Yesterday evening, Channel 4 News featured some incredible footage, secretly filmed by the RSPB’s investigations team, of three gamekeepers on an unnamed grouse moor in northern England, first plotting to kill, and then apparently killing, a hen harrier.
If you didn’t see it, here it is:
The footage was remarkable, not because it showed gamekeepers killing birds of prey – we’ve all seen plenty of secretly filmed footage catching gamekeepers committing these crimes.
What was different about this particular footage was the audio quality – so acutely clear that we could hear the radio comms between the three gamekeepers, one in view (the estate’s Head gamekeeper, according to the RSPB) and the other two strategically placed elsewhere on the grouse moor but taking clear direction about what not to shoot (a hen harrier with a satellite tag) and what to shoot (an untagged hen harrier, whose death would not be revealed to the wider world, or so they thought). They were also heard discussing what else they’d casually shot that afternoon – a buzzard and a raven, both protected species.
I daresay their conversation probably revealed much more, but the full audio transcript is not being released by the RSPB, at least not yet, but it may come to light either as evidence in a prosecution trial or as a stand alone release once any criminal proceedings have concluded.
I hope there is a prosecution – actually, I hope there are three of them – and three convictions with appropriately severe sentences, although I’m not holding my breath. We’ve been here many times before, with what is often clear and compelling video evidence of raptor persecution offences, only for the case to be thrown out on a technicality.
I imagine the very well paid defence lawyers are already circling the wagons, ready to argue that the video/audio evidence should be deemed inadmissible if the landowner’s permission wasn’t granted in advance of filming.
Can you imagine an abattoir owner, or the national trade body of abattoir owners, using this defence if someone had secretly filmed their employees inflicting gratuitous cruelty to animals? No, me neither because it’d not only be ludicrous and provoke justifiable public revulsion, but it could also be argued that it looked like a clear indication that the owner and the abattoir trade association condoned the crimes of those employees.
But prosecuting those three gamekeepers, important as that is, isn’t all that’s at stake in this particular case.
The bigger picture here is what that RSPB footage has exposed about the grouse shooting industry. For years, the representative bodies of that industry have insisted, time and time again, that gamekeepers are not ‘at it’, that the RSPB has fabricated the evidence, that gamekeepers are being unfairly attacked, and that any of us who report on such crimes to raise awareness are nothing more than ‘anti-shooting extremists’ whose opinions should be disregarded as ‘lies’.
In recent years, they’ve mobilised to deliver a unified propaganda missive designed to hide what they actually get up to and to instead present themselves as raptor-loving, law-abiding members of society.
I’m sure, in fact I know, that there are some decent members in that industry who abhor the illegal killing of raptors as much as many of us do. But there are not enough of them and they don’t speak out often enough against the criminals within their industry. The time is fast approaching when they may regret that.
The wider significance of this RSPB footage is what it reveals about the grouse-shooting industry’s propaganda campaign on hen harriers and the utter futility of the brood meddling sham.
It seems pretty clear to me from the footage, given the time of day and the number of harriers present, that those three gamekeepers were staking out a hen harrier roost. It’s been common knowledge for years amongst raptor fieldworkers that gamekeepers sit out on the hill to target harriers coming in to roost, and if they don’t manage to kill them when they’re flying in, then they’ll take their dogs, guns and thermal imagers through the roost site under the cover of darkness to get the job done.
I thought it was interesting that these three gamekeepers didn’t want to kill any harriers that were carrying satellite tags because that would draw unwanted attention to the estate but any without a satellite tag were fair game, because those hen harriers, if killed cleanly, could be disposed of, probably stamped into the peat, without anyone being any the wiser, so the industry can maintain the charade that hen harriers are welcome on grouse moors.
It’s clear from the high number of satellite-tagged hen harriers that have been illegally killed in recent years that not all gamekeepers are as devious as these three, but how many more gamekeepers are out there targeting non-tagged harriers? We know of 129 hen harriers (now 130 if we include the one shot in this footage) that have been killed or have vanished in suspicious circumstances since 2018. Every time another one is reported, there’ll be voices from the industry desperately trying to cast doubt about the fate of the bird in an attempt to cover up the appalling truth.
And that’s the significance of this latest footage. It delivers that appalling truth with such clarity that there’s nowhere left for the grouse shooting industry to hide.
There’s also nowhere left for Natural England to hide. The evidence couldn’t be any clearer – the brood meddling sham has not changed the attitude of the grouse shooting industry towards hen harriers and any thought that Natural England might have about rolling out brood meddling as a so-called annual ‘conservation licence’ should be as dead and cold in the water as that shot hen harrier.
Kudos to the team at Channel 4 News and especially chief correspondent Alex Thomson for their willingness, once again, to broadcast the atrocities of the grouse shooting industry with such lucidity.
Our biggest thanks needs to go to the RSPB’s Investigations Team, whose dedication, ingenuity, professionalism and sheer tenacity, despite the daily foul, vitriolic abuse they’re subjected to from the criminals and their benefactors, continues to provide us with such insight.
If you want to demonstrate your support please consider making a donation to keep the team in the field – see here.
UPDATE 24 October 2024: 130 hen harriers confirmed ‘missing’ or illegally killed in UK since 2018, most of them on or close to grouse moors (here)
UPDATE 31 October 2024: Moorland Association’s response to THAT damaging video/audio aired on Channel 4 News last week (here)
UPDATE 14 April 2025: Gamekeeper from a Yorkshire Dales grouse moor charged in relation to alleged shooting of a hen harrier (as featured on Channel 4 News last October) here
UPDATE 2 May 2025: Gamekeeper Racster Dingwall pleads not guilty to two charges relating to alleged conspiracy to kill a Hen Harrier on grouse moor in Yorkshire Dales National Park (here)
UPDATE 4 May 2025: News coverage about first court appearance of Yorkshire Dales gamekeeper Racster Dingwall in relation to alleged conspiracy to shoot a Hen Harrier (here)
UPDATE 9 September 2025: Gamekeeper Racster Dingwall back in court today for case relating to Hen Harrier shooting on a grouse moor in Yorkshire Dales National Park (here)
UPDATE 9 September 2025: Judge rules RSPB covert video surveillance is admissible evidence in prosecution of gamekeeper Racster Dingwall (here)
UPDATE 25 September 2025: More detail on court ruling accepting admissibility of RSPB’s covert surveillance in prosecution of gamekeeper accused of conspiracy to kill a Hen Harrier (here)
Raptor Persecution UK 
When does this all end? Well done Channel 4 and as always to yourself Ruth, for exposing these criminal scumbags. So sad. (
You know I subscribed to these reports to witness the prosecution and sentencing of folk who kill these magestic birds. I have stopped reading them now out of pure frustration at the way in which sentences are thrown out, laughabley lenient etc . It is clear that the judicial system is in many ways protecting offenders of the persecution of raptors and I am struggling to be a witness to it by reading you’re content . It needs someone to “go down” for a serious amount of time , for any change in attitude to manifest itself .
The problem is we’re fighting the establishment and we need the royals to condem these criminal acts. Hopefully with the situation being televised they will be shamed by public opinion.
Fantastic work. Worth bombarding all social media (repeatedly) when it is most opportune within the legal context.
In one respect, it would be a ‘good’ outcome if this evidence didn’t make it to court, it would as you say condemn the whole industry as being complicit. Although if it did result in prosecution then the penalties (with the curt state of the prisons) be small a tokenistic.
Watching the video again I noticed no mention of the legal position in Scotland whereby employers are legally liable for their employees’ actions such as what is portrayed. Statistics on this would be useful and repeated mention of this should be encouraged. A change in the law in England and Wales could work wonders!
Hi Ian,
The statistics on vicarious liability are poor – only two successful convictions in 12 years. Too many large loopholes to be exploited and a Procurator Fiscal Office keen on dropping cases without providing an explanation.
Just read excellent report from channel 4 news well done everyone but serious convictions need to follow fines jail for these absolute pompous scumbags who think they are above the law .This has to be taken with the utmost seriousness zero tolerance the evidence is there put it on all networks get it out there even to government ministers. Bastards all of them
Just been looking at Natural England site proper makes me want to vomit. What a load of pretentious bullshit this site spews this country and it’s governing bodies just spew bullshit has anyone or any body got any credence and honesty. I just despair keep up the fight lovely passionate people I’ve joined RSPB last month am in everything anti cruelty I can afford to subscribe to .
Well done to RSPB. a great job. Let’s hope that some prosecutions now take place. Also thank you to Channel 4.
These criminals must surely have their fire arms/shotgun licences taken off them with immediate effect? Anybody committing a common crime in the street would have that right revoked with immediate effect.
Great credit to the skill, patience and dedication of the RSPB investigators who have gathered this evidence. If readers to this blog wish to help the RSPB investigations team, then it is possible to donate monthly through the RSPB Bird of Prey Defender appeal. Details are on the RSPB website.
When evidence like this is gathered it is very encouraging to see that the money donated is being well spent on trying to bring the criminals to justice.
I find it sad that the Moorland Association spokesperson did not applauded the work of the RSPB, as surely it is also in their interests to rid the shooting industry of the game keepers who engage in criminal behaviour? The spokespersons comments on Ch4 may well have lost the Moorland Association some credibility, as if they and other shooting industry umbrella organisations truly want to see an end to illegal bird of prey persecution then surely they should be supportive of any actions which expose and bring to justice the criminals and prevent the rogue estates which employ these criminal from operating? Not to do so does a great disservice to the estates and game keepers who don’t engage in criminal activity and who do take conservation of the environment and wildlife seriously.
Hopefully the three game keepers exposed in this footage will be successfully prosecuted and the name of the estate where they worked dragged through the national media. I also hope all the local people who have previously supported this estate either as beaters, pickers up or have provided catering services on shoot days withdraw their support. Why would any law abiding person want to support criminal activity and be part of something which illegally kills some of the nations most endangered and valuable wildlife.
Agreed, parents may also want to have a say when teachers take kids up to “Estates that Educate” or “Let’s learn Moor” days. Likewise people should think very carefully about the Estates that they they may be choosing to go on Curlew or Wildlife Safari days. I would personally boycott the whole lot, but that’s just me. I say this not because I think 100% of Estate and keepers are at it (I personally think the figure is about 90%, regards the bigger birds of prey) but because 100% of them keep their mouths shut and cover up for each other. Same with BASC, NGO, SGA, MA and even GWCT – they could all as organisations and individuals do at least something to push the right way. Instead they just “hold the line”.
I feel a strong need for a call for a full ban on sport shooting. The various shooting organisations obviously have no influence over their members criminal behaviour. The gamekeepers are doing what they are instructed to do by their employers who are often their landlords. Stop the subsidy’s we pay to fund the sport and ban it.
on major BBC channels today, and Text
fantastic news. Can’t wait to hear what excuses the lawyers will come up with. Heavy fines and realistic sentaces are what’s now needed, drive this sub culture into history
Great work by RSPB Investigations, god knows how many hours they put in to identify that “sitting out” spot and the effort to get camera in there undetected. And great coverage by Alex Thomson & Channel 4. So many things of interest – will there be prosecutions? I would say that would hinge on (a) the inclination of the Judge regards admissibility of covert recording, and whether any of the three corpses were recovered. But above & beyond that, this gives the best true account to date of the real work of grousekeepers. People with no background at all in either shooting generally or grouse moor areas can now see (hear!) exactly what happens day in day out across hundreds of thousands of acres of grouse moors. Hopefully they will get the sense of people living and working purely to their own system of right and wrong, and going about it casually in the manner of crafty, adventuring naughty schoolboys thoroughly enjoying what they do & getting on with it in the vein of it all being a bit of good craic. Which is exactly as it is.
This is devastating for the grousers, hence why we just got a ludicrous statement from Andrew “Kill truth” Gilruth about bird of prey numbers in general. That seems to be a clarion call from all the apologists these days from the MA, SGA, NGO and those scurrilous XXXXX C4PMC. Frankly the claim is ( not true) but even were it true it’s irrelevant, ALL our raptors and owls are fully protected in law and of course numbers are anything but as high as they have ever been on grouse moors. Hen Harriers at 12-15% of what GWCT once thought they should be, Peregrines almost totally absent as successful breeders, Merlin that archetypal moorland bird in decline as are Short Eared Owls. The video shows the truth of grouse moor criminality that is probably all too common given the statistics above, showing those keepers to be criminal scum and their apologists just that, before and after the fact. Some of us have been saying for years the only true prevention is in the end a COMPLETE BAN OF DGS failing that licencing perhaps this moves that closer. It still makes me incredibly angry to see this crime but at least there is now a chance these wildlife slaughterers may be found guilty and the estate and its managers names dragged through the mire but it is still a Hen Harrier gone.
By any reasonable standards last night’s Channel 4 programme should be a ground-breaking one but where does “officialdom” stand on this issue? Depressingly, The Guardian today carries the following remark: “A Defra spokesperson said there are no plans for licences for game-bird shooting in England, adding: “There are strong penalties in place for offences committed against birds of prey and other wildlife.” Needless to say, nothing is stated there about enforcement (stringent or lax) of those penalties.
Patrick Stirling-Aird
If this results in a prosecution and comes to court, I am sure you are right that the lawyers will seek to challenge the admissibility of the evidence. If they are successful in this ploy, what will be the reaction of MA, GWCT, et al? Since they all claim to be vehemently opposed to illegal persecution of birds of prey one might reasonably expect them to express frustration that a ‘bad apple’ who is dragging their reputation into the dirt has got away on a technicality but I wouldn’t bank on it. Past experience suggests that they will instead be gleeful at putting one over on the RSPB investigations team. Their supposed commitment to restoring the population of the Hen Harrier is as hollow as a drum.
Apologies for double-posting. The first attempt seemed to disappear into the ether so I re-submitted the comment. The unfathomable ways of the internet…
If this results in a prosecution and comes to court, I am sure you are right that the lawyers will seek to challenge the admissibility of the evidence. If they are successful in this ploy, what will be the reaction of the MA and other representatives of the grouse industry? Since they all claim to be disgusted at the very thought of illegally killing raptors, one might reasonably expect them to express deep frustration that a ‘bad apple’ who is dragging their reputation into the dirt has got off on a technicality but I wouldn’t bank on it. Past experience suggests they are more likely to be gleeful at having put one over on the RSPB investigations team. The commitment of these organisations to the restoration of hen harrier populations is as hollow as a drum.
Great work by the RSPB investigations team, and Alex Thompson (although I don’t think it was a good idea to give Andrew Gilruth, the oxygen of publicity, as the man is a total stranger to the truth.
It’s pretty much like we suspected, but worse. That they carefully avoid shooting tagged HHs, says the extrapolations drawn from disappearing tagged birds, means they problem under-estimate, the amount being killed. I think almost certainly this is widespread, to the point of being virtually universal. I’m sorry, but I no longer believe in the ethical shooter trope. The stats, this must be taking place on most managed shooting estates. It’s almost certain, that this knowedge is widespread. Unless these supposedly ethical types, name nanes, they’re not in any way, ethical.
What stands out to me, and which I have mentioned many times, is the huge amount of time and effort, these gamekeepers must put into shooting HHs and other raptors. Any birder or wildlife photographer knows you just don’t just sit somewhere, and a bit later, a HH will fly into shotgun range, under 50m. It takes a lot of time, and is very time consuming. Therefore, all the managers, agents and owners of these shoots, know very well what is going on. You don’t pay a lot of money to people in wages and salaries, if they might just be drinking in the local pub. You want to know that the person you’re employing, is actually doing what you want, on your behalf. All of them know, the shooting community, the gamekeeping community, the landowners, the estate managers, the agents
I wonder how many keepers are out right now at Harrier roosts around the country? Light is fading – it is the witching hour. Will last nights coverage have given a few pause for thought? For tonight, a few perhaps. Going forward – with some adaptation of tactics my betting is they will for the most part carry on as normal. Albeit looking for a different rock to sit on or a different bit of wall or bunch of reshes to settle in behind each time, while maybe casting suspicious glances at a funny looking stone that could be a camera. To not do it would be to let the other side win, to walk away from their hard work “building up the numbers” of grouse & building up their own ego, to give up their gilded status as being the big-man who is master of a multi- thousand acre kingdom…and condescend to being just an ordinary Joe earning an honest living doing something else – probably living in a little terraced house in the village, instead of a bucolic well appointed estate owned cottage up it’s own private road.
Well done RSPB and CH4. Makes you wonder how many of these wildlife crimes go undetected. Estate/land owners should be held more accountable as they know full well what takes place on their land. Strange world we live in when low life humans (usually men) have a fascination to stalk and kill animals for pleasure who cause them no threat. They usually try to present it as a necessary land management issue, or protection of game shooting. To kill other bird species that may prey on bird species that we want to kill for fun and profit instead. How many more of these same stories do we have to read about week in week out before substantial penalties and deterrents are put in place. As depressing as it is at least it continues to highlight the issue.
At 1130 / 24th, this is not obvious on the RSPB website. Unless anyone knows better.
It seems to this supporter an opportunity wasted. All those members…
Yep, I noticed that. The RSPB main site always seem to do that – make it very hard to find. It really pisses me off as this to me is where the real work is! Politics I suppose? I don’t know, it makes me suspicious I have to say. It’s one of the reasons why I personally won’t join the RSPB, but choose to make monthly donations direct to RSPB Investigations Team “Bird of Prey Defenders” campaign. Be nice to think that my few quid maybe contributed a little way in buying some of the kit they got the recording with, or at least kept the folks in the field stocked with mars bars, etc!
Thanks, SM, I may follow your example. The member card rarely gets used.
“At 1130 / 24th, this is not obvious on the RSPB website”
The presentation of the film (broadcast interviews etc) is ‘owned’ by Channel 4, and the RSPB reposted it on its RSPB Birders Twitter feed – from their own ‘staffers’ – along with more of its own films of other raptors being shot, the coverage also broadcast by the BBC (with its own interviews etc), and the publication of its 2023 Birdcrime Report etc..
In total, nine graphic tweets devoted to this particular incident and raptor persecution in general, all dated October 22nd and 23rd.
Should be front & centre of their own landing page on main RSPB website. Not only for publicity but to give a boost to the people who were out there & made it happen / putting in the hard yards. Just my personal opinion.
“Should be front & centre of their own landing page on main RSPB website”
Currently has a petition to Reeves opposing cuts to nature-friendly farming and their Birdcrime report. The Birdcrime report transcends a single incident.
Then what’s the next thing you scroll onto after the (very important) Birdcrime Report header? Some raffle with a lovely picture of tufty the squirrel! No excuse for a short, news style report about this case – it is a big one, after all (out on the physical battlefield it is a very big one in fact to both sides) – going in ahead of the squirrel – with links to the full thing on Channel 4.
“Some raffle with a lovely picture of tufty the squirrel!”
Finance. It was finance, after all, which obtained the footage.
“with links to the full thing on Channel 4.”
I have already pointed out that the RSPB did that, repeatedly, on their Twitter feed….
I suspect far more young people access Twitter rather than web sites…
“I don’t know, it makes me suspicious I have to say.”
Conspiracy?
Keith – our little sidethread on this could go on interminably so I’ll make this my last thought. It’s really for current RSPB members (not me) to consider whether their organisation should publicise their own hard-won hardwork within a couple of clicks on their website homepage, or leave it hard to find – to rely on Channel 4, some tweets and to trust to others to really bang out the significance. No, I’m not a conspiracy theorist. But like many I have always felt for decades the RSPB at management level is scared of an up-front fight against “The Establishment” to reverse what was/is the accepted “normalisation of raptor persecution” & general excesses of game shooting industry. The RSPB Investigations field team have been shit-hot on all this since at least the early nineties – but still (twenty odd years later) this RPUK blog and Wild Justice had to come into existence to project the RSPB’s very own fieldwork into the public sphere and get it on the political agenda! Something was – maybe still is – wrong with their “gut” approach to getting stuck in. That is what I mean by suspicious – suspicious they are going timid again. All just my personal opinion.
See you on another thread👍
I suspect my generation looks at websites for significant content, and at twitter for ephemera. But why not use both?
“But why not use both?”
Because one is much easier to publish than the other, especially for breaking news. Try it yourself: publish a tweet and then update a website with similar content.
See which is easier and quicker.
Also because the broadcast film is Channel 4 property, and not the RSPB’s to publish on their own website. RSPB Birders re-tweeted the Channel 4 tweet, and followed up with their own content, with references to other RSPB videos of raptors being illegally shot out of the sky, and also re-tweeted the BBC’s broadcast covering the same incident, and tweeted their own BirdCrime Report for 2023, and so on and so…
The RSPB gave far more context to the issue than Channel 4 did.
Tweets are sent direct to subscribers’ devices as soon as they are published. They are immediate. You have to bother to access a website and search around to see what is there – on the off-chance something has changed.
How would anyone who does not subscribe to RPUK know that this incident happened if it wasn’t for the tweets sent out by both Channel 4 and RSBP Birders?
Do you, for example, look at the entirety of the RSPB website everyday just to see if anything new has been published somewhere within it?
You may decry the demise of emails, for example, but tweets have taken over mass publicity for breaking news these days…
I learned of the video from RPUK’s FaceBook account, followed it to here and then looked for RSPB’s presentation. Twitter seems to be losing subscribers, reducing certain individuals’ followers and censoring certain middle east opinions, and is ephemeral in my opinion. I will stop here.
Sorry to continue but it seems worth adding the following –
I looked on Twitter for ‘RSPB followers’: where I found it has me as a follower, but their content never reaches my home page. That’s down to Twitter, perhaps reducing throughput, I guess.
I will move on now.
In the south of Scotland it is known by locals that at least one well known shooting estate has their game keepers kill birds of prey. It was the talk of the village that one killed a buzzard in front of some of the villagers who were present at the scene. The aristocrat who owns the estate has far too much influence to be brought to justice. One law for them etc
I wonder how many keepers work on that estate? 3 are law breakers (conspiricy at least). What % are rogue? A tiny, insignificant….80%?
Putting aside those who only very rarely knock off the odd bird – those keepers who believe it needs to be done consistently (most), and those keepers who who believe it shouldn’t be done (both types eventually become known among the peer group) – don’t tend to be found on the same estate under the same Headkeeper. It’s the opposite of a “team pulling in the same direction” type ethos. They gravitate to different estates where they fit the particular way the Owner/ Agent / Headkeeper wants it doing. At least thats how it always was, and I bet it still is.
I’ve spent a long time trying to protect wildlife (badgers, foxes, raptors) from these kinds of people. I even spent a few years on our local police Wildlife Crime Engagement Group. One of the main problems in getting these crimes stopped (other than providing enough evidence to criminal prosecution standards) is the culture of ‘acceptance’ both from the police and rural community that these kinds of crimes are ‘part of rural life’, which of course it is, in a way.
The recreational killing (bloodsports) industry regards itself as being above (or at least, beyond) the law. The problem is that the police also tend to behave as though that is true whilst vehemently denying that it is. Attitudes are key to the problem. I described hunting as ‘organised crime’ to a police Inspector but he scoffed at the notion. I explained that it was organised, had it’s own conspiracy of silence, it’s friends in high places including politicians, judges and police officers, and that crimes were clearly taking place. He had to admit it was true. If the crimes had been theft, drug related, people trafficking or financial fraud then the police would take it very seriously. But if it’s wild animals being killed then for them it was not.
We have seen recently that to attend an online call about a climate protest can land you in prison for up to five years (conspiracy) even if you don’t attend the protest. We’ll now see what happens if you conspire (joint enterprise) to kill a protected BoP and then actually do it. Given recent cases where the accused has pleaded guilty, then only small fines have been imposed and no custodial sentences passed. I am not hopeful.
However, I do hope this video will have the same effect on the grouse shooting industry as the now infamous ‘smokescreen’ video of the hunts discussing how to fool the police into accepting trail hunting as not actual hunting. This has led to a number of substantial landowners banning trail hunting and an increasing number of town councils banning the hunts from meeting in their towns on Boxing Day. I’m more hopeful of this kind of effect than any of these gamekeepers ending up in prison.
I think that is a pretty good summary.
Clearly a lot of background work went into this operation, not least to determine a prime location for the camera and the recording device(s). I hope that the case will not be plagued by the same identification issues which thwarted the prosecution of two gamekeepers in the North Yorkshire incident involving the attempted shooting of nesting Marsh Harriers in 2017:
Assuming that identification is not an issue, what concerns me is the lack of actual evidence that Hen Harriers were, in fact, present on the day and that one of them was shot. We have the quite remarkable voice recordings and the sound of a shot which is said to have accounted for the bird. However, contrary to what is suggested, the video we have seen does not show footage of the killing of a Hen Harrier. It does show intent, which may be punishable under Section 18(1) of the WCA ‘in like manner as for the said offence’, though it could be difficult to make this one stick in the absence of footage showing anyone taking aim at a bird – whichever of the three of them this may have been. Could it be the case that the RSPB has decided to release the footage at this stage in recognition of the improbability of achieving a successful prosecution, or might there be more evidence which we have not been shown?
The primary significance of this footage is as an indicator of what we all know goes on, but is rarely recorded. Whether or not prosecutions are possible remains to be seen. The fact remains that this is absolutely damning evidence of what no doubt happens on a regular basis in North Yorkshire and further afield.
The individuals responsible for obtaining the footage are to be congratulated on a job well done. Its value as publicity material is inestimable, especially if linked with the Marsh Harrier case from 2017. Thanks too to Channel 4 and Thomo for broadcasting the item.
Ruth, maybe we need an advertising campaign to highlight Raptor Persecution and the ways to report it to get it out there and keep it in people’s minds. I’ve just seen an advert for a well know car that’s has a Red Kite at the beginning of it. Seeing as they used this gorgeous Bird of Prey in their advert, would they be interested in putting funds towards one to help protect them? Just a thought…..
Hi
Have you any update on this despicable act, i cannot find any on the internet.
Regards
John Greene
Hi
Would you advise if any action by the police has taken place yet.
Regards
John Greene
I haven’t yet seen any update from the police/Hen Harrier Taskforce.
A long time without action, they have all the evidence.
Thank You
They may have taken action, John, but just haven’t publicised anything yet, e.g. if they’ve charged someone they may not wish to jeopardise court proceedings. I’m assuming there was at least an investigation/search but who knows? Either way, the long silence doesn’t inspire confidence.