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From which grouse shooting estate did Hen Harrier Stelmaria ‘disappear’?

Earlier this month RSPB Scotland announced that four of this year’s satellite-tagged hen harriers had ‘disappeared’ in suspicious circumstances on Scottish grouse moors (see here).

We then highlighted how two of those four missing hen harriers (Margot & Stelmaria) had ‘disappeared’ inside the Cairngorms National Park (see here).

[RPUK map showing approximate last known locations of hen harriers Margot & Stelmaria]

Yesterday we looked at the last known location of hen harrier Margot, which was on a grouse shooting estate that’s either a member of the East Cairngorms Moorland Partnership, or on a grouse shooting estate owned by the Royal family, or on a grouse shooting estate that’s an accredited member of the Wildlife Estates Scotland initiative (see here).

Today we’re going to take a closer look at the last known location of hen harrier Stelmaria.

As with Margot, the initial problem is that her last known location as reported by the RSPB is a bit vague – no grid reference and no named estate. The only details revealed in the RSPB press statement were:

“Stelmaria was last recorded on grouse moor a few miles north west of Ballater, Aberdeenshire on 3rd September“.

Here’s a map showing the location of Mar Lodge Estate (from where Stelmaria, and Margot, hatched earlier this summer) and the location of Ballater:

As you can see from this next map, there are a lot of grouse moors positioned “a few miles north west of Ballater“:

So once again we referred to Andy Wightman’s Who Owns Scotland website to work out which estates are situated “a few miles north west of Ballater” and we found two – Invercauld Estate and Dinnet Estate:

This map may look familiar to some of you. That’s because we used it last year when we were looking at the last known location of another satellite-tagged hen harrier, Calluna, who had also ‘disappeared’ in suspicious circumstances. Calluna vanished “on a grouse moor a few miles north of Ballater” on 12 August 2017, the opening day of the grouse shooting season.

In fact these grouse moors around Ballater are becoming very familiar indeed. We’ve blogged about a number of alleged and confirmed incidents as follows:

There was the discovery of an illegally shot peregrine at the Pass of Ballater in 2011, the reported coordinated hunt and subsequent shooting of an adult hen harrier at Glen Gairn on the border of Invercauld and Dinnet Estates in 2013, and then there were the illegally-set traps that were found nr Geallaig Hill on Invercauld Estate in 2016, which resulted in ‘secret action‘ being taken against a gamekeeper but no prosecution followed, and nor has SNH imposed a General Licence restriction for this incident (and SNH has refused to discuss its decision saying ‘it’s not in the public interest‘ to tell us).

Last year, as mentioned above, satellite-tagged hen harrier ‘Calluna’ disappeared in suspicious circumstances on a grouse moor in this area (here), although it’s not clear whether this was on Invercauld Estate or neighbouring Dinnet Estate and then earlier this year a satellite-tagged white-tailed eagle ‘Blue T’ also ‘disappeared’ without trace on the Invercauld Estate (see here).

And now hen harrier Stelmaria has also vanished.

There’s a pretty clear pattern emerging in this area, but it seems to be one that Scottish Natural Heritage, the Cairngorms National Park Authority and the Scottish Government are all refusing to see.

Did hen harrier Margot ‘disappear’ on a Royal grouse moor?

Earlier this month RSPB Scotland announced that four of this year’s satellite-tagged hen harriers had ‘disappeared’ in suspicious circumstances on Scottish grouse moors (see here).

Yesterday we highlighted how two of those four missing hen harriers (Margot & Stelmaria) had ‘disappeared’ inside the Cairngorms National Park (see here).

Today we’re going to take a closer look at the last known location of hen harrier Margot.

[RPUK map showing approximate last known locations of hen harriers Margot & Stelmaria]

The first problem we have is not knowing the grid reference of Margot’s last known location. All we have is a description from the RSPB Scotland press release as follows:

“Margot disappeared on 29 August [2018], with her last known position on a grouse moor on the Aberdeenshire/Moray border, a few miles south west of the Lecht ski centre“.

Here is the Lecht ski school, on the Cock Bridge to Tomintoul road on the eastern side of the National Park:

The RSPB press statement said Margot’s last known tag signal had been “on a grouse moor…..a few miles south west of the Lechy ski centre“.

As you can see from this zoomed in map, the RSPB’s description doesn’t narrow it down very much as the area to the SW of the ski school is pretty much all driven grouse moor. It’s not like there is an isolated patch of grouse moor that stands out from the wider landscape that would be easy for us to pinpoint:

So then we had a look at Andy Wightman’s Who Owns Scotland website, a fantastic resource that helps readers to, er, find out who owns Scotland. According to Andy’s data, the area “a few miles to the SW of the Lecht ski school” is covered by three estates, Glenavon, Delnadamph and Allargue.

Our search area can be narrowed down further by referring back to the RSPB press statement, which says Margot’s last known signal came from “a grouse moor on the Aberdeenshire/Moray border…..”, which we’ve added as a black line to this map:

Glenavon Estate is apparently, according to this 2015 article in the Sunday Post, owned by a ‘Mr Saleh’, a reclusive Malaysian-based businessman who has never been identified, through a company called Glenavon Ltd. According to Andy Wightman’s website, Glenavon Ltd is registered in Grand Cayman.

The estate offers driven and walked-up grouse shooting (here) and has previously been granted a licence by SNH to kill 900 mountain hares out of season, apparently to protect forestry (here, p.15).

It is one of six estates involved in the East Cairngorms Moorland Partnership, whose objectives include ‘enhancing raptor and other priority species conservation‘.

Delnadamph Estate borders Balmoral and was bought by the Queen (or to be more accurate by her Trustees) in the late 1970s, apparently because Balmoral ‘didn’t have adequate grouse shooting‘. The estate was apparently gifted to Prince Charles on his engagement to Diana and is now used by Charles and Camilla and perhaps other members of the Royal family.

Earlier this year the Balmoral Estate advertised for a new Head Gamekeeper for Delnadamph Estate, someone with ‘extensive knowledge of grouse and moorland management’ (see here). We happen to know (via an FoI on an unrelated issue) that the new Head Keeper was interviewed by Prince Charles and Prince William, no less, and was appointed to this position in late spring 2018, leaving his position as a grouse moor gamekeeper in the Pentland Hills for this job. We understand there are at least two under-keepers at Delnadamph.

Allargue Estate is owned by Mrs Rosemary Walker, according to Andy Wightman’s website. According to the Allargue Estate Management Plan the Walker family have owned this estate since the 17th Century and approximately 65% of the estate is managed for grouse shooting.

Allargue Estate was one of the first fully accredited members of the Wildlife Estates Scotland initiative and the Head gamekeeper here won the Purdey Gold Award in 2014 for Game & Conservation. According to the Purdey Awards website this estate “works tirelessly to uphold the Wildlife Estates Scotland high standards of wildlife management”.

We’ve blogged a little bit about Allargue Estate, not in relation to raptor persecution, but because it is believed this is the estate on whose land a load of men with a truckload of dead mountain hares were photographed in 2016.

To be absolutely clear, not one of these three estates is on our radar as being a raptor persecution hotspot.

Also to be clear, unless the RSPB releases the actual grid reference of hen harrier Margot’s last known location we’re not going to be able to identify the estate from where she vanished. And even if the RSPB did release that information, it still wouldn’t be that informative as the local authority Aberdeenshire/Moray border runs along the boundaries of all three estates. So if, for example, Margot had been shot on that border, the gunman could have shot her from a position on any one of the three estates. Criminal activity on estate boundaries is a well-known tactic to frustrate any potential targeted police investigations.

So to return to the question of whether Margot disappeared from a Royal grouse moor – the answer is possibly, but there’s no way we can be sure. There’s a one in three chance that that’s where she was when her tag suddenly and inexplicably stopped sending signals at the end of August this year.

What happened to her? Well you can draw your own conclusions, in the context of all the other young satellite-tagged hen harriers that have ‘disappeared’ in suspicious circumstances on or close to grouse moors across the UK.

Tomorrow we’ll be looking at the last known location of Margot’s sibling, hen harrier Stelmaria.

[Hen harrier Margot. Photo by RSPB Scotland]

Two of the four missing satellite-tagged hen harriers ‘disappeared’ on grouse moors in Cairngorms National Park

Earlier this month RSPB Scotland announced that four of this year’s satellite-tagged hen harriers had ‘disappeared’ in suspicious circumstances on Scottish grouse moors (see here).

[RPUK map showing approximate last known locations of four satellite-tagged hen harriers]

We said at the time that we’d be coming back to this subject as we were interested in the locations from where the birds had vanished.

Two of those hen harriers (Margot and Stelmaria) both hatched on the National Trust for Scotland’s Mar Lodge Estate in the Cairngorms National Park earlier this summer, and both of them subsequently vanished, also inside the Cairngorms National Park.

[RPUK map showing approximate last known locations of hen harriers Margot & Stelmaria]

We’ll be coming back to have a closer look at these locations tomorrow.

It should be shocking that two hen harriers, a high priority red-listed species, have vanished in suspicious circumstances inside the world-renowned Cairngorms National Park (CNP). But it isn’t. Because this isn’t the first time.

In August 2016 satellite-tagged hen harrier Brian ‘disappeared’ inside the CNP (see here).

In August 2017 satellite-tagged hen harrier Calluna ‘disappeared’ inside the CNP (see here).

In August 2015 satellite-tagged hen harrier Lad didn’t ‘disappear’ but he was found dead, suspected shot, inside the CNP (see here).

But it’s not just satellite-tagged hen harriers. At least 15 satellite-tagged golden eagles have also ‘disappeared’ in suspicious circumstances in recent years inside the CNP (see here). In 2014 the first white-tailed eagle chick to fledge in East Scotland in approx 200 years also ‘disappeared’ in suspicious circumstances inside the CNP (see here) and earlier this year another white-tailed eagle also ‘disappeared’ in suspicious circumstances inside the CNP (see here).

We’ve searched the Cairngorms National Park Authority’s website for a comment/statement about the latest two hen harrier disappearances but we didn’t find anything.

We’ve also searched the Scottish Government’s website for a comment/statement about the latest two hen harrier disappearances inside the CNP but we didn’t find anything there either.

Probably because it’s all a bit embarrassing.

In 2017, following the damning findings of the Golden Eagle Satellite Tag Review, the Scottish Government announced it was to establish a 12-month pilot scheme, funding five police special constables to work in the CNP to focus on deterring and detecting wildlife crime. This scheme was launched in March this year (see here).

This pilot scheme was the Government’s alternative to extending the powers of the SSPCA to allow it to investigate a wider suite of wildlife crime (including raptor persecution) – a decision made after six years of Governmental deliberation under five different Environment Ministers.

It also emerged earlier this year that this pilot scheme was also an alternative to the Government’s 2016 manifesto pledge to establish a Wildlife Crime Investigation Unit as part of Police Scotland – a pledge on which it has now reneged (see here). The idea is that the police special constable scheme could be rolled out across Scotland “if judged to be successful” in the CNP.

We’re not sure what the criteria will be for judging ‘success’ but we can be quite sure that the continued suspicious ‘disappearance’ of satellite-tagged raptors within the CNP cannot possibly be indicative of success.

UPDATE 22 Nov 2018: Did hen harrier Margot ‘disappear’ on a Royal grouse moor? (Here)

UPDATE 23 Nov 2018: From which grouse shooting estate did hen harrier Stelmaria ‘disappear’? (here)

Local community raises concerns about grouse moor management in National Park

The picture often painted by the grouse shooting industry is one of community harmony – a rural idyll where local residents are deliriously enthralled by the activities of the local grouse moor managers and thankful for the boost that grouse shooting brings to the local economy, without which the local community would apparently collapse.

Sounds great, doesn’t it? Until, that is, you realise that the various quotes trotted out in support of the industry are word-for-word identical, even though they were supposedly uttered by local residents living hundreds of miles apart! Quite obviously this was part of a determined PR effort by the industry’s spin doctors to portray widespread support (e.g. see here).

Increasingly, though, we’ve been hearing a different point of view, with local residents finding their voices and speaking out against the damage this industry brings to their door. First we heard from local communities in the Yorkshire Dales National Park (see here and here), then from a community in the Nidderdale Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (see here), and now from a local community in the North York Moors National Park.

Last month, residents of the village of Goathland called a public meeting to discuss their concerns about the environmental consequences of driven grouse moor management in their area, and particularly their concerns about ‘disappearing’ wildlife.

Here’s Goathland, in the heart of this National Park and practically surrounded by driven grouse moors:

This is a National Park – look at the state of it! And those grouse moors spread a lot further west than shown on this map.

Here’s the agenda for the meeting held on 24 October 2018. We note with some irony the third item listed was ‘Raptors disappearing’. Less than two days after this meeting, the satellite tag attached to hen harrier Arthur sent its last signal from a grouse moor in the North York National Park before both it and Arthur ‘disappeared’.

One of our blog readers attended this meeting and made some notes, as follows:

A few days later the official minutes were circulated as follows:

There’s a lot of interesting stuff to work through in both these documents. Many thanks to the blog reader who sent these through.

Very well done to the Goathland residents for raising these issues and for trying to hold someone to account. It’s brilliant to see them challenging the Moorland Association and exposing its propaganda.

If you’d like to support the Goathland residents and add your voice to theirs, you might like to comment on the current Landscapes Review consultation which is gathering evidence on how England’s National Parks and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONBs) should be ‘fit for the future’. If you think intensive grouse moor management and its associated wildlife crime should be ousted from the North York Moors National Park, or that the National Park Authority should be given increased enforcement powers to deal with the associated wildlife crime and environmental damage, then this is your opportunity to comment.

UPDATE 11 January 2019: Local community holds 2nd meeting to raise concerns about grouse moor management in National Park (here)

Trial begins for (now ex) Head Gamekeeper of Edradynate Estate

The long-awaited trial of Edradynate Estate’s now former Head Gamekeeper began today at Perth Sheriff Court.

David Campbell, 69, denies that between 14 and 16 April 2017 at Edradynate Estate he maliciously damaged game crops by spraying them with an unknown substance which caused them to rot and perish.

At the time of the alleged offences, Campbell was no longer an employee of the estate, having worked there since 1983 but after falling out with the landowner, millionaire city financier Michael Campbell (no relation), his employment was terminated in February 2017. Michael Campbell told the court today that he believed his former employee had caused the damage ‘in revenge’.

There’s an interesting write-up of today’s proceedings here, revealing an exceptionally close working relationship between David and Michael Campbell over the years.

[RPUK map showing location of Edradynate Estate in Highland Perthshire]

[RPUK photo of the entrance to the estate]

It might seem odd that we’re reporting on this case, and although we can’t explain that decision while this trial is on-going, all will become clear in due course.

We understand the current trial against David Campbell is due to continue on 22 January 2019.

PLEASE NOTE: We’re not accepting comments on this case until the trial concludes. Thanks.

Raptor persecution highlighted at NERF annual conference

The Northern England Raptor Forum (NERF) annual conference took place on Saturday with a record number of 170 attendees.

NERF comprises ten regional study groups (Bowland Raptor Study Group, Calderdale RSG, Cheshire RSG, Durham Upland Bird Study Group, Manchester Raptor Group, Northumbria Ringing Group, North York Moors Upland Bird (Merlin) Study Group, Peak District Raptor Monitoring Group, South Peak RSG and Yorkshire Dales & Nidderdale RSG). In addition to these experts, it was also great to see Andy Wilson, Chief Executive of the North York Moors National Park, the RSPB’s Investigations Team and the RSPB Skydancer Project, and several police wildlife crime officers from the North Yorkshire Police Rural Task Force in the audience.

[Photos: Guy Shorrock]

The annual conference rotates between the regional groups and this year it fell to the North York Moors group to organise and host, and what a fantastic job they did.

The programme included some exceptional talks by some of the most experienced raptor fieldworkers in the country, offering illuminating insights from long-term studies, some of whose hard-won data are now contributing to understanding population declines in some of these species.

Illegal persecution was high on the agenda, as you’d expect from a conference focusing on the conservation of birds of prey in the UK.

Andy Wilson’s presentation was particularly telling, laying out the frustration of the North York Moors National Park Authority in having insufficient enforcement powers to tackle wildlife crime, in contrast to its robust powers for dealing with breaches of planning law. This National Park was in the news just last week as satellite-tagged hen harrier Arthur joined the long list of those who have ‘disappeared’ in suspicious circumstances on or near grouse moors in the region. Andy suggested that people might like to comment on the current Landscapes Review consultation which is gathering evidence on how England’s National Parks and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONBs) should be ‘fit for the future’. If you think intensive grouse moor management and its associated wildlife crime should be ousted from our National Parks and AONBs, or that the National Park Authorities should be given increased enforcement powers, then this is your opportunity to comment.

The new NERF Chair Steve Downing used his slot in the Open Forum to deliver a strongly-worded opinion on the extent of illegal raptor persecution and the failure of the authorities to deal with it. Steve has been on the frontline of raptor protection for many many years and if anyone knows the scale of the problem, it’s him. He’s not a man to mince his words as anyone in the audience will attest.

However, there was a note of cautious optimism. Steve spoke positively about the enormous efforts of the recently-formed North Yorkshire Police Rural Task Force (who are in the middle of training up an additional 33 wildlife crime officers) and he also commented on the potential for some serious advances for the Raptor Persecution Priority Delivery Group (RPPDG) under the new leadership of Police Supt Nick Lyall. As Steve said, time will tell.

Parliamentary motion commends Revive – the coalition for grouse moor reform

Andy Wightman MSP (Scottish Green Party) has lodged the following parliamentary motion commending the Revive Coalition for grouse moor reform:

It’ll be interesting to see which MSPs sign up to support this, or perhaps more interesting to see which ones don’t. They can’t say they don’t know about it as earlier this week a great big pile of the Coalition’s new report was hand delivered to MSPs at Holyrood. The report was recently described by prominent journalist Lesley Riddoch as “the most thorough demolition of the case for “sporting estates” I’ve ever seen in print“.

The Revive Coalition launched last week in Edinburgh and already over 5,000 people have signed the Revive pledge in support of significant grouse moor reform. If you’d like to add your voice please SIGN HERE.

Find out more about the coalition and keep up to date with new developments HERE

Time for a new approach to tackling raptor persecution in England & Wales

We can expect significant changes in the way raptor persecution is tackled in England & Wales, if Police Supt Nick Lyall has his way.

Nick is the new Chair of the Raptor Persecution Priority Delivery Group (RPPDG), which is tasked with the ‘delivery’ of action against the raptor killers (in Scotland the ‘delivery’ group is the PAW Raptor Group).

The RPPDG was established in 2011, a so-called ‘partnership’ between the police, representatives from the game-shooting industry (e.g. National Gamekeepers Organisation, Moorland Association, BASC, Countryside Alliance etc), and representatives from the raptor conservation community (RSPB, Northern England Raptor Forum), along with some government agency reps from Natural England, DEFRA, Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority and the Welsh Government.

It would be fair to say we’ve been highly critical of the RPPDG over the years, and justifiably so. This is a partnership in name only, which has been useful for certain organisations and DEFRA Ministers to hide behind on the pretence of tackling illegal raptor persecution but the stark reality is that the RPPDG has contributed absolutely nothing of value towards the conservation of UK raptors in all the years it’s been operating.

It did manage to produce some raptor persecution maps last year but these were shockingly inadequate and two of the RPPDG members were quick to distance themselves from the results (NERF here; RSPB here).

The RPPDG has been secretive, unaccountable and has suffered from a chronic lack of leadership, as evidenced just two days ago when we blogged about how the group had deliberately produced apparently inaccurate and contested minutes relating to the Moorland Association’s interest in obtaining licences to kill Marsh harriers to stop these birds ‘disrupting’ shoot days where hundreds of thousands of red grouse are shot for entertainment.

The raptor conservation community has lost all faith in the ability of the RPPDG to deliver anything except platitudes and a heavy blanket of cover for the criminal raptor killers, but from what we heard today, we’re cautiously optimistic for change.

Not cautious about Nick and his drive, ambition and determination – these qualities have been clear to see since he took on this role in September – but understandably cautious because we’re all too familiar with the influence and power of the game-shooting industry and the lengths that industry will go to maintain the status quo.

Nick is keen to hit the ground running in advance of the first RPPDG meeting he’ll chair in January so today he hosted two workshops at DEFRA’s London offices to brainstorm ideas for his planned Tactical Delivery Plan, a horribly jargonistic name but an important document to frame the work of the RPPDG in the coming years.

[An unusually open door at DEFRA]

Sensibly, he split the workshops in to two groups – the conservationists and enforcers in the morning and the shooting industry reps in the afternoon. He did this to encourage open dialogue that wouldn’t get mired in the usual arguments. We attended the morning workshop along with a number of other organisations who haven’t previously had any formal dealings with the RPPDG and there was good representation from groups such as the North Pennines AONB, Birders Against Wildlife Crime, National Trust and a couple of Wildlife Trusts, as well as the usual representatives from NERF, RSPB, Yorkshire Dales National Park, North Yorkshire Police Rural Task Force, Welsh Government, DEFRA and the National Wildlife Crime Unit.

There was no shortage of ideas for Nick to consider for his Tactical Plan – some well rehearsed but plenty of innovation, too.  He told us he would be considering these ideas, coupled with any he received from the afternoon workshop, and intended to start drafting the plan on the train home!

We don’t intend to comment on the details until his plan is published (and he said it would be available in the public domain) but the word ‘accountability’ was heard a lot in reference to ALL members of the RPPDG having to contribute towards the RPPDG’s aims of tackling illegal raptor persecution as a non-negotiable requirement of retaining their place at the table. It was acknowledged and accepted that the RPPDG could not continue as it has.

We’re prepared to give Nick Lyall a chance. We think he ‘gets it’, and he certainly doesn’t underestimate the difficulty of the challenge ahead, but he’s willing to give it his best shot. We also heard some pretty determined words today from Chief Inspector Lou Hubble, the new head of the National Wildlife Crime Unit (NWCU) who is working closely with Nick and is making her own mark in the world of wildlife crime, again in sharp contrast to some of her predecessors.  There is definitely cause for (cautious) optimism but time will tell.

As we left the DEFRA offices we were met with a squadron of police vans and officers. Nothing to do with the arrival of the game-shooting industry reps though – it seems campaigners from the Extinction Rebellion (@ExtinctionR) had targeted the DEFRA building with some (easy-to-wash-off) graffitti as part of their build up to a day of civil disobedience on Saturday.

Satellite-tagged hen harrier Arthur ‘disappears’ near grouse moor in North York Moors National Park

RSPB press release (12/11/18):

A rare Hen Harrier has suddenly disappeared in North Yorkshire, triggering an investigation by the police and the RSPB. This is the ninth bird to disappear in suspicious circumstances in the last 12 weeks.

The bird, named Arthur, hatched from a nest in the Peak District this summer. This was the first time Hen Harriers had successfully bred in the Peak District since 2015. Arthur, along with his sister Octavia, was fitted with a lightweight satellite tag by RSPB staff as part of the Hen Harrier LIFE project, which has enabled the RSPB to track his movements since leaving the nest in July.

[Hen harrier Arthur, photo by Steve Downing]

Transmissions from Arthur’s tag showed him fledging from his nest and remaining faithful to that area in the Peak District. He then moved to the Brecon Beacons, South Wales, in mid-October before flying back north to Nidderdale, North Yorkshire. On the morning of Friday 26 October he flew onto the North York Moors National Park. He registered his last position at 0955hrs when he was just north of Lowna Bridge, near Hutton-le-Hole.

[RPUK maps showing approximate last known location of Hen harrier Arthur in the North York Moors National Park, close to Spaunton Moor, owned by George Winn-Darley, the North York Moors representative for the Moorland Association. Red star denotes Lowna Bridge]

RSPB Investigations staff searched the area of the bird’s last known location but found no sign of either a tag or a body – prompting concerns that the bird may have been deliberately killed and the tag destroyed. In August, his sister Octavia’s tag also suddenly cut out, with her last location coming from a driven grouse moor in the Peak District. No trace was found of her either. The police and the RSPB are appealing for information.

RSPB Assistant Investigations Officer Jack Ashton-Booth said: “Arthur’s last location showed he was in an upland area close to several driven grouse moors. When tagged Hen Harriers have died of natural causes in the past, the tags and bodies of the bird are usually recovered. To find no trace of Arthur or Octavia is extremely concerning. Arthur is the ninth Hen Harrier to suddenly disappear in suspicious circumstances since August. This is gravely concerning given that the species is on the brink of extinction as a breeding bird in England.”

Hen Harriers are one of the UK’s rarest and most persecuted birds of prey. They nest on the ground, often on moorland, and are known for their spectacular courtship display, the ‘skydance’. Like all wild birds, they are protected by law under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 which makes it an offence to intentionally harm or disturb them. Anyone found to have done so faces an unlimited fine and/or up to six months in jail. But, despite full legal protection, studies show that the main factor limiting their population is illegal killing by humans.

Over 30 Hen Harriers were tagged during June and July 2018 in England, Scotland, Wales and the Isle of Man as part of the RSPB’s Hen Harrier LIFE project. Of those, eight birds (Hilma, Octavia, Heulwen, Thor, Athena, Stelmaria, Margot and Arthur) have since disappeared in suspicious circumstances, along with another bird, Heather, who was tagged in 2017.

Calculations based on habitat and prey availability indicate that England should be able to support around 300 Hen Harrier pairs. But this year only 34 chicks fledged from nine English nests, according to a report by Natural England. In 2017 there were only 10 chicks in the whole of England.

The RSPB’s latest Birdcrime report showed that North Yorkshire is consistently the worst county in the UK for recorded bird of prey persecution, accumulating significantly more confirmed incidents in the last five years than anywhere else. Data showed that 15 of the 55 confirmed incidents in England in 2017 took place in North Yorkshire. Since these only represent known, confirmed incidents, the RSPB believes this is just a glimpse of the true scale of the problem, and that many more crimes will have gone unreported and unrecorded.

ENDS

Licences to kill marsh harriers on grouse moors – an update

In November last year we blogged about some second-hand information we’d received that the Moorland Association (the grouse moor owners’ lobby group in England) was interested in obtaining licences from Natural England for the lethal control of Marsh harriers (see here).

The issue was alleged to have been raised by Amanda Anderson (Director, Moorland Association) at a meeting of the Raptor Persecution Priority Delivery Group (RPPDG – the English/Welsh version of the PAW Raptor Group) on 9 November 2017.

The news was shocking. It was utterly ludicrous that grouse moor owners might consider this species such a significant threat to their over-stocked grouse populations that they would seek licences to kill it.

Marsh harriers are Amber listed on the UK Birds of Conservation Concern and are recovering from a virtual population wipeout – down to one known breeding pair in 1971 thanks to a combination of illegal persecution, habitat loss and DDT and currently with an estimated breeding population of 400-450 pairs.

Marsh harriers are locally common in some areas such as East Anglia but still extremely rare or absent in many others. They most commonly breed in lowland wetland habitat, particularly reedbeds but increasingly on farmland too. This female was found shot next to a lowland partridge release pen in East Yorkshire in 2016. Very rarely do they breed on upland grouse moors although when they do, they are illegally targeted by men dressed as gamekeepers.

When we blogged about the news that the Moorland Association was interested in licences for this species, Amanda Anderson denied the allegation with a two word tweet: “Complete nonsense“, but ignored all requests to clarify the MA’s position.

Amanda wasn’t the only one wanting to keep a lid on this. Philip Merricks (Hawk & Owl Trust) weighed in, even though he wasn’t at the meeting, and Chief Inspector Martin Sims, then head of the National Wildlife Crime Unit and who was at the meeting told us, “There was never any discussion about Marsh harriers” (see comments on this blog – scroll down towards the end).

It’s taken us a year, but we’ve finally got some pretty damning evidence that suggests this conversation did take place at the RPPDG meeting last November.

It’s taken us so long because DEFRA has given us the run around on a series of FoIs we submitted between Nov 2017 and July 2018. We asked for the minutes of the 9 Nov 2017 RPPDG meeting, and, suspecting that those minutes may be santised given the public furore over the alleged Marsh harrier licensing, we also asked for copies of all correspondence between RPPDG members relating to those minutes before they were finally approved.

DEFRA repeatedly failed to comply with the FoI regulations over a period of eight months and didn’t provide us with the information so eventually we resorted to threatening to report them to the Information Commissioner. Shortly afterwards, in August 2018, DEFRA finally released some (but not all!) the info we’d requested.

As expected, the minutes of the Nov meeting were heavily redacted: RPPDG-minutes_9-Nov-17_final_redacted

We looked for any discussion about licences for killing Marsh harriers but only found this:

There was an inference about licensing but nothing unequivocal, and the redactions meant we couldn’t be sure the subject had been raised by Amanda or another MA rep, nor with whom she/another rep was having the conservation.

The latter question was answered when we realised that whoever had done the redactions on those minutes hadn’t done a very good job and if the redacted version was pasted in to another programme the original, unredacted version appeared: Unredacted RPPDG minutes_9_Nov2017_final

The unredacted version was useful as it confirmed that Amanda was the only representative of the Moorland Association at that meeting and it also revealed that the above conversation had taken place between Amanda and ‘GS’ , who was identified in the minutes as Ginny Swaile from Natural England:

But still no mention of the word ‘licence’ or ‘lethal control’, just an inference.

So then we turned our attention to the correspondence between RPPDG members as they discussed the approval of the minutes. DEFRA released SOME of this correspondence (we know it wasn’t all of it) but did any of the members mention the inclusion/exclusion of a discussion on Marsh harrier licensing in the draft version of the minutes?

From what we can see, most of them didn’t mention Marsh harriers, although some of this email correspondence was redacted in parts and also the marked-up copy of the draft minutes was not made available to us, so it’s hard to be sure that most of them chose to ignore the subject, although that’s what it looks like, apart from Natural England and the Moorland Association who clearly commented on the issue but the redactions hide the details:

BASC comments (British Association for Shooting & Conservation)

CLA comments (Country Land & Business Association)

MA comments (Moorland Association)

NE comments1 (Natural England)

NE comments2 (Natural England)

NGO comments1 (National Gamekeepers Organisation)

NGO comments2 (National Gamekeepers Organisation)

Police comments (National Wildlife Crime Unit)

Welsh Gov comments (Welsh Government)

Yorkshire Dales NPA comments (Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority)

But there were two other RPPDG members whose correspondence we were particularly interested to see – the RSPB and the Northern England Raptor Forum (NERF).

First up, the RSPB’s correspondence. Interestingly, and perhaps tellingly, DEFRA did not release the RSPB’s initial comments made to the RPPDG when the minutes were being discussed in early December 2017. Instead, they released two pieces of correspondence, one dated 18 January 2018 and the other dated 12 February 2018. Why do you think the early December correspondence was missing? Perhaps DEFRA ‘forgot’ to include it.

RSPB comments1 (dated 18 January 2018: Bob Elliot (then Head of RSPB Investigations) just asking DEFRA and RPPDG Chair Police Supt Chris Hankinson what was the status of the minutes)

RSPB comments2 (dated 12 February 2018: a heavily readacted email from Bob Elliot to the group saying he didn’t feel the minutes were an accurate reflection of the meeting but his reasons for this were all redacted):

Then we looked at the correspondence from NERF. Again, DEFRA had released two pieces of correspondence, one dated 7 December 2017 where Steve Downing (NERF Chairman) tells the RPPDG he is out of the country but will respond in detail the following week, and the other dated 17 April 2018 where Steve writes to Supt Hankinson telling him he objects to the sanitised final version of the minutes and that he intends to raise this issue at the next RPPDG meeting. Interestingly, and again perhaps tellingly, DEFRA did not release Steve’s email from December where he laid out his comments on the draft minutes. Hmmm.

NERF comments1 (dated 7 December 2017)

NERF comments2 (dated 17 April 2018, see copy below):

It was pretty clear to us by then that both the RSPB and NERF had objected to the way the minutes had been edited but we were still none the wiser about the specific details.

Having had a belly full of DEFRA’s ineptitude with our long-running FoI requests we decided to approach the RSPB and NERF directly to see if they would be prepared to share their unredacted RPPDG correspondence so we could see exactly what was going on.

Being gentlemen of principle, both Bob and Steve agreed but on the condition that they would only share with us their comments, and would redact the comments of any other RPPDG member. Fine by us, because the redacted names can be pieced together from the unredacted version of the minutes for those who want to look.

Here’s what they sent us:

The unredacted version of Bob’s RSPB email to the RPPDG dated 12 February 2018 (we have added the red box for clarity):

The unredacted ‘missing’ email from Steve to the RPPDG, dated 12 December 2017, outlining his recollections of the meeting on 9 Nov based on notes he’d taken during that meeting (we have added the red text box to highlight the bit about licences for the lethal control of Marsh harriers on grouse moors):

So there you have it. Two members of the RPPDG recall a discussion between the Moorland Association and Natural England about the potential for obtaining licences to kill Marsh harriers on grouse moors. None of the other RPPDG members seem to recall it, not even Amanda. Imagine that.

Here’s a reminder of Amanda’s response to our original blog in November last year:

For the record, we’ve checked with Natural England to see whether anyone has submitted an application for a licence to kill Marsh harriers but according to NE (if you believe them), nobody has. Yet.

This sordid episode of what looks like a massive cover-up /suppression exercise is no more than we would expect from the RPPDG. We’ve criticised this so-called ‘partnership’ for several years because, like many other ‘partnerships’, it has contributed absolutely nothing of any value towards the conservation of birds of prey since it was established in 2011. If Supt Chris Hankinson was still in charge of it we’d be calling for his resignation right about now.

Kudos to Bob Elliot (now Director of OneKind) and Steve Downing (NERF Chair) whose integrity speaks volumes. Bob must be delighted not to have to endure this cabal anymore.

However, as some of you may be aware, there’s a new Chair in town and he’s looking to shake things up at the RPPDG. Police Supt Nick Lyall took on the role in September 2018 and already we’ve seen more action from him in the last seven weeks than we have from Chairs over the previous seven years.

He’s bringing transparency to the group (we’ve already had a conversation about the need to provide un-redacted minutes from RPPDG meetings without having to chase them via FoI requests), he’s writing a blog to keep people informed of RRPDG activities, he’s active on Twitter (@SuptNickLyall), he’s inviting more conservation-focused groups to join the RPPDG to counter the current game shooting industry imbalance, and later this week we’ll be attending his national raptor persecution workshop where he intends to gather ideas to put together an action plan for the RPPDG, with measurable targets, instead of letting it fester from year to year with no direction and no accountability. If any blog readers have any ideas please leave a comment – we know Nick will be reading this post (to his credit, we gave him warning that this blog was coming and he didn’t try to dissuade us from writing it).