The Scottish Government’s nature advisory agency, NatureScot, has been now been procrastinating for over 18 months on whether to impose a sanction on an estate in relation to the ‘shooting and killing’ of a sleeping Golden Eagle called Merrick. But apparently a decision is now expected “in the next few weeks”.
Merrick was a young satellite-tagged Golden Eagle, released in south Scotland in 2022 as 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 had become isolated by geographic barriers.
A year after her release, which had seen her fly around south Scotland and down into northern England and back, on 12 October 2023 Merrick’s satellite tag suddenly and inexplicably stopped transmitting from a roost site in the Moorfoot Hills in the Scottish Borders where she’d been sleeping overnight.
A project officer from the South Scotland Golden Eagle Project went to her last known location where he found Merrick’s feathers and blood directly below her roost tree. Police Scotland later determined from the evidence that she’d been ‘shot and killed’ and that someone had then ‘removed her body and destroyed her satellite tag’ (see here).
There was limited scope for anyone to be charged and prosecuted for killing this eagle unless someone in the know came forward with sufficient evidence to identify the individual(s) responsible. In addition, the prospect of an estate having its grouse-shooting licence withdrawn as a consequence of this crime was zero, given that this offence took place prior to the enactment of the Wildlife & Muirburn (Scotland) Act 2024, the legislation that introduced grouse moor licensing.
That just left a General Licence restriction as a possible sanction. 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 and, given the high-profile of Merrick’s death, you might think that making a decision on whether to impose a GL restriction would be a high priority for NatureScot.
Not so.
I wrote about NatureScot’s procrastination on this case in August (see here), after receiving a response to a Freedom of Information request I’d lodged in June 2025. That response confirmed that NatureScot had received an information package from Police Scotland, on which it would base its General Licence restriction decision, in April 2024.
I blogged again in September, highlighting that NatureScot had now procrastinated for 17 months. Unbeknownst to me at the time, that blog prompted two blog readers to write to NatureScot, and one of them lodged a formal complaint against the agency.
Blog reader Stuart Wilson has kindly given permission for me to share the response he received recently from NatureScot in relation to his complaint, which is almost identical to the response blog reader SusanH shared on this blog a few days ago on an unrelated post.
Raptor Persecution UK 
Grateful thanks to Stuart and Susan for diligently following up on this.
Something we can all do, as required….
Like all the agencies throughout the UK, NatureScot is not fit for purpose. Heavily supported by the hunting fraternity like it’s fellow English agency who are even worse.
It’s well past time for these agencies to be upgraded and given tough standards and powers to arrest and prosecute offenders, many of them well known to the agencies and police.
It’s time to address the whole ethic, or rather the lack of ethics of the hunting fraternity, whether on public land or private estates. Even in the USA, where hunting is still regarded as a “man thing” and shared between fathers and sons, the police and agencies there have serious powers and offenders can face severe penalties, although this depends on which State you are in.
Like imported trophy hunted endangered animals, the country as a nation MUST take it upon itself to raise its moral compass and treat all wild animals with the utmost respect. We left the Middle Ages behind many centuries ago, and we need to leave behind some of the worst customs with it.
Yes well done Stuart Susan for sharing the response still upsets me that we are having these fights for justice and your comments ecstatic hit the nail on the head we are in the dark ages no consequences for anything still illegally cubbing round here north Yorkshire every Tuesday Saturday no trails laid. Reported it but police have no resources it all needs banning Kier Starmer.