“Vindictive evil woman” and “Poisoned witch” to deliver free webinar on illegal raptor persecution for Friends of the Dales this Wednesday

Last year, the charity Friends of the Dales launched a new campaign calling for an end to the criminal killing of birds of prey in the Yorkshire Dales National Park.

The charity’s Eyes on the Skies campaign, which aims to raise awareness about raptor persecution, launched in October 2025 with a free webinar featuring Kate Jennings, UK Head of Site Conservation & Species Policy at the RSPB, who talked about the work of the RSPB’s Investigations Team and reiterated the RSPB’s stance on licensing for gamebird shooting due to its links to illegal raptor persecution.

Since then there have been two further webinars, one by Detective Inspector Mark Harrison from the National Wildlife Crime Unit (NWCU) (available on YouTube, here), and another by Indy Kiemel Greene and Adrian Rowe from the charity Hen Harrier Action (available on YouTube, here).

I was due to give a presentation in this series in March this year, but due to unforeseen circumstances I had to postpone. My talk has been re-scheduled for this Wednesday (20 May), from 17.30hrs to 19.00hrs. I’m told a few hundred people have already signed up and spaces are still available to book here (it’s free!).

Friends of the Dales has been advertising my talk across social media:

Predictably, this has led to an avalanche of misogynistic personal abuse from some within the game shooting / hunting industry who seem to think (I’m being generous) this is acceptable behaviour. Here’s a small selection:

Given that they’ve openly posted these comments, under their own names, on the Facebook page of Friends of the Dales, they’re worth a closer look.

When seen collectively, it’s not difficult to spot their shared characteristics. Oh, and is that a National Gamekeepers Organisation tie and badge? And is that a Scottish Gamekeepers Association car sticker? Aren’t these the organisations that claim their members are the victims of so-called ‘hate speech’ from conservationists? Honestly, you couldn’t make it up!

I was at a conference recently where three separate people, whom I’d never met before, came up to say hello and the first question they each asked was along the lines of, ‘How do you deal with the abuse?’.

The answer isn’t straightforward because it’s very much dependent on the context, who it is, whether they’ve posted online photographs of my house or car, whether they’ve published my address and phone number, whether they turn up to events I’m attending, whether I feel threatened, whether it amounts to harassment and/or stalking, or whether it’s just a one-off abusive comment from someone I’ve never heard of and will never hear from again and so the comment is of no consequence to me because, frankly, why would it be?

What’s more sinister, in my view, is the targeted and coordinated attacks by organisations within the game shooting industry on the Chair and Trustees of Friends of the Dales, simply for launching the Eyes on the Skies campaign to raise awareness of the illegal killing of birds of prey in what is a well-known hotspot for raptor persecution.

Some of the attacks amount to a nasty little smear campaign, undertaken routinely by an anonymous astroturf group which is clearly being funded by well-heeled members of the grouse shooting industry but who don’t want their names associated with the hate campaign. It looks to me like classic intimidation tactics from an industry that really doesn’t like the spotlight being aimed at the criminality within.

Kudos to Friends of the Dales, managed and governed by decent people who care about their local environment and who are, simply and legitimately, campaigning for an end to the illegal killing of birds of prey.

If you want to show your support for them, tune in to the live webinar on Wednesday (book here) and/or sign this petition from Friends of the Dales to the UK Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Mary Creagh MP) to bring in legal reform to help stop the illegal persecution of birds of prey.