Lincolnshire Police posted the following on social media yesterday:
Sadly the beautiful buzzard in the picture has died as a result of being shot.
The bird was found alive on Saturday 4 January at Grainthorpe and taken to the emergency vets where it was treated and later collected by Cleethorpes Wildlife Rescue. The buzzard didn’t survive it’s injuries. Crime ref 24*10683 refers.
If is an offence to kill or injure any wild bird. They are protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. It is also an offence to interfere with nests, or remove any chicks or eggs.
DC Aaron Flint from our Rural Crime Action Team said: “I’d like to hear from anyone who has information about the shooting of birds in our county. Please don’t think it’s not worth reporting, it very much is and helps us to build a picture of this sort of crime.”
If you have any information that will help with this investigation or similar offences, please get in touch by emailing aaron.flint@lincs.police.uk.
Alternatively contact the independent charity Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111 or online at Crimestoppers-uk.org.
ENDS
Raptor Persecution UK 
And what will happen NOTHING!
What do you suggest should happen?
What a sad start to the New Year what is wrong with these bloody people can’t they live n let live scourge of society not worth a skin I keep despairing. On a bright note I seen a Water Rail at our RSPB site first time for everyone very shy wading birds every cloud .
With the three shotgun pellets (I am guessing) being so close together and in an area of the poor buzzard’s body where they will cause the most damage: death, it makes me wonder how close the perpetrator(s) of this abhorrent crime might have been.I very much hope that the perpetrator(s) will be caught and given not only a heavy fine but a lengthy prison term too; to act, hopefully, as a deterrent to others who may think similarly.But, in my opinion, with our judiciary, I won’t be holding my breath on that
I feel these miscreants are not just killing sentient creatures for the sake of it, but are also doing it because we care so much and they know they will get away with it almost always.
Does anyone know why the judiciary does not impose substantial sentences when the offenders are caught? Is wildlife crime not as important to them as crimes perpetrated on companion animals? It all matters if we are civilised people.
“Does anyone know why the judiciary does not impose substantial sentences when the offenders are caught?”
You were recently invited by the new Government to comment on sentences for their Independent Sentencing Review (and published in this blog):
https://www.gov.uk/government/calls-for-evidence/independent-sentencing-review-2024-to-2025#:~:text=The%20Independent%20Sentencing%20Review%20is,the%20emergency%20release%20of%20prisoners.
Ah, my fault, Keith, I missed this.
“With the three shotgun pellets (I am guessing) …”
I think it might be at least four:-(
“…being so close together… it makes me wonder how close the perpetrator(s) of this abhorrent crime might have been”
The pellets do not look very big to me, so there may well have been a couple of hundred pellets in a single 12-bore cartridge. They do not have to be uniformly evenly spread.