On 14 March 2025, Natural England announced the end of the ridiculous Hen Harrier brood meddling trial (see here).
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.
The closure of the brood meddling sham was announced via a Natural England blog, attributed to John Holmes, NE Strategy Director.
In that blog, Holmes outlined the key results from the brood meddling trial which included a heavy reliance on two social science surveys of moorland managers:
These social science surveys/studies were intended to help Natural England ‘to evaluate any changes in social attitudes by those involved in upland management‘. In other words, did the availability of brood meddling stop the illegal killing of hen harriers on grouse moors? (The answer to that was a resounding NO – see here).
The first social science survey was undertaken as an interim study in 2021, in the middle of the brood meddling trial. This ‘study’ was hopelessly flawed in that it was limited to just 19 participants, and seven of those were NE employees and others were directly benefiting financially from their involvement in brood meddling. The findings of this ‘study’ were thus wholly unsuitable for assessing whether the attitudes of grouse moor owners had changed as a result of brood meddling – you can read my review of the ‘study’ here.
The second social science study, described by Holmes as a ‘wider survey’, was apparently conducted by National Centre for Social Research in 2024. Holmes referred to the findings of this study in his blog but Natural England didn’t publish the report to allow the public to draw its own conclusions.
Rather than rely upon Holmes’ interpretation of the study’s findings, I wanted to read it for myself so on 14 April 2025 I lodged an FoI request with Natural England, asking for a copy of the report:
‘Please provide a copy of the Natural England-commissioned report, undertaken by the National Centre for Social Research and completed in 2024 on grouse shooting industry attitudes to hen harrier brood management‘.
It was a simple, straightforward request that shouldn’t have posed any compliance issues for Natural England and I expected them to provide the report within the statutory time limit of 20 working days.
However, 20 working days later on 15 May 2025, Natural England wrote to me to tell me that a further 20 working days were needed “because of the complexity/voluminous nature of the request“.
Eh? There’s nothing ‘complex’ or ‘voluminous’ about asking for a copy of a report that had been written a year earlier!
Why will it take Natural England 40 working days to send it? Not only does this look like an abuse of process, but it also seems to me that Natural England has something to hide.
I did write back to Natural England and said, ‘You’re having a laugh – please send the report without further delay’.
So far, silence.
UPDATE 23 June 2025: Natural England still refusing to release social science report on Hen Harrier brood meddling (here)
Raptor Persecution UK 
One gets the impression that they don’t want to release a report that makes NE look like proper “charlies” for going along with BM in the first place. If it was otherwise they would surely have sent said report promptly.
Absolutely.
In my recent correspondence with Natural England I found that they are closed, opaque and use the long grass repeatedly rather than open, transparent and timely as they promote themselves to the wider public. At least RPUK get the same dismissive reaction as us mere mortals!
I fail to see why the idea is such abproblem? From the reintroduction of red kites, WTSE , Great Bustards , spoonbilled sandpipers , curlew , to name but a few , we have intervened to bring eggs or young into captivity and then release them into other areas. So I find it odd that this hen harrier relocation project is perceived as different? I know that the HH is used as a handy shooting bashing tool, but surely widening the range of HH in the UK has to be a good thing? If the weather ‘up North’ ,ticks or heather beetle cause problems then the , hopefully ,.milder climate down South would be of benefit. On the continent all harriers are managed as they have a habit of nesting in crops and need help when the harvest of hay etc. starts. Calling it brood meddling when it’s a similar technique to the curlew project , seems to demonstrate a prejudice because it’s connected to upland moorland management . Yet the curlew project in Sussex is based on a shooting estate , along with the grey partridge project on the South Downs and is successful because of habitat restoration and predator control . If the HH is moved to avoid perceived ‘persecution ‘, surely that’s a benefit to all parties? Of course it may not suit your narrative , but are you interested in the conservation of the HH or your own posturing?
Sounds like you have just been to an Everything-Must-Go flash sale of MA / GWCT half-baked apologetics. I don’t personally attach much weight or relevance to your scattering of points, but this doesn’t really matter because (a) we can happily agree to disagree on the real purpose of brood meddling (I say it was just appeasement), and (b) fundamentally it all just comes down to how strongly one feels about two principles anyway, and whether these principles outweigh other considerations:
You are basically accusing Martin of a word salad, then you reply with an even more vitriolic word salad of your own. I take a similar view to Martin, see my posting.
Great balanced comment.
“From the reintroduction of red kites, WTSE , Great Bustards , spoonbilled sandpipers , curlew , to name but a few , we have intervened to bring eggs or young into captivity and then release them into other areas.”
Yes, indeed. But under a condition which you omit to point out.
“So I find it odd that this hen harrier relocation project is perceived as different?”
Because it is different, because of the very condition which you (carefully?) omit to point out.
All official relocation/headstarting programmes are only sanctioned after ascertaining the reasons for the species’ decline. Those reasons for the species’ decline are then addressed. And it is only after those reasons have been agreed as being understood, and then agreed as being addressed, are programmes set in place to headstart/relocate any species.
The reason the Hen Harrier had declined was what? Was it the long-standing illegal persecution by the shooting industry of the Hen Harrier, in the very habitat the Hen Harrier chose to breed in the UK?
If that is so, what is the point of artificially breeding Hen Harriers in safety elsewhere, when they are STILL being illegally persecuted by the shooting industry in the very habitat the Hen Harriers themselves chose to live and try to breed?
You do know that Hen Harriers can range very widely, but that whenever they go near a grouse moor they are either illegally trapped, poisoned or shot, and their nests are wrecked?
You do know that one of the reasons Hen Harriers especially like grouse moors is because they find a huge surplus of grouse to eat?
Maybe you can explain how the reasons for the long term decline of the Hen Harrier were therefore addressed, before the brood meddling programme was approved?
Your comparison with interventions in harrier nests on farmland on the continent is very misleading. A montagu’s harrier nesting in the middle of a cereal crop in Germany is liable to have its nest and chicks inadvertently destroyed by farming operations so the intervention is moving the chicks away from a hazard associated with perfectly legal activities on the farm. A hen harrier nesting on an upland moor in northern England by contrast is at risk only because of illegal actions by gamekeepers. If the gamekeepers desist from stamping on the eggs (or similar) then the hen harrier is perfectly capable of of rearing its young successfully without human assistance. As others have pointed out, brood meddling for hen harriers is not being conducted for the benefit of hen harriers but for the benefit of grouse moor managers in the hope that they will repay this by giving up illegal persecution of birds of prey. Can you see the difference?
That hope that grouse moor managers will abjure illegal bird persecution if hen harrier chicks are removed from the moor and reared elsewhere appears to be ill-founded as satellite tagged hen harriers have continued to go missing in suspicious circumstances.
Your suggestion that the hen harrier “is a handy shooting bashing tool” is an outrageous distortion of reality. Despite having been a legally protected species for around 70 years, the species has suffered continual persecution that has driven its population far below the level the available habitat can sustain and at times close to the point of extinction in England. There is a huge amount of evidence that this persecution has occurred and continues to do so and the shooting industry has surely tacitly admitted this is the case by its enthusiastic support for brood meddling as one of the ‘pillars’ of the hen harrier recovery plan. If any ‘bashing’ is going on it is clearly the hen harrier that is the victim and the shooting industry that is the basher!
An excellent response.
Thank you Jonathan. This is the best response I have ever read on this site. Encapsulates al of the issues perfectly. Well done
I wonder did the NE top brass really think this might work? Or just try to put best slant on the orders they had to do it from political masters? Did the fieldworkers and volunteers genuinely think that keepers that were previously always known as killers would permanently change their spots just because they made friends with them and are easy lads to get along with? ie they would undergo a re-birth as different people with different gut instincts about what the “balance” should be? a 360° on 15, 20 or 30 plus years of hard work building up their reputation as top-end producers of big grouse numbers?
The whole thing is a story of sly cynicism by some (landowners & grouse lobby, MA, their parliamentary stooges & other shithouses) and too much wishful thinking and misplaced investment of trust by others who are actually good people.
Let’s everyone now join forces behind the only thing that will work – vigorous enforcement of the law via the exploitation of intelligence old & new, long term investment in undercover surveillance equipment and techniques, and some common sense tweaks to the law on admissibility of video evidence on open land.
The assumption is the refusal to release the report is to protect ministers, or a particular industry. Rory Stewart approved the brood meddling trials and now nowhere near government. Which points to NE being sympathetic to the landowners systemically breaking the law of the land by killing a protected species. I had hoped that with the new government things would change.
“I had hoped that with the new government things would change.”
Indeed… but the same set of Whitehall civil servants controlling the narrative tends to muddy the picture:-(
These Social Science studies are essentially opinion polls from people with a vested interest. They are unlikely to be enlightening.
I think there is a responsibility on RP to look at every facet of the scheme. I am a big supporter of RP, but I feel your correct abhorrance of grouse moor exploitation of just about every creature, is marred by the authorities that have appeared to have joined forces to basically cover up. Surely taking eggs, growing them on, releasing them in safe areas, is fundamentally a good idea. If any part of the process is flawed, then change it, don’t just abandon it. Roy Dennis could have have been vilified for starting many of his rewilding projects, especially WTE’s, but he isn’t, he’s on the verge of being made a Saint!….quite rightly. I feel the foster parents in this scheme, one of which I know personally and knows more about raptors worldwide than anyone else, are being placed in a difficult position, and are being slighted without being named. Yes, NE are prevaricating, but in the past RSPB have turned a blind eye to Harry and his mate having the only guns out, when aHH was shot. Just breathe, everyone.
“Surely taking eggs, growing them on, releasing them in safe areas, is fundamentally a good idea.”
Yes, it is. But what is a ‘safe area for release’ for a Hen Harrier? Do they not range widely? Do they not gravitate towards upland habitats with plenty of prey in order to breed? Are such upland areas ‘safe’?
“If any part of the process is flawed, then change it, don’t just abandon it.”
The part that is flawed is that it is NOT the failure of Hen Harriers to breed naturally which is the cause of their decline (so why go to the bother of raising them artificially?)
The ‘problem’ is that Hen Harriers are only too successful in breeding in upland areas full of Red Grouse… and men with shooting interests, demanding exclusive access, illegally kill them:-(
How, in your world, are you going to stop released Hen Harriers from gravitating towards grouse moors to be illegally killed?
Mark – By comparing the Hen Harrier brood meddling sham to proper conservation projects you are missing a key point of the brood meddling sham, either deliberately or not. In all the other cases that you mention eggs are removed from nests so that the parents will re-lay (e.g. waders) or younger chicks are removed if they are unlikely to thrive in their nests (e.g. eagles) and then raised in captivity, with the aim of boosting populations.
Under the brood meddling sham Hen Harrier chicks were removed from the nests, rather than eggs, so that the parent birds would not breed again that season. This was simply because grouse shooting estates did not want to boost the HH population. Whilst numbers may have increased in some areas over the first few years of this project, they have declined markedly in most areas in the past two years.
And this year is likely to be far worse than last year.
As predicted by everyone who saw the brood meddling project for the sham that it was.
NE needs to be closed down and a new structure that is actually trying to help Nature put in place. NE has failed multiple times and serves the wrong people.
I didn’t intend a word salad. I thought I had distilled my own views down to the simple two points on the end. I could have added a (3) that it is my opinion that the only problem of national significance Harriers face is persecution, which is why any superficial comparisons to schemes for other birds have to considered very carefully. If humans can just get their fellow humans to NOT go to great efforts to kill them, the Harrier population will skyrocket on its own account, no other intervention is required. All sides know this in the grouse regions – especially the MA. Remember that day when Amanda Anderson said a bit too much?
But I am in a little doubt as to whether you have understood what the brood meddling scheme was about – and what it’s methodology on the ground actually was? In your longer post below you mention eggs??? But it’s of no matter tbh – I rest my case on the fact that if keepers are forced to stop killing them by the rule of law, that is all that needs to be done. They will thrive.
Therefore all resources should be unified and harnessed to that mission and that alone. No PR bullshit and no distractions in the form of insincere, fanciful and expensive schemes like brood meddling.
By delaying giving you a copy of the report, the debate in Parliament on grouse shooting will have passed. Is that the reason for the delay? Or am I just over suspicious?
I agree with you Fiona natural England can’t be trusted we need the right people to do the job they will be in the back pockets of the wrong people this country is corrupted by money and personal gains .