It’s getting to that time of year when the grouse shooting industry pumps out its patently misleading propaganda relating to hen harrier conservation in the UK. The aim is to hoodwink the public in to believing that the industry loves hen harriers and is doing all it can to protect and nurture the tiny remnant breeding population (but conveniently forgetting to mention that the breeding population is only in such dire straits because the grouse shooting industry has been ruthless in its maniacal intolerance of this supposedly protected species).
And the industry’s pursuit of the hen harrier is not simply ‘historical’ or indicative of past behaviour, as some would have us believe. It is on-going, it is current, and it is relentless.
To illustrate this fact, we intend to keep a running tally of all the hen harriers that we know (because most of these victims had been fitted with a satellite tag) to have either ‘disappeared’ in suspicious circumstances or have been confirmed as being illegally killed since 2018.
Why only since 2018 when we know that hen harriers have been a persecution target for years and years and years? Well, 2018 is the year that the grouse shooting industry ‘leaders’ would have us believe that the criminal persecution of hen harriers had stopped and that these birds were being welcomed back on to the UK’s grouse moors (see here).
This assertion was made shortly before the publication of a devastating new scientific paper that demonstrated that 72% of satellite-tagged Hen Harriers were confirmed or considered likely to have been illegally killed, and this was ten times more likely to occur over areas of land managed for grouse shooting relative to other land uses (see here).
We only started compiling this list of dead / missing hen harriers two weeks ago when we learned that all five of last year’s brood meddled hen harrier chicks were ‘missing’, presumed dead (see here). Having just learned yesterday that two more satellite-tagged hen harriers have ‘disappeared’ in suspicious circumstances on grouse moors in the Cairngorms National Park during the Coronvirus lockdown (see here), it’s time to update the death list, which now stands at 39. Nobody has been prosecuted for any of these cases. We have every expectation that this list will be updated again in the near future.
For now, here are the 39:
February 2018: Hen harrier Saorsa ‘disappeared’ in the Angus Glens in Scotland (here). The Scottish Gamekeepers Association later published wholly inaccurate information claiming the bird had been re-sighted. The RSPB dismissed this as “completely false” (here).
5 February 2018: Hen harrier Marc ‘disappeared’ on a grouse moor in Durham (here)
9 February 2018: Hen harrier Aalin ‘disappeared’ on a grouse moor in Wales (here)
March 2018: Hen harrier Blue ‘disappeared’ in the Lake District National Park (here)
March 2018: Hen harrier Finn ‘disappeared’ near Moffat in Scotland (here)
18 April 2018: Hen harrier Lia ‘disappeared’ in Wales and her corpse was retrieved in a field in May 2018. Cause of death was unconfirmed but police treating death as suspicious (here)
8 August 2018: Hen harrier Hilma ‘disappeared’ on a grouse moor in Northumberland (here).
16 August 2018: Hen harrier Athena ‘disappeared’ on a grouse moor in Scotland (here)
26 August 2018: Hen Harrier Octavia ‘disappeared’ on a grouse moor in the Peak District National Park (here)
29 August 2018: Hen harrier Margot ‘disappeared’ on a grouse moor in Scotland (here)
29 August 2018: Hen Harrier Heulwen ‘disappeared’ on a grouse moor in Wales (here)
3 September 2018: Hen harrier Stelmaria ‘disappeared’ on a grouse moor in Scotland (here)
24 September 2018: Hen harrier Heather ‘disappeared’ on a grouse moor in Scotland (here)
2 October 2018: Hen harrier Mabel ‘disappeared’ on a grouse moor on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales National Park (here)
3 October 2018: Hen Harrier Thor ‘disappeared’ next to a grouse moor in Bowland, Lanacashire (here)
26 October 2018: Hen harrier Arthur ‘disappeared’ on a grouse moor in the North York Moors National Park (here)
10 November 2018: Hen harrier Rannoch ‘disappeared’ on a grouse moor in Scotland (here). Her corpse was found nearby in May 2019 – she’d been killed in an illegally-set spring trap (here).
14 November 2018: Hen harrier River ‘disappeared’ on a grouse moor in the Nidderdale AONB (here). Her corpse was found nearby in April 2019 – she’d been illegally shot (here).
16 January 2019: Hen harrier Vulcan ‘disappeared’ in Wiltshire close to Natural England’s proposed reintroduction site (here)
7 February 2019: Hen harrier Skylar ‘disappeared’ next to a grouse moor in South Lanarkshire (here)
22 April 2019: Hen harrier Marci ‘disappeared’ on a grouse moor in the Cairngorms National Park (here)
11 May 2019: An untagged male hen harrier was caught in an illegally-set trap next to his nest on a grouse moor in South Lanarkshire. He didn’t survive (here)
7 June 2019: An untagged hen harrier was found dead on a grouse moor in Scotland. A post mortem stated the bird had died as a result of ‘penetrating trauma’ injuries and that this bird had previously been shot (here)
5 September 2019: Wildland Hen Harrier 1 ‘disappeared’ on a grouse moor nr Dalnaspidal on the edge of the Cairngorms National Park (here)
11 September 2019: Hen harrier Romario ‘disappeared’ on a grouse moor in the Cairngorms National Park (here)
14 September 2019: Hen harrier (Brood meddled in 2019, #183704) ‘disappeared’ in North Pennines (here)
23 September 2019: Hen harrier (Brood meddled in 2019, #55149) ‘disappeared’ in North Pennines (here)
24 September 2019: Wildland Hen Harrier 2 ‘disappeared’ on a grouse moor at Invercauld in the Cairngorms National Park (here)
10 October 2019: Hen harrier Ada ‘disappeared’ on a grouse moor in the North Pennines AONB (here)
12 October 2019: Hen harrier Thistle ‘disappeared’ on a grouse moor in Sutherland (here)
18 October 2019: Member of the public reports the witnessed shooting of an untagged male hen harrier on White Syke Hill in North Yorkshire (here)
November 2019: Hen harrier Mary found illegally poisoned on a pheasant shoot in Ireland (here)
January 2020: Members of the public report the witnessed shooting of a male hen harrier on Threshfield Moor in the Yorkshire Dales National Park (here)
1 April 2020: Hen harrier (Brood meddled in 2019, #183703) ‘disappeared’ in unnamed location, tag intermittent (here)
5 April 2020: Hen harrier Hoolie ‘disappeared’ on a grouse moor in the Cairngorms National Park (here)
8 April 2020: Hen harrier Marlin ‘disappeared’ on a grouse moor in the Cairngorms National Park (here)
21 May 2020: Hen harrier (Brood meddled in 2019, #183701) ‘disappeared’ on a grouse moor in Cumbria shortly after returning from wintering in France (here)
To be continued……..
Anybody still wondering why the grouse shooting industry wants us to stop fitting satellite tags?
Raptor Persecution UK 
Is there a case for legislation to be enacted making owners, or factors, of estates,criminally liable for deaths of raptors where tracking devices show they were on their land at the time the device stopped transmitting? This would be whether a body is found, or not.
Issue there is tags normally report only intermittently and the birds can travel a pretty long distance in that period. So whilst it gives very strong circumstantial evidence (as per the RPUK maps showing last known location before a tag mysteriously fails and the proximity to grouse moors) it would be hard to state exactly which moor was responsible in many cases and even in those cases where there is a clear candidate unlikely to get past the burden of proof)
What a sad tale of death and destruction of this particular raptor. Thanks to you for all of your work in highlighting just what has been happening over the past number of years.
I even noticed last night that the Landward team have joined in the battle to highlight the problem we have with raptors in all parts of our countryside.
All we need now is for the Scottish Government to deal with the Werrity report and active the message it gave out when published and not wait for another five years to see if things improve.
Thank you, again, for all your hard work. We will win.
This (39) is out of how many tags? How well does it fit with the 72 %?
Say if this is 72 % of tagged birds, it’s probably safe to assume that we are talking 72 % of all Hen Harriers. That makes grouse moors absolute slaughterhouses, but we know that anyway.
Frustratingly they always roll out the well rehearsed excuse that it might have been shot x miles away but flew onto my land and it wasn’t me guv who shot it ;(
Wonder if there’s a way lead pellets/bullets can be traced to gun owners? To fund this service a levy could be placed on gun owners – who don’t even cover the cost of a gun licence, a move I seem to recall was in David Cameron’s time so perhaps due for an overhaul in order that public is not unnecessarily paying for private pleasure?
It depends, I would imagine batches of lead have traces of other chemical elements in them and that these would vary depending on the source or sources of the lead. A x-ray spectrum would probably provide a “fingerprint” to a batch of lead shot. I have suggested this actually a few times and am surprised no-one has picked up on this. The real beauty of x-rays is that they are high energy so you don’t need much lead shot to generate a good signal.
The Morland Association started on the 18th of June with a piece about how well Harriers are doing on grouse moors!
They may well have done, but their very clever spokesperson must be finding it increasingly difficult to fly in the face of the increasing evidence of persecution of this species. They can say whatever they want, but the simple fact is that they cannot be trusted and will not be believed.
Whilst thinking of the horrific figure of 39 – consisting mainly of tagged birds – we must remember that the true figure, when undoubted untagged victims are added into the mix, will be considerably higher
I too have been keeping a list of vanished no trace Hen Harriers. I do not see Rain on your list. I have traced the site with the information which is https://community.rspb.org.uk/ourwork/skydancer/b/skydancer/posts/hopeforhenharriers
“Rain disappeared over a grouse moor on 26 April 2019 in Nairnshire. Neither Marci nor Rain were located during searches and they have not been seen or heard from since.”
I may have made a mistake in my notes, but it is possible that Rain should be included.
We cannot afford to lose any wildlife. That
this is allowed to happen is just pathetically disgusting