Last month a local campaign group called Friends of the Dales launched a new campaign to raise awareness of illegal raptor persecution in the Yorkshire Dales National Park (see here).
This new campaign from the local community follows the recent collapse of the Yorkshire Dales National Park Bird of Prey Partnership (due to its failure to tackle crimes against birds of prey), and the news that since 2015, 29 Hen Harriers have gone ‘missing’ in suspicious circumstances and almost 40 other raptors have been found poisoned, trapped or shot in the Yorkshire Dales National Park since 2015, including Peregrines, Hen Harriers, Red Kites and Buzzards.
The Friends of the Dales group is planning a series of events as part of its campaign, and it kicked off with a webinar delivered by Kate Jennings, Head of Conservation and Species Policy at the RSPB, who gave a detailed overview about raptor persecution in the UK.
The webinar was recorded and is now available to watch on the Friends of the Dales YouTube channel here.
For more information about the Eyes on the Skies campaign, visit the Friends of the Dales website here.
Three Peregrine chicks that hatched on Worcester Cathedral all died within a few weeks, earlier this spring. Two of the dead chicks were retrieved and sent for post mortem and the results have now shown they died from ingesting poison.
The name of the poison hasn’t been published but a statement by the group who monitor the adult Peregrines at Worcester Cathedral (‘Peregrine Falcons in Worcester’) says, ‘Both birds had internal bleeding consistent with death from poison‘, which suggests the poison was probably a Second Generation Anti-coagulant Rodenticide (SGAR).
The adult breeding pair (known as ‘Peter’ and ‘Peggy’) are fine.
The BBC News website has an article on the news (here) and states that West Mercia Police had received a report but the investigation has closed due to ‘evidential difficulties’.
One of the adult Peregrines at Worcester Cathedral. (Photo from Worcester Cathedral)
A recent report written by Dr Ed Blane and published on the Wildlife Poisoning Research UK website shows that there has been a substantial increase in Peregrine exposure to SGARs, and especially to the poison Brodifacoum. The same issue is affecting Foxes and Otters.
This follows a report published last year ‘Collateral Damage‘ by Wild Justice which reported an alarming increase in SGARs exposure in Buzzards and Red Kites and was heavily critical of the Rodenticide Stewardship Scheme and how the government was ignoring the evidence.
As a result, the Health & Safety Executive, which controls the approval regime in the UK for rodenticides and decides what can and cannot be used, ran a public consultation in September 2025 to look at alternatives to SGARs.
A young Buzzard was found in a field in Leominster, Herefordshire last week, unable to fly.
An x-ray revealed at least two shotgun pellets lodged in its body. It’s not known when the bird was shot, or where.
Photo by Sasha Norris
Photo via Sasha Norris
The Buzzard is currently receiving expert veterinary care from Dr Sasha Norris of Hereford Wildlife Rescue with assistance from Holmer Veterinary Surgery in Hereford and Battle Flatts Veterinary Clinic in Yorkshire.
Sasha reports that the Buzzard was ‘alert, bright and eating well’ this morning.
Following the excellent news yesterday that the Scottish Agriculture Minister Jim Fairlie MSP has committed to closing the loophole on grouse moor licences (here), RSPB Scotland Director Anne McCall has issued the following statement:
“I am feeling cautiously hopeful following an announcement by Jim Fairlie MSP, Minister for Agriculture and Connectivity, promising the Scottish Government will fix an unintended loophole in last year’s landmark legislation to make land management more sustainable through an amendment to the Natural Environment Bill.
“When the Wildlife Management and Muirburn Act was passed in 2024, it was monumental. Scotland finally had legislation to provide a meaningful deterrent to stop the illegal killing of birds of prey linked to grouse moor management, with NatureScot empowered to remove a grouse shooting licence when illegal killing is confirmed to them by Police Scotland.
The illegal killing of birds of prey is directly linked to the management of moorland for Red Grouse shooting. Photo: Ronnie Gilbert
“However, it has become clear that the wording of the legislation means its implementation does not match the original intention of the Scottish Parliament and risks failing Scotland’s wildlife. Currently, landowners can register for a licence for just the land specifically used for shooting. This means that even if a crime was confirmed in another part of the landowner’s holding, for example neighbouring woodland where some birds of prey breed, the licence may not be removed, unless that crime could be specifically linked to management of the grouse moor.
“Our team that works alongside public enforcement agencies to investigate wildlife crime knows all too well how often birds are killed in woodland or nearby farmland rather than on the moors themselves, and that obtaining the level of proof the current licence conditions demand would be exceedingly difficult, especially on a land-holding that may have other gamebird shooting interests.
“An amendment to the Wildlife and Countryside Act, via the Natural Environment Bill, to ensure that a whole sporting estate is included in any grouse shooting licence will remove the unintended loophole in the legislation and ensure that Scotland truly takes a major step forward for wildlife protection and accountability.
“This approach has secured cross-party support thanks in no small part to efforts by Mark Ruskell MSP in highlighting the issue and the risk to Scotland’s reputation.
“We will be keeping a close eye on this, along with other crucial changes to the Natural Environment Bill, as it passes through Parliament“.
ENDS
The Natural Environment (Scotland) Bill is currently at Stage 2 of its passage through the Scottish Parliament. Amendments can be lodged by MSPs up until 13 November and these are expected to be debated on 19 November 2025.
The Scottish Government has committed to closing the loophole on the grouse moor licences that were sabotaged last year by the powerful grouse shooting lobby.
If you recall, grouse moor licensing was introduced as part of the Wildlife Management & Muirburn (Scotland) Act 2024, as a result of the continued illegal killing of birds of prey on grouse moors and the associated difficulties of identifying an individual suspect and prosecuting them.
The idea was that a licence to shoot Red Grouse could be amended / withdrawn / revoked by NatureScot if evidence showed that illegal raptor persecution had taken place (importantly, based on the civil burden of proof, i.e. balance of probability, rather than the criminal burden of proof, i.e. beyond reasonable doubt). It was expected that the licence would cover an estate’s entire landholding, not just the areas where Red Grouse are shot, because raptor persecution crimes often take place beyond the boundary of the moor (e.g. in woodland).
However, last November, the licences were significantly weakened after legal threats from the grouse shooting industry. Instead of now covering an entire estate, it was announced that the licence holder could decide on the extent of the area the licence covered, specifically the area where Red Grouse are ‘taken or killed’.
Effectively, this could mean simply drawing an arbitrary line around their grouse butts, denoting the reach of a shotgun pellet, and argue that THAT is the area where they take/kill grouse and thus that should be the extent of the licensable area:
Photo of a line of grouse-shooting butts by Richard Cross, annotated by RPUK
There has been a year of prolonged campaigning to get this loophole closed, led by Green MSP Mark Ruskell and RSPB Scotland, and this work has now paid off.
In a letter to the Scottish Parliament’s Rural Affairs & Islands Committee (the committee scrutinising the Natural Environment (Scotland) Bill), published today, Agriculture Minister Jim Fairlie has committed to introducing an amendment at Stage 2 of the Bill to close off this loophole.
We haven’t yet seen the details of Mr Fairlie’s proposed amendment but the deadline for MSPs to submit amendments at Stage 2 closes on 13 November 2025, so we shouldn’t have long to wait.
There’s more to say about this welcome move, and all the hard work that has gone on behind the scenes to reach this stage. I’ll be blogging more about this and I’ll also be discussing it at this weekend’s REVIVE conference in Perth (tickets still available – here).
For now, I see this as very, very good news.
UPDATE 4 November 2025: Statement from RSPB Scotland Director on proposed amendment to close grouse moor licence loophole (here)
UPDATE 14 November 2025: Scottish Minister Jim Fairlie provides rationale behind proposed amendment to close loophole on grouse shoot licence (here)
It’s another gamebird shooting season and that means shot Pheasants and Red-legged Partridges being illegally dumped (fly-tipped) by the side of a road.
Thanks to the blog reader who alerted me to the latest incident, posted a few days ago on Facebook – a pile of shot Pheasants and Red-legged Partridges found dumped just off Bellwood Road in Penicuik, south Scotland.
Shot & dumped Pheasants & Red-legged Partridges (photo from Facebook)
It’s likely these birds were given to a shoot participant to take home and he/she decided to dump them instead because they couldn’t be arsed to prepare them for cooking and besides, they’d already served their purpose as live targets shot for entertainment.
Regular blog readers will know that the dumping of shot gamebirds is a common and widespread illegal practice that has been going on for years, despite the repeated denials by the shooting industry. Who else do they think is doing this if not the people involved in gamebird shooting?! The disposal of animal by-products (including shot gamebirds) is regulated and the dumping of these carcasses is an offence.
Previous reports include dumped birds found in Cheshire (here), Scottish borders (here), Norfolk (here), Perthshire (here), Berkshire (here), North York Moors National Park (here) and some more in North York Moors National Park (here) and even more in North Yorkshire (here), Co. Derry (here), West Yorkshire (here), and again in West Yorkshire (here), N Wales (here), mid-Wales (here), Leicestershire (here), Lincolnshire (here), Somerset (here), Derbyshire’s Peak District National Park (here), Suffolk (here), Leicestershire again (here), Somerset again (here), Liverpool (here), even more in North Wales (here) even more in Wales, again (here), in Wiltshire (here) in Angus (here), in Somerset again (here), once again in North Yorkshire (here), yet again in West Yorkshire (here), yet again in mid-Wales (here), even more in mid-Wales (here), more in Derbyshire (here), Gloucestershire (here) more in Cheshire (here), some in Cumbria (here), some more in the Scottish Borders (here) and again in Lincolnshire (here), in Nottinghamshire (here) and even more in Lincolnshire (here).
Unless someone was seen dumping these shot gamebirds there’s no way of knowing who did it or from which gamebird shoot they originated. There’s no requirement for shoot managers to fit identifying markers to their livestock, which would make them traceable, because gamebird ‘livestock’ absurdly changes legal status to ‘wildlife’ as soon as the birds are released from the rearing pens for shooting (see Wild Justice’s blog on Schrodinger’s Pheasant for details).
Obviously, it’s irresponsible (and illegal) to dump shot gamebirds at any time but especially so when the UK Government (and the Scottish and Welsh Governments) has declared a nationwide Avian Influenza Prevention Zone (AIPZ) due to the heightened risk of the spread of highly pathogenic Avian Influenza (Bird Flu) amongst captive and wild birds.
These declarations make it a legal requirement for all bird keepers to follow strict and enhanced biosecurity measures to help protect their flocks from the threat of Avian Influenza. In some areas, the risk is considered so severe that mandatory housing measures have also been declared.
I’m sure this won’t be the last example of the thoughtless, feckless and unaccountable actions of the gamebird shooting industry this season, who yet again do what they like, when they like and to hell with the consequences because there aren’t any.
Raptor Persecution UK 