Two criminal investigations are underway following the discovery of two dead hen harriers earlier this spring.
According to Natural England’s most recent update on the fates of its satellite-tagged hen harriers (updates are periodical – the most recent was April 2024), the following two harriers have been found dead, one at an undisclosed location in Northumberland and another at an undisclosed location in Devon:
Hen harrier ‘Susie’, female, Tag ID: 201122, satellite-tagged in Cumbria on 21 July 2020. Date of last transmission: 12 February 2024 in Northumberland. Notes: “Recovered awaiting PM” [post mortem].
Hen harrier R2-M1-23, male, Tag ID: 213927, satellite-tagged as part of the brood meddling trial /sham on 19 July 2023 at site BM-R2-Cumbria. Date of last transmission: 7 March 2024 in Devon. Notes: “Recovered awaiting PM”.
You might remember ‘Susie’ – she’s the hen harrier whose chicks were brutally stamped on and crushed to death in their nest on a grouse moor in Whernside in the Yorkshire Dales National Park, in June 2022 (here).
I hadn’t seen any media about the latest two dead hen harriers so in May I submitted an FoI to Natural England to ask for the details of the post mortem reports to determine whether they’d been killed illegally.
Natural England responded in June and told me the information was being withheld under Regulation 12(5)(b) which states:
“A public authority may refuse to disclose information to the extent that its disclosure would adversely affect: (b) the course of justice, the ability of a person to receive a fair trial or the ability of a public authority to conduct an enquiry of a criminal or disciplinary nature”.
Natural England also told me:
“Natural England can confirm the investigations for the two Hen Harriers cases are live. As such it is our view that this exception covers the information we hold in scope of your request and therefore we are withholding because if it were to be disclosed at this stage it could comprise the result and have a serious impact on the ongoing process and proceedings“.
Natural England’s response suggests that criminality is indeed suspected but I’ll await confirmation before adding these two to the ever-growing list of hen harriers that have been illegally killed / disappeared in suspicious circumstances since the brood meddling sham began in 2018 (the running tally currently stands as 123 hen harriers).
These are the second and third known investigations this year, following the suspicious disappearance of a hen harrier called ‘Shalimar’ on a grouse moor in the Angus Glens on 15 February 2024 (see here).
Although I was at a wildlife crime forum in London last month where a police officer from the NWCU’s Hen Harrier Taskforce told the audience that there were currently five investigations ongoing, although no details were provided.
Raptor Persecution UK 
Poor
Poor Susie – her chicks met the most horrendous end under the feet of a most malign human, and now she has been murdered too. No humanity in some humans.. profits before everything else, and anything, living or not, which gets in their way is ‘taken care of’. I despair.
The cause of death hasn’t been published yet so we should wait for confirmation first.
“her chicks met the most horrendous end under the feet of a most malign human, and now she has been murdered too.”
It is not murder, though, is it? Unless you equate the illegal killing of those Hen Harrier chicks with the murder of those three little girls in Southport.
Murder, by definition and in law, is the illegal killing of a human being. Words are important.
was it really necessary to bring the murder of those three little girls in Southport into this???
Why not, when someone decides to refer to the ‘murder’ of Hen Harrier chicks at the very same time?
So Susie was recovered dead in February and we are still waiting on a PM? And wouldn’t even have known about her death anyway, were it not for the FOI request made by this blog? The best opportunity for Police appeal for information (IF the superficial assessment suggested persecution) has now long passed.
This situation brings to mind the delay in the PM* on Susie’s stamped chicks in 2022 and the squirming that Acting Inspector Mark Earnshaw (of North Yorkshire Rural Taskforce) did when needled about the crap Police response, in the Guardian’s “Killing the Skydancer” Podcast.
*attributed to a backlog due to bird flu, if I remember right.
Hopefully there is more information forthcoming soon and yes it could very well turn out to be a death by natural causes – birds after all do starve in January & February (although it wasn’t a hard winter, so I’m a bit sceptical on that). But personally I am already getting a funny feeling of deja vu…