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A short diversion from this blog’s theme, but an important one.

Press release from Trees for Life (6th January 2021)

Trees for Life crowdfunder to protect Scotland’s beavers raises £60,000

A crowdfunding appeal by Trees for Life to help protect Scotland’s endangered wild beavers has raised almost £60,000 – setting the scene for a court challenge to the Scottish Government’s beaver policy, which the charity says is causing needless loss of beavers’ lives.

[Photo by Scotland The Big Picture]

Trees for Life and legally specialist rewilding charity The Lifescape Project say the Government’s nature agency NatureScot is breaking the law by failing to make killing of beavers a last resort when the animals have unwanted impacts on agricultural land.

A month-long crowdfunder set out to raise at least £40,000 to cover the costs of a current judicial review of the Government’s approach. The legal challenge aims to ensure a safer future for beavers, which can be key allies in tackling the nature and climate emergencies.

The crowdfunder closed on 5 January, exceeding its target thanks to 1,500 supporters. Additional high-profile support came from television presenter and naturalist Chris Packham, whose campaigning conservation group Wild Justice donated £5,000. 

“The support for our campaign to protect Scotland’s biodiversity-boosting, flood-preventing beavers has been amazing, and every donation is hugely appreciated. Public opinion clearly supports a more nature-friendly, climate-friendly and farmer-friendly approach to beaver management,” said Steve Micklewright, Trees for Life’s Chief Executive.

Beavers’ dams create nature-rich and flood-reducing wetlands. When beavers sometimes also have unwanted local impacts on agricultural land, laws governing protected species require any intervention to have the least possible impact on their conservation. 

After the Scottish Government declared beavers a legally protected species in May 2019, those wanting to kill beavers or remove their dams or lodges must obtain a licence from NatureScot. Dozens of such licences have now been issued.

Because the Government says beavers cannot be relocated to new areas within Scotland – even though NatureScot has identified over 100,000 hectares of suitable habitat – the options for Tayside farmers whose crops are damaged by beavers are currently significantly limited.

A judicial review ruling in Trees for Life’s favour would ensure lethal control is a genuine last resort. Conservationists and others will be able to identify – with proper community engagement – suitable sites around Scotland to which beavers could be moved and be safe and welcome. 

This could also help prevent damage to farmland, and ensure farmers are less often put in the position of having to shoot popular and endangered animals.

Trees for Life is dedicated to rewilding the Scottish Highlands. See treesforlife.org.uk.

ENDS

Many thanks to the RPUK blog readers who supported this crowdfunder.

A flurry of reports over the Xmas period detailed how gamebirds had been shot and then dumped at a number of locations across the UK including inside the Peak District National Park (e.g. see here, here, here and here).

Well guess what? This obscene behaviour continues – here are some more examples.

Thanks to the blog reader who sent this photograph of a pile of dead birds, photographed on 27th December 2020, by the roadside in between a grouse moor and MOD land in Swaledale, North Yorkshire.

On Twitter there was another report, this time by an estate manager in Berkshire whose gamekeepers had alerted him to this:

And also on Twitter, in response to David Hill’s tweet, there was another report from North Yorkshire:

As I wrote last week, there are some sensible shooting folk on social media who are condemning this behaviour, and not just because it exposes shooting to bad publicity, and who are offering solutions (like licensing schemes that limit the number of birds released and require accountability for the number shot for example, and a suggestion that if shoots are ‘gifting’ the birds then the birds should be oven-ready) but there are still many others from within the industry who are either (a) denying it’s a widespread problem, (b) accusing ‘antis’ of trying to ‘set up’ shooting, and/or (c) slagging off anyone who dares to criticise, presumably in a futile bid to stop further criticism.

Unfortunately for the game shooting industry, this is an ongoing, criminal and widespread problem, much like illegal raptor persecution is, and it’s drawing even more attention to an industry already under intense pressure to clean up its act.

Previous examples include dumped gamebirds in Cheshire, Scottish borders (here), Norfolk (here), Perthshire (here), Berkshire (here), North York Moors National Park (here) and some more in North York Moors National Park (here) and even more in North Yorkshire (here), Co. Derry (here), West Yorkshire (here), and again in West Yorkshire (here), N Wales (here), mid-Wales (here), Leicestershire (here), Lincolnshire (here), Somerset (here), Derbyshire’s Peak District National Park (here) and Suffolk (here) and again in Suffolk (here).

And it’ll keep getting attention on this blog for as long as the gamebird shooting industry demands licences to kill protected birds of prey for the purpose of ‘saving’ gamebirds.

Some more blogs that you might find of interest:

Parkswatch Scotland: Three new year resolutions for Prince Charles in the Cairngorms (here)

Mark Avery: Thoughts on 2020 (1) – Driven Grouse Shooting (here)

Roy Dennis Wildlife Foundation: Bringing hope in troubled times (here)

Rob Sheldon: Sainsbury’s, obfuscation & toxic lead – day 35 (here)

Wild Justice: General Licences in general and our challenge to the NRW General Licences in particular (here)

Alick Simmons (guest blog for Mark Avery): Digging holes (here)

Guy Shrubsole: The climate sceptic’s grouse moor (here)

Jente Ottenburghs (guest blog for British Ornithologists’ Union): Soaring over Scotland (here)

Vulture Conservation Foundation: Bearded Vulture ‘Vigo’ is actually ‘Flysch’ from Haute Savoie (here)

Wild Justice: Gamekeeping gets a change of job description (here)

Thanks for all your continued interest and support in 2020….it’s been another very busy year.

Here are the top ten most read RPUK blogs over the last 12 months:

1. Satellite-tagged white-tailed eagle found poisoned on grouse moor in Cairngorms National Park (here)
2. Golden eagle Tom disappears in suspicious circumstances on Scottish grouse moor (here)
3. Missing eagle’s satellite tag found cut and wrapped in lead, dumped in river at Strathbraan (here)
4. 45 hen harriers ‘missing’ or confirmed illegally killed since 2018 (here)
5. The five brood meddled hen harriers from 2019 are all ‘missing’ (here)
6. Scottish Government commits to develop immediate licensing scheme for driven grouse shooting (here)
7. The eagle’s satellite tag found in the river: poetic injustice (here)
8. Licensing scheme for release of pheasants and red-legged partridge in England following Wild Justice legal challenge (here)
9. Post mortem reveals Welsh golden eagle had suffered gunshot injury (here)
10. RSPB announces its ‘new’ policy on gamebird shooting (here)

Here’s the latest pile of dumped gamebirds – pheasants that had been shot then chucked over a wall by the side of the road and left to rot. These were photographed by blog reader Lauren Francis on Boxing Day.

The location this time: Barking Road, Willisham, Suffolk.

There are some decent shooting folk on social media who are condemning this obscene behaviour, and not just because it exposes shooting to bad publicity, and who are offering solutions (like licensing schemes that limit the number of birds released and require accountability for the number shot for example, and a suggestion that if shoots are ‘gifting’ the birds then the birds should be oven-ready) but there are still many others from within the industry who are either (a) denying it’s a widespread problem, (b) accusing ‘antis’ of trying to ‘set up’ shooting, and/or (c) slagging off anyone who dares to criticise, presumably in a futile bid to stop further criticism.

Unfortunately for the game shooting industry, this is an ongoing, criminal and widespread problem, much like illegal raptor persecution, and it’s drawing the wrong sort of attention.

Previous examples include dumped gamebirds in Cheshire, Scottish borders (here), Norfolk (here), Perthshire (here), Berkshire (here), North York Moors National Park (here) and some more in North Yorkshire (here) and even more in North Yorkshire (here), Co. Derry (here), West Yorkshire (here), and again in West Yorkshire (here), N Wales (here), mid-Wales (here), Leicestershire (here), Lincolnshire (here), Somerset (here), Derbyshire’s Peak District National Park (here) and Suffolk, again (here).

And it’ll keep getting attention on this blog for as long as the gamebird shooting industry demands licences to allow them to kill protected birds of prey for the purpose of ‘saving’ their gamebirds.

Earlier this year the Spanish authorities raided a hunting estate in the province of Castilla y León after suspicions of illegal activity were raised.

The estate was being managed by a society of farmers and ranchers at the time, in an area designated as a Natura 2000 Special Protection Area (SPA) for birds.

The multi-agency search, which included the deployment of specialist poison-detection dogs, uncovered a pretty grim scene. This included the discovery of four Spanish imperial eagles, one Cinereous vulture, one buzzard, two red kites, one fox and one dog. Post mortems revealed they had been illegally poisoned and/or shot.

[Some of the victims found during the search]

It’s reported that almost all the victims had been hidden/buried, leading the authorities to state that they couldn’t be sure that all the victims had been found and that these ‘deliberate’ attempts to hide the corpses indicated that the poisoners/shooters were aware of the illegality.

The original news report can be read here (translated from Spanish) and there’s an easier translation to read via the Vulture Conservation Foundation website here.

What’s interesting in this case is the authorities’ decision to impose an immediate five-year hunting ban on the estate, before any prosecutions have taken place, ‘to facilitate the regeneration of the area’s wild fauna’.

We know, from a suite of prosecutions in recent years, that tackling the illegal poisoning of birds of prey is taken seriously in Spain with a multifaceted approach including the deployment of specialist poison detection dogs and investigators given the authority to conduct unannounced spot checks in areas of suspicion. In recent years successful prosecutions have resulted in massive fines, custodial sentences and extended hunting disqualifications for those convicted of laying poisoned baits (e.g. see here, here, here, here, here and here).

In previous cases the hunting disqualifications appear to have been applied to the individuals convicted of placing poisoned baits, rather than to the land where the offences took place, but this may be because those convicted were the actual landowners. This current case may differ in that the estate is reported to be managed by a society as opposed to an individual.

Whatever the circumstances, the five-year hunting ban is a very welcome move and hopefully criminal prosecutions of the individuals involved will also follow.

Compare and contrast to the illegal poisoning of birds of prey over here, which continues mostly without consequence.

These are some of the cases of illegal raptor poisoning reported this year alone, many during lockdown, and none of them are heading towards a prosecution:

The illegal killing of a white-tailed eagle found on a grouse moor inside the Cairngorms National Park in Scotland (here), the mass poisoning of 23 buzzards in a field in Co Cork, Ireland (here), the poisoning of four peregrines on Guernsey in the Channel Islands (here), the poisoning of a family’s pet dog, believed to have consumed a poisoned bait intended for birds of prey in Nidderdale, North Yorkshire (here), the poisoning of a buzzard found dead on a grouse moor in the North York Moors National Park (here), the poisoning of a buzzard in Nidderdale, North Yorkshire (here), the poisoning of a buzzard and a kestrel in Derbyshire (here), the poisoning of three peregrines and a buzzard in Staffordshire (here), the poisoning of a peregrine in South Yorkshire (here), the poisoning of two peregrines in North Yorkshire (here), the poisoning of a red kite in North Yorkshire (here) and the poisoning of a red kite found dead on a grouse moor in Scotland (here).

There may well be further poisoning cases that haven’t yet been publicised.

Let’s hope Scottish Ministers are paying attention to the Spanish model as they prepare to draw up the details of the new licensing regime for driven grouse shooting (here).