I’m sure many of you remember the young, satellite-tagged Golden Eagle called ‘Merrick’.
She was part of the South Scotland Golden Eagle Project, a lottery-funded conservation initiative which translocated young Golden Eagles from various sites across north Scotland to boost the tiny remnants of the Golden Eagle breeding population in south Scotland that had previously been decimated by illegal persecution and become isolated by geographic barriers.
Merrick hit the headlines in autumn 2023 when her satellite tag suddenly and inexplicitly stopped transmitting on 12 October 2023 at a location in the area to the west of Fountainhall, between Heriot and Stow, close to the boundary of the Raeshaw Estate in the Scottish Borders.
Police Scotland issued an appeal for information in November 2023 in which they stated they believed Merrick ‘had come to harm’ but no further details were provided at that time.
We didn’t hear anything more for another six months but then in May 2024 the South Scotland Golden Eagle Project issued a press release that revealed evidence from the crime scene that led Police Scotland to believe that Merrick had been ‘shot and killed’, whilst she was sleeping in a tree, and that someone had then ‘removed her body and destroyed her satellite tag’ (see here).
The criminal who shot Merrick as she slept has not been arrested or charged. It’s the same old story – insufficient evidence to identify an individual and so whoever killed this eagle escapes without consequence, just like every single other eagle-killer in Scotland. Not one of them has ever been convicted.
New legislation was supposed to address this failure with the introduction of the Wildlife Management and Muirburn (Scotland) Act, whereby a grouse-shooting licence could be revoked in circumstances where, on the balance of probability, a crime was considered to have taken place where land was being managed for grouse shooting, but at the time of Merrick’s shooting this legislation wasn’t yet in place and can’t be applied retrospectively.
That just leaves a General Licence restriction as the only potential ‘sanction’ in this case, not that I’d describe a GL restriction as an effective sanction, for reasons that have been explored previously on this blog (e.g. here and here). Nevertheless, it’s still something.
As we head towards the two-year anniversary of Merrick being shot and killed, I wanted to know whether NatureScot had considered a General Licence restriction in this case, either on the land where Merrick was believed to have been shot or on land nearby. It was rumoured that this was under consideration over a year ago in June/July 2024 but I hadn’t seen any restriction notice so in June this year, I submitted an FoI to NatureScot to find out what the status was.
NatureScot replied to me on 21 July 2025 with this:
‘We have received an information package from Police Scotland to this case, and it is currently under consideration‘.
Tellingly, NatureScot didn’t elaborate on how long this decision had been under consideration so I’ve since submitted a further FoI request to find out on what date NatureScot received the ‘evidence package’ from Police Scotland which would allow NatureScot to begin its deliberations.
I await the response with interest.
UPDATE 11 August 2025: 16 months (& waiting) for NatureScot to make decision on General Licence restriction relating to ‘shooting and killing’ of sleeping Golden Eagle called Merrick (here).
Raptor Persecution UK 
Kicking the can down the road. It’s the same old always and I fear these morons will not be satisfied until Raptors and owls are extinct in the wild. I utterly despair, we are clearly becoming more neanderthal year on year.
Is’nt that being unfair on Neanderthals?. ACW
:-)
Yes, I agree. Those of us who want to stop this have no clout – our elected representatives seem to have no interest, the police seem to have insufficient officers to stop or prosecute rural crime.
Personally I think it would help if gun licensing was much much stricter – very few people need guns, surely, we don’t exactly live in a country full of big hostile beasts who want to eat us.
I read all the RPUK communications with dread, and I empathise with those who make comments on the slaying of birds of prey and other wild creatures getting-in-the-way of the dictatorship allowed to exist as shooting estates, which are well-financed by rich patrons. The laws are there, rusting away, that could make a strong deterrent, if applied rigorously by our prosecution service, and whatever else exists, supposedly, as a stalwart to protect Scotland’s natural environment and wildlife (I have forgotten its title through its lack of real assertion). A dedicated public, well-informed and mainly given up forelock tipping, has entered the scene, sneering at the weak politicians who believe in the implanted fairy stories that praise the shooting domains bringing in and maintaining rural employment. That public is well-informed about climate change and concomitant wildfires, species extinction, severe drought etc.
Scientific knowledge backs the humanitarian concern over the necessity for a dominant conservation policy to protect marine and land environments, and Scotland has to play its part. The cruel assassination of Golden Eagle Merrick, has revealed the gross ignorance and brutishness of a class, that should have been extirpated at the end of the obsessed-with-shooting Victorian era.
We cannot go forward into a future without a determined political response to enforce a whole reformation of farming, upland/moorland and urban green area management, as is being tried out in various parts of the UK, to create greater biodiversity, however the sport shooting mob, “bad” practice farmers, solar panel covering rural landscapers, housebuilding developers on greenbelts/nature reserves, over fishers, river polluters have all to be brought into line, OR ELSE.
THE GOLDEN EAGLE MERRICK should not have died in vain, as she should become a SYMBOL on the flag of revolt against those who are getting away with blatant disregard for laws to create a more humane Scottish countryside.
Well written , thank you
I agree with the comments above, the thought of that majestic eagle being killed makes me sad and angry in equal measure. I just feel that we are banging our heads against a wall as this has been going on for years and years and we never seem to ever being any closer to a solution.
The Police may well believe that Merrick was ‘shot and killed’ but I bet no firearms offence has even been officially recorded for this event in the area?
Mr Greer Hart eloquently said no Merrick should not have died in vain these scumbags who flagrantly break the law it has to be stopped licence revoked for years for any bird found dead or tagged and disappeared zero tolerance but the country has got the same people running it .