Post-mortems suggest five Hen Harrier chicks found dead in nest on grouse moor in northern England had injuries consistent with being stabbed

Earlier this summer I submitted a Freedom of Information request to Natural England, asking for information on the causes of death, including post mortem reports, of all Hen Harrier nestlings (i.e. pre-fledging) in nests monitored by Natural England between 2018 and 2026.

That requested information has just been released and I have to say I’m pretty shocked by it, on a number of levels, which I’ll explain below.

I probably shouldn’t be shocked at all. We’ve all seen how depraved some gamekeepers can be. Whether they’ve been caught setting pole traps and leaving a trapped Tawny Owl, Buzzard or Red Kite to suffer a prolonged and painful death, hanging upside down with catastrophic leg injuries; or catching Red Kites by the legs in moss-covered spring traps placed next to a bait and then beating them to death with a shinty stick; or trapping a Peregrine in a spring trap set on a nest ledge and leaving it there to suffer for hours before retrieving it under cover of darkness; or casually using a wooden stick to beat to death trapped Goshawks and Buzzards inside crow cage traps.

And then there are the seriously depraved, who like to leave the evidence of their brutality in full view, knowing how distressing that’s going to be for the person finding it. For example, killing an entire brood of Hen Harrier chicks by stamping on them in their nest; or twisting and pulling off the head and leg of an adult Hen Harrier whilst he was still alive, leaving his mutilated corpse on a hillside knowing that his satellite tag would lead researchers to his discovery.

What I’m about to describe falls well within this second category of being seriously depraved. If you’re likely to be upset by reading the details, I suggest you stop reading now.

The response to my Freedom of Information request contained details of a number of gruesome cases. Today, I’m just writing about one of them. I need to do a bit more background research before I write about the others.

This case is about the deaths of five recently-hatched Hen Harriers, found dead in their nest on a grouse moor in County Durham in June 2024.

As far as I’m aware, this is the first public report of this incident in the almost two-and-a-half years since it was discovered. I think I’d remember if I’d read about Hen Harrier chicks being stabbed to death. Natural England has remained silent about it, Durham Constabulary has remained silent about it, and the National Wildlife Crime Unit’s Hen Harrier Task Force has remained silent about it.

Both Natural England and the NWCU’s HH Task Force will both say it’s the local police force’s decision about when to publicise a suspected crime. Some of them might claim, ridiculously, that the case is still under active investigation so they can’t talk about it. I’d like to hear an explanation from all three agencies about why it’s taken a Freedom of Information request, almost two-and-a-half years later, for the details to emerge. Had an FoI not been submitted, would we ever have been told about it?

The discovery of the five dead Hen Harrier nestlings was considered to be sufficiently suspicious to warrant submitting the chicks for post mortems. These were undertaken by pathologists at ZSL, the Institute of Zoology in London, who are highly experienced having been examining dead Hen Harriers for a very long time (e.g. see here and here).

Here are the findings:

This is the cover form at the front of each of the five post mortem reports. They are all identical except for the reference number and the biological data of each individual carcass. Two x-rays were taken of each carcass, with no shot or fractured bones detected in any of them.

HEN HARRIER CHICK 1

HEN HARRIER CHICK 2

HEN HARRIER CHICK 3

HEN HARRIER CHICK 4

HEN HARRIER CHICK 5

I expect, now you’ve had a chance to read the pathologist’s necessarily cautious conclusions, that you’re as shocked as I am. It is difficult for sane, humane individuals to even begin to conceive stabbing a live animal, let alone five tiny, helpless nestlings.

I’ve spoken with a few people about this case, including a retired veterinarian (thank you!), to double check my reading and interpretation of these post mortems. Our thought processes followed a similar thread:

First thought: No, surely someone didn’t stab them, did they?

Second thought: Well, every other plausible explanation seems to have been ruled out – no fractured or broken bones, no evidence of shotgun pellets, no sign of disease, no evidence of predation, negative for Avian Influenza.

Third thought: They all appeared to be healthy, they all died at the same time in the same nest, something has clearly happened, but stabbed? Really? And when they were alive?

Fourth thought: If you look at the size and shape of some of the traumatic lesions (stab wounds), they appear to be quite rounded and not what you’d expect from a knife (especially on chicks 1 and 2). So what might have been used to stab the chicks?

Fifth thought: A screwdriver?

Sixth thought: No, surely not. What type of sadistic psychopath do you have to be to do that?

Seventh thought: The type of sadistic psychopath who chose not to remove the evidence of the crime, but instead chose to leave the stabbed corpses in the nest to be found.

Eighth thought: I can’t think of any other explanation other than they’ve been stabbed, and the pathologist wrote on every report that,

“The injuries were consistent with those that may be expected from a sharp implement used to stab the hen harrier, or a projectile weapon. No signs of ammunition were noted on radiography nor could be found during examinations, and therefore use of a sharp implement is more likely“.

Ninth thought: WTF?

If any of these thoughts resonate with you, then you’re also quite likely to be incensed by this point.

Incensed that whoever stabbed those chicks, in that nest, on that grouse moor, will not be held to account. They’ve got away with it, and will know that they could probably do it again and get away with it, again. And again. And again. Who’s stopping them?

And also incensed that the news of this case has been kept secret for all this time by a number of different agencies. Why? In whose interest is it to keep this under wraps?

And does this level of secrecy extend to Defra Ministers? Do the people who are in a position to bring about change, and indeed who have indicated that a change may be on the cards, do they know about this?

I think this horrific case provides us all with a beautifully serendipitous opportunity to channel our anger.

Defra’s Call for Evidence on the impact of gamebird shooting is open until 1st November 2026. Defra is asking anyone who has experiential evidence about the impact, whether positive or negative, to submit that evidence to the review. Experiential evidence is ‘lived experience’; what you’ve learned from the real world, rather than a theoretical concept.

I would argue that learning about what happened to those five Hen Harrier chicks is having an impact, it’s a lived experience, and therefore qualifies as experiential evidence and Defra needs to hear about it.

One of my colleagues described it to me as a sort of victim impact statement – the kind of declaration that’s presented in court from family and friends when someone has been murdered and they want the judge to consider the wider impact of the crime when deciding on a sentence.

If Defra Ministers are the judges, then it’s up to us to let them know what sort of impact these relentless crimes are having on us. Whether you’re disturbed by it, angered, upset, frustrated that raptor persecution is still happening and most of the time the perpetrators are still getting away it, then tell Defra, in your own words, about how this affects you, as a decent, reasonable, law-abiding member of society.

You don’t need to fill in the technical Call for Evidence submission form; you can simply write an email to Gamebirds@defra.gov.uk and write ‘Call for Evidence’ in the subject line.

As a way of directing your anger and getting justice for those five stabbed Hen Harrier chicks, it’s remarkably satisfying.

The Call for Evidence closes at midnight on 1st November 2026.