According to the Ross-shire Journal 20 May 2011, Northern Constabulary are investigating the possible poisoning of a buzzard found dead in May. Discovered by a dog-walker near Dundonnell, Wester Ross on 14 May 2011, the carcass was covered in dead insects. Dead insects on a carcass are often an indication of the presence of a poisonous substance. The buzzard has been sent for toxic analysis.
Thanks to the contributor who sent this in.
Police in Hertfordshire have launched an investigation after a nesting buzzard died after being shot with a shotgun. Full story here
Two years ago today, this dead golden eagle was discovered by hill walkers in Glen Orchy, Argyll. Government tests later showed it had been poisoned by the illegal pesticide Carbofuran. This poisoning incident made the national press (e.g. here).
Several days later, a multi-agency search was conducted in and around Glen Orchy. The police-led operation included the Oban Community Policing Team, specialist wildlife crime officers from three police forces (Strathclyde, Lothian & Borders and Central), experts from the National Wildlife Crime Unit, pesticide experts from the Scottish Government and representatives from the RSPB and Scottish SPCA. The police said afterwards that they were following a positive line of inquiry.
Meanwhile, during the police search two handguns were found in gamekeeper Tom McKellar’s loft. Eighteen months later in December 2010, McKellar was convicted at the High Court in Glasgow for having prohibited weapons. However, he avoided the usual mandatory five year custodial sentence and instead received 300 hours community service. Story here
So what happened to that ‘positive line of inquiry’ in the eagle poisoning investigation? Good question.
Here is a letter that was published in today’s edition of The Scotsman:
“I recently had another holiday in Scotland – my third visit this year – principally to do bird and wildlife watching.
Like many others I have always wanted to go bird watching in Malta and Cyprus, but have boycotted these islands on principal because of their hunting and persecution of birds.
On each visit to Scotland I learn of more illegal poisoning and persecution of raptors – including a major tourist attraction, the iconic golden eagle.
I am beginning to think that my patronage of your tourist industry is somewhat hypocritical in view of my stance on the European countries I mentioned.
It appears that wildlife crime detection is grossly underfunded and that penalties are woefully inadequate.
What good is a fine of a few thousand pounds to a gamekeeper whose multi-millionaire lord and master will pay the fine anyway?
I think a universal boycott by wildlide enthusiasts would be damaging to the economies of Scotland, and I implore the Scottish Government to make a concerted effort to stamp out these crimes.”
P. Bateson, Halifax.
The Scotsman letter here
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In an article published in The Courier on 30 May 2011, Ian Thomson, an investigator for the RSPB, expressed his concern about the high number of wild birds illegally killed in Tayside. 14 incidents were recorded there between March 2010 and March 2011. In the same article, it is reported that PC Bryan Prestwood, a wildlife crime officer based in Angus, ‘believes the biggest problem is with gamekeepers and land managers’. Full article here
In an angry response published on 6 June 2011, Alex Hogg suggested it was ‘unfair to accuse gamekeepers of wildlife crime’. His letter here
I think people will make up their own minds Alex, based on the factual evidence and government statistics. You’ve even said yourself, on many occasions, that if gamekeepers were to be given licences to kill protected raptors then illegal raptor poisoning would stop. This notion was also repeated last week by David Hendry of Cardney Estate in his BBC 2 Landward interview. Quite a strange prophecy from a ‘profession’ that claims not to be involved with wildlife crime, don’t you think?
For those still in any doubt whether some gamekeepers are involved in willdife crime, and specifically raptor persecution, here’s a link to a piece we wrote on the issue last year, including some revealing statistics provided by the RSPB. Here’s a link to another piece we wrote last year, with the most recently-published RSPB statistics. These show clearly that 85% of people who were convicted of illegally killing birds of prey between 2003-2008 were gamekeepers!
A GAMEKEEPER who was found asleep in a chair in his kitchen with a shotgun and rifle lying on the kitchen table was fined £160 at Inverness Sheriff Court this week.
Martin MacKenzie has been suspended from his job and also faces losing his firearms licence.
Depute Fiscal Karen Smith said police had to attend the house at Mains of Aberarder and found Mackenzie asleep at the kitchen table.
The rifle and shotgun were lying on the table, she told Sheriff Ian Abercrombie.
Mackenzie (36) of Craggan Valley, Kiltarlity, admitted on May 18 last year failing to comply with conditions of his firearms certificate that he failed to keep the guns in a secure designated place.
Craig Wood, solicitor, said Mackenzie was married with two children, and had been a keeper at Arberarder for 10 years. “Since this incident he has been suspended by his employers.”
Mr Wood added that a letter had been received from the Chief Constable asking for Mackenzie’s certificate to be revoked, but this was the subject of an appeal.
“He had been using his guns and intended to clean them,” said Mr Wood. “He took several phone calls and when the police attended he accepts he should have dealt with it more expeditiously. He is a perfectly reasonable human being.”
So, it appears that Northern Constabulary consider falling asleep in your home in charge of unsecured firearms an offence serious enough to revoke a certificate. No complaints here and well done to the newly-appointed Chief Constable of Northern Constabulary, Mr George Graham. It follows then surely that the Moy and Skibo gamekeepers, convicted last week, should also have their firearms certificates revoked given the seriousness of their crimes? If you measure seriousness in terms of the court’s punishment, then both James Rolfe (Moy Estate) and Dean Barr (Skibo Estate) committed crimes far more serious than the one committed by Martin MacKenzie at Aberarder:
Rolfe = £1500 fine; Barr = £3300 fine; MacKenzie = £160 fine.
I also wonder whether MacKenzie is a member of the SGA, and if so, whether he faces sanctions in light of his firearms conviction? Incidentally, there’s still no public statement of condemnation from the SGA over last week’s convictions of the Moy & Skibo keepers. They also haven’t said whether Rolfe or Barr are SGA members and if so, whether their SGA membership has been terminated after their criminal convictions. Hopefully the SGA’s bed-fellows at PAW Scotland will be asking these questions.
Many thanks to the contributor who brought this article to our attention.
Grampian Police are appealing for information after a shot peregrine had to be destroyed. The badly injured falcon was discovered in woodlands at the Pass of Ballater in the Cairngorms National Park on 27 April by a dog walker. Tests showed the bird had been wounded by a shotgun, with the pellets causing a serious fracture to its right leg.
Force Wildlife Crime Officer Dave MacKinnon says ” I am appealing for anyone, particularly in the upper Deeside area, who may have information as to who is responsible for shooting this protected bird. It is an absolute disgrace that anyone thinks they have justification for shooting a rare and specially protected bird.
There are a few known peregrine nest sites in the Ballater area. These birds like to nest on cliffs hence the reason for them choosing to trying to live and breed in upper Deeside.
This latest incident of raptor persecution in Grampian clearly indicates that some people are still prepared to break the law risking a custodial sentence, the reputation of their employers, their livelihoods and their right to possess firearms.”
This statement hints that the finger of suspicion might be pointing at someone who works in the shooting industry, perhaps on a shooting estate. The Pass of Ballatar runs through land owned by Invercauld Estate, according to a well-known geographical resource. However, this bird wasn’t neccessarily shot at the Pass of Ballater, it was just found injured there. It could have been shot somewhere else nearby – there are several other well-known shooting estates in this area close to Ballatar whose employees have also previously been convicted of wildlife crime.
Anyone with information should call Grampian Police on 0845 600 5700.
BBC news story here
More details here
Cumbria Police are investigating the posioning of a red kite – the third kite to be killed in the region since a re-introduction project began last August.
The first dead kite from the project was shot dead in Dentdale in September 2010. The second dead kite had been killed by a shotgun wound in the Grizedale area, found under its roost tree on April 20 2011. The latest reported dead kite was discovered in January 2011 near Esthwaite Water, Hawkshead. Toxicology results have now confirmed this bird had been poisoned.
News story here
Episode 11 of the BBC 2 Scotland ‘Landward’ programme went out on Friday 27 May and included a segment on the new vicarious liability regulation in the Wildlife and Natural Environment (Scotland) Act 2011. The programme is available here for a limited period.
The segment opened with Duncan Orr-Ewing, Head of Species at RSPB Scotland, who told the interviewer, “Bird of prey poisoning is particularly associated with driven grouse moors in the upland of Scotland, in the central and eastern highlands, parts of Perthshire and also down in the southern uplands”.
The interviewer, Dougie Vipond, asked: “So who is doing this? Who is killing the birds?”
Orr-Ewing: “Well, it is estate employees, gamekeepers who are usually involved, but they are only employees, they are acting under the direct instructions so ultimately it is the landowners that are responsible for this”.
A short section followed with a brief interview with Liz Plath, listed as a rural law specialist and a partner at Thorntons Law LLP. Basically she explained in simple terms how vicarious liability brings the landowner or the employer into the frame in cases of raptor poisoning.
Next up was Alex Hogg, chairman of the SGA, whose opening line was: “Professional gamekeepers do not poison raptors”. Funny that, because if you bother to look back at the statistics on raptor poisoning for the ten-year period that Hogg has been in post, you’ll see that raptor poisoning incidents have been recorded on many estates, and yes, ‘professional’ gamekeepers have been convicted.
He then contradicted himself (and not for the first time) by saying: “It’s only a small minority that are still at it. A rogue few if you like”. Lest we forget, here is the official government map showing confirmed raptor poisoning incidents between 2006-2010. Widespread, I’m sure you’ll agree, and the trend is pointing upwards.
He continued: “And we’ve tried our hardest over the past, I’ve now been in this job for ten years, to impress on everybody that it’s absolutely illegal to poison raptors”. Peer pressure from Hogg and co., while welcome, has been ineffective. It can’t help the situation when he and others from his industry continue to claim that raptors are having a significantly negative effect on game birds, songbirds, waders and lambs. Is there any scientific evidence for this? No, not a shred.
Next up came David Hendry, listed as the proprietor of Cardney Estate, near Dunkeld in Perthshire. Now this was an interesting interview. The piece opened with an introduction to Hendry, and video footage of a diving osprey on his estate. We were told that this estate ‘is home to many endangered birds of prey’. Unfortunately, Hendry was not asked how many and what species of raptors made their home there. The osprey was implied, but of course the osprey only eats fish, not exotic red-legged partridge (also known as French partridge) or pheasant, which are reared and released in large numbers for sport shooting on this estate, according to this shooting directory.
Vipond talked about the belief that the only way to stop poisoning is to introduce a licensing system which would allow landowners to control [kill] raptors. Hendry agreed, and suggested “it should become the gamekeeper’s job for instance to look after the rare raptors like harriers, your merlins, bring on your red kites, but they should also be allowed to reduce buzzards and sparrowhawks to numbers that are sustainable, because what we have today is not sustainable”.
Ok, so this is the first time we’ve officially heard that sparrowhawks are also the landowners’ intended target for licensed killing. Until now, the list has ‘just’ included buzzards and ravens. So what happens if they get the go ahead to kill these species? Will we see goshawks added to the next list? They’re just an over-sized sparrowhawk after all, so why not? And golden eagles? They’re just over-sized buzzards, so why not? Where will it stop?
It’s also very interesting that he thinks the current number of buzzards and sparrowhawks is ‘unsustainable’. According to this shooting website, Cardney Estate offers shooting days where between 200-400 exotic birds (partridge/pheasant) can be shot. That’s 200-400 birds per shooting day, depending on the time in the season. In September 2010, a record 677 birds were shot on one day according to one participant! Sounds to me like this sporting estate is doing very nicely thank you, without the need to kill off any indigenous protected raptors, whatever species they may be.
We then went back to Orr-Ewing, who was asked for his opinion about the need to ‘manage’ [kill] protected raptors. “These birds of prey are rightly protected because they’re vulnerable. We have a history of killing birds of prey in Scotland, many species are just recovering from that situation, there’s no other country in Europe that [legally] kills birds of prey”.
His first three points are accurate, but his last statement is not. In 2008 the provincial government of Lower Austria issued a decree allowing hunters to shoot 1,000 buzzards and 250 goshawks over the following five years. It previously allowed the killing of Montagu’s harriers until the EC stepped in to halt it. The decree allowing the legal persecution of buzzards and goshawks resulted in an international public outcry – the same can be expected if the licensed killing of raptors for the benefit of the game bird-shooting industry is permitted in Scotland.
And of course, it’s not just poison that is used to illegally kill raptors. Unfortunately our government does not produce annual statistics on the other incidences of raptor persecution that take place every single year. Thankfully, the RSPB does. Their annual reports (one covering bird persecution in the UK as a whole, and the other covering incidents in Scotland) are a welcome insight into the extent of the problem. Their 2010 annual reports are due for publication in the very near future. Their efforts to compile and publish these reports are worthy of the public’s gratitude because without them, we would only have Alex Hogg and co’s word about the extent of illegal raptor killing on Scotland’s sporting estates.
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