The Yorkshire Dales Moorland Group (YDMG) is undertaking a major damage limitation exercise this week following the widespread media coverage of the recent conviction of Yorkshire Dales gamekeeper Racster Dingwall, who pleaded guilty to conspiring to kill a Hen Harrier on the Conistone & Grassington Estate (see here), which is, as far as I can tell, a member of the Yorkshire Dales Moorland Group.
Indeed, according to this 2018 article in the Yorkshire Post, the then coordinator of the YDMG lived on the Conistone & Grassington Estate as the wife of the previous Head Gamekeeper (i.e. before Racster Dingwall took on the role as Head Gamekeeper). The current YDMG coordinator is believed to be a former gamekeeper from one of the most notorious estates in the Dales.
Dingwall’s conviction, based on damning video evidence filmed by the RSPB, made the national, regional and local news, which threw the spotlight once again on the criminal killing of birds of prey on grouse moors in the Yorkshire Dales.
Dingwall’s conviction has undone all the good work (propaganda) that the YDMG has pumped out over the years to try and disguise the fact, according to the RSPB, that:
“This area – dominated by grouse moors – is the epicentre for Hen Harrier persecution in the UK. Since 2016, in this area four confirmed persecution incidents involving RSPB and Natural England satellite tagged Hen Harriers have taken place and 13 satellite tagged Hen Harriers have suspiciously disappeared – all suspected to have been persecuted (2016-2025)” (see here).
In a desperate attempt to divert attention from Dingwall’s crimes, the Yorkshire Dales Moorland Group is trying to persuade anyone who’ll listen that Hen Harriers aren’t routinely killed on grouse moors in their area. Good luck with that!
To illustrate this claim, the YDMG has posted the following story on social media about a satellite-tagged Hen Harrier called Frank:
Did Hen Harrier Frank live a long and productive life on grouse moors in the Yorkshire Dales? Yes, he did, but he was the exception to the rule. I’ve often wondered why he wasn’t nobbled and have been told, by various sources over the years, that Frank was seen as a ‘pet’ of one of the gamekeepers’ wives and an agreement was made not to shoot him. Whether there’s any substance in that I don’t know, but it’s interesting that I’ve heard the same story from different sources.
I think one of the reasons Frank wasn’t killed was because he was seen by the grouse shooting industry as the ‘poster child’ for Natural England’s Hen Harrier Brood Meddling Trial – indeed, some of Frank’s offspring were indeed brood meddled (unsurprisingly, several of them later then ‘disappeared’ in suspicious circumstances) and so there was a LOT of attention on Frank by those invested in the brood meddling sham who wanted to show that the trial was working. ‘Look, here’s a Hen Harrier (Frank) whose chicks we’ve brood meddled but he’s surviving just fine, he hasn’t been killed, therefore the brood meddling trial is a stunning success, let’s roll it out as standard practice for ever more’. You get the picture.
Anyway, back to the YDMG’s diversionary tactics. What they’re suggesting in their latest propaganda piece, is that gamekeepers were suspected of illegally killing Frank in 2025 when his tag stopped working. They claim that,
“They [raptor monitors and Natural England field staff] raised suspicion and insinuated to local gamekeepers that persecution could be a factor behind the bird going off-line“
and
“Suspicions and accusations began to circulate. Internal communications at Natural England determined the bird as missing/suspicious on a grouse moor“.
Really? Where is the evidence that gamekeepers were accused/suspected of killing Frank? He’s NEVER appeared on any list on this blog, nor on the Natural England Hen Harrier satellite tag spreadsheet, nor in any RSPB press release.
Why didn’t he appear? Well, simply because Natural England had been quite upfront on the HH sat tag spreadsheet and reported, accurately, that Frank’s tag stopped transmitting in May 2025 but in June 2025 he was photographed by NE field staff provisioning young at a nest and the photograph clearly showed his satellite tag had a broken aerial and therefore the tag was no longer transmitting. It was a clear technical malfunction, acknowledged by Natural England, and therefore there weren’t any grounds for suspicion.
The Yorkshire Dales Moorland Group is trying to play the victim card here but without any actual evidence of being ‘victimised’.
The fact that (apparently) Frank was recently found dead near Hull, and tests (apparently) show he had contracted avian influenza (although that wasn’t necessarily the cause of death) is neither here nor there. Although I suspect, if indeed this information is accurate, that Natural England might be looking closely at who was privy to that information and who leaked it to the YDMG!
I’d be interested in a statement from the YDMG about the status of the Conistone & Grassington Estate as a YDMG member. Has the YDMG got any plans to expel the estate? If not, why not?
The bigger question that very few people seem to be asking is, who funds the Yorkshire Dales Moorland Group, and all the other regional moorland groups that sprung up in 2015 to promote ‘the good work’ of the grouse shooting industry?
Who is paying for the regional coordinators of these groups, who spend their time putting rubbish out on social media and conducting malicious smear campaigns against individuals and organisations who happen to challenge the claims made by the grouse shooting industry? Who is paying for their websites? Who is paying for their extensive promotional material? Their branded clothing? Their picture boards and associated marketing material they drag around the country shows each year? Their logo-heavy ‘activity packs’ that they hand out to unsuspecting school children?
Gosh, I wonder who it might be? Surely not someone with a vested interest in grouse shooting and is a member of the British aristocracy?
Raptor Persecution UK 
Thanks for this! I saw the post about Frank, so your info here counters it very well.
It all looked too good to be true!
Ditto!
Well done Frank, I wish all other HH could be so productive. As an aside, captive bred ‘game’ birds have been released (in ridiculous numbers) into the wild each year since the outbreak of avian flu and have apparently had no impact to wild birds and animals. HH are migratory and will encounter avian flu elsewhere but it would be interesting to know if there was an indirect link in this case.
Now you’ve got me thinking but I guess you can’t disclose the name of that person
“As an aside, captive bred ‘game’ birds have been released (in ridiculous numbers) into the wild each year since the outbreak of avian flu and have apparently had no impact to wild birds and animals.”
Who says that ‘game birds’ have ‘apparently had no impact to wild birds and animals’?
“HH are migratory…”
Some are, but some – such as on Orkney – not so much.
“…and will encounter avian flu elsewhere but it would be interesting to know if there was an indirect link in this case”
An ‘indirect link’ with what?
I said ‘apparently’ in the post Keith. If ‘game’ birds were having an impact do you think that the releases would be curbed?
“If ‘game’ birds were having an impact…”
There is no ‘if’ about it: they do, and very much so. And Defra agrees, the risk of spreading disease from released Pheasants is described as ‘very high‘:
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/639b2679e90e0721839ea643/Risk_Assessment_on_the_spread_of_High_Pathogenicity_Avian_Influenza__HPAI__H5N1_to_wild_birds_from_released__formerly_captive_gamebirds_in_Great_Britain_Pheasants.pdf
But there is also a lack of data because game birds are not tested individually before being released. I wonder why that is – shocking, isn’ t it?
However, game birds are listed as among the species repeatedly found to have succumbed to the disease after release – on fifteen occasions in 2025 alone, according to
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/avian-influenza-in-wild-birds:-(
Since game birds are repeatedly found dead with the disease in the wild, then it can be expected they are also carriers of the disease to our native birds (think native raptors scavenging diseased game bird carcasses – perhaps such as the Hen Harrier Frank, much lauded recently by the game rearing/shooting industry)
Of course, game bird breeding and rearing facilities are also hot beds of the disease themselves, as shown by the repeated culling of diseased flocks. For example, tens of thousands of breeding pheasants and red-legged partridges destroyed in a Lancashire site as long ago as January 2017, according to the National Gamekeepers Organisation.
Which has continued every year since:-(
“do you think that the releases would be curbed?”
Evidently not, otherwise the RSPB would not need to issue this call:
https://www.rspb.org.uk/helping-nature/what-we-do/influence-government-and-business/policies-and-briefings/call-for-moratorium-on-gamebird-releases
OK but I will probably get it removed by what I am about to say.
I have 110% respect for the action groups fighting the rearguard protection of all the natural wildlife and in particular the hunting birds.
They are an integral and vital part of the wildlife in many parts of the countryside.
The humans that infest these areas are not! They are far worse than the so called vermin they claim to hate and despise.
Personally I would love to see [Ed: rest of comment deleted]
“Puppet on a String” ought to be the soundtrack playing on the Regional Moorland Groups Facebook pages. It’s a funny old set-up, yes the pictures of the keepers and the scenery and the wader chicks, the events for kids or the cape-wearing keeper finding a lost dog or pulling a car out of a dyke is genuine – but as a whole it is total sham. It is there to say ‘look at us doing nice stuff, surely people as nice as us can’t also be complicit in keeping “The Big Secret”*’
They are a “pop-up tent” PR response direct from people hailing among the Landowners / sporting tenants / agents / Guns & assorted rich friends to (as I see it historically) resist the impact Mark Avery and this RPUK blog started having a few years ago.
I have never been in any doubt that it is paid for and controlled strategically by a central brain or two from amongst the Owner classes. Grass roots community groups, what utter rubbish! The Regional CoOrdinators** are paid a wage to potter on with minor stories and find nice content, while bigger and politically sensitive posts are written by a different and distinct hand and are inserted strategically across their pages to suit the needs of their ongoing PR war.
Puppet on a String! Yes, it’s like Thunderbirds or Captain Scarlet! Follow them regularly and you too will see the strings. That said I have never correctly figured out (I don’t think) exactly which individuals are on the other end of those strings. I am very interested seeing who it is when one day (as it will) the whole thing is exposed to the light of day.
*The Big Secret” – simply that most keepers kill most of the big raptors most of the time. They have to! The same way that they have to kill foxes – as they all do the same cumulative extent of predatory “damage”. Without this fundamental principle being upheld you have insufficient surplus of grouse to shoot driven style they are accustomed to, and the whole industry economic model as it currently is would be transormed. Remember what happened at Langholm project when keepers were truly squeaky clean? Harrier and SEOwl numbers shot up, but they could no longer average “enough” grouse per season to suit their preferred high-numbers driven model of shooting. This would happen the same everywhere if there was not an army of identikit Racster Dingwalls out on the fell working their plums off to produce grouse!
**CoOrdinators that may or may not be a spouse or relative of a keeper, or an ex-keeper, maybe someone who may or may not even live in the same part of the world and know nothing much of the area they coordinate, or they may or may not (as was demonstrated on this blog couple of years ago) be real … they might actually be a PR operative posing as a fake wife!