Natural England has today posted a blog updating the status of three brood meddled satellite-tagged hen harriers, which had previously been reported as ‘dead, awaiting post mortem’ (x 1) and ‘Missing, Fate Unknown’ (x 2).
A post mortem on the dead hen harrier has concluded it died from natural causes. The two ‘missing’ hen harriers have been found dead, and both corpses contained shotgun pellets.
I’ll reproduce Natural England’s blog, below, then I’ll comment on the content of Natural England’s blog, then on the extraordinary (or not) response from the Moorland Association.
UPDATE ON THE DEATHS OF THREE TAGGED HEN HARRIERS
Natural England blog, 18 December 2024.
Hen harriers remain rare in England, with a welcome increase in their population over the last few years stalling in 2024. Poor weather and food availability may cause their numbers to fluctuate, but ongoing illegal killing remains a serious threat to the species’ survival in England.
Natural England (NE) has recently received confirmation that police investigations into the deaths of two tagged hen harriers have concluded, and we can now be confident that releasing information relating to these cases will not jeopardise the course of justice. We have also recently received final post-mortem information for a third tagged bird. This blog serves to document their fate.
R2-M1-23, #213927
Juvenile male harrier R2-M1-23 was tagged in July 2023, at a release site in Cumbria as part of the Brood Management Trial, before heading to spend the winter in North Devon (a link to our monitoring spreadsheet for all NE tagged hen harriers can be found here). On 29 February 2024, R2-M1-23’s tag recorded a very low body temperature, indicating death. As is standard procedure, NE’s Enforcement and Appeals Team (NE E&A) informed the police of the discrepancies in the tracking data. On 5 March under direction from police, specialist NE E&A staff were deployed to search for the missing hen harrier. R2-M1-23 was found in a small clearing between agricultural fields, his tag clearly visible, and his body showing some signs of predation.
The carcass of R2-M1-23 was photographed and collected, then sent to the Institute of Zoology at Zoological Society of London (ZSL) for a post-mortem examination. Poor body condition, masses growing in the crop, and other internal signs, indicate that he carried a number of common diseases. The role of these in his death cannot be fully quantified, but R2-M1-23 is considered to have died of natural causes.
R2-F2-20 #55144 + R3-F1-22 #213921a
Two female hen harriers R2-F2-20 and R3-F1-22 were tagged in 2020 and 2022 at release sites in northern England as part of the Brood Management Trial. During the winter of 2022 both settled into the same roost site in the North Pennines, monitored by NE Hen Harrier Team field staff under the brood management trial partnership agreement.
On 7 December 2022, R2-F2-20’s tag stopped transmitting. One week later, on 14 December, R3-F1-22’s tag also went offline. Leading up to this both birds had been behaving naturally. With the full cooperation of local land managers, numerous searches were made by police and NE E&A staff around the last transmission site, nearby roost, and in areas used by each bird, but unfortunately neither was found in the weeks that followed.
Further intermittent transmissions were received from both tags between January and April 2023, but further ground searches were unsuccessful until 10 April, when R3-F1-22 was recovered by NE field staff with the assistance of the local gamekeeper and estate manager. Her remains were collected by a Wildlife Crime (police) Officer and sent to ZSL for a post-mortem examination. On 25 June 2023, R2-F2-20 finally transmitted again; she was located 4 days later by a quickly mustered multi-agency search team, and also sent to ZSL for a post-mortem.
After months laying dead, both bodies were highly degraded, but three suspected lead shotgun pellets were found within the body of R2-F2-20, and two in the body of R3-F1-22. The level of decomposition of the bodies led ZSL to conclude that it was not possible to explicitly link the death of either bird to the pellets. NWCU could take the case no further, but the presence of pellets suggests ongoing illegal persecution of hen harriers in northern England.
Detective Inspector Mark Harrison from the National Wildlife Crime Unit (NWCU) said:
“The work that Natural England, and other organisations do to satellite tag these birds has given the police an opportunity to assess what is going on and where the greatest threats are. We have developed new procedures to assess each incident referred to us so that we can try to establish what has happened and to give the police the best chance of recovering evidence when a crime has occurred. It also means that we can be proactive and target repeat crime locations. It is working and there has been a significant decrease in crimes involving tagged birds this year. Obviously, birds do die naturally, but 2 out of 3 of these rare birds was a victim of crime. That is unacceptable and we will do everything we can to prevent further crimes and prosecute offenders.”
Natural England’s Hen Harrier Team monitor, tag and track these rare and threatened birds to support their recovery as set out in the Hen Harrier Action Plan. We are grateful to partner organisations and land managers who support our work, and will continue to work closely with the National Wildlife Crime Unit in their efforts to investigate bird of prey crime. In the interests of transparency, we publish the status of all tagged hen harriers on our tracking update page, and aim to share details of how birds died when possible. News of deliberate killing of tagged hen harriers is always hard for our team to hear, but it does not discourage us from our continued work on hen harrier recovery.
ENDS
The news of brood meddled hen harrier (R2-M1-23, #213927) found dead in North Devon on 5 March 2024 that NE has now confirmed died of natural causes, first came to light in NE’s August 2024 tracking data update that I blogged about on 10 September 2024 (see here). Quite why it’s taken nine months for its cause of death to be publicised is beyond me.
This harrier was one of five that had been found dead during 2024 and for which we were awaiting post mortem results. I note that NE has still not publicised the post mortem results of the other four dead harriers.
This harrier was not included in my running tally of persecuted/’missing’ hen harriers (currently numbering 130 dead/’missing’ birds since 2018) because the circumstances of its death weren’t known. Now we know it died of natural causes, it definitely won’t be added to the list. I await the post mortem results of the other four birds with interest.
The two brood meddled hen harriers (R2-F2-20 #55144 and R3-F1-22 #213921a) were previously listed as ‘Missing, Fate Unknown’ and were included on my list of dead/’missing’ hen harriers.
They both ‘disappeared’ two years ago, in December 2022, within days of each other, from the same winter roost site in the North Pennines. This is the first time that NE has announced their corpses were later found (one in April 2023 and the other in June 2023). Why on earth has it taken NE 18 months and 20 months respectively to reveal that (a) both birds had been found dead, and (b) both corpses contained shotgun pellets (3 and 2 pellets respectively)?
The post mortem results of these two harriers are smothered in caution: “The level of decomposition of the bodies led ZSL to conclude that it was not possible to explicitly link the death of either bird to the pellets“. The key word here is ‘explicitly’. The fact the two corpses contained shotgun pellets shows that they were both definitely the victims of wildlife crime, as stated clearly by Detective Inspector Mark Harrison from the NWCU’s Hen Harrier Taskforce. The fact that both birds had vanished from the same winter roost on a grouse moor in the North Pennines, within a week of one another, points to a pretty obvious set of circumstances to anyone looking at this objectively.
The Moorland Association (the grouse owners’ lobby group) has responded to Natural England’s blog with yet another blatant and shameful attempt at misrepresentation:
In the Moorland Association’s second paragraph, where it purports to quote from the Natural England blog, the Moorland Association blog author has not only removed the context of the post mortem reports, but has also removed several of Natural England’s words, resulting in an entirely distorted (and thus false) ‘quote’.
Natural England wrote:
“The level of decomposition of the bodies led ZSL to conclude that it was not possible to explicitly link the death of either bird to the [shotgun] pellets”.
The Moorland Association wrote:
“This successful teamwork contrasts with today’s infantile press statement from Natural England which manages to contradict itself by saying “it is not possible to link the death of either bird” with illegal activity while also saying that their deaths “serve of evidence of ongoing killing”“.
The Moorland Association has removed the word “explicitly”, removed any reference to shotgun pellets, and then completely fabricated another ‘quote’ from Natural England (“serve of evidence of ongoing killing”).
The Moorland Association blog author is not identified but this level of distortion and misrepresentation has all the hallmarks of Andrew Gilruth, the Moorland Association’s current CEO, who has somewhat of a track record for this kind of shoddy behaviour.
Interestingly, the Moorland Association published its response prior to the Natural England blog being published, presumably after having sight of what Natural England was about to publish.
The Moorland Association has since revised its statement, once Natural England’s blog went live. Here’s how it currently looks:
Even if Andrew Gilruth didn’t write this snidey guff, you’d think as CEO he’d be responsbible for overseeing/approving whatever appears on the Moorland Association’s website.
For how much longer will he remain in post, I wonder? The Moorland Association’s reputation is already in tatters after Gilruth was expelled from the Raptor Persecution Priority Delivery Group (RPPDG) earlier this year after the police accused him of “wasting time and distracting from the real work” of the Hen Harrier Taskforce (see here).
Natural England is currently undertaking a formal review of its ludicrous hen harrier brood meddling sham, with its findings due by the end of this month. Those findings will influence DEFRA’s decision on whether the sham is allowed to continue.
The Moorland Association has already stated it wants brood meddling licences to be issued as a routine part of grouse moor management.
With at least 130 killed/’missing’ hen harriers since the brood meddling sham trial began in 2018, and the Moorland Association’s continual denial and misrepresentation of the bleedin’ obvious, we’ll all be very interested in Natural England’s findings.
Meanwhile, for those who can no longer stomach what’s happening to hen harriers on grouse moors across the country, Wild Justice has another petition calling for a ban on driven grouse shooting. Please sign it HERE.
UPDATE 5th March 2025: Natural England quietly releases intriguing grouse moor location where two shot brood meddled hen harriers found dead (here)
Raptor Persecution UK 
Looking at the NE spreadsheet tracker – in the columns that give extra information, it says in both cases (unless I am reading it wrong) :
“Site confidential – ongoing investigation.” and “Dead” and “Recovered – ongoing police investigation. Final transmission location temporarily withheld at police request”
Well, the NE blog confirms that “NWCU could take the case no further”.
So surely we can expect the NE spreadsheet to be updated in the next week or so to include the final transmission locations? And if not, why not? I would doubt very much that the Police are still requesting that the locations be withheld – nevermind whether they even expressly asked for that in the first place (which I am usually slightly sceptical about)
What a very strange comment from the Moorland Association. Whoever penned those words seems to have missed the very important point that two of the Hen Harriers showed evidence that at some stage in their lives they had been illegally shot by criminals. Have the Moorland Association forgotten that Hen Harriers are one of our rarest birds, birds whose survival is continually hampered by illegal persecution, and a bird the Moorland Association should be doing everything within its power to protect, not only on the moorlands managed by its members, but across the wider game shooting industry?
I wonder then, if the MA have criticised NE in order to deflect away from their own failings in ensuring that Hen Harriers are properly protected on the grouse moors, and their own inability to persuade the game shooting industry that illegal persecutions of all raptors including Hen Harriers must stop?
It would be extremely embarrassing for the MA if it transpired that any illegal persecution of Hen Harriers (or any other bird of prey) was happening on moors managed by its members.
From what I have learned this year it would seem to be very much case that illegal persecution of Hen Harriers continues within some sections of the game shooting industry. This was highlighted by the recent RSPB investigation which showed clear evidence of some game keepers planning to kill a Hen Harrier, and the recent actions of the police in proactively targeting certain grouse moors where illegal persecution was believed to be taking place.
It is therefore very disappointing that an MA spokesperson has made these comments, when they should be working very closely with NE and the police to identify those responsible for the illegal persecution of raptors and bringing the criminals to justice before the courts.