I received a bizarre press release on Monday, issued by the charity, Restoring Upland Nature (RUN – a project developed from the South Scotland Golden Eagle Project).
The press release was providing ‘news’ of a young satellite-tagged Golden Eagle named Percy, who had suffered fatal injuries after a dispute with a territorial pair of Golden Eagles in south Scotland in late March 2026.
His death was due to natural causes, so not exactly ‘news’, although it’s understandable that the project team would want to keep people informed.
However, the press release then morphed in to some kind of gamekeeper love-fest, simply because some gamekeepers had found the critically injured eagle and had alerted the project team to his location.
Here’s the press release:
Whilst the actions of those gamekeepers who found Percy are to be applauded, the subsequent general portrayal of gamekeepers in south Scotland as being champions of eagle conservation needs a reality check, especially when you consider the recent surge in eagle persecution in this region:
- Golden Eagle ‘Merrick’ was shot and killed whilst she was sleeping in a tree next to a grouse moor in the Moorfoot Hills in October 2023 (see here).
- Golden Eagles ‘Tarras’ and ‘Wren’ disappeared in an area managed for gamebird shooting near Langholm in August 2025 (see here).
- A White-tailed Eagle ‘disappeared’ in the Moorfoot Hills area in November 2025 (here).
- Golden Eagle ‘Hamlet’ was found with shotgun injuries next to a grouse moor in the Tweed Valley in February 2026 (here).
It is clear from the post-mortem and his satellite tag data that Percy died from injuries inflicted by a territorial eagle and not at the hands of a gamekeeper. Perhaps that’s the newsworthy element of this story.
But I’m very interested in other cases where injured/dead raptors have been ‘found’ by gamekeepers and reported to the authorities, especially in areas with a long history of raptor persecution. It seems to me that this could create a perfect opportunity for the ‘false hero’ scenario.
Undoubtedly, there are decent gamekeepers out there who want to help with conservation efforts for raptors and other species. But equally undoubtedly, there are gamekeepers out there who want to kill raptors, and have done, and continue to do so.
How do you tell them apart?
By the way, in response to the ‘news’ that Percy died of natural causes, I’ve seen a few comments on social media suggesting that we should all apologise for blaming gamekeepers for his ‘disappearance’. For the record, Percy didn’t ‘disappear’, and I haven’t seen anybody suggesting that he did, or that gamekeepers were responsible. They used the same argument about Hen Harrier ‘Frank’ earlier this year – trying to play the victim card but without any evidence of being victimised.
Raptor Persecution UK 
To be fair, Dr Barlow did say that they were grateful to those gamekeepers etc who do engage with the project. Depending on where you put the emphasis, my personal view is that she is talking about the gamekeepers who DO engage, differentiating them from those who DON’T. I’m sure she knows well of the problems of raptor persecution in parts of Southern Scotland, as she has been involved with raptor conservation in the area for many years.
I differentiate between what Dr Cat Barlow said, and what Ross Ewing (Scottish Land and Estates – “the response exemplifies their commitment to proactive moorland management and preserving vital habitats for local wildlife, including golden eagles”) and Mark Ewart (Southern Uplands Moorland Group – “providing the right habitats for golden eagles… to thrive”) said in the RUN press release.
Do RUN unequivocally support those statements?
I would treat all gamekeepers with great suspicion.