Following yesterday’s news of a successful Hen Harrier breeding attempt this year on National Trust-owned moorland in the Peak District National Park (here), Craig Best, the NT’s General Manager in the High Peak, was interviewed on BBC Radio Derby about the significance of the successful nest and the importance of satellite-tagging the young birds (this year’s two Peak District tags have been paid for by the National Trust and the Peak District National Park).
Craig is well known as an experienced, committed and passionate advocate for restoring the uplands and is the driving force behind significant & welcome changes in how the NT’s moorlands are managed in the High Peak (e.g. see here, here, here and here for earlier blogs).
He’s also not someone who pretends that illegal raptor persecution isn’t an ongoing issue and for that alone, he deserves much kudos.
The interview on BBC Radio Derby with host Becky Measures is just four minutes long and appears to be a cut from a wider conversation, but Craig gets his point across about Hen Harrier persecution. It can be heard here and is available on BBC Sounds for a year.
Here’s the transcript:
Craig Best: It’s brilliant that we’re seeing Hen Harriers nest on our land, on National Trust land in the High Peak, so yeah, you’re right, these birds suffer persecution, in fact they’re the most persecuted bird of prey in the UK.
Becky Measures: Why?
Craig Best: Well, all these birds nest on open moorland in really remote places, and what we’re finding is the vast majority of persecution happens on or near to land managed for grouse shooting. Hen Harriers obviously have to eat, so they’ll eat small mammals such as voles and shrews, but they’ll also take chicks of birds, and I’m sure they will take grouse chicks as well, so unfortunately these birds suffer high levels of persecution across the UK and they’re quite often shot.
Becky Measures: So how does tagging, then, protect them?
Craig Best: Yeah, so interestingly, we tag these birds, which is brilliant because it gives us data on where they fly, and some of these birds fly across the UK, we’ve even had some of the Hen Harriers that we’ve tagged in the past fly to places like France, so they cover huge distances, that gives us lots of information, it gives us information where they roost, where they might be feeding, but importantly, these tags are very expensive, they’re about a thousand quid each, but importantly they track the birds and when the bird ‘mysteriously disappears’ we’ve got some idea where that happens.
Beck Measures: Right, ok, so you’re able to kind of keep an eye on them and know what their movements are. It must be difficult to get the tags on them, though?
Craig Best: Yeah, so the tags are, I mean the people who do it are licenced by Natural England and we’re working really closely with our colleagues at the RSPB, but also there’s a volunteer group in the Peak District called the Peak District Raptor Group and all these individuals are experts, and when the birds are young on the nest, not able to fly, we approach them and carefully apply the tag.
But the tag provides much needed protection, so they’re less likely to be shot because if that tag stops working, or we find it, you know we don’t get the tag movements, clearly that could link to a persecution incident. Not always, sometimes these birds, like many other animals do, die naturally, but quite often what we’re finding across the UK and in the Peak District and places like North Yorkshire, these birds are persecuted and are shot in these remote areas and it’s very much linked to grouse shooting.
We invest millions in the upland landscape in the High Peak to restore our peatlands, restore the peat, you know, this landscape is fantastic for our drinking water, a lot of rain falls on our drinking water so whether you live in Sheffield or Manchester, that’s where it comes from, and we restore the landscape by establishing trees, because these places are just fantastic for nature and provide lots of services, such as flood risk reductions for people’s homes and businesses, but of course we invest this money and these pinnacle species such as Hen Harriers should be in much greater numbers. I think there’s something in order of 30-40 breeding pairs across the UK* so they’re really at risk of extinction if this persecution continues, but because we invest so much money, it’d be such a shame to not have these spectacular birds flying around and you know, like you referenced earlier on, your listeners and many people will have watched Springwatch and we saw a pair of Hen Harriers feeding and flying around and they’re just beautiful to look at and of course they have the right to exist like many other animals in the Peak District.
ENDS
*Craig was referring to England, not the UK. In 2024 there was a total of 34 Hen Harrier breeding attempts in England, of which 25 were successful, which is lower than the last two years, according to Natural England.
Raptor Persecution UK 
He should get his facts right though. 30 – 40 pairs of HH’s in the UK is very wrong!
Sure, he meant in England (34 breeding attempts last year, 25 successful).
We await the release of 2025 breeding season data.
Easy mistake to make 30-40 pairs in England although NE haven’t yet published this year’s figures and they are rumoured to have declined again after the peak in 2023. Which itself was only about 15% of what we should have and that is down to persecution, years and years of it.
Hes referring to known nesting pairs, not a total. Its extremely low.
“Jeremy Mooresays:
He should get his facts right though. 30 – 40 pairs of HH’s in the UK is very wrong!”
“earthandleafsays:
Hes referring to known nesting pairs, not a total. Its extremely low.”
Jeremy is correct. Craig made a slip-of-the-tonge when giving the England breeding population but attributing it to the UK as a whole.
The RSPB report an estimated 692 territorial pairs in the UK for 2023.
Well said Craig. No doubt the shooting fraternity will get into a right little paddy about his comments. You can’t argue with facts though.
The criminal fraternity and their apologists were on Facebook responding to yesterday’s post, claiming it took place on a grouse moor and they were protected by gamekeepers!
The HH nest was on an EX-grouse moor, previously leased by National Trust to a sporting tenant – it’s no longer managed for grouse shooting.
would be interesting to know if a gamekeeper is employed there
I made that point in response to their claims!
any landowner that has Raptors go missing on their land should have all government grants removed.
that might encourage the landowner to instruct their gamekeepers to stop killing Raptors.
The loss of grants would be a good start to protect the Raptors.
I think he’s being a little naïve by saying they are protected by tagging. The gamekeepers are either so thick, they don’t even consider that they might be tagged, or are just following instructions, and they might move the shot bird off the moor, although of course, tracking would note that it followed the roads exactly, but again, too thick to think of that. Sadly, all attempts by bodies like RSPB, NE, NT etc have no impact on this vile crime, and until shooting birds for fun is banned, wealthy landowners will continue making money.
There’s evidence that some gamekeepers are very aware of the consequences of killing a satellite-tagged Hen Harrier and will avoid doing so, selecting to shoot preferentially at untagged birds instead. E.g. watch this footage filmed in the Yorkshire Dales National Park last year:
https://raptorpersecutionuk.org/2024/10/23/rspb-secretly-films-gamekeepers-plotting-then-killing-a-hen-harrier-on-a-grouse-moor-in-northern-england/
A gamekeeper has been charged in relation to this footage – he has pleaded not guilty and a pre-trial hearing will take place in September.
Yes, in the great scheme of things a lot are a bit thick. And others by accident or tendency have circumscribed their potential intelligence of the wider world by allowing themselves to believe their role on their estate is tantamount to the most important thing in the universe, and given up thinking about much else. But it is a mistake to think they are thick when doing their thing in their element. They aren’t. There may be the odd oldie out there in a respected job who doesn’t know or care too much about the significance of satellite tagging, but the best keepers (who have risen to the top jobs and hold them because they get the results and don’t attract too much negative attention) know exactly what the state of play is. On the moors where big numbers are the goal (almost all of them) it is a Boys Own style game of chess between people who want/need to kill raptors and those that are trying to stop them doing it – the satellite tag factor is one of the (several) important features of the game.
I believe these crimes are not punished harshly enough. I am sick of reading about raptor persecution of grouse moors. These are tracts of land inherited and owned by rich, entitled people that use great Staithes of land for the vile recreation of a minority of other pompous people. If their gamekeepers can’t be linked to the crime then the land owners should be made responsible. Revoke any gun and shooting licences and fine them heavily. Not the token amounts I read about. xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx