Natural England has just published its latest update on the fates of the satellite-tracked hen harriers it has tagged and subsequently been tracking. This latest update (dated Dec 2024) shows that since its last update (Aug 2024 but actually published in Sept 2024), three more hen harriers have gone ‘missing’ and two more have been found dead and are awaiting post-mortem.
Once again, I haven’t seen any press releases or appeals for information about any of these incidents, either from Natural England or the police.
Here are the details of the latest hen harriers listed as ‘missing’:
- Female hen harrier named ‘Dreich’, Tag ID: 254842, last known transmission date 1 October 2024 in Lanarkshire. Listed by NE as ‘Missing Fate Unknown, site confidential – ongoing investigation‘.
- Male hen harrier named ‘Baldur’, Tag ID: 240291, last known transmission date 15 October 2024 in Northumberland. Listed by NE as ‘Missing Fate Unknown, site confidential – ongoing investigation‘.
- Female hen harrier named ‘Margaret’, Tag ID: 254844, last known transmission date 19 October 2024 in Northumberland. Listed by NE as ‘Missing Fate Unknown, site confidential – ongoing investigation‘.
I’ll be adding these three birds to my long-running tally of hen harriers that are known to have been illegally killed and/or have ‘disappeared’ in suspicious circumstances since 2018.
Here are the details of the latest hen harriers listed by NE as found dead and awaiting post mortem:
- Male hen harrier named ‘Chance’, Tag ID: 254840, last known transmission date 8 August 2024 in Cumbria. Listed by NE as ‘Recovered awaiting PM‘.
- Female hen harrier named ‘Sofia’, Tag ID: 34346, last known transmission date 3 October 2024 in Northumberland. Listed by NE as ‘Recovered awaiting PM‘.
I won’t add these two birds to my tally of missing/illegally killed hen harriers just yet because the circumstances of their deaths have not yet been published. They join the other four dead hen harriers whose corpses were found earlier in 2024 (see here) but whose causes of death have not yet been published. They are:
- Female hen harrier named ‘Susie’, Tag ID: 201122. Last known transmission 12 February 2024, Northumberland. Found dead. Site confidential. In NE’s April 2024 update, Susie was listed as, ‘recovered, awaiting post mortem‘. Now her listing says, ‘Ongoing police investigation, final transmission location temporarily withheld at police request‘. 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).
- Female hen harrier named ‘Edna’, Tag ID: 161143a. Last known transmission 7 June 2024, Northumberland. Listed by NE as ‘Recovered, awaiting post mortem‘.
- Female hen harrier, Tag ID: 254843. Last known transmission 29 July 2024, Northumberland. Listed by NE as ‘Recovered, awaiting post mortem‘.
- Male hen harrier, Tag ID: 254839. Last known transmission 5 August 2024, Northumberland. Listed by NE as ‘Recovered, awaiting post mortem‘.
I won’t be holding my breath waiting for NE to publish the post mortem results and inform us whether any of these additional six hen harriers died of natural causes or were the victims of illegal persecution. As we saw in December 2024 (here), it took NE 18 and 20 months respectively to reveal that two brood meddled hen harriers that had been previously listed as ‘Missing Fate Unknown’ had actually been found dead, their corpses containing two and three shotgun pellets respectively.
I’ll be writing more about hen harrier brood meddling shortly, but first it’s time to update the death list, which now stands at 133 hen harriers confirmed ‘missing’ or illegally killed in the UK since 2018, mostly on or close to grouse moors. If the six dead hen harriers currently still awaiting post mortems turn out to have been illegally killed, the death list will stand at 139 hen harriers.
If you’re sick to the back teeth of watching the death list expand, and the grouse moor owners and gamekeepers continue to escape prosecution for their crimes, please sign Wild Justice’s latest petition calling for a ban on driven grouse shooting. The petition runs until 22 May 2024 and currently stands at 53,000 signatures. If it reaches 100,000 signatures it will be considered for a debate in Westminster Hall. Please sign the petition HERE and then share it! Thank you.
Raptor Persecution UK 
So only 3 of the 9 Hen Harriers first tagged in 2024 are still with us.
Even NE will find to hard to claim this as a success.
Banning driven grouse shooting is the only game in town now. Please sign the petition if you haven’t already done so.
I totally concur and make the punishment so severe the birds will be left alone in all cases in future.
Correction
I should have said “So only 2 of the 8 Hen Harriers first tagged in 2024 are still with us”
[Ed: comment deleted as libellous!]
A number of these harriers 5 i think Went missing or found dead in Northumberland which coincidentally has 4 grouse shooting estates , no we dont have details or the full withheld facts of exactly where they were last known but come on we all know who the culprits are Same old same old Natural England are a complete shower of cowards and complicit in this situation Total fucking disgrace
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Absolutely appalling its just so sick and sad to read this stuff how do they sleep at night. xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx. Like l have said in previous comments someones relative or partner or sibling can you imagine having someone like that in your company.
The more that breed the more that will be illegally killed BAN LEAD SHOT TOO.
There is something rotten in the state of Denmark, sorry UK…….I mean there is no way that many birds could have died by accident.Do they take us for fools.
Is anyone in government taking this to task???
Good question, Hazelhames – and is anyone in government reading this blog?
If so, for god’s sake, wake up before they kill all the wildlife they don’t want to eat – or use as targets and chuck away.
This contempt for wildlife protection laws is part of an ever-growing bundle of crimes despairing the humane part of the British public, which has acted as a great safety net for people and animals since just before the great impetus of our Victorian Age, with social reformers and certain religious leaders equating compassion for any creature that suffered pain and neglect. Yet, we still have defiance of adopting of what is good and orderly. Shopworkers are being assailed and goods stolen in great bulk, and our courts have large backlogs of very serious crimes against the most vulnerable (children, elderly, women). Add to this anarchy, the early release of criminals from our decrepit and over-crowded establishments, to make for another batch of minimally sentenced. HOW CAN WE HOPE TO HAVE A CHANCE OF PUNISHING THOSE IN CONTEMPT OF THE CONSERVATION OF SPECIES? It is embarrassing that the saving of wildlife in far off parts of the planet is having more success, due to tough enforcement, and local recognition among indigenous people of their being part of the “ecosystem”.
Well said Mr Greer Hart everything is getting worse society has collapsed completely so wildlife sinks further to the bottom of priority very sad state of affairs.
It’s telling that the wonderful photo of sky dancers by http://www.petewalkden.co.uk was taken on the Isle of Mull. It’s odd isn’t it that Mull has no driven grouse moors, no raptor persecution and the densest population of Hen Harriers in the UK.
There are no foxes either