Last week I blogged about the suspicious disappearance of five more young hen harriers, who all vanished on moorlands in northern England between 17th August – 15th December 2022 (see here).
All five were from Natural England’s ludicrous hen harrier brood meddling scheme. Four ‘disappeared’ on moorlands in the Yorkshire Dales National Park and one ‘disappeared’ on moorland in the North Pennines AONB.
This news was picked up and published yesterday in The i by journalist Daniel Capurro – see here.
I’ve reproduced it here:
Five of Britain’s rarest birds of prey went missing last year, despite being part of an official scheme to reduce conflict with grouse moor managers, data quietly published by the Government shows.
Between August and December 2022, five hen harriers, which were satellite tagged and part of a pilot “brood management” scheme, disappeared.
Four of them went missing in the Yorkshire Dales National Park while one was lost in the North Pennines Area of Outstanding Beauty, both protected areas.
The data was released on the Government website in February without any accompanying announcement.
Campaigners have criticised brood management, which they say concedes too much to grouse moor managers, who see the raptors as a threat to their game, and does little to protect hen harriers. The birds are frequently the targets of illegal persecution.
In June last year, a camera-monitored hen harrier nest in the Dales was attacked and four healthy chicks killed. The camera appeared to have been deactivated and North Yorkshire police said the evidence pointed to human responsibility.
Earlier this week a programme aimed at ending conflict between land managers and raptors in the Peak District was abandoned after a decade following a failure to boost bird numbers or end persecution.
Dr Ruth Tingay, a campaigner who first spotted the disappearances, told i that the scheme was “a conservation sham”.
“The main objective of the trial was to assess whether grouse moor managers would stop illegally killing hen harriers if nesting attempts on grouse moors were disrupted and young birds released elsewhere.
“It’s pretty evident that they haven’t – at least 82 hen harriers have either been killed or have ‘disappeared’ in suspicious circumstances since the brood meddling trial began in 2018.”
She called for Natural England to “come down hard on the criminals in the grouse moor industry”.
Hen harriers, which are commonplace in Eurasia but threatened in the UK, have been the subject of extensive conservation work. They are best known for their delicate and elegant mating dances performed in the air over Britain’s upland areas, which featured in the BBC’s Wild Isles series.
However, they prey on red grouse, which are central to the moorland shooting economy. Brood management was drawn up as part of Natural England’s Hen Harrier Action Plan, alongside conservation and game groups, to boost hen harrier numbers without unduly impacting on grouse moors.
The idea is to remove some eggs from wild nests on grouse moors, raise the birds in captivity and then release them into the wild. This is intended to reduce the so-called predation pressure on red grouse.
According to Natural England it “should lead to changes in some of the negative perceptions and behaviours within moorland communities and reduce illegal persecution of hen harriers”.
Its own data for 2019, the first year of the trial showed a 45 per cent survival rate for brood managed birds, compared to just 24 per cent for tagged birds outside the programme.
Nevertheless, major conservation groups including the RSPB have rejected the idea for various reasons, including that hen harrier numbers are not yet high enough to justify the practice.
They insist that efforts should focus on halting illegal persecution first and foremost, with the level of persecution too high both inside and outside the scheme.
A spokesperson for the RSPB told i: “We’ve made our objections on scientific and ethical grounds to brood management clear for many years. We believe the first step in hen harrier recovery should be the end of illegal persecution, as the evidence is clear that this is the main reason driving the decline of this bird of prey.”
That sentiment was echoed by Jono Leadley, regional manager for Yorkshire Wildlife Trust in North Yorkshire, who told i: “We are absolutely horrified that hen harriers continue to disappear across northern England. Action plans and interventions seem to make little difference – the big issue affecting these birds is illegal persecution and, until this is addressed, the future for hen harriers looks bleak.”
The Moorland Association, which takes part in the trial, referred questions about the tagged harriers to Natural England. Natural England was approached for comment.
ENDS
Those last two sentences are quite telling, aren’t they? The Moorland Association (basically the grouse moor owners’ lobby group in England) and Natural England were both quick to publicise the so-called ‘success’ of the brood meddling scheme after an increase in the number of breeding hen harriers last year (see here), and yet when it’s revealed that five more of their brood meddled hen harriers have ‘disappeared’ in suspicious circumstances, they’ve got nothing to say!
I was also interested in this paragraph from The i article:
‘Its own data for 2019, the first year of the trial showed a 45 per cent survival rate for brood managed birds, compared to just 24 per cent for tagged birds outside the programme’.
I’m not sure from where Daniel sourced this information – presumably from an NE article somewhere. However, it’s inaccurate. The five hen harrier chicks that were brood meddled in summer 2019 had all ‘disappeared’ by May 2020, according to NE (see here), although one of them (Tag ID 183703) may be an unidentified harrier that was breeding in 2021 and 2022, according to NE’s latest satellite tag database. But even if that bird is still alive, the other four are still listed as ‘missing’ which means the first-year survival rate for brood meddled birds in 2019 was 20%, not 45%.
The latest five hen harriers to ‘disappear’ (between Aug-Dec 2022) are not the only ones that NE (and the Moorland Association) is keeping quiet about. A large number of satellite-tagged hen harriers are rumoured to have been bumped off this spring (awaiting official confirmation – how long will it take for the news to emerge this time?).
We’re also waiting for NE to comment on two other satellite-tagged hen harriers that have both been the subjects of police investigations for about a year:
Hen Harrier ‘Free’ (hatched 2020) whose corpse was found on moorland in the Yorkshire Dales National Park on 12th April 2022 (grid ref: NY795013)
and
Hen Harrier ‘Harvey’ (hatched 2021) who went ‘missing’ on a grouse moor in the Yorkshire Dales National Park on 14th May 2022 (grid ref: NY918019).
I look forward to imminent news from NE on these two harriers. And if NE won’t publish the details, then I will.
Raptor Persecution UK 
It is remarkable, isn’t it, the most of the media, including the BBC, do not report honestly and transparently on this matter. Unless King Charles decides to speak the truth on law breaking by shooting interests, I don’t believe that we will see an improvement. It is, after all, the establishment which has the power to protect the organised criminals, and does so most effectively.
The BBC is currently falling over itself with the effing pantomime that is the coronation, as it always does with anything royal. Sickening.
Perhaps our unelected Head of State – ‘NOT MY KING’ – could also review the fact that the police have to seek permission before investigating wildlife crime on royal estates. Perhaps he could also seek to remove the FOI exemption that the monarchy enjoys. I could go on but I’m not holding my breath.
Charles Windsor the so called conservationist has no intention of coming clean over hunting & shooting. He’s simply over compensating for a unhappy childhood like the rest of the xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx who enjoy killing for fun
It’s time to ban game shooting altogether, the only reason the birds of prey are being killed is money.
you would be surprised(or perhaps not) what Natural England allow when it comes to birds or prey,
[Ed: I’m not prepared to publish the link you’ve provided as it contains potentially libellous material. As an aside, the licences that NE provided weren’t used & NE is currently undertaking a review of licensing for wild take]
I hope that soon all this nonsense will break into little bits and a proper review and action to end persecution will be real and enforced. More and more people have had enough of this slaughter. For myself , I want all shooting to stop everywhere and all wildlife protected.
I’m sure you know about the Langholm Moorland Demonstration Project which tried to show harriers and grouse could live together.
That was a partnership between shooters and conservationists.
In one year 47 chicks fledged but it was ended early, probably because the shooters didn’t like what was happening and one person was heard to say “it’s time to kill the harriers”. I know who said it but obviously won’t say.
Please report the name of the person to the RSPB Crime Investigation unit. It could be useful intelligence. You can report it and remain anonymous.
the only way we will stop this is to make grouse more shooting illegal like fox hunting .kick them off the moors and let the wildlife trusts and rspb take over the management off these moors to manage the wildlife that lives on them ..all this bullshit from the shooters that they lopk after and manage the moors is crap
Thank you for continuing to expose the ridiculous and absurd lies from the so called ‘authorities ‘ on this matter.
Oh and don’t forget the 4 hen harrier chicks that were stamped to death in the Yorkshire Dales in 2022. The nest was being supervised at the time by Natural England. However as the chicks did not fledge they never lived long enough to be tagged and therefore are not referenced at all by Natural England in their data submission or their statistics.
Taking Yorkshire born and bred hen harrier chicks down south and then bringing them back later to the moors and dales to be released – what could possibly go wrong!
I find it absolutely disgraceful that NE and DEFRA have been allowed to instigate the Hen Harrier brood management program, a program which is inherently never going to work as it fails to deal with the illegal raptor persecution which is the root cause of the low Hen Harrier population.
There have been enough studies of crime for even the most dim witted to realise that in order to address crime then the focus has to be on three main issues- victim, location and offender, and a failure to address all these issues will result in failure of any plan attempting to solve a crime problem.
The Hen Harrier brood management program simply focuses on the victim and location by removing the chicks from areas where they are likely to face persecution.
But the flaw is in the failure to realise that in such a nature depleted country as Britain, then as the chicks mature into adulthood they will simply migrate back to those areas which provide them with the most suitable habitat- the upland areas and grouse moors. Straight back to areas where they face illegal persecution and fall victim to the offenders who repeatedly target and kill these birds.
It would seem very little or nothing of any value is actually being done to target these offenders.
There is already sufficient data to link the illegal persecution to grouse moors. Therefore the focus has to shift to tackling the illegal persecution associated with these moors.
I believe this will never happen as long as we have a political party in government which is embedded with those who own the countryside and wish to use the upland moors they own as grouse moors.
As has been said time and time again on this blog, driven grouse shooting requires a completely unnatural high density of red grouse , and as long as DGS is allowed to continue in its current form then there can be no place for the Hen Harrier, regardless of all the bullshit coming from NE about the success of brood managed Hen Harrier chicks each year- these birds have very little chance to go on into adulthood and form breeding pairs.
There needs to be a completely radical re think in how this country manages Hen Harrier conservation, with changes to the law so that those who persecute Hen Harriers face a far greater prospect of prosecution through the criminal courts, and those who benefit from the illegal persecution through the unnatural numbers of red grouse created by the persecution, find that their assets are confiscated in a similar manner to any other criminal who is dealt with through existing proceeds of crime legislation.
I would also suggest that whilst our upland areas needs managing to help the many endangered species which inhabit these areas, this management should be for the benefit of all of nature and not just for grouse; and therefore in order to halt the decline in nature and improve biodiversity there probably needs to be a big reduction in the number of grouse moors; with the habitat on the moors changed to support a far greater diversity of wildlife.
Such a move could be achieved if the proposed ELM scheme encouraged land owners to reduce the amount of land used for grouse shooting and instead managed it exclusively for nature and wildlife conservation.
Solving the Hen Harrier persecution problem, really isn’t rocket science, but sadly it seems to be beyond the wit of the politicians in this country.
I urge you and other readers interested the law to not only respond to the latest consultation bug also look after draft bill. It needs major work on it to tighten it up.
Click to access bill-as-introduced.pdf
While there is little protection for Hen Harriers, the raising of chicks by Jemima Parry-Jones is almost pointless. The shooting lobby/industry, needs to be scaled down, so that while protecting livlihoods, the management and welfare of raptors is overreaching. Like fox hunting and other country ‘sports’ that are basically humans with a massive advantage, killing innocent animals for pleasure, we need to give, say, twenty years ‘notice’, that this barbaric ‘sport’ is being banned. This will allow diversity for farmers/landowners, as well as packs of hounds etc to dwindle. Also jobs to be found elsewhere for those directly affected. Just ask yourself, if we were starting from scratch, would we even contemplate licensing this barbarism?
Well said everyone. I also opine that no real change until the Revolution.
Uncrowned C3. Has to let go of crown land exemptions for all sorts of woldlife protection.
”He’s not my @! King” .
Landed types hold on to controls of everything and make it impossible for proper laws and rules to be used.
Selfish. Nat england should stay at home unpaid. Better this than assist the shooters in destroying raptors, as this serms to be happening.
Sad. But we must Never give up!!
The RSPB launched in 2018 the Raptor persecution map hub. I had hoped that this initiative could have added to the excellent listing on this blog. It is unfortunate that it seems to be more out of date than the NE listing. I still hope that the RSPB will add it’s knowledge base to the map hub to keep more of the public aware of this important issue, and keep it updated.
Im utterly SICK TO DEATH OF all the dodging, ducking, deceiving and obscene cruelty of raptor persecution, and the killing of grouse for entertainment! What kind of a world are we living in where the best thing some people can find to do on a glorious day in our uplands is KILL something for fun…..to deliberately snuff its life out…..to deny it its very existence….the very thing it holds most dearly…..to simply not care as it squirms on the ground in pain after the shot.
These are not fully rounded human beings I’m afraid. They do it because they have the “ultimate macho alpha male power” over their victim. They’re hypocrites as they wouldn’t want to be shot themselves, but they’re happy to do that very thing to another living creature because they can; its repugnant and double standards. Shooters seemingly don’t have compassion or empathy, attributes that make a decent human being.
ALL game shooting has to go, uplands, estuaries, woodlands, everywhere….banned completely and for good! Its what all the shooting fraternity deserve and its what the poor grouse, stoats, crows, buzzards, kites, harriers, foxes, partridge, hedgehogs, weasels, deer, ducks, pigeons and pheasants deserve too!
Well said. ✔️ enough is enough.
The fact that these five birds disappeared in what would appear to be key harrier habitat areas shows that the brood-meddling process does nothing to safeguard the birds by diverting them to other areas. At most, the only achievement would appear to be the reduction in the pressure from adult birds which would otherwise be hunting their natural food to feed their young – a brief respite during which they would need to feed themselves anyway. What a farce.
Ok I am going to call it.
King Charles, claims to be an avacate for the natural world, but never changes,(which surely he has the say & power to do so), the situation in his own back yard?, Regarding ALL so called “BLOOD SPORTS”. per say.
Just saying what everyone else is thinking out loud.
He,s to big any way. How are we ever supposed to take nature conservation seriously or ever be taken seriously, on the whole, if it,s never turned over from the top end of society, on such a serious issue, nature?.
Am probably tripping on my own words face downwards in the mud!.
All the comments so far made about the missing birds,is totally heart breaking. Myself I would take the landowners / and land managers lock them up throw away the keys and let nature take its natural course which of course will always balance itself out. Unfortunately the human element will always win money seems the only thing these individuals are interested in,very sad really ,so nature will suffer,but one day in the not to distant future nature will fight back I hope I am alive to see it..Here’s hoping.
Is it not the case that the landowner / person who controls & runs the shoot, is ultimately responsible & should be held to account?
Of course he will employ keepers etc to ensure sufficient grouse & they will either xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx but surely it is the management that sets the bar, makes the demand of keepers for many grouse & should be in court.
Also the shooters themselves who only value their day out in nature if they come back with corpses. They know the price of everything & the value of nothing.
BAN ALL GROUSE SHOOTING NOW’ FOR THE SAKE OF THESE
BEAUTIFUL HEN HARRIERS.