ITV News ran a five minute feature yesterday on the continued illegal killing of birds of prey in North Yorkshire, and the RSPB’s calls for a gamebird shooting licensing scheme to tackle these crimes.
The film highlights the recent convictions earlier this year of gamekeeper Thomas Munday, who was caught battering to death a Buzzard that he’d trapped on a Pheasant shoot at Hovingham (here), and gamekeeper Racster Dingwall, who was caught conspiring to shoot a Hen Harrier on a grouse moor in the Yorkshire Dales National Park (here). Both cases relied on video footage captured on hidden cameras installed on the estates by the RSPB’s Investigations Team.
Two members of the RSPB’s Investigations Team are interviewed (Mark Thomas and Howard Jones) and discuss how satellite tags have helped detect the locations where Hen Harriers are being killed, and the level of ongoing threat to this and other species, including White-tailed Eagles.
A counter-argument against gamebird shoot licensing is provided by Dr Marnie Lovejoy from the British Association of Shooting & Conservation (BASC). She admits that grouse shoot licensing in Scotland has not prevented the illegal killing of raptors (she’s right about that) but then claims, counter-intuitively, that licensing wouldn’t be a deterrent because, “They could lose their licence even though they have done nothing wrong“.
I’m not aware of any grouse shooting estate in Scotland losing its licence yet, even though there have been multiple raptor persecution crimes detected since licensing was introduced in 2024, although several cases are still making their way through the slow judicial process.
Nor has anyone had their grouse shooting licence revoked ‘when they’ve done nothing wrong’. Given the level of evidence required just for a General Licence restriction in Scotland, let alone a grouse shooting licence, it is highly unlikely that an innocent estate would ever be penalised. And even if it did happen, estates have several rights of appeal, first through the regulator, NatureScot, and then through the Sheriff Courts.
It’s clear that BASC doesn’t want further regulation, perhaps because it’s obvious that many gamebird shoots will struggle to comply, but using an unevidenced argument against it just doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.
You can watch the ITV News feature here.
Raptor Persecution UK 
It’s pretty obvious that the shooting industry/lobby, doesn’t want the licensing of grouse moors for shooting, because they are well aware that the illegal persecution of raptures on grouse moors is widespread, to almost universal. These are not my conclusions but the conclusions of peer-reviewed research, into the disappearance of satellite tagged Hen Harriers. This is quite contrary to the line run by the shooting lobby for many decades, that it is just a few bad apples. The rate of disappearance, and the speed with which it happens, demonstrates very organized persecution. With what we know now about how this persecution takes place, it is very time intensive. Where shoot managers, must spend very long hours devoted to this raptor persecution. This is not the odd gamekeeper taking a lucky pot shot at a Hen Harrier flying close. Anyone who has tried to hide in wait for a Harrier to fly closely to photograph it, is well aware how difficult and time consuming it is to get that close. Using simple deduction, if shoot managers are spending so much of their time, devoted to this activity, almost everyone in the chain, must know what is going on. The employers of gamekeepers and their line managers would not just let their employees spend so much of their time on activities, without some idea of what they are doing, otherwise they might just be being paid for being in the pub. So many are involved in this, and must have direct knowledge of what is going on, that it is common knowledge in the shooting world.
Well done to ITN for publicising this. I do think Friends of the Dales are helping to ‘tip the balance’ in the fight for awareness of this critical issue in Yorkshire.
Pity, then, that the BBC’s Natural History Unit barely acknowledges that the issue even exists (part of the keep-politics-out-of-‘sport’ crowd:-(
“A counter-argument against gamebird shoot licensing is provided by Dr Marnie Lovejoy from the British Association of Shooting & Conservation (BASC)”
Note: “shooting and conservation” – the old, tired, argument that you have to kill to preserve (it must be something of a miracle, then, that any wildlife survived at all before the invention of the gun)
[Ed: Keith, the rest of your comment has been deleted because it includes inaccurate information, some of it potentially libellous. The stuff you’ve written about Dr Lovejoy is, frankly, offensive].
Anyone with just a vague interest in this subject must be well aware that this is an on going issue on most grouse moor estates, many pheasant shoots and game farms in North Yorkshire. Indeed you would have to be wilfully blind to not know if you were involved in game shooting in the county or be interested in either it or the welfare or biology of the breeding raptors in the county and it is nothing new it has been going on for decades, probably since such activities were either swept under the carpet or still legal. Shooting interests both nationally and in the county have it seems no interest in stopping it even if they amongst the few who don’t persecute. Yet whenever licensing or such is mentioned they talk about self regulation ( a complete sham and failure) or over regulation of something that is in fact barely regulated at all. Given that scenario there are in fact no ” good guys” fighting against the majority, only the guilty in fact or association, as such licensing would be the least we ought to expect, along with restrictions on the methods used to kill legally controlled predators, the reporting of such numbers controlled and far more rigorous and meaningful control of the numbers of alien gamebirds released to be shot, ( to my mind canned hunting), all rigorously policed, paid for by the shooting estates through government levy.
“Dr Marnie Lovejoy”…
A lawyer by trade and training, not a biologist nor any other sort of scientist…
Interesting that a lawyer is put up and not a biologist nor any other sort of scientist, who could properly address scientific evidence.
I wonder why?
A different take on the shooting industry.- As a country dweller our Saturdays are ruined by shooting parties. The lanes are blocked by 4x 4s Out of control dogs gamble through gardens, dead and dying pheasants are found on private properties and any social event is interrupted by gunfire. Most upsetting for family events. Dispute various rules about shooting near to property and over lanes and footpaths, these are ignored. If shoots were licensed they may think more about residents.
“As a country dweller our Saturdays are ruined by shooting parties… If shoots were licensed they may think more about residents.”
What has Lovejoy to say about that, I wonder?