For several months now I’ve been waiting for Natural England to respond to a number of Freedom of Information/Environmental Information Regulation requests that all relate to the hen harrier brood meddling ‘scientific trial’.
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, their rearing in captivity, then their release 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.
The information requests I made are related to Natural England’s questionable decision to extend the brood meddling ‘trial’ this year (see here) and the questions are all pretty straight forward, I think. If this so-called ‘scientific trial’ was being managed properly, the information I requested should have been readily available.
Apparently not! I wonder what it is that Natural England is so reluctant to reveal?
Here are the requests and Natural England’s responses, to date:
So far Natural England has had 51 working days to respond to this request and has missed four deadlines. The most recent deadline (yesterday) passed without any form of communication or explanation from Natural England. I’ve written, again, this morning, to chase up.
So far Natural England has had 40 working days to respond to this request and has missed two deadlines. The most recent deadline (yesterday) passed without any form of communication or explanation from Natural England. I’ve written, again, this morning, to chase up.
So far Natural England has had 40 working days to respond to this request and has missed two deadlines. The most recent deadline (yesterday) passed without any form of communication or explanation from Natural England. I’ve written, again, this morning, to chase up.
Raptor Persecution UK 
It’s quite obvious that this government can do just as it likes thats one reason so many are jumping ship. It’s sheer embarrassment.
Notice that Teresa Coffey is the least important minister in the government and the fact that the environment is not a cabinet post shows how much Sunak and his shambles of a party think of recovering the natural world
I’d be interested to see how the decision was made to try this, what did they hope to achieve? What questions do they think this may provide answers too?
It has answered the question of “Are grouse moor owners willing to meet in the middle and keep their hands off the small few harriers that they need to tolerate under this scheme?”. No, is the answer.
With a very few exceptions of individuals, grouse moor owners must rank high among the most selfish and self-entitled people in western society. I hope Labour stop this scheme, retain the fieldworkers currently at work to continue the tagging & monitoring, and then funnel the remaining funds into a truly passionate, specialist roving Investigations Unit (with increased powers) and experiment with simply enforcing our laws for a change, as an alternative to naive schemes like brood management.
It’s about time Tony Juniper resigned.
“Tony the Tory” Juniper and his Conservative buddies clearly don’t give a dam about what the plebs think. Hopefully next years election clears the lot of them out.
Whether their replacements will be an improvement when it comes to nature conservation and specifically raptor persecution we’ll have to wait and see, though surely nobody could be as shockingly bad.
““Tony the Tory” Juniper and his Conservative buddies clearly don’t give a dam about what the plebs think”
Is this ignorance, or some sort of irony? Undeluded? Really?
Tony Juniper is an ex-Parliamentary candidate for the Green Party, and ex-leader of Friends of the Earth. He (and his associates!) have caused a tremendous amount of damage in fighting climate change, or trying to preserve what wildlife and natural habitats we have left, with some very deeply flawed prejudices. His performance within Natural England is typical.
These magnificent birds of prey are a gift to us all the only thing the
y do not suffer with is greed I have flown birds of prey here in the UK and in the middle east can we not realise how lucky we are
Im sorry but do you people know anything about aviculture or double clutching?
The Echo parrakeet and Mauritius Pink pigeon were saved from extinction by this method. In both captive breeding and in wild birds?
I also do not remember any complaints about nest interference when Sparrowhawk nest had their eggs taken and had 2 Goshawk eggs placed in each to illegally reintroduce the bird in the UK the silence was deafening!
Stephen, the two projects are incomparable. I know a fair bit about the Mauritius project because that’s where I cut my conservation teeth. The main difference between the two (although there are many) is that the cause of the near-extinction of the Mauritius birds was addressed before the captive-bred birds were released. The main cause of the HH’s precipitous decline in England is illegal persecution and the brood meddling project has not addressed this issue. The young HHs are removed from the wild (not double-clutched either!) to prevent them being illegally killed by gamekeepers on grouse moors, and then are later released back to the wild where invariably they’re killed by gamekeepers on grouse moors.
If the HH brood meddling project was an actual genuine conservation project (i.e. the motive was to increase the population) then double-clutching would most certainly have been a good option AND the cause of the species’ decline (illegal persecution) would have been addressed prior to the bird’s release. That neither of these have taken place is a crystal clear indication that the main motive of brood meddling is NOT conservation, but a sop to the grouse shooting industry. It’s a sham.
I’d also be intrigued to read the evidence of illegal Gos’/Sparrowhawk egg manipulation, if Mr holmes (sic) would be kind enough to post a link.
More than 60 hours later, it appears that Mr holmes (sic) is either having trouble locating said supporting evidence, or doesn’t wish to back up his claim.
Sadly, we’re left to draw our own conclusions.
“do you people know anything about aviculture or double clutching?”
Yes.
“The Echo parrakeet and Mauritius Pink pigeon were saved from extinction by this method.”
Indeed, but were they declining because of contemporary illegally killing? The answer to both is a resounding no:
From https://www.oiseaux-birds.com/card-echo-parakeet.html
“The Echo Parakeet suffered decline caused by degradation and destruction of its native habitat. Cyclones, introduced plant species and feral mammals are among the main threats. But deterioration of the native forest involving reduction of the foraging areas is the main cause of low breeding success.”
From https://naturalhistorymuseum.blog/2017/04/03/the-pink-pigeon-can-genetic-rescue-save-it-from
extinction/#:~:text=There%20is%20one%20critical%20difference,introduced%20predators%20and%20introduced%20pathogens.
“The pink pigeon declined to approximately 16 individuals in the 1970’s, due to loss of habitat, introduced predators and introduced pathogens.”
So, before attempting double clutching, those problems had to be addressed, otherwise – as any idiot would tell you – the conservation programme would simply fail.
Tell me, has the cause of the decline in Hen Harriers been addressed by Natural England?
[Ed: For info – the names of comment authors are not displaying properly – this is a WordPress issue (affecting many sites) and will hopefully be resolved soon]
If NE have still not responded after such a long time and having passed several deadlines without reasonable explanation then you should complain to the Information Commissioners Office. No doubt NE hope you will give up if they delay long enough (although your history of persistent campaigning on this issue suggests this is a misguided hope!) but they should not be permitted to ignore their legal obligation to respond.
[Ed: thanks Jonathan, NE finally responded yesterday & released a significant number of documents.]
The failure to comply with FOIA legislatIon needs to be dealt with by requesting an Internal Review. They have a bit of extra time to respond to this but they fail to do so, it requires a complaint to the ICO. The website, What do They Know, is very handy to do FOI requests online.
A same week response if low priority. If a Minister required an answer to a Parliamentary Question the civil service would be expected to provide it next day – and almost invariably did. The ‘complex issue’ is no doubt the relationship with the MA and nothing else.