It’ll probably come as no surprise whatsoever to regular readers of this blog to learn that the Moorland Association (grouse moor owners’ lobby group in England) has, in an article published by the Shooting Times this morning, made more false claims about the hen harrier brood meddling trial, this time relating to the findings of the BTO’s recent scientific study on hen harrier population trends.
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.
You may remember last October the Moorland Association prematurely declared the brood meddling trial “a remarkable success story” and said it had decided to apply to Natural England for a licence to permit the continuation of brood meddling (see here). This happened before Natural England had undertaken a formal scientific review of the trial, which it said would take place by the end of 2024.
In March 2025, Natural England announced the closure of the hen harrier brood meddling trial and published the first of four scientific reports it had commissioned to evaluate the trial. Natural England stated that any decision on the future of brood meddling (e.g. issuing licences for brood meddling to continue) will be based on the findings of those reports. Natural England has not yet published the other three commissioned reports.
The first report it published last month was authored by scientists at the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) and focused on recent hen harrier population trends. The study used a population modelling approach to try to determine the mechanism behind the sudden increase in the hen harrier population between 2018-2023 and whether that was attributable to the brood meddling trial or to other factors.
The authors used modelling techniques to look at changes in the rates of hen harrier productivity, survival and settlement but there were obvious constraints in the limited data available. They concluded that it was not possible to determine definitively whether the population increase was solely related to brood meddling or whether it was a response to wider environmental drivers (e.g. high prey availability).
As Mark Avery wrote in a recent blog about this study, “Brood meddling of Hen Harrier nests made little or no contribution to the recent rise and fall of the Hen Harrier breeding population. As was predicted in advance, brood meddling is a distraction and an irrelevance“.
The Moorland Association responded to the BTO’s study with a blog posted a few days after the report’s publication (here). It looks to me like an AI-generated appraisal of the study but nevertheless it demonstrates that the Moorland Association was at least aware of the report’s findings.
How on earth then, does the Moorland Association go from that to this, published in the Shooting Times this morning:
In this outrageous article, which is poor even by the Shooting Times‘ low standards, The Moorland Association’s CEO, Andrew Gilruth, claims:
“The seven-year [brood meddling] trial led to the English hen harrier population hitting a 200-year high. The British Trust for Ornithology has concluded that this could only have been achieved through the brood management scheme changing attitudes – a brilliant example of wildlife conflict resolution and co-existence“.
Er, the BTO’s study did not evaluate ‘changing attitudes’ [of grouse moor owners]; it used population modelling to assess hen harrier productivity, survival and settlement, none of which were conclusive to explain the changes in hen harrier population trends!
This looks to me like yet another example of Andrew Gilruth grossly misrepresenting scientific opinion on grouse moor management, for which he has a long-standing reputation (see here). Whether he does this deliberately or whether he’s just incapable of interpretating scientific output is open to question.
The article goes on to suggest that if Natural England doesn’t issue the Moorland Association with a brood meddling licence,
“I fear it will be down to the Moorland Association to ask a judge to decide if Defra’s plan to recover the hen harrier population in England should remain on track“.
If it does end up in a judicial review, which is what Gilruth appears to be threatening, I can think of at least one conservation organisation that would relish the opportunity to intervene in the case.
The IUCN guidelines on species’ translocations are quite clear that one of the fundamental principles in deciding when a translocation/reintroduction is an acceptable option is this:
‘There should generally be strong evidence that the threat(s) that caused any previous extinction have been correctly identified and removed or sufficiently reduced‘.
Given the scandalous continuation of illegal hen harrier persecution on driven grouse moors in the UK (at least 134 hen harriers killed or ‘missing’ in suspicious circumstances since the brood meddling trial began), and that it is widely accepted that illegal persecution continues to be the main threat to hen harrier survival, limiting the species’ distribution and abundance in England, it is clear that the continuation of brood meddling, that isn’t being done solely under the guise of ‘research’ (which is how Natural England got away with the brood meddling trial) should be seen as unlawful if alternative actions (e.g. law enforcement) aren’t considered.
I can understand why Natural England is taking its time to publish all the reports evaluating the brood meddling sham. If it issues a brood meddling licence to the Moorland Association it will almost certainly face a threat of legal action by conservationists. If it doesn’t issue a brood meddling licence to the Moorland Association, it may well face a threat of legal action from the grouse shooting industry.
Interesting times.
Raptor Persecution UK 
He mentions the HS2 bat tunnel, also derided by our environmentalist-in-chief Keir Starmer. The point about the bat tunnel is that the bats live(d) in woodland supposedly protected as an SSSI. What is the point of designating land as an SSSI if it can be destroyed by a new railways line?
There needs to be a total ban on any shooting, period. It wont happen sadly with the current government and who know as much about conservation as a pig does of flying and a weak Monarch in all things that matter but who knows how to aim a gun. Poor Hen Harriers and indeed moorland wildlife. No-one to give a damn when they are wiped out completely. Cant anyone see this will be the eventual outcome. Will they then all be happy?
[Ed: comment deleted – off topic]
Licence applicants can’t “take out” conditions of a Licence. It is for the Licensing body to set them and for the Licensee to abide by them.
If this were “a case of wildlife conflict” (which it isn’t, it is a case of greedy entitled bastards wanting the world to function in the way they expect it to) then the true “silver bullet” to resolve the conflict can be expressed very simply: ignore protected wildlife, shoot less grouse, and count your blessings. End of conflict.
Assessment of recent Hen Harrier population trends in England through population modelling – BTO.
Note: no reference to ‘attitudes’ here, whether changing or not! This is simply numerical modelling: Population Viability Analysis based on computer simulations of birth and death rates, and estimates of the (known) factors contributing to those outcomes.
BTO: “Executive summary:
1. The Hen Harrier Circus cyaneus population in England has historically been suppressed by high levels of nest destruction and removal (killing) associated with grouse moor management.
The population has undergone a sudden and rapid increase since 2018, concurrent with a trial of a new management approach. The reasons for this increase are uncertain.”
Gilruth: “The British Trust for Ornithology has concluded that this could only have been achieved through the brood management scheme changing attitudes – a brilliant example of wildlife conflict resolution and co-existence.”
BTO: “4. Population models do not support productivity uplift from the nest-level interventions, brood management and diversionary feeding, as the sole explanation for the rapid increase in the population.”
BTO: “5. Instead, the most parsimonious explanations for the population increase require improvements in one or both of survival rate and settlement rate. It is possible, but not likely, that survival change alone can explain the observed population growth. It is evident that some illegal killing has continued throughout the trial period; the question of whether it has reduced to some extent, and survival rates accordingly improved, cannot be addressed through a population modelling approach”
BTO: “7. Either of these rates could have responded positively to environmental drivers (e.g. increased prey availability), a reduction in removal and/or nest interference by humans coincident with the availability of brood management as a tool to alleviate conflict between Hen Harriers and grouse moor management, or both, to plausibly result in the observed rapid population increase.”
BTO: “8. A substantial decline in the total number of breeding attempts between 2023 and 2024 (from 54 in 2023 to 34 in 2024) highlights that adverse conditions (whether natural or linked to persecution – RSPB reported 2023 as a new record high for the number (34) of Hen Harriers persecuted in the UK) still have the capacity to slow or reverse the ongoing recovery of the Hen Harrier population in England.”
As a mathematician, I like to point out that one has to always take into account the (severe) limitations of (especially behavioural) models. There were/still are far too many complex unknowns: for example, in this case immigration/emigration is ignored. The BTO list its (known) failings.
Curiously, the BTO modelled outputs match more closely the observed population growth when ‘illegal killing’ is removed from the model (with the stark exception of year 2024 – showing as a wild outlier). Since we know(!) that illegal killing has not stopped during the study period, it does rather call into question the efficacy of the model, does it not? Unless, I guess, you are Gilruth?
As is always the case with immature numerical models: do you believe the data, or do you believe the model? The BTO say: ” these scenarios cannot be considered an accurate reflection of the real situation.”
Two more important quotes from the report..
BTO: “The lack of significant direct benefits of brood management is unsurprising, since headstarting as a conservation measure is typically considered to be beneficial in species and populations where nest survival rates are very low (Loktionov et al. 2023, Donaldson et al. 2024), which is not the case for Hen Harriers, whose natural nest success rates in the absence of interference are often above 50% (c.f. Green & Etheridge 1999, Irwin et al. 2008).”
BTO: “…the observed productivity at non-intervened nests (2.37 fledged offspring per breeding attempt) was nearly identical to that observed on unmanaged moorland in Scotland (2.4 fledglings per breeding female per year) by Etheridge et al. (1997), but far higher than the value of 0.8 observed on managed grouse moors in the same study, whose authors attributed this difference between productivity on managed and unmanaged moorland entirely to human interference (Etheridge et al. 1997).”
Its the MAGA approach – just keep lying and hope for the best
Don’t think I’ve ever read as much b****cks in one article. I think Andrew Gilruth just tries to show off to (and kiss the a*s* of) the shooting industry – it’s that bit more than support.
p.s forgot to add that the article is extremely misleading.
Here here Tim And others bloody natural England and Moorland association like the government is a bloody sham a joke kissing the arses of the greedy entitled cruel bastard’s just ban driven grouse shooting stamping on hen harrier nests really brave and manly destroying tagged hen harriers in view of cameras just flaunting there contempt for these birds and all creatures put the bloody lot of them in a stink pit to rot that’s where they belong.