Author: RaptorPersecutionUK

A new paper has just been published in the latest edition of British Birds (March 2017) detailing a 30-year study of breeding merlins on four grouse shooting estates in the Lammermuir Hills in south east Scotland:

Heavisides, A., Barker, A. and Poxton, I. (2017). Population and breeding biology of merlins in the Lammermuir Hills. British Birds 110: 138-154.

The authors are long time members of Lothian & Borders Raptor Study Group and this paper is the latest in a series of peer-reviewed scientific papers written by Scottish Raptor Study Group members reporting on the detrimental effects of intensive grouse moor management on several raptor populations. Other recent publications have included the catastrophic decline of hen harriers on NE Scotland grouse moors, here and the long-term decline of peregrines in the uplands of NE Scotland, here.

The results of the Lammermuir merlin study suggest that illegal persecution is NOT thought to be a contributing factor in this population’s decline. Merlins are generally tolerated on UK grouse moors (presumably as they’re not a big threat to red grouse) and the grouse shooting industry will often use the merlin’s breeding success on grouse moors to counter any accusation that raptors (in general) are illegally killed there. Obviously, that argument doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.

What is suggested in this paper is that an intensification of grouse moor management in the Lammermuirs over the last ten years has probably had an impact on this merlin population, particularly an increase in the heather burning regime.

It’s also interesting to note the authors’ records of other breeding raptor species in the Lammermuirs:

Only three hen harrier broods were found throughout the study period, the last in 1994.

There were at least three sites where peregrines attempted to breed in the early years of the study, the last successful one being in 1994.

Buzzards are commonly seen in the Lammermuirs but only nest on the periphery of the study area, “probably because all of the suitable trees that were used previously have now been removed”.

Short-eared owl sightings were “quite frequent” in the early study years and nests were “occasionally found”, but “these casual observations declined as the years went by and became unusual during the later years”.

Unfortunately we’re not allowed to publish the full paper here (you’ll either have to subscribe to the British Birds journal or contact one of the authors and ask for a copy for personal use). We can, though, publish the abstract. Here it is:

This long-term study was brought to an abrupt end after the 2014 breeding season. This is touched on in the paper but has been more elaborately described during recent conference presentations by one of the authors. The authors mention they enjoyed good cooperation from landowners and gamekeepers during the early study years, and were granted permission to drive their vehicles on estate roads to help access some of the more remote nest sites. However, in 2015, when the researchers contacted the estates to let them know that fieldwork was about to begin, two of the four estates told them they were no longer welcome and withdrew permission for vehicular access.

The authors believe this was a reaction to criticism made directly by the study team of various aspects of the estates’ grouse moor management techniques, particularly the increased use of bridge (rail) traps that were catching / killing non-target species such as dippers, merlin and ring ouzels. The authors also speculated that it may have been a more ‘general backlash’ following recent widespread criticism of driven grouse moor management across the UK.

Whatever the reason was, it flies in the face of the Scottish Moorland Group’s recent claim to the Scottish Parliament’s Environment Committee that grouse moor owners, “Would very much like to see greater cooperation between ourselves, the Raptor Study Groups, and the RSPB” (see here).

Really? Funny way of showing it.

The two estates in question are reported to be the Roxburghe Estate and the Hopes Estate. It’s fascinating to see the Hopes Estate involved in all this.

The Hopes Estate is owned by Robbie Douglas Miller, who also happens to run the Wildlife Estates Scotland (WES) scheme, administered by Scottish Land & Estates, as a way of showcasing the, ahem, fabulous work that estates undertake to protect wildlife. We’ve recently blogged about one of these accredited WES estates – the Newlands Estate where gamekeeper Billy Dick was convicted of throwing rocks at, and stamping on, a buzzard (see here).

In 2014 the Hopes Estate gained accreditation to the WES scheme – independently verified, of course. Estates that are awarded accreditation have to meet certain criteria, including:

• Commitment to best practice
• Adoption of game and wildlife management plans that underpin best practice
• Maintaining species and habitats records
• Conservation and collaborative work
• Integration with other land management activities (such as farming, forestry and tourism)
• Social, economic and cultural aspects (such as employment, community engagement and communications)

Hmm.

About eighteen months ago in October 2015 we wrote a blog about the use of medicated grit to dose red grouse with a parasitic wormer drug called Flubendazole.

We’d learned that this practice was largely unregulated (surprise!), that some grouse moor managers were using a super-strength drug that was 10 times, and sometimes 20 times, the strength permitted for use in the UK, and, most incredibly, that the Government’s statutory agency (Veterinary Medicines Directorate (VMD)) responsible for monitoring meat to ensure harmful drugs are not entering the human food chain, had not ever tested a single red grouse for residues of Flubendazole because, they said, they didn’t know where to find dead red grouse (see here).

It was shocking stuff. When we pointed out to the so-called specialists at the VMD that dead red grouse could be found at the same processing facilities where the VMD was already testing other gamebirds for veterinary residues (duh), the VMD promised to start testing red grouse in 2016.

So, we waited until the end of the 2016 grouse shooting season and submitted an FoI to the VMD to ask them how many individual red grouse they’d tested in 2016 in England & Scotland, and from how many geographically separate grouse moors the birds had originated, and a few other things too.

The VMD’s response is staggering. Here it is:

So in 2016, the VMD managed to test four red grouse from England and two from Scotland. That’s it. And they apparently don’t have a record of where those six samples originated, which is very hard to believe. What would happen if the samples were found to contain illegal residues of this veterinary drug? Would the VMD just shrug their shoulders and say, ‘Sorry, can’t take any action ‘cos we’re too incompetent to have recorded the site of origin’?

We wondered what proportion of the 2016 red grouse bag this ludicrously small sample size represented. Unfortunately we’ve been unable to find out how many red grouse were shot during the 2016 shooting season because there is no statutory requirement for the grouse shooting industry to record these data, let alone publish them. The GWCT apparently maintains a record of the national bag but who’s going to believe their figures, especially when their Director of Research is on record as saying information about grouse moor management should be “kept under the radar” in case the regulators start sniffing around?

What we did find, though, was an estimate of the number of red grouse shot in the UK in 2012/2013 (source: PACEC report 2014).

So let’s assume this estimate of 700,000 shot red grouse was applicable to the 2016 shooting season. Does the VMD believe that sampling six out of 700,000 is a good indicator of compliance?

So if you choose to eat red grouse, that so-called “natural” and “healthy” product (see here, here, here and here), bear in mind that not only has that meat probably not been tested for veterinary medicine residues and pesticides, but it also won’t have been tested for toxic lead either (because for some strange reason, gamebird meat is exempt from lead testing).

Bon appetit!

Ps. For anyone interested in the VMD’s wider sampling regime in 2016 (e.g. cattle, sheep etc), this spreadsheet is helpful: national-statutory-surveillance-scheme-for-veterinary-residues-in-animals-and-animal-products_2016

Sometimes it feels like we only started this blog yesterday, and sometimes it feels like we’ve been writing it for years. It turns out we have – seven of them.

The number of blog hits received in the last year almost doubled from the previous year and we’re now heading towards three million views. That’s very satisfying and is undoubtedly a result of an increased social reach on twitter and facebook. Thank you to everyone who reacts and spreads the word either by re-tweeting or sharing. Thanks also to those who comment on the blog, and on social media – it makes it all the more interesting, for us and for other readers.

Our top ten most read blogs from the last year are as follows:

1. Natural England issues licence to kill buzzards to protect pheasants (here)
2. National Trust pulls grouse shooting lease in Peak District National Park (here)
3. Queen’s Balmoral Estate accused of mountain hare massacre (here)
4. Faking it (here)
5. More mountain hares slaughtered in the Angus Glens (here)
6. More mountain hares massacred in the Cairngorms National Park (here)
7. The illegal killing of birds of prey in the Cairngorms National Park (here)
8. Chris Packham has a message for Marks & Spencer (here)
9. Mass raptor poisoning in Wales: location revealed (here)
10. Catastrophic decline of breeding hen harriers on grouse moors in NE Scotland (here)

This year, an incredibly generous sponsor has stepped forward to help pay for the time it takes to research and then write this blog. We’re massively grateful for this support, not just as a vote of confidence in what we’ve been doing, but because it will allow us to do so much more.

And there’s plenty more to do.

Here’s to another year of it.

Scottish Greens MSP Andy Wightman has tabled a parliamentary motion calling on the Scottish Government to increase the investigatory powers of the SSPCA.

Regular blog readers will know that a succession of Environment Ministers (five!) in the Scottish Government have dragged out this fiasco for an embarrassingly long number of years (six years today, in fact).

For new blog readers, here’s a summary timeline.

In January this year, in response to a parliamentary question from Scottish Greens MSP Mark Ruskell, the Environment Cabinet Secretary Roseanna Cunningham said she would announce a decision “in the first half of 2017“. That gives her until the end of June.

She was also asked about this decision during her visit last weekend to the Scottish Raptor Study Group’s conference. She responded with caution and told the audience it was a “complex issue” and much more complex than people thought.

It isn’t complex at all. It’s quite straightforward. Here is a brief overview of the issue:

Currently, the SSPCA has the statutory power to investigate wildlife crimes that involve an animal in distress. So for example, if they are called out to an incident of a golden eagle that had been caught in an illegally-set spring trap and the eagle was still alive, the SSPCA has the power to collect evidence as part of a criminal investigation. This is because they have powers under the animal welfare legislation and this incident would certainly fall into a welfare category where the animal was ‘under the control of man’.

However, if they are called out to an incident where a golden eagle had eaten a poisoned bait and had died two minutes before the SSPCA arrived on scene, the SSPCA does not currently have the power to investigate because the welfare legislation doesn’t apply (the bird is already dead) and the dead bird is not ‘under the control of man’. In this scenario, all the SSPCA can do is to call the police and hope that the police attend the scene in a timely manner. How stupid is that?

Another example – if the SSPCA was called out to an incident of an illegally-snared badger, and that badger was already dead, and the SSPCA found 100 illegally-set snares at the same location, the SSPCA would not be able to investigate; they would have to rely upon the police to attend. If the badger was still alive (suffering), the SSPCA could investigate.

The proposal laid out in the consultation is to widen the investigatory powers of the SSPCA so that they’re not just limited to operating under welfare legislation; the increased powers, if granted, would also allow them to operate under certain parts of the Wildlife & Countryside Act in addition to the welfare legislation.

Importantly, the increased powers would  allow them to continue their investigations into animal welfare incidents where an animal is in distress, but also to investigate wildlife crimes where the animal is already dead, and even wildlife crimes that haven’t yet involved an animal – for example an illegally-set trap.

Here is MSP Andy Wightman’s parliamentary motion:

If you live in Scotland, please contact your MSP and encourage them to support this parliamentary motion. Environment Cabinet Secretary Roseanna Cunningham needs to see the strength of feeling on this before she makes her decision in June. If you’re not sure who your MSP is, you can find them here.