Yesterday a friend sent me a link to a recent claim made by the grouse shooting industry that ‘Natural England hen harrier data reveals just 2% suffered persecution‘.
The article, published on the dodgy astro-turfing C4PMC (Campaign for Protection of Moorland Communities) website (see here for background on this murky outfit) has since been widely shared on social media by the usual suspects, in an attempt to counter my rolling list of missing/dead hen harriers in the UK since 2018 (currently reporting 110 birds but there are more to come).
The grouse shooting industry REALLY doesn’t like this rolling list, or the accompanying posters, because it lays bare their criminal activities with proven data sources (from Natural England and the RSPB) to back up each and every one of those listed ‘missing’/killed hen harriers.
My friend had never heard of C4PMC but knew the article was dodgy just from its introductory blurb, which describes me as an “animal rights activist” – he knows I’m not, and suggested I’d been labelled this way in an attempt to undermine my credibility. It’s a common tactic to create a wholly false impression of someone – the Daily Mail also tried this defamatory ploy a few years ago when it described me as an “anti-hunt extremist” and an “animal rights extremist“, presumably egged on by the loathsome Countryside Alliance, but was later forced to apologise and correct the article (see here).
Personally, I don’t read the C4PMC website ever since it published a particularly malicious ‘advent calendar of hate’ a few years ago, targeting well known conservationists, broadcasters, authors and politicians with vindictive and spiteful personal attacks, posted online every day in the run-up to Xmas during a lockdown period; so misjudged that even many of their own supporters from within the grouse-shooting industry thought they’d gone too far.
But given that my friend had drawn my attention to this latest article about hen harrier persecution being as low as 2%, I thought I’d take a look.
I’m glad I did, because it’s hilariously and hopelessly inaccurate. It’s apparent that whoever writes for C4PMC can’t count, can’t think, and can’t even copy data from a published source.
In a nutshell, C4PMC has published a list of satellite-tagged hen harriers, supposedly copied from Natural England’s public spreadsheet, showing the fates of NE’s satellite-tracked hen harriers since 2017, and has attempted to analyse those fates and present them as factual.
There are many problems with how they’ve done this (which I’ll describe below), but C4PMC’s first and most obvious mistake is to present the data from only 82 hen harriers, whereas Natural England’s spreadsheet shows the fate of 97 hen harriers. For some inexplicable reason, C4PMC has ‘forgotten’ to include 15 hen harriers (the ‘forgotten’ harriers are highlighted in blue in the document below).
Then when I started to analyse C4PMC’s ‘results’, I noticed that they’d completely changed the status of some of the birds – nine of them in fact – so for example, where Natural England has recorded a harrier as ‘Missing Fate Unknown’ in Cumbria in May 2020, C4PMC has recorded the same harrier as ‘Alive and well and living in France’ in September 2023!
C4PMC even included one harrier on its list that doesn’t actually exist in Natural England’s spreadsheet (highlighted in pink in the document below). C4PMC just made it up!
To show you the extent of C4PMC’s catalogue of ineptitude, I’ve produced a table to compare Natural England’s data with C4PMC’s misinterpretations (highlighted in red in the document below):
It’s quite obvious that any conclusion C4PMC has drawn from its inaccurate and unreliable ‘analysis’ is going to be flawed, given how many harriers they’ve left out and how many fates they’ve changed.
But it still doesn’t answer the question about how they calculated hen harrier persecution to be as low as 2%. It took me a while but then it dawned on me – to calculate the 2% figure, C4MPC has only included the two hen harriers confirmed to have been illegally killed (Free and Asta) and has totally ignored all the harriers listed by Natural England as ‘Missing Fate Unknown’ (i.e. those suspected of being/most likely have been, illegally killed).
This is a very strange approach to take but is absolutely what we’ve come to expect from the grouse shooting industry. Even Natural England acknowledges that illegal persecution is still rampant; the only ones still in denial are those within the grouse shooting industry itself (including the Chair of the Moorland Association, who last month told BBC Radio 4, “Clearly, any illegal [hen harrier] persecution is not happening” (here)). Why Natural England continues to view this industry as a ‘partner’ when that industry so blatantly ignores/denies what’s so obviously going on is beyond me, I’m afraid (although the £75,000 ‘donation’ received by NE might have something to do with it).
I’ve done a quick calculation for C4PMC, as they obviously need some/lots of help. Counting up all the harriers listed by Natural England as ‘Missing Fate Unknown’ (but excluding all those listed as likely to have been predated, or carrying failed tags, or have been found dead outside the UK), there’s a grand total of 34 hen harriers listed as ‘missing’ (in suspicious circumstances and likely to have been illegally killed in the UK), which out of 97 tagged birds amounts to a 35% persecution rate.
That’s over a third of Natural England-tagged harriers suspected to have been killed illegally, which funnily enough closely corresponds with the fates of satellite-tagged golden eagles in Scotland (here) and the fates of hen harriers satellite-tagged by the RSPB (here).
Imagine that, actual data backing up actual science.
And let’s not forget, these are the tagged birds. How many un-tagged hen harriers is the grouse shooting industry also killing?
Raptor Persecution UK 
I was surprised that they produced a figure of 2% by just including 2 hen harriers in their list of “known persecution”. My initial thought was that they’d taken the total number of bodies that have been recovered and shown to of been shot/poisoned/trapped and compared it with the total number of birds that are known to of hatched in England since 2018, including those that weren’t tagged.
They’re even less sophisticated than I initially thought.
Toughen up the sentences for these criminals, immediate life time ban from game keepiers thereby loosing their livelihood with a prison sentence and full criminal record. Also the owner/owners where the crime occurred are ultimately responsible for the care of the estate, they are also complicit in this crime I would immediately remove the license and issue an immediate ban. Also a substantial fine, hit them in the pocket I feel this would be the only way to send a strong message to these criminals.
As a regular reader and occasional poster on this blog I can’t help but feel we’re missing a simple strategy to put pressure on the government to open its eyes and take raptor persecution more seriously. We all know a significant portion of ministers and some MPs are sympathetic to the grouse industry and refuse to put meaningful legislation in place in England. The RSPB has approximately 1.2 million members and there’s a general election in the offing in the next 16 -18 months. If a quarter to half of those members could be persuaded to write to their MPs with a list and rationale of reasonable steps; such as banning convicted keepers from the industry for life, or stopping estates where poisons etc are found from hosting any form of shooting events for a significant period we might see a bit more traction.
I’d started to do the same analysis myself comparing the two tables but you’ve beaten me to it Ruth. A total bloody nonsense from this shower of wildlife crime apologists. Interestingly the pro shoot person whose post I found it on has since agreed with me.
Of concern is that followers of C4PMC and other similar pro shooting groups will believe the figures published by C4PMC and will no doubt attempt to use these figures to try and persuade others that Hen Harrier persecution isn’t happening. I have no doubt these figures have been created for a willing audience.
The sheer ignorance, stupidly and self belief that some of those supporting game shooting have is quite frankly very to difficult to comprehend.
We live in a society where most children attend school and are supposed to come away with at least a basic standard of education, so when I read the absolute nonsense that some of these groups and people come out with, it makes me wonder whether the period of enlightenment and scientific reasoning simply passed them by?
But many who do participate in shooting aren’t stupid, and must surely realise that the consequences of continuing raptor persecution in a society which is becoming ever more aware of the importance and value of nature, is simply going to stigmatise shooting and lead to increasing pressure to restrict and push it to the position where it will not be tolerated over vast swathes of the countryside. Especially when it is realised that in order for much of commercial shooting to exist it it’s current form, then it requires the destruction of so much indigenous wildlife.
I would suspect that most people would be horrified to learn that foxes are persecuted to almost extinction on some of the land managed for shooting, and that the methods being used used to control their populations often fall far below what we would expect in a civilised society.
It can at times be difficult to have a sensible conservation with some in the farming community regarding badgers, as in their minds all these creatures are carrying the equivalent of the plague and must be exterminated by lawful culling or otherwise.
My conclusion is that organisations like C4PMC exist to exploit a gap in the minds of people, who for whatever reason are unable to grasp the truth backed up by proper research.
The fact that so many satellite tagged Hen Harriers have disappeared over one small corner of the Yorkshire Dales National park managed for grouse shooting speaks for itself.
This loss of so many Hen Harriers completely over shadows some of the good conservation work being carried out on more enlightened estates.
Rather than try and blame conservationists, for the growing anti shooting sentiment within the public, it would perhaps be far better for the shooting industry, if their umbrella organisations and the estates themselves, openly spoke out about the criminal activity taking place, and demanded a complete ban on all those suspected of committing the crimes from association or employment within the industry.
The problems for game shooting are caused by the criminals, and no one else. But those who lap up the nonsense put out by some of those organisations supporting the industry will be incapable of seeing this.
“The problems for game shooting are caused by the criminals, and no one else”
Uh? The legal importation of millions upon millions of alien ‘game’ birds has a devastating adverse effect on our natural environment. The legal draining of moorland has a devastating adverse effect on our natural environment. The legal burning of moorland, the legal spreading of medicated grit, the legal persecution of predators, the legal use of lead ammunition etc etc all have devastating adverse effects on our environment.
These are all problems for game shooting, as far as I’m concerned.
The sad truth is that until the past few years the Driven Grouse Lobby knew that those who took the real data seriously were so few in numbers that they could afford to be looked on as “statistically insignificant” and duly ignored.
As the gargantuan efforts of Ruth and her colleagues began to reach a wider audience, with thanks to Chris Packham and friends, more and more people, it appears, began to pay attention ; people who had been unaware of the reality previously. This spurred the DGM Lobby to astro-turfing by way of dodgy “environmental” organisations and highly partisan “Moorland Groups” before bringing the professional PR to bear, C4PMC, which has become the environmental equivalent of The Sun.
The simply truth is that what appears to matter to the DGM Lobby are not facts, but public opinion and this should be recognised as such — and acted on.
The number of people in the UK that would support the illegal killing of birds of prey must waver around the same number as would support drunken driving. The key, therefore, at this stage, is getting the information of what is going on to as many members of then public as possible, in a context that grabs their attention. The routes that our Governments have given us to stop the criminality and bring the perpetrators to justice is not working as it should. Put frankly it is “not fit for purpose.”
it might be worth considering a high profile target who has misled the public to be exposed sand, if possible, taken through the courts in a blaze of publicity — well, as big a blaze as Eestablishment restrictions — official annd unofficial — would allow.
Finding out who patronises DGM’s with a history of criminality and exposing them to public scrutiny and judgement might add to their load too.
Anyhow, the strength of their effort and their willinginess to deceive publicly in areas where exposure is a certainy if sufficient effort is invested shows just how much value they place on public opinion, which, in all honesty, seems to be the weakest spot of all .
Sadly, truth and accuracy are of little importance to campaigns such as C4PMC. As Donald Trump has demonstrated over and over, if an outrageous untruth is shouted loud enough and often enough then there will be plenty of people who will believe it. There are undoubtedly people in the grouse shooting world who are perfectly aware of the flaws in the analysis by C4PMC but who are happy to let it stand as they know there will be lots of people who will take it at face value and who will noisily attack conservation concerns about raptor persecution as cooked up falsehoods aimed at attacking their ‘way of life’.
It is important to challenge the falsehoods, though, to limit their spread as far as possible and particularly to prevent their absorption and regurgitation by politicians and others with power and influence.
” it would perhaps be far better for the shooting industry, if their umbrella organisations and the estates themselves, openly spoke out about the criminal activity taking place, and demanded a complete ban on all those suspected of committing the crimes from association or employment within the industry.”
I agree wholeheartedly but of course in the grouse”industry” the good guys are in a minority and to speak out would get them ” black balled” from much of that which they hold dear. Also those estates that do not persecute in their blinkered view of wildlife benefit from the activities of those who do. The trouble with C4 and their close pals in the various “moorland groups” equate any criticism of their “sport” whether justified or not as a direct attack on their “way of life” and as such when it does dawn on them that the persecutors are a problem it will already be way too late. Frankly for many of us it is way too late now.
Turning the tide of public opinion through honest, factual information is important. And good work is being done. Did anyone see Hamza Yassin’s birds of prey programme this evening? Great wildlife cameraman and v engaging person. He touched only briefly on HH persecution and I was shouting at the TV for more. This kind of exposure, along with Frank Gardner’s pieces on Springwatch will all help as does Ruth’s fantastic blog because we can share her information with others.
But it does need accelerating, especially if a general election may come as early as next May.
PS As far as I’m concerned, all gamebird shooting should be banned. I’m currently having to dodge round pheasants and mallard ducks released for shooting as I drive along country roads. Hate it