Month: June 2018

It’s been a couple of weeks since we’ve blogged and a number of people have expressed concern; thanks, but nothing to worry about, just a few personal issues being dealt with.

So, back to business. There have been a few developments on the Strathbraan raven cull licence since we last blogged.

Last Friday (15th June), SNH finally released its delayed response to the FoIs submitted in April, providing some background detail to the decision behind the raven cull licence. The documents can be accessed here.

It makes for a very interesting read, detailing at least some of the internal SNH correspondence about the licence application dating back to June 2017, and reveals staff concerns about the scientific evidence in support of the licence, the robustness of the scientific monitoring proposed for the duration of the cull, the issue of trust given the history of illegal raptor persecution in the cull area, and the issue of some agricultural practices (potentially illegal) in the area that could be impacting on wader populations. There were also concerns that information about the licence application may be leaked by this blog – gosh, heaven forbid that the activities of a public body might be subject to public scrutiny, despite SNH’s claims of a ‘commitment to high standards of openess and transparency’!

We don’t intend to comment further on these documents at this stage so as not to prejudice the Scottish Raptor Study Group’s intention to launch a legal challenge in the form of a judicial review.

And on the subject of the legal challenge, work has continued apace behind the scenes with the collation of evidence and a QC has now been instructed. The SRSG awaits his formal advice about various technicalities (that have little to do with the actual challenge but more to do with legal procedure) before deciding how best to proceed with an application for judicial review.

The crowdfunder set up to help pay for this legal advice and costs is doing very well, currently standing at over £17k. The initital target of £10k (required for lawyers to be instructed) was smashed on the first day and there are now two weeks remaining to reach the stretch target of £25k. Thanks to the 746 people who have donated so generously to this appeal; the response has been fantastic.

If you’d like to make a contribution to the crowdfunder please CLICK HERE

In other fundraising news the ever-creative @YoloBirder has designed some fantastic t-shirts and other merchandise and all sales profits will be put towards the crowdfunder. What a star! We’ll blog with details of how to order these as soon as the information is available (imminently).

Meanwhile, in England there is news that Natural England has, or will be (it’s not quite clear which) issued licences to cull ravens in several counties. The details of the scale of these culls are scant but there are two useful blogs to read on this subject: Dr Rob Sheldon’s blog (here) and RSPB Martin Harper’s blog (here). We understand enquries are being made of Natural England to clarify some details.

Yesterday the Scottish Raptor Study Group (SRSG) launched a crowdfunder to raise funds to cover the costs of a legal challenge against SNH’s decision to issue a raven cull licence to grouse moor owners and gamekeepers in Strathbraan, Perthshire.

The legal challenge will take the form of the SRSG applying to the courts to seek a judicial review of the decision-making process used by SNH when they agreed to issue the licence.

The initial crowdfunder target was set at £10k and the SRSG had just 30 days to raise these funds. The SRSG couldn’t instruct its lawyers until this funding was secured.

From the minute the crowdfunder page went live at 7am yesterday, donations streamed in, some large, some small, all of them important. By 9pm, the initial target of £10k had been smashed. What an overwhelming response! As @RareBirdAlertUK wrote on Twitter, ‘If SNH was under any illusion about the strength of feeling against the raven cull, they won’t be after today’.

It’s doubtful SNH was under any illusion though. A recent FoI response received by one of our blog readers revealed that SNH received 1247 emails about the raven cull licence. Of those, just 73 were supportive. The rest (1,174) were “either unsupportive or seeking clarification of [the licensing] approach“. That’s a lot of angry and/or bemused people.

Over 500 people have donated to the crowdfunder so far –  and it’s only Day 2 – all of them in support of the SRSG’s decision to launch this legal challenge, and it’s not hard to see why they’d be supportive. SNH has been given every opportunity to explain and answer straightforward questions about the raven cull licence over the last six weeks but has simply ducked and dodged and refused to engage on any meaningful level. So much for its claimed ‘commitment to high standards of openness and transparency’. The public has clearly had enough.

The success of the crowdfunder was picked up by The National and there’s an article in today’s edition (here). It doesn’t provide any new information except for SNH saying it was ‘wrong to suggest the raven cull could lead to a cull on other birds’ and an SNH spokeswoman was quoted: “This is a community-based application which seeks to bring a balance between species, bringing back waders from the brink whilst still maintaining a healthy national population of ravens“.

Wrong to suggest the raven cull could lead to a cull on other birds? Really? Perhaps the spokeswoman hadn’t listened to this interview given by Nick Halfhide (Director of Sustainable Development at SNH) in early May who said, “Let’s have more trials [culls] whether it’s about ravens or other things so we can really test to see what we can learn from this kind of approach“.

The solicitor handling the raven cull legal challenge (Sindi Mules of Balfour & Manson LLP) has now been instructed and the QC will be instructed imminently, so as preparations begin for the legal proceedings there will be no further commentary on the details of this case until the lawyers advise differently.

Meanwhile, the SRSG’s crowdfunder is open for the next 28 days and now has a stretch target of £25k. At the moment it’s already halfway there at £12.5k.

If you’d like to donate please click here and please do keep sharing it on social media and amongst friends, family and colleagues.

#Justice4Ravens

THANK YOU!

Regular blog readers will be well aware that in April 2018, Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) issued a licence permitting the killing of ravens in Strathbraan, a large area of Highland Perthshire ( and a recognised raptor persecution hotspot) on the basis of ‘seeing what happens’ to wader populations as part of a five-year ‘experiment’.

Many of us believe this raven cull has absolutely nothing to do with ‘protecting waders’ and nor is it based on sound scientific evidence. When you look at how much grouse moor lies within the cull area (here) and look at who is behind the licence application (here), it becomes quite apparent that this raven cull is more likely to be about protecting stocks of red grouse than it is about waders.

Unsurprisingly, this controversial licensing decision resulted in public uproar and hundreds of complaints were lodged with SNH, questions have been asked in Parliament and over 168,000 people have signed a petition calling for the immediate withdrawal of the licence.

However, since the news broke six weeks ago SNH has consistently failed to answer some pretty simple questions about this licence. Instead, the details have remained shrouded in secrecy and responses to numerous FoI requests have been delayed.

If we were cynics we might think that SNH was deliberately stalling for time to frustrate any chance of an application for judicial review (SNH will know very well that an application for a judicial review needs to be lodged at court within a limited timeframe). Why else would SNH behave as it has, when according to its own website SNH is supposedly ‘committed to high standards of openness and transparency’. They’re having a laugh, aren’t they?

Open, responsive, collaborative and inclusive? It appears the Scottish Raptor Study Group (SRSG) doesn’t think so and today it’s launching a crowdfunder to help fund an application for judicial review.

A judicial review is a legal challenge to the decision-making process used by SNH (as opposed to the actual decision to issue the licence) and there are two main stages to this:

Stage one is an application to the court seeking permission for a judicial review. If the judge considers there are sufficient grounds to proceed, the application moves to stage two, which is the substantive hearing where legal arguments are made by both sides.

Applying for a judicial review is a bold move and the SRSG will not have entered this process without plenty of consideration to the risks involved, but in this case SNH has left them with little option, especially as it has indicated that similar licences may be authorised to kill protected birds of prey, again on the basis of ‘just seeing what happens’.

SNH’s refusal to discuss its justification for this licence, and with many MSPs refusing to support a Parliamentary motion calling for the withdrawal of the licence, leads to two choices: either sit and complain from the sidelines or get stuck in and seek a legal remedy through the courts.

We applaud the SRSG’s stance but it’s not applause they need – it’s funding support. Judicial reviews don’t come cheap and neither do top barristers (although in this case a formidable QC has generously offered his services at a reduced rate).

This is where your help is needed. The SRSG needs to raise £10k ASAP to get the ball rolling and get the judicial review application to stage one. They are working against the clock because that application needs to be lodged very soon if they’re to meet the deadline. If the application is successful, more funds will need to be raised to proceed to stage two (the hearing).

If you’re as angry as the rest of us about this raven cull licence and the way SNH has behaved, please consider making a donation to the SRSG’s crowdfunder which will go live at 7am today:

HERE IS THE LINK TO THE CROWDFUNDER PAGE.

Please also help spread the word, especially on social media using the hashtag #Justice4Ravens

Thank you