Author: RaptorPersecutionUK

Predictable shite as grouse season approaches

Yes, it’s that time of year again. The opening of the grouse-shooting season is upon us (although this year it’ll start on August 13th as the traditional opening day of the 12th falls on a Sunday) and the usual suspects are out in force to tell us all how great grouse moors are and how we should all be grateful for the conservation and economic benefits they provide. Not forgetting the predictable swipe at the RSPB along the way.

Shooting Times has an article suggesting that it’s time to sever ties with the RSPB due to their ‘bullying’ ways (see here). The best line has to be this: “For too long we have acted as gentlemen, only for our big-heartedness to be thrown back in our faces“. That’s priceless! Have a look here at an earlier blog we wrote about how the RSPB has been treated by these ‘gentlemen’!

An STV news article (here) has SGA Chairman Alex Hogg telling us how grouse shooting can save the world…or at least the rural economy, calling it a “modern industry” (ahem) and laughably explaining how “People admire Scotland’s diversity of landscape, its well-managed moorlands teeming with wildlife being a huge part of that attraction“!!!

An alternative view of grouse moor management can be found in The Guardian blog (here), where a national campaign against moorland bog-burning is due to be launched with a protest walk over the now infamous Walshaw Grouse Moor this Sunday.

Latest poisoning figures are just a smokescreen

So, SGA Chairman Alex Hogg is “hugely encouraged” by the forthcoming 2012 poisoning statistics, due to be released by the government agency SASA in the next few days (see here for STV news story and here for SGA press release). The figures are expected to show just two confirmed raptor poisonings in the first half of 2012, a considerable drop from the figures of previous years.

Unfortunately, these figues are just a small part of the story, as many regular readers will already be aware. We’ve blogged about this before, back in March when the poisoning figures for 2011 were published (see here for our previous post). As we said then, these figures look promising on a superficial level but do they really reflect the true extent of illegal persecution?

The lower poisoning figures may well be a true indicator that fewer people are still poisoning raptors. That’s what the SGA and friends clearly think and would like the rest of us to think. However, another equally plausible explanation is that the poisoners are just getting better at hiding the evidence. We’ve always known that the published poisoning figures just show a tiny fraction of actual poisoning incidents; these poisonings usually take place in vastly remote areas where few people are around to find the evidence. The poisoned birds that have been discovered have usually been discovered by chance. More recently, they’ve been discovered because more raptors are now fitted with satellite tags so it’s easier to follow their movements and to find the locations where they die.

There is another plausible explanation, too. As we’ve also said before, poisoning is not the only method of illegally killing raptors. Perhaps the lower poisoning figures reflect a substantial shift in the methods used to persecute raptors. Are more raptors being shot at the nest? Are more raptors being shot at roost sites? Are more nests and eggs being destroyed? Are more raptors being caught in traps and being bludgeoned to death? The persecutors know very well that the government doesn’t record these types of incidents; only reported poisoning incidents are published. What better way to make it look like you’ve cleaned up your act than by reducing the poisoning but increasing the other techniques that you know will never be officially reported? (Except by the RSPB who always publish these other persecution incidents in their annual reports, but which are then dismissed as being ‘unofficial’ and ‘exaggerated’ by the game-shooting lobby).

Is it plausible that other persecution methods have now taken precedence over poisoning? Let’s look at the hen harrier situation. The UK’s hen harriers continue to spiral towards oblivion and the main cause has been identified as illegal persecution. Everyone knows it and even the government has acknowledged it. But how many hen harriers do you see listed in the annual poisoning figures? Very few indeed. Mainly because poison is rarely used to kill harriers – they’re not typically a scavenging species that depends on carrion so they’re harder to poison. But just because they don’t feature on the annual list of poisoned raptors doesn’t mean they’re not persecuted! Of course they are; the national hen harrier survey results say it all.

If anyone is still in any doubt about whether the latest poisoning figures are an accurate reflection of the extent of illegal raptor persecution, then consider this. Will the figures for Jan-June 2012 include this ‘missing’ satellite-tagged golden eagle (here), or this ‘missing’ satellite-tagged golden eagle (here), or this dead golden eagle found with substantial injuries (here), or this dead golden eagle found in what was described as ‘suspicious circumstances’ here? Or just the one confirmed poisoned golden eagle found dead in Lochaber (here)?

Bowland eagle owls thwart alleged persecution attempts

Some great news reported by Tony Warburton MBE of the World Owl Trust: the Bowland eagle owls have thwarted alleged persecution attempts to produce two fledglings on the United Utilities Estate.

Full report by WOT here

quarter of a million blog hits

Our blog has reached a milestone – over a quarter of a million hits!

Thanks to everyone who has viewed, contributed, commented, shared on Facebook or retweeted on Twitter. Interest in the blog continues to grow, from 55,000 hits in the first year, 177,000 by the second year anniversary, and now 250,000+ at the 2.5 year marker. These figures have exceeded our expectations and reflect an increasing awareness of the raptor persecution issue.

There’s still a long way to go before we match David Beckham’s facebook ‘likes’, reported at 20 million yesterday, but hey, we’ve done alright for a handful of individuals who wanted to share our perspective on something that others would prefer was still a well-kept secret.

” All that is neccessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing“. Let’s keep doing something.

Lochindorb hare snare trial: latest

Quelle surprise! The Lochindorb Estate hare snare trial was adjourned yesterday for deliberations. It will continue in mid-August (coincidentally, after the opening of the grouse shooting season).

Conveniently, the timing of the latest adjournment also coincides with the opening of the game fair at Moy Estate today. Anybody remember the Moy Estate? See here for a reminder. How surprising to see prominent members of the game-shooting lobby attending an event at this venue, along with SNH Chairman Andrew Thin (see here and here). Actually, it’s not a surprise at all. Carry on regardless.

Pheasant poults killed by ruthless cyborgs

Jedi Knights, the protectors of the countryside, are warning of ruthless cyborgs disguised as red kites coming from the Death Star to kill pheasant poults. The Knights have called upon their Chosen One, Albert Hogburn, to help them neutralise the Dark Force.

Albert said: “Teach me this at Yoda College they did. Uphold peace and justice will we. Evil red kites prevail shall not and lightsabre force feel will they. Stopped they must be; on this all depends. Carrion-eaters not they are and rural economy collapse it will if defeated they are not. Only a fully-trained Jedi Knight, with the Force as his ally, will conquer and save the pheasants”.

Donald Spewing-Moore of the Royal Bird Protection Society said: “I’m sorry, I can’t talk right now, a kestrel just stole my car. These damn raptors are getting way out of hand. I wonder if Albert and his Jedi Knights will deploy their Imperial Star Destroyer to patrol my house?”

A totally unconnected story in the Dumfries & Galloway Standard here.

Photo: a decomposing mountain hare in a snare

In light of this week’s test court case about whether it’s legal to snare mountain hares (the Lochindorb Estate trial), a contributor has sent in this topical photograph. It shows a decomposing mountain hare that had been caught in a snare on another well-known grouse moor and left to rot.

In Scotland, it is a legal requirement for snare operators to check each of their snares at least once a day at intervals of no more than 24 hours. It is an offence to fail to release or remove an animal, whether alive or dead, while carrying out such an inspection.

It is clear that an offence had been committed in this instance. The contributor says the recent incident was reported to the police, who initially failed to respond. When a follow-up request was made, and cc’d to the local MSP, the police did respond and claimed they then visited the estate, armed with a grid reference, but couldn’t find the corpse. A police investigation into alleged hare snaring on the estate was not forthcoming.

The snaring legislation in Scotland has been recently updated, bringing in new requirements for snare-operator training & accreditation, snare-operator ID tags to be fitted to snares, and record keeping for every single set snare. GWCT has produced a snaring guide (2012) that provides detailed information for snaring in different parts of the UK – see here. OneKind has it’s own view on the adequacy of the snare-training courses on offer – see here.

Lochindorb hare snare trial: charges dropped against one of the accused gamekeepers

The trial against two gamekeepers from the Lochindorb Estate, accused of setting snares to trap mountain hares (see here and here for background) has had a dramatic turn today, according to the Forres Gazette.

It is reported that one of the accused gamekeepers, Kevin Begg, had the charge against him dropped. The reason for this has not yet been reported. The Gazette claims that the fiscal, Ian Smith (more about Mr Smith after the trial) says he now intends to call Begg as a witness against Lochindorb head gamekeeper David Taylor. Both Taylor and Begg had denied the charges.

A report on today’s events in court can be read in the Forres Gazette here.

The trial continues tomorrow.

Blundering Benyon gives evidence at wildlife crime inquiry

Everyone’s favourite Minister Richard Benyon has been giving evidence at the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee’s inquiry into wildlife crime (see here, here and here for earlier blog posts about this inquiry).

Some of the topics on which Benyon was questioned included #buzzardgate, hen harriers, the introduction of vicarious liability in England, the legislation concerning possession of illegal poison, and the independence of Natural England.

So how did he do?

He started off badly when questioned about the need for legislation to criminalise the possession of certain poisons. The legislation is already in place in Scotland but a loophole in the English legislation means that ‘possession’ (rather than ‘use’) is still not an offence – see here for an RSPB press release last year on this very topic. Bungling Benyon suggested that the current legislation was adequate and didn’t require updating. He was picked up on this a bit later by the Committee Chair, who insisted on clarifying whether there was a difference between ‘possession’ and ‘use’ in the legislation. Benyon chose the safe option and asked whether he could make the clarification in writing at a later date, presumably to give himself time to actually go and read the legislation.

On the issue of whether to introduce vicarious liability legislation in England for raptor persecution crime, Benyon commented that there were no plans to introduce VL but he will watch the impact of it in Scotland. That’s fair enough. Why waste time and funds to introduce something that may be completely useless as a tool to combat raptor crime until you’ve seen whether it can make a difference in Scotland. It was suggested to Benyon that some might say the Scottish government takes wildlife crime more seriously than their English counterparts. Benyon rejected that and said there are wildlife crime measures that are making a difference and the legislation is adequate. Unfortunately he didn’t give any examples.

When asked about #buzzardgate, he basically said he loved buzzards but that some of the people protesting about the ‘study’ had misunderstood the research. Er, what was there to misunderstand? Benyon and his game-shooting cronies wanted to spend our money removing native buzzards from the wild, on private shooting estates, for the benefit of mass-introduced non-native species that are bred for the sole purpose of being killed for sport. “I recognise that it hit a wall of credibility“, said Benyon. Too bloody right it did.

When asked whether he was doing anything specific to protect the hen harrier, Benyon stated, “Yes, we are“. He said he was looking at the possibilty of a project that might work, but he didn’t want to provide any specific details because “it is at a very conceptual stage“. Hmm. Could this be the controversial plan to introduce a so-called ‘ceiling’ for hen harrier numbers, a concept that has been knocking around since 2008 (see here and here)? We’ll have to wait and see.

Benyon was then asked: To what extent are you satisfied that Natural England is making sufficient use of its civil enforcement powers in relation to SSSIs? Benyon’s response: “…….It is also very important that Natural England is an arm’s length body with the neccessary statutory basis that they have, and that they are able to operate the laws and sanctions that they have freely and unencumbered“. Now that’s an interesting statement! If you’ve been following Mark Avery’s superb analysis of what went on in the Walshaw grouse moor fiasco (see here for his 23rd blog entry on the subject), you’d be hard pressed to believe that Natural England acted “freely and unencumbered”. There’s still plenty more to be uncovered about what happened between Natural England and Walshaw Moor Estate but rest assured that Mark Avery will have a good go at getting to the bottom of it. Benyon’s statement may just come back to haunt him.

To read the full transcript of Benyon’s evidence to the Environmental Audit Committee, see here. Bear in mind that this is the uncorrected version; the corrected version should be posted shortly.

The EAC has now finished compiling the written and oral evidence in this inquiry and a report should be published in due course.

The future of the Hen Harrier in Scotland: public seminar

A public seminar on the future of the hen harrier in Scotland is to be held in September, hosted by the Watson Bird Centre in Dalry, Dumfries & Galloway. The centre was established to celebrate the achievements of the late Donald and Jeff Watson, the father and son who were recognised as world experts on the hen harrier and golden eagle respectively.

The seminar day is Saturday 22 September 2012:

13.00-14.00hr – Lunch at Lochinvar Hotel / Clachan Inn

14.00hr – A History of Hen Harriers in the South of Scotland (Chris Rollie, RSPB)

14.20hr – Hen Harriers in Orkney – A Success Story (Erik Meek, RSPB)

15.00hr – Hen Harriers and Grouse on Langholm: Managing a Special Challenge (Aly McCluskie, Langholm Moor Demonstration Project)

15.30hr – Tea / Coffee

16.00hr – Hen Harrier in Scotland Today – What Does the Future Hold? (Brian Etheridge, Scottish Raptor Monitoring Scheme)

16.30hr – Discussion

For further information, contact the Watson Bird Centre here