding of Hen Harriers supposed to be happening?
Every time one is shot it is diverted from feeding which is, of course, the persecutors’ primary objective. Or might it be referring to something else?
The Hawk and Owl disTrust have emailed the link to the petition to all their members. It might not matter how many people from each group respond as long as the researchers are honest enough to account for this in their analysis and reporting. Firstly, good luck with that.
Secondly, if organisations are lumped together into groupings based on whether they represent shooting or conservation interests then the HOdT membership might sway things. Two assumptions here; firstly most people with an interest in raptor conservation have left the HOdT; secondly shooting organisations are not wildlife conservation organisations. Just to be clear, I am being sarcastic about the second assumption.
Great idea, pose complicated technical questions to bird club and society members, most of whom probably don’t have a clue! That is definitely the case with one of the bodies listed – Songbird Survival. No offence intended, but as Recorder and a longstanding committee member of a local bird club, I find that that the majority of members would be very unlikely to be able to answer accurately most of the questions in the survey. Crucially, the less informed average birdwatcher may well answer yes to the brood meddling proposal, imagining it to be a similar project to White-tailed Eagles and Red Kites being imported for the various reintroduction programmes. I can also imagine a year down the line Natural England, backed up by the shooting organisations, informing us (and politicians) that the public had been consulted and a high percentage agreed with the Plan. This whole process is just turning out to be one contrived step after another, although I have to accept the possibility that the real problem could simply be naivety on the part of Natural England. As has been said often enough, they don’t appear to be fully fit for purpose.
Can a FOI request be used to get a copy of the specification for the work sent out to prospective bidders for the contract, and copies of the successful bids? I too have an academic background in the use of questionnaires and think many of these questions are so simplistic and misleading that the data derived from them will not meet the ‘valid and reliable’ test.
Hi Ray,
We’ve submitted an FoI to Natural England to ask for the specifics of this work, where it was tendered, what dates etc. Whether NE will release that info remains to be seen. On their current track record, we guess they’ll try to refuse, in which case we’ll just follow the official procedures of challenging that decision.