The police-led Hen Harrier Taskforce was launched in 2024 to tackle the ongoing illegal persecution of Hen Harriers on UK grouse moors.
The Taskforce was set up specifically in response to the ‘all time high’ level of Hen Harrier persecution crimes in 2022/2023 (at least 21 known incidents in 2022 and at least 33 known incidents in 2023). The extent of the criminality had become a major source of embarrassment for the police and for the government and they needed to be seen to be doing something.
The main premise of the HH Taskforce is summarised in this excerpt from the press release announcing the launch:
‘The Hen Harrier Task Force is an initiative led by the UK National Wildlife Crime Unit and supported by seven police forces (Cumbria, Derbyshire, Durham, Northumbria, North Yorkshire, South Yorkshire and West Yorkshire), DEFRA, the RSPB, National Gamekeepers’ Organisation, British Association for Shooting and Conservation (BASC), The Wildlife Trusts, GWCT, national parks, Country Land and Business Association (CLA), Natural England and The Moorland Association to combat the persecution of hen harriers in the UK. The taskforce aims to detect, deter, and disrupt offenders involved in wildlife crime by using technology and improving partnership working’.
You’ll note the heavy over-representation of game shooting organisations in this so-called ‘partnership’, including the National Gamekeepers Organisation and the Moorland Association (lobby group for England’s grouse moor owners).
However, several months after the launch, the Moorland Association (or at least its Chief Executive, Andrew Gilruth) was expelled from the Raptor Persecution Priority Delivery Group (RPPDG) and presumably that includes the Hen Harrier Taskforce, for ‘wasting time and distracting from the real work‘ of the RPPDG (see here).
After reading what I’m about to write in this blog, you might be wondering how the National Gamekeepers Organisation can be viewed as a credible ‘partner’ in the RPPDG and on the Hen Harrier Taskforce.
On 26 June 2025, the RSPB published its latest damning report about the extent of Hen Harrier persecution on driven grouse moors across the UK. Called ‘Hen Harriers in the Firing Line‘, the report demonstrated that record numbers of Hen Harriers were illegally killed or went ‘missing’ in suspicious circumstances during the years 2020-2024.
The following day, the National Gamekeepers Organisation posted this response in the News section of its website:
The article starts off well with a statement of truth. That is, that wildlife crimes are ‘non-notifiable’, in England & Wales at least, which means that wildlife crime figures are not officially collected at a national level by the Home Office. (In Scotland, wildlife crime recording became a statutory obligation under the Wildlife and Natural Environment (Scotland) Act 2011).
Most wildlife crimes in England & Wales are recorded as ‘miscellaneous’ offences and are therefore invisible in police records, with no duty to be reported upon. This problem has been the subject of a long-running campaign by Wildlife & Countryside LINK (e.g. here), and others, who for several years now have been urging the Home Office to make at least certain wildlife crimes (i.e. those associated with the National Wildlife Crime Priorities) notifiable so that there’s a better record of offences, allowing police resources to be applied appropriately. If the scale of a crime isn’t known, Police and Crime Commissioners are hardly going to allocate what are already tight police budgets towards tackling a crime that doesn’t look like it has any significance.
So having recognised and acknowledged that police forces don’t have to keep records of wildlife crime offences, the National Gamekeepers Organisation (NGO) then inexplicably announces that it has sent FoIs to all UK police forces to seek information on Hen Harrier persecution incidents.
Eh??!! Where’s the logic in that??
The stupidity doesn’t end there. It gets worse.
Let’s assume that the NGO did write FoIs to all 48 UK police forces and received responses from all of them (highly unlikely to get a 100% return rate but let’s go with it for now). Take a look at this particular statement in the NGO’s news article:
The NGO states that, ‘Having carried out Freedom of Information requests the NGO can state that from 2020 through to 2023, the police across all UK forces recorded eight Hen Harrier investigations in total. One was in Cumbria and the other 7 in Northumberland. Foul play was not cited by the police in any investigation‘. [Emphasis is mine].
Really? According to my data on Hen Harrier persecution recorded between 2020 – 2023, there were 82 recorded incidents across eight UK regions (North Yorkshire & Cumbria: 45; Northumberland: 12; County Durham: 11; Scotland: 7; South Yorkshire: 3; Lancashire: 3; Isle of Man: 1).
That’s quite a few more incidents, and is far more widespread, than the NGO’s claim of 8 incidents in just two police force areas.
The vast majority of those 82 incidents involved the suspicious ‘disappearance’ of satellite-tagged Hen Harriers. The number doesn’t include tags that have been listed as no longer transmitting as a result of possible tag failure, or birds that are known to have died a natural death. The National Wildlife Crime Unit, which leads the Hen Harrier Taskforce (on which the NGO serves so should be fully aware), explicitly uses satellite tag data to identify crime hotspots, i.e. locations where Hen Harriers repeatedly disappear in suspicious circumstances. Here’s another relevant excerpt from the Hen Harrier Taskforce launch press release:
‘Rather than purely focusing on the wildlife aspect of the crime, DI Harrison has tasked his team with taking a holistic view of the criminality and considering all types of offences. Criminals will often steal and destroy the satellite tags to conceal their offending. This could constitute criminal damage, theft and fraud. In the last few years alone, £100,000 worth of satellite tags have been lost in circumstances suspected to be criminal. The apparent use of firearms adds a further level of seriousness to these cases’. [Emphasis is mine].
For the NGO to use the line, ‘Foul play was not cited by the police in any investigation‘ is misleading at best.
Further, in amongst those 82 incidents recorded between 2020 – 2023 are a number of Hen Harriers where police investigations and post mortems explicitly detected ‘foul play’ (I prefer to call it crime, because that’s what this is). These are:
- 10 February 2022: An unnamed satellite-tagged Hen Harrier ‘disappeared’ in a grouse moor dominated area of the Peak District National Park (here). One year later it was revealed that the satellite tag/harness of this young male called ‘Anu’ had been deliberately cut off (see here).
- 12 April 2022: Hen Harrier ‘Free’ (Tag ID 201121) ‘disappeared’ at a ‘confidential site’ in Cumbria (here). It later emerged he hadn’t disappeared, but his mutilated corpse was found on moorland in the Yorkshire Dales National Park. A post mortem revealed the cause of death was having his head twisted and pulled off while he was still alive. One leg had also been torn off whilst he was still alive (here).
- 20 June 2022: Hen harrier chick #1 stamped to death in nest on a grouse moor in the Yorkshire Dales National Park (here).
- 20 June 2022: Hen Harrier chick #2 stamped to death in nest on a grouse moor in the Yorkshire Dales National Park (here).
- 20 June 2022: Hen Harrier chick #3 stamped to death in nest on a grouse moor in the Yorkshire Dales National Park (here).
- 20 June 2022: Hen Harrier chick #4 stamped to death in nest on a grouse moor in the Yorkshire Dales National Park (here).
- 14 December 2022: Hen Harrier female (brood meddled in 2022, #R3-F1-22) ‘disappeared’ from winter roost (same as #R2-F2-20) on moorland in the North Pennines AONB (here). Later found dead with two shotgun pellets in corpse (here).
- 9/10 May 2023: Hen Harrier male called ‘Dagda’, tagged by the RSPB in Lancashire in June 2022 and who was breeding on the RSPB’s Geltsdale Reserve in 2023 until he ‘vanished’, only to be found dead on the neighbouring Knarsdale grouse moor in May 2023 – a post mortem revealed he had been shot (here).
- 29 July 2023: Hen Harrier female (brood meddled in 2020, R2-F2-20) ‘disappeared’ at a confidential site in the North Pennines. Later notes from the NE spreadsheet: “Dead. Recovered – awaiting PM results. Final transmission location temporarily withheld at police request“ (here). Later report stated she’d been found dead with 3 shotgun pellets in corpse (here).
So, clearly the police forces that allegedly responded to the National Gamekeeper Organisation’s FoI requests haven’t been accurately recording Hen Harrier persecution crimes (because they don’t have to) but regardless of that, for the NGO to take that misinformation at face value, when (a) it knows that these crimes are not notifiable so individual police force records have to be viewed as unreliable, and (b) the NGO would have been fully aware of these high profile crimes (because they were all over the press and they’d also have been raised at the RPPDG meetings in which the NGO is a participant) can be viewed as either a measure of the NGO’s stupidity or what I see as an indication of its willingness to deceive.
What’s even more revealing is the lengths the NGO will go in its efforts to tarnish the RSPB’s reputation. Why submit FoI requests to 48 UK police forces to ask for Hen Harrier persecution data when you’re already a member of the RPPDG and the Hen Harrier Taskforce, where those persecution data are reliably recorded and readily available?
The whole premise of the NGO’s ‘news article’ seems to me to be using obviously unrepresentative data it received from an unspecified number of police forces to smear and undermine the reputation of the RSPB. You could paraphrase the NGO’s whole article as:
‘Aha! The RSPB’s Hen Harrier persecution data are clearly fabricated because all UK police forces only recorded eight Hen Harrier persecution incidents in two force areas between 2020 and 2023. There, we told you the RSPB make up the data just to make us gamekeepers look bad. You can’t believe a word the RSPB says. We love all raptors and especially Hen Harriers‘.
It’s half-baked nonsense and exposes the National Gamekeepers Organisation’s real intentions.
The NGO suggests that the RSPB is fabricating persecution data “to damage the public perception of gamekeepers” when actually it’s the NGO mispresenting information to damage the reputation of the RSPB. The NGO is right to suggest that the public’s perception of gamekeepers is poor, but that’s because gamekeepers are consistently linked to raptor persecution crimes. If gamekeepers want to improve their reputation it’s quite simple – stop killing birds of prey.
Raptor Persecution UK 
Its so child like it was seen on national television Channel 4 live footage of gamekeepers persecuting hen harriers camera on nest showing chicks stamped on. It’s embarrassing reading out right lies lip service to these organisations who kill to be killed burning pillaging the moors all in the back pockets of each other. Wealth corruption and money rule the moors not people who care a jot about looking after them. On a good note we have a sea eagle in north Yorkshire creating a lot of interest people coming from all over to see him which is good for the moor as more exposure the right people birders are out on force.
Another farce. The government has no intention of doing anything. Mouse and cheese larder come to mind. The whole disgusting practice should be illegal and killing of protected birds of prey and very rare ones at that should get 25 years on bread and water confinement jail.
Anyone who can tear the head off and leg off a beautiful rare raptor WHILST STILL ALIVE is clearly dangerous depraved and should be removed from using oxygen permanently.
Sickening, I loathe [people who kill birds of prey] with every fibre of my being, they will never cease in their blatant persecution of birds of prey and indeed all wildlife, no punishment would be too good for them, we need vigilantes on the moors
Who did the NGO write this article for ? the very same people who carry out these cowardly killings .Evidence of predation by sea eagles and goshawks yes possibly but not on the scale those scumbags have killed these harriers .The harriers biggest predator is the Gamekeepers , simple . A 10yr old child could have written a more convincing compelling article instead of some deluded fool with a shotgun trying to somehow convince people with total bullshit .Back to school fool ….. Sent from AOL on Android
I didn’t realise that wildlife crime was not notifiable. No wonder the criminals are so brazen. That needs to change and Natural England should be leading the charge.
I just thought that it was because most PCCs in England were hunt supporters or shooters (so many of them are) and so actively directed the police away from the criminals. I didn’t realise that the judicial system and government were also complicit, as opposed to ignorant.
Wildlife crime not being notifiable is an issue other animal campaign groups have raised.
At the recent A Law Conference, a workshop was held to discuss wildlife crime.
One repeated complaint was the reluctance of police forces even to acknowledge a complaint – let alone investigate a reported incident!
Jim Clark, a former police officer of 20 years with 5 years’ service as a Wildlife and Rural Crime officer, and now the Wildlife Campaign Officer of Nature Watch, pointed out that police resources focus on recordable crime so, obviously, in those circumstances, wildlife crime takes a low priority. This is a primary compounding factor in the poor response of police forces to wildlife crime complaints.
Thank you Ruth for highlighting this legal difficulty.
“I didn’t realise that wildlife crime was not notifiable.”
It has been pointed out in here several times. Also, wildlife crime involving guns is not officially recorded in any firearms offence statistics.
This serves to keep the criminal activities of the shooting industry, and its Establishment supporters, out of the public eye.
And it also serves to keep resources to fight such crime well away from where it is needed.
Politicians and the public are deliberately being kept in the dark…
Wow Keith. It’s incredible what the shooting industry is able to get away with. Thanks for telling us.
What has the NGO ever done to bring a “bad apple” to justice? As they continually promote the collective industry line that raptor persecution is rare and it is just one or two bad apples doing dumb things once a blue moon, etc …it would surely seem easier to work to purge the barrel and bring these rotters to justice and set an example, rather than having somebody* have to try and perform ridiculously feats of PR obfuscation, that falls at the first wave of scrutiny.
*Who is this somebody? My purely personal opinion is that the “somebody” is not a keeper of the Old Bert type or an intelligent Richard or an Ian the amiable down to earth gamekeeper-next-door or indeed anybody funded or elected by the member subscriptions from the rank and file gamekeepers who are members. It is (again in purely my personal opinion) persons from a PR background – paid and directed by the more wealthy organisations and individuals at the top of the shooting industry tree to manage the image and the media output of the NGO (and other similar groups). And the industry head honchos would prefer to stick with this PR silliness rather than admit that the barrel is at least half full of wildlife criminals – because without them and their hard & cunning work doing the necessary deeds – the industry model (and land values based on grouse bags) as it currently is would overnight collapse into economic ruin.
Somebody just has to do this dirty work or the sums don’t add up! As I was told when I was 12/13yrs old by a keeper who was eventually convicted (well, a slap on the wrist) – “You cannot have two or three litters of fox cubs and two or three nests of carrion crows on a grouse moor every year can you? (My obvious answer, “No of course not – there wouldn’t be any grouse left after a few years would there!”) Then how the hell can you have nests of Hen Harriers, Peregrines, Short Eared Owls, Ravens and Buzzards every year?”.
Here we go again lies , lies and more lies from the raptorphiles. Ruth, Mark and Chris were found out at the parliamentary group. As an aviculuralist and farmer I can see through your lies too!:
“As an aviculuralist and farmer… “
You forgot: liar, thick idiot (cannot even spell aviculturist) and apologist for wildlife criminal activity. Enjoying your new inheritance tax-relief cap?
“Here we go again lies , lies and more lies from the raptorphiles”
Can you provide any evidence (not your opinion) that any statements made by this page’s admin are “lies”?
In the interests of fairness, let’s allow you 24 hours to come up with some. If you fail to do so, it’ll be even more obvious that you’re the utterly dishonest individual everyone here thinks you are.
Given that the figures that are used here and denied by the NGO are accepted by the NWCU , the Hen Harrier Taskforce I would suggest you cannot see further than the prejudice on the end of your nose. The only thing that was found out in the Parliamentary debate I think you are referring to is how many stupid Tory MPs swallow the lies and myths promulgated by the grouse lobby, most of which were exposed as fabrications and lies years ago. I rather doubt you could see the truth through a open window.
Well, we certainly “found out” how the industry greases the wheels!
What did you make of newly elected Labour MP Sam Rushworth and his £10k donation from the North Pennines Moorland Group?
This shit has been going on for decades. Seldom left “on the books” though. Particularly if an MP happens to be a shooting man and can be treated to a day or two in the butts where nothing needs to go on the record, as “it’s just between us chaps.”
On a more positive note. Thanks, Ruth, for mentioning in an earlier blog the Birds of Poole Harbour boat trips. I joined one last Sunday evening travelling from mid Wales with the caravan for a week away and saw both the eagles and ospreys as well as other seabirds. It was also great to share the trip with other like minded people. I also visited RSPB Arne Nature Reserve. We are not alone