A raven with at least five shotgun pellets lodged in its body is currently receiving veterinary care at the RSPCA’s Stapeley Grange Wildlife Centre in Cheshire, according to this tweet posted yesterday evening:
There aren’t any further details available yet.
Raptor Persecution UK 
Poor bird, really hope he makes it, well done to whoever rescued him.
Our local Ravens are already feeding young, this bird being shot may have destroyed a breeding attempt.
Hope it makes a full recovery.
More intelligent by far than the moron who shot it..
They are the most splendid birds.
I’ll second that.
A single Raven has more intelligence than the whole shooting lobby put together, although that is not a difficult task.
Fkn sick weirdo
Here here !! hope raven pulls through bless .
How many Ravens are shot and killed every year by those who misidentify them as Crows, either through ignorance or intentionally ?
I suspect that it is no coincidence that this bird has been shot at the start of the lambing season.
I would make it an absolute requirement of anyone using a GL to shoot birds to undertake a formal examination in identification of bird species, so that those shooting birds under the terms of a GL would have to identify the species of birds they were shooting with 100% accuracy. Failure to pass the bird species examination, which would be an annual test, would result in the individual being unable to use a GL as an excuse to shoot or kill wild birds.
This would then have the potential that any bird killed by that individual could then fall as an offence under the Wildlife and Countryside Act.
If the government is serious about restoring nature in the UK, as it has pledged to do so, then the use of GL’s is an area which probably needs greater scrutiny and reform.
I would also make a requirement of the conditions of a GL, that anyone intending to shoot wild birds birds under the terms of a GL would have to notify the police of the dates, times and locations where such activity was intended to take place.
It is becoming increasingly clear that we have to learn to live alongside nature, and show far greater tolerance when nature interferes with our human activities, especially since so much of nature has seen much of its natural habitat destroyed, and is clinging onto life in the margins away from centres of human activity.
Ravens are amazing birds, and I always take great pleasure in their company when walking in the hills and mountains, especially in inclement weather when their calls are often the only other signs of life.
I hope this Raven survives and is successfully re introduced back into the wild. Ravens are intelligent birds, and I have never forgotten a tv program presented by Chris Packham, which undertook some tests to show just how how intelligent these birds are, and why they deserve our respect.
Hi John, the principle of some mandatory standard of training on species to be killed under GL conditions sounds a reasonable one. That said, I think most Ravens that are persecuted are killed by people who can generally identify them correctly, or who as you suggest just do not discriminate anyway, until they realise it’s actually a Raven then they will bother to stuff it down a hole, whereas a shot Crow is deemed value-less non-protected trash that no one likes, so can just be left to rot where it lies. Generally, I think a tagging study of young ravens is needed, from sample nests close to grouse moor areas such as the western Y.Dales, western N.Pennines, Moorfoots & Lammermuirs.