Earlier this month, Natural England announced its decision (here) to extend the insane hen harrier brood meddling trial beyond the five years (2018-2022 inclusive) it was originally intended to run.
For new blog readers, hen harrier brood meddling is a conservation sham sanctioned by DEFRA as part of its ludicrous ‘Hen Harrier Action Plan‘ and carried out by Natural England, in cahoots with the very industry responsible for the species’ catastrophic decline in England. In general terms, the plan involves the removal of hen harrier chicks and eggs from grouse moors, rear them in captivity, then release them back into the uplands just in time for the start of the grouse-shooting season where they’ll be illegally killed. It’s plainly bonkers. For more background see here.
Following Natural England’s decision to extend the brood meddling trial, Natalie Bennett (Life peer, Green party) raised a number of pertinent questions in the House of Lords, as follows:
DEFRA Minister and grouse moor owner Lord Benyon responded last week with these answers:
The ‘overview’ of Natural England’s Scientific and Advisory Committee’s (NESAC) decision that Benyon points to is this blog, posted by Natural England on 16th March 2023. This ‘overview’ was already out of date when it was published because NE conveniently decided not to include the 2022 cohort of brood meddled hen harrier chicks – several of which were already confirmed as ‘missing’ by December 2022 (see here). Had they been included, NE’s graphs in that ‘overview’ blog wouldn’t look quite as favourable. Funny that.
You’ll note that what NE published was just an ‘overview’, and regular blog readers will know that in February 2023 I submitted an FoI request asking for a copy of the full NESAC report, only to be told by NE that there apparently wasn’t one (see here).
I’ve since submitted a further FoI request to determine if anybody at NE has produced a report, and if so, where is it? Surely someone has produced an assessment report, otherwise how on earth has NE assessed the application to extend the trial?! NE’s FoI response is due on 7th June 2023, although judging by NE’s continued obfuscation and lack of transparency (on which, more soon), I fully expect them to respond by telling me my information request is ‘complex’ and therefore they require a further 20 working days to complete the task. Let’s see.
I was pleased to see Benyon’s remark that ‘… all hen harriers are part of the trial…’. Good – that means that whoever is assessing the trial (assuming somebody is) will have to take in to account all of the 94 hen harriers (so far) that are confirmed ‘missing’ or illegally killed, most of them on or close to grouse moors, since the brood meddling trial began in 2018.
It was also interesting to note that Benyon admitted that of the 32 hen harrier chicks that have been brood meddled since the trial began, at least 16 of them are confirmed as ‘missing’. That’s half of them.
The brood meddling sham doesn’t sound quite as ‘successful’ now, does it?
And given the recent spate of vanishing hen harriers (see here, here and here), in addition to the publication of yet another scientific paper that confirms the ongoing and widespread illegal persecution of this species on many driven grouse moors (see here), I’d say Natural England looks to be in some trouble with its justification to extend the brood meddling trial.
More on that soon.
Raptor Persecution UK 
This continues to be nothing less than an environmental scandal. Big landowners are the only opinions we listen to is the clear message.
So they get to the end of the licemce34…..and realise that they have to extend it because they forgot to set up the collection of the social science data….. crack science!
Now they will be able to send out a team of interviewers to talk to game keepers about their changing attitudes….. the folk who have solemly sworn that their attitudes changed back in 1958 and they have never ever harmed a protected birf since then. The same folk who have taken out 90 odd harriers since 2018. Thats going to be valuable data isnt it.
This Sham can not continue my own magnificent morp red kite male one and a half times as big as a normal male and female are breeding for the second year thefemale disperesed in the autumn returning in early April.the male overwintered on site. We are close two a number of shoots but i monitor it daily.
If anything happens to that bird the roth of carn will be brought down on allvthe shooting fraternity in the form of a new bill of strict licencing of all estates and prison sentances long for all keepers, managers and landowners.
I don’t see much chance of an honest admission that this scheme has failed. This is the same gang that presides over the murderous farce known as the TB eradication programme.
It is not unexpected that the figure of dead birds comes from the satellite tagged birds only, as published by NE this month. The remarkable survival rate of the 2020 birds, of which 8 were tagged, finds that 4 are still living. The years since have had much poorer survival rates. One might be inclined to believe that NE kept estates informed of the locations of the birds that year, and they have lived in peace ever since.. That of course is unlikely, isn’t it? If it were true, perhaps they need to bring this back, so the system can truly show good results, as the pseudo science method of proving success is unlikely to convince anyone.
The brood meddling project , well the very suggested name is wrong, this type of active conservation has helped dozens of species back from the brink along with imprinting birds for AI to increase numbers.From the Mauritius kestrel to the Californian condor these hands on projects work. And yes a 50% loss is quite natural, this projects problems are strictly related to blatant acts of criminality..
Stop that and hen harriers will truely flourish.
The lost birds were SATELLITE TAGGED. Do you even know what that means? If, in this case, the 50% losses were “quite natural”, then the tags/carcasses would be recoverable. If you’d bothered to read this post, or learn anything at all about the issue, you’d know that. Or are you just deliberately missing the point?
“16 have stopped transmitting and have not been recovered”
And therein lies the “blatant acts of criminality (or did the harriers somehow manage to disable their own tags?).
But isn’t that the point? The only reason this scheme is needing to be used is because of criminal behaviour by some of the people xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx. It is not the same as the head-starting projects that have been carried out elsewhere. In those cases the work was not done by xxxxx [Ed: an industry] who were directly connected to the reasons for the species parlous state but by conservation organisations.
I breed schedule 3 and 4 British birds and if you dont know exactly what you doing as we have to ring all our young birds nest disturbance can in some can cases cause nest desertion.
We also found using the rings we were given to use were coloured silver or brown. In a fair percentage of nests the parent birds would disguard from the nest. As nestlings faeces is usually brown and silvery white the parent birds disguard the faeces out of the nest.
We investigated and discovered if we painted the rings purple the parent birds left the youngsters alone.
It appears purple is outside birds colour spectrum and the problem was reduced by 90%.
I know this is different in some respects from the present DOE procedures but its worth looking at?
The continuing losses of all species of birds to the new strain of birds flu has effected hunter and carrier species feeding of infected dead birds.
This for ALL species of birds will take years for immunity to build and help numbers recover and with such a long winter birds this year are nesting later.
I see it in the countryside where i work and in my avaries.
And the relevance to this issue is?
That people with licences to handle Schedule 3 and 4 birds are not required to be literate?
I don’t follow politics, but isn’t this a clear conflict of interest and he should remove himself from anything relating to grouse moors. “DEFRA Minister and grouse moor owner Lord Benyon responded last week with these answers:”
“isn’t this a clear conflict of interest and he should remove himself from anything relating to grouse moors. ”
From the (lengthy) Ministerial Code:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/ministerial-code/ministerial-code
“1. Ministers of the Crown
1.3.f Ministers must ensure that no conflict arises, or appears to arise, between their public duties and their private interests;
7. Ministers’ private interests
General principle
7.1 Ministers must ensure that no conflict arises, or could reasonably be perceived to arise, between their public duties and their private interests, financial or otherwise.
Responsibility for avoiding a conflict
7.2 It is the personal responsibility of each Minister to decide whether and what action is needed to avoid a conflict or the perception of a conflict, taking account of advice received from their Permanent Secretary and the Independent Adviser on Ministers’ interests.
Financial interests
7.7 Ministers must scrupulously avoid any danger of an actual or perceived conflict of interest between their Ministerial position and their private financial interests…
Steps to be taken where financial interests are retained
7.8 Where exceptionally it is decided that a Minister can retain an interest, the Minister and the department must put processes in place to prohibit access to certain papers and ensure that the Minister is not involved in certain decisions and discussions relating to that interest.
Non-Public Bodies
7.12 Ministers should take care to ensure that they do not become associated with non-public organisations whose objectives may in any degree conflict with Government policy and thus give rise to a conflict of interest.
Statistics
8.15 Ministers need to be mindful of the UK Statistics Authority’s Code of Practice (pdf, 577 KB) which defines good practice in relation to official statistics, observance of which is a statutory requirement on all organisations that produce National Statistics in accordance with the provisions of the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007.”
Lots to consider from the above for possible future reference… but – as far as answering Natalie Bennett’s question – Benyon is simply reporting what the NESAC has done and said autonomously. He does not indicate any input from himself, even if he may be perceived by some as having benefitted from it, somehow.
I dare say all the relevant people/bodies ‘know’ that Benyon is a reported grouse moor owner, but that he resigned his chairmanship of the family business(es) to become a ‘Trustee’ before being appointed a Minister.
Note this from 2012:
https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/wildlife-minister-richard-benyon-under-fire-in-another-gameshooting-case-7801027.html
I believe that any grouse owners should pay £100.000 licence fee as a deposit against their gamekeepers shooting the Killing the Harriers..If then the birds are still going missing then the licence money is paid back into the Harrier breeding programme.if 3 birds Go missing over 2 Years.We close down the Grouse moors at fault and fine them £1.000.000.000.They will close down permanently
I previously asked for an email address to which I could send my analysis of the value of big birds, eagles etc.
No reply.
As I am of the view that RSPB is firmly under the thumb of estate owners, I was not surprised that they showed no interest in my analysis which was based on public information and research. My report suggested that the fines imposed for killing raptors were infinitesimal compared to their actual value.
Is this site genuine?
Your claim regarding the RSPB and estate owners is simply untrue.