Natural England’s long overdue review of the Hen Harrier Brood Meddling trial will apparently be “concluded by spring 2026“, according to a recent Freedom of Information request.
For new blog readers, the Hen Harrier Brood Meddling trial was a conservation sham sanctioned by DEFRA as part of its ludicrous ‘Hen Harrier Action Plan‘ and carried out by Natural England between 2018 – 2024, in cahoots with the very industry responsible for the species’ catastrophic decline in England. In general terms, the plan involved the removal of Hen Harrier chicks from grouse moors, they were reared in captivity, then released back into the uplands just in time for the start of the grouse-shooting season where many were illegally killed. It was plainly bonkers. For more background see here and here.
The end of the Brood Meddling trial was formally announced by Natural England on 14 March 2025, although it had claimed to be “currently reviewing and analysing the data gathered under the trial” in September 2024; a process it said would be “concluded later this year” (i.e. by the end of 2024).
On 2nd January 2025 I submitted an FoI request to Natural England to ask whether that review had been completed. Natural England responded on 28 January 2025 and said it was in the “final draft stage” and was “being prepared for publication“.
On 14 March 2025, when Natural England announced the formal end of the brood meddling trial, it said that it had commissioned four research reports, covering population modelling, social science and evaluation. One of the reports, a population modelling review, was published, and Natural England said the other three reports “are in the process of publication“.
These reports are believed to have influenced Natural England’s decision to close the Brood Meddling trial but had not been made available to the public. I wanted to see them to draw my own conclusions about the success / failure of the trial, and I was especially interested in the social science report, given how hilariously bad an earlier social science report had been.
I submitted another FoI to Natural England on 14 April 2025 asking for a copy of this second social science report.
Natural England responded, 20 working days later on 15 May 2025, to me to tell me that a further 20 working days were needed “because of the complexity / voluminous nature of the request“. There was nothing complex, or voluminous, about my request. It was a simple ask, for a copy of a simple report that Natural England had used in its decision-making about the future of the Brood Meddling trial. Is it any wonder nobody trusts Natural England when it comes out with rubbish like this?
After trying to fob me off with an unjustified delay, Natural England eventually responded again, in June 2025, when once again it refused to release the social science report, this time because:
“This report is in final draft stage. Natural England are finalising this report and are progressing with the process of internal review required for publication. We cannot give an exact publication date due to uncertainties inherent in this internal review and publication process. This report is therefore being withheld under Reg 12(4)(d) – course of completion“.
So I waited a further six and a half months, until 5 January 2026, before asking Natural England for a status update on its now long overdue internal review.
Natural England responded on 30 January 2026, still refusing to release the documents because although the internal review had apparently been completed, the reports were now subject to something Natural England was calling a “final quality assurance“. Natural England told me, “We anticipate that the QA process will be completed by Spring 2026” and that once finalised, the reports will be published.
I think it’s Spring 2026 now, isn’t it?
These documents are going to be sensational, eh, having being subjected to ‘draft analysis and review‘, then a ‘final draft stage‘, then an ‘internal review‘, and then a ‘final quality assurance‘ process, all of which has so far taken Natural England at least 19 months to complete, and it’s now been 2.7 years since the last Hen Harrier chick was brood meddled (in 2023).
A complete joke, from the very start to the very end. And through it all, Hen Harriers have remained the victims of routine and systemic illegal persecution on many driven grouse moors throughout the country – information that Natural England has also sought to suppress, apparently on police orders (e.g. see here, here, here, here, here, here, here).
Raptor Persecution UK 
Keep going Ruth, they don’t like other people meddling do they?
I am pretty sure that they expect Leigh Day, Wild Justice and your goodself to go through all these reports in detail. I am particularly interested to see how they justify spending so much taxpayers money on such an obviously flawed and biased project.