Another timely written question from Caroline Lucas MP (Green Party), as follows:
The presence of avian flu has important consequences for how the corpse of a dead raptor is handled and stored, under strict government rules, and unfortunately this impacts on the ability to conduct standard toxicology analyses for other potential causes of death, notably the detection of certain poisons.
You may recall this was an issue with the investigation into the suspicious death of a white-tailed eagle found dead on the Isle of Wight in March 2022 (here).
The police investigation into the circumstances and cause of death of that white-tailed eagle was hampered because a preliminary test indicated the eagle was harbouring avian flu (although this was ruled out as the cause of death during a later post mortem). However, as avian flu was detected, protocol dictated that the eagle’s tissue samples be stored in formalin, which then restricted the lab’s ability to detect poisons such as Bendiocarb or the significance of rodenticides in its body. As a result, the cause of death of this white-tailed eagle was unsatisfactorily recorded as ‘uncertain’ (see here).
Caroline’s written question was answered last Friday by Trudy Harrison, the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State in DEFRA, as follows:
This is another fluffy response from the DEFRA Minister, that looks substantive on the surface but when you drill down into it, it doesn’t say very much at all, other than the Government is ‘alive to the enforcement challenges’. It doesn’t tell us how those challenges are to be met, or even whether it will be possible to overcome them.
This is of serious concern, especially relating to raptors whose diets leave them more susceptible to contracting avian flu, for example white-tailed eagles . I’m aware that another young white-tailed eagle was found dead in Hampshire last autumn. It’s death was deemed ‘suspicious’ based on its movements and behaviour prior to death but it, too, tested positive for avian flu and as a result APHA refused to even conduct a post mortem to determine the cause of death, which may have been due to avian flu, or, like the dead white-tailed eagle found on the Isle of Wight last spring, it may just have been carrying avian flu but it wasn’t the cause of its death.
Raptor Persecution UK 
Caroline Lucas’s performance in combating Raptor persecution is as feeble as the performance of her pathetic Green Party, they actually contribute little or nothing to anything, yet they continue to collect their pay from the coffers provided by the tax payer.
A strange comment, Ray, about a sitting MP who does more than any other on tackling environmental issues.
Yes, I am aware, and its very little more than hot air.
Doing more than any other, doesn’t necessarily mean doing a lot.
I may share a surname but certainly not your views. At the last HH day in Derbyshire Natalie Bennett was the only parliamentarian to turn up. At Packham’s Walk for Wildlife in London, Caroline Lucas was the only MP to bother coming.
With just one seat, all that can be expected is to highlight problems and issues and CL does this more than most. An excellent example that will hopefully lead to more Green seats in two years time.
Doing more than any other is something we should all aspire too!
You’re entitled to your opinion, opinions are the driver, the coincidence of our surnames means nothing, my low opinion of the Green Party is also something which I’m entitled to. Surely I’m entitled to voice it without you spitting your dummy out.
Ok, before this descends further, no more comments about Caroline Lucas, please. The blog is about how DEFRA intends to ensure that the testing of suspected victims of raptor persecution is not hindered by avian flu protocols.
[Ed: comment deleted]
Whatever one’s political views might be, it cannot be denied that the Green Party has done well to highlight this issue. Who knows how many possible persecution victims might be slipping through the net through testing positive for avian flu? I wonder whether Defra is keeping a record of the numbers of raptors involved, both in total and those not given a pme because of a positive AF test.
“can lead to” – bet she cannot quote any meaningful statistics to back up the “success” of these arrangements
Surely there is precedent in police pathologists handling potentially infectious human tissue during their work, in which it is inconceivable that their only solution is to drench it (the tissue samples) in formalin. As doing this would surely scupper the forensics in criminal investigations, so I wonder what do they do? And couldn’t their (presumably superior) methods be applied to animal / bird carcasses that may have an infectious disease? Likely it is time & money and/or ‘will’ that is lacking.
“Surely there is precedent in police pathologists handling potentially infectious human tissue during their work…”
Having done a very quick sweep of literature I discovered that a study was once carried out in the States (2015) into the stability of the Ebola virus in corpses (Ebola has about 50% mortality rate. Note: Bird flu has a 60% mortality rate in people, while Rabies has a 100% mortality rate).
They used deliberately Ebola-infected Macaques:
“Humans who die of EVD typically have high levels of viremia, suggesting that most fresh corpses contain high levels of infectious virus, similar to the macaques in this study…
In summary, we present postmortem serial sampling data for EBOV-infected animals in a controlled environment…
Furthermore, viable virus can persist for >7 days on surfaces of bodies, confirming that transmission from deceased persons is possible for an extended period after death. These data are also applicable for interpreting samples collected from remains of wildlife infected with EBOV, especially nonhuman primates, and to assess risks for handling these carcasses.”
The ‘controlled environment’ will be very severe (and expensive!), but they do not give specific details.
We found an injured, which then died, sparrowhawk in our garden on Sunday.
I decided to test the system tho I suspected she had been hit by a vehicle or maybe flew into a window. Who knows?
I rang the RSPCA 24-hour phone line, which is not a 24-hour helpline and I had to wait until Monday.
They weren’t interested. They are v busy – fair enough- and they don’t collect dead birds.
I didn’t want to ring the police but I did and asked to speak to the Wildlife officer.
I just got a message back from the call handler who asked me whether a crime had been committed. I thought but didn’t say, I’m sorry, I’m not a forensic pathologist.
Anyway, they weren’t interested.
I didn’t want to touch her just in case but I couldn’t see an injury.
I took photos of her and will send them to ERIC North East
Rachel, Thank you for sharing your experience.
What you have reported has to raise questions about the government and police response to raptor persecution, which the government keep reminding the public is national wildlife crime priority.
From what you are reporting the bird would appear initially to have been injured and then subsequently died.
Without establishing the nature of the injuries and the cause of death, I fail to see how it could be determined whether the bird was the victim of a crime.
Sadly we will never know whether the bird had been poisoned or shot, which could have been the catalyst for subsequent events which ended up with an injured bird in your garden, which then subsequently died.
I would suggest the police response will do nothing to help public confidence in believing that proper investigations of all potential raptor persecution incidents are taking place.
I would very tempted to write to PCC and ask for an explanation.
The response from Trudy Harrison to the question raised by Caroline Lucas MP, is exactly what I would expect from a politician- meaningless nothing, something I describe as a cumulus cloud answer- all the appearance of being substantial when in fact there is nothing really there.
How Ms Harrison can look at herself in the mirror each morning and honestly state that “this government takes wildlife crime seriously” is beyond me.
If the government did take wildlife crime seriously then why is there such a pathetic detection rate for reported raptor persecution crimes, how do they explain 77 missing or dead satellite tagged Hen Harriers in the last few years, and why haven’t they regulated the game shooting industry and introduced a robust licensing scheme so that those estates which are suspected of malpractice are no longer able to operate? Questions I suspect that if they tried to answer would show why no one believes them when they claim to take wildlife crime seriously.
About the sparrowhawk – perhaps in less fraught times the RSPB would wish to X-ray and to test for pathogens, to detect criminal action or to demonstrate background levels of toxins.
If there were signs of shot or reaction to poison, I would have pursued it. But she looked in good condition. Just died from an accident. But when I was asked, did I suspect a crime, I couldn’t honestly say that.
If it’s still there you can send it to https://pbms.ceh.ac.uk/
They will post mortem it and send you the results.
Thank you. I have now contacted them
Re the dead sparrowhawk, I had what I thought was a dead sparrowhawk in my garden a while ago. It was on the bank at the back. It appeared to be in a bad way but made a recovery subsequently. I think it had flown into overhead telegraph wires. Had it been deceased the advice given me was to report it to DEFRA and not to touch it on any account.