Natural England’s review of its controversial Hen Harrier Brood Meddling trial is ‘being prepared for publication‘, according to a Freedom of Information request.
For new blog readers, the hen harrier brood meddling trial was a conservation sham sanctioned by DEFRA as part of its ludicrous ‘Hen Harrier Action Plan‘ and carried out by Natural England between 2018 – 2024, in cahoots with the very industry responsible for the species’ catastrophic decline in England.
In general terms, the plan involved the removal of hen harrier chicks from grouse moors, they were reared in captivity, then released back into the uplands just in time for the start of the grouse-shooting season where many were illegally killed. It was plainly bonkers. For more background see here and here.
In September 2024, Natural England announced on its blog that it was ‘currently reviewing and analysing the data gathered under the trial, a process which will be concluded later this year‘:
I have speculated previously that this relatively speedy review was probably triggered by an apparent application by the Moorland Association for a licence to continue Hen Harrier brood meddling as part of what it laughingly calls a ‘conservation licence’ (see here).
As I understand it, in September 2024 the Moorland Association (grouse moor owners’ lobby group in England) applied to Natural England for a brood meddling licence and it included the following condition requests:
- That there should be a single release site [for the brood meddled HHs] irrespective of the location from where they’d been removed from their nests; and
- That the requirement for the brood meddled HHs to be satellite-tagged should be dropped.
The first proposed condition is presumably designed to get around the problem of there not being sufficient receptor sites willing to take the brood meddled harriers (just a handful of estates agreed to receive brood meddled hen harriers during the trial period). I’m also led to understand that the proposed single release site is, shall we say, a location of great interest to this blog.
The second proposed condition, that any brood meddled hen harriers should not be satellite-tagged, is presumably because the data from current satellite-tagged hen harriers have been so very effective at revealing the devastating extent of ongoing hen harrier persecution on grouse moors (e.g. see here and here).
We also know that gamekeepers on grouse moors are now selectively choosing to kill hen harriers that are NOT satellite-tagged because there’s less chance of their crimes being detected (e.g. see here).
The deadline for Natural England to respond to the Moorland Association’s licence application must be fast approaching, hence Natural England’s relatively speedy brood meddling review.
Given that Natural England had said in September 2024 that its brood meddling review would be ‘concluded later this year‘, I submitted an FoI request on 2nd January 2025 to find out whether the review had been completed.
Here’s Natural England’s response:
Natural England’s response was dated 28 January 2025, so a month on, the publication of this review must now be imminent.
Will Natural England conclude that the hen harrier brood meddling trial was ‘a remarkable success story‘ as the Moorland Association ridiculously claimed? Remember, the trial was set up to test two specific objectives:
- The practicalities of brood management: can [hen harrier] eggs or chicks be taken from the wild and raised in captivity, can those chicks be released back in to the wild and the implications for their subsequent behaviour and survival;
- Changes in societal attitudes by those involved in upland land management to the presence of hen harriers on grouse moors with a brood management scheme in place.
It’s quite clear that objective 1 has been answered by the trial – although chicks rather than eggs were brood meddled due to concerns about transporting the eggs from the nests over rough terrain, but that’s no big deal in terms of assessing the viability of the objective.
But what about objective 2? It’s abundantly clear that apart from the handful of estates involved in the brood meddling trial (whether they be ‘donor’ or ‘receptor’ sites), that a high level of illegal hen harrier persecution has continued amongst the wider grouse moor industry (at least 134 hen harriers reported as ‘missing’/illegally killed since the trial began in 2018, including at least 30 brood meddled hen harriers).
Indeed, the illegal killing is still on such a scale that the police have had to set up a new Hen Harrier Taskforce, designed to use techniques usually seen when dealing with serious and organised crime, to address the ongoing criminality.
Many of us will be taking a very close look at Natural England’s review of brood meddling whenever it’s published. Watch this space.
Raptor Persecution UK 
MA wants a single release site? Where are they proposing I wonder – South Georgia? And they don’t want them tagged? Well, it is an inconvenience for those doing the dirty work in having to pick and choose which ones “to biff” or “noll” I suppose. And a headache of a PR operation for those in shirts & ties to try and explain away the losses and/or wave away the public interest “nothing to see here – go back to your terraced houses, your flats, your suburbs and housing estates – leave ‘The Countryside’ to us…move along…”, etc, etc.
I find it beyond belief that the MA should wish that brood-meddled young HHs should not be tagged. In fact I’m gob-smacked that they should be so stupid as it would be so obvious how such a wish would be interpreted. Collusion?
It would be very interesting to see where the single site is. My attitude to release sites has always been in line with the original plans, that Harriers should be released as near as possible to the nest site and certainly within the Same SPA/ county. Thus for birds in the huge North Pennines SPA (West Yorkshire to Northumberland birds from the Yorkshire Dales birds from there MUST be released there etc.
As to satellite tagging, given the history of birds with tags from both NE and RSPB it is imperative that tagging continue. The cynic/realist in me says that the history is exactly why MA do not want tagging.
Yes the whole scheme was a sham, we all knew it was a sham hence the ridiculous distance between nests that allowed BM, nothing to do with science and everything to do with grouse cabal prejudice, it would have been better ( more acceptable?) to use 3KM, this was supported by the science if one accepts BM at all ( I don’t). It has hardly been a widespread success when less than 10% of moors have been involved and post breeding persecution has increased rather than declined. Indeed it seems to have shifted persecution away from the breeding season rather than reduced it . If one compares the breeding densities and success rates of grouse moors with the UU land in Bowland and FE/FC land in Northumberland, starting densities on grouse moors are still 25X lower but failure rates 3X higher, that is anything but success despite and increase in nesting attempts. Indeed without nesting in those 2 areas the figures would still look pretty awful. The whole scheme has really failed in its objective to reduce persecution and should not be renewed. If it is all expenses should be borne by the estates involved and past persecution ( since 2018 should preclude estates from taking part.
I think in addition to the problems of transport of eggs estates were reluctant over egg removal because of the chance of harrier pairs recycling and laying another clutch with BM rules precluding their removal.
Isn’t this licence with the attached suggested conditions why there was no licence and no BM in 2024? Those conditions are and should be still entirely unacceptable if this dreadful sham scheme is to continue.
“I think in addition to the problems of transport of eggs estates were reluctant over egg removal because of the chance of harrier pairs recycling and laying another clutch with BM rules precluding their removal.”
As 2bluetails wrote, the reason to take chicks was to reduce the chance of the pair relaying to virtually zero. Eggs can be easily carried off a hill.
2bluetailes you’ve definitely got it covered excellent comment very informative and you’ve hit the nail very succinctly on the head.