Mrs Justice Lang has today handed down her ruling on the lawfulness of Natural England’s decision to issue a hen harrier brood meddling licence, after a judicial review was brought by Mark Avery and the RSPB (see here).
Download her judgement here: HH brood meddling judgement_March2019
She has judged Natural England’s decision to issue a brood meddling licence to be lawful as it has been issued for ‘research’ purposes and not for conservation purposes.
Mark Avery (here) and the RSPB (here) have published their initial responses to this judgement.
We won’t say anything further until we hear whether either or both parties intend to appeal the judgement.
[An unmeddled hen harrier, photo by Laurie Campbell]
Raptor Persecution UK 
Extremely disappointing and just plain wrong.
If it was for research purposes, which is a load of baloney, it would be time limited, it isn’t it is a called a ‘Plan’ for that very reason FFS.
Even it was for research it is research for conservation purposes.
A sad day for Hen Harriers.
Don’t be too dispirited, Prasad, it might not be over yet.
Thanks. I have just read Mark’s blog. I just don’t have the confidence that NE are as logical and thought out as Mark. But with Tony Juniper on board surely they have to start behaving a little bit like scientists. If they don’t then surely they will have to get challenged again.
Important to remember that whether it goes ahead or not the results of such meddling will not put a shine on driven grouse shooting.
Tagged fledged young harriers, meddled or not, will continue to be killed and will gradually nail down the DGS coffin lid.
Keep up the pressure !
If its legal because it is research for conservation and not conservation itself, because this judgment implies it would probably be illegal as a conservation proposal what the F*** is the point of the research as it can never be used.
Are they still calling the badger cull a trial? Serous question.
Over at Mark’s blog, comments are made about the scientific method and the need for ‘control’ nests for comparison purposes. It’s well worth a visit.
De Omnibus Dubitandum gave a link to the full judgement on Mark’s site
It is very interesting reading.
I thought this extract from the judgement may soon provide a way to issue another challenge, if NE do not decide to stop the trial themselves “The scientific advisory group’s mandatory annual reports to NE will form part of the monitoring exercise.” I assume that even if the results of the ‘trial’ will not be available for more than 5 years if estates sufficiently participate, this annual report should be available via a FOI.
We know that tagged Hen Harriers have a loss not recovered rate of over 40%. How many tagged birds (they are all to be tagged) could the validity of the ‘trial’ sustain? In another part of the judgement, it was mentioned that a loss of a single bird could damage the status. If over 40% of the birds don’t make it on to a list of live birds at the end of the first year, what does this say about the validity of the research/trial?
Disappointing. Why don’t they brood meddle the grouse rather than the hen harrier? Then they can release the grouse fledglings without fear of one or two being picked off by a hen harrier (which would probably rather have a meadow pipit or a vole)?
Our country gets barmier by the day.
Yeah switching to Mark’s site – at least he allows freedom of speech…
Er – apologies for this entry – rather embarrassed now (lopes off to the corner)…