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Kestrel found with shotgun injuries in Malton, North Yorkshire

Yet another illegally persecuted raptor in North Yorkshire, the raptor-killing capital of the UK.

This kestrel was picked up on Christmas Day with shotgun injuries to its wing.

The bird was found close to Amotherby crossroads on Amotherby Lane, Malton, North Yorkshire. An x-ray by Mark Naguib of Battle Flatts Veterinary Clinic revealed the extent of its injuries and the bird is now in the care of the wonderful Jean Thorpe of Ryedale Wildlife Rehabilitation. (Please, consider making a donation HERE to help Jean’s outstanding voluntary work).

If you were in the area and heard a shot on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, please contact police wildlife crime officer PC Jez Walmsley at Malton Police Station on 101.

 

‘Closer cooperation to protect hen harriers’ – what does that mean, exactly?

Further to a recent article published in The National where Hen Harrier Species Champion Mairi Gougeon MSP calls for ‘closer cooperation’ between conservationists and the game shooting industry ‘to protect hen harriers’ (see here), this deserves more comment.

We’ve given this some thought over the Xmas break and frankly, it’s a bloody affront to imply that conservationists are somehow partly responsible for the continuing decline of the hen harrier population.

Here’s what the driven grouse shooting industry does for hen harriers:

Illegally shoots them; illegally traps and bludgeons them to death; illegally poisons them; illegally burns out nest sites; illegally stamps on eggs & chicks; illegally uses dogs to kill chicks & then blames it on fox predation; sets illegal spring traps; sets illegal pole traps; waits at known roost sites & uses thermal imaging to detect & then shoot roosting birds; deploys gas guns at the onset of the breeding season to disturb; ignites banger ropes at the onset of the breeding season to disturb; deploys inflatable scarecrows with sirens at the onset of the breeding season to disturb; consistently denies the extent of illegal persecution; accuses conservationists of exaggerating the persecution data; blames disappearances on imaginary windfarms, faulty sat tags & disturbance by fieldworkers; uses fake partnerships to portray an image of conservation action; pays a PR company to put false and malicious propaganda in right-wing newspapers; claims not to know who the criminals are; gives ‘no comment’ interviews & creates a wall of silence in police investigations; accuses conservationists of planting evidence.

Here’s what conservationists do for hen harriers:

Nest monitoring; roost monitoring; nest protection schemes; ringing; satellite-tagging; surveying; data collection; data analysis; report writing; scientific paper writing; public engagement e.g. RSPB Skydancer, Hen Harrier Day; report suspected wildlife crimes; campaign for stronger law enforcement; campaign for industry regulation; raise public awareness of illegal persecution.

Conservationists are NOT the problem here. Conservationists are not the ones systematically and illegally killing this species whenever it turns up or attempts to breed on intensively managed driven grouse moors and nor are conservationists the ones engaged in a perpetual cover-up of what is essentially serious organised crime.

What did Mairi Gougeon mean then, by calling for ‘closer cooperation’? The only part of her quote that gave any indication of what she meant was this:

“At the same time we cannot tar all estates with the same brush. We must acknowledge the positive steps some estates and gamekeepers are taking to promote the species“.

That’s easily resolved. We don’t tar all estates with the same brush and we do acknowledge the positive steps some estates and gamekeepers are taking to encourage and safeguard nesting hen harriers, but as far as we’re aware, not one of those estates is actively managed for intensive driven grouse shooting. You show us one that is and we’ll sing its praises from the rooftops. So far, we only have the word of the driven grouse shooting industry that these estates exist, but we don’t and won’t believe them until we’re shown the evidence.

So what other avenues does that leave open for ‘closer cooperation’? None. Are we going to stop campaigning? No. Are we going to stop pushing Govt for some sort of state-regulatory control of driven grouse moors? No. Are we going to stop highlighting hen harrier persecution crimes? No. Are we going to stop satellite tagging? No. Are we going to stop pushing for better law enforcement? No. Are we going to stop asking for public accountability when prosecutors drop clear-cut criminal proceedings without explanation? No. Are we going to stop calling out the grouse shooting industry’s ludicrous propagandist claims? No. Are we going to stop reporting suspected wildlife crimes to the police? No. Are we going to stop lobbying MPs and MSPs to take more action on raptor persecution? No. Are we going to stop talking about illegal hen harrier persecution? No. Are we going to stand by and watch the hen harrier population plunge further in to decline? No.

Are we going to ‘cooperate’ with hen harrier-killing criminals?

Not a chance.

MSP urges closer cooperation to protect hen harriers – a futile request while illegal raptor killing continues

Following the recent news that yet another hen harrier has been found dead in suspicious circumstances (here), Hen Harrier Species Champion Mairi Gougeon MSP has taken the opportunity to call for conservationists to work in closer cooperation with the game shooting industry.

Here’s an article in yesterday’s edition of The National:

MSP MAIRI GOUGEON URGES CLOSER COOPERATION TO PROTECT HEN HARRIERS

SCOTLAND’S big landowners have backed an SNP MSP’s call for all sides to work together to end persecution of hen harriers.

Species champion Mairi Gougeon spoke out after Police Scotland launched a probe this week into the death of a hen harrier found with “unexplained injuries” near Dunoon in Argyll.

The Angus North and Mearns MSP urged all sides of the debate on raptor persecution to come together to find a long-term way to help the hen harrier flourish.

The death of the satellite-tagged bird, named Kathy, is one of a number of high-profile cases involving hen harrier.

Earlier this year a bird was reportedly shot in Leadhills, while satellite-tagged Calluna went missing near Braemar, Aberdeenshire, and a four-year court case over the alleged shooting of a harrier on Cabrach Estate in Moray was dismissed.

A recent survey showed a 27 per cent fall in Scotland’s hen harrier population – down to 460 pairs – since 2004. Illegal persecution of the bird is thought to be a major factor in its decline. It has been suggested some estate staff kill the birds to protect game-bird species such as grouse.

Heads Up for Harriers is an initiative from the Scottish Government’s Partnership for Action against Wildlife Crime to get land managers to protect harriers.

More than 20 of Scotland’s estates have signed up for the project. It reported its highest number of fledged young hen harriers, 37, in 2017, and Gougeon is keen to do more to bridge the gap between estates and conservationists.

Gougeon said: “I’m under no illusions about how contentious this issue is. I know it won’t be resolved overnight but I take my role as a species champion very seriously.

One of the main reasons why the hen harrier population hasn’t flourished is the fact there has been illegal persecution of this species over a long period.

Almost half of Scotland is capable of supporting a hen harrier population. There are a number of ongoing projects – including Heads Up for Harriers – geared towards trying to sustain and grow the population in the future.

Heads Up for Harriers is not without its critics and may not be an immediate panacea but it is a promising step in the right direction.

More estates need to sign up to the project before we can assess whether or not it is successful.

We also need to look at other potential solutions such as diversionary feeding.

We need to take every available measure to crack down on the serious crime committed against raptors and to tackle the illegal persecution that takes place.

At the same time we cannot tar all estates with the same brush. We must acknowledge the positive steps some estates and gamekeepers are taking to promote the species.

We need conservation groups and shooting interests to set aside their natural distrust and to try to work together“.

‘Species Champion’ MSPs agree to provide political support for Scotland’s wildlife, under a scheme organised by environment groups.

Tim Baynes of landowners’ group Scottish Land and Estates said: “We are committed to playing our part in helping to restore this iconic species.

We support Mairi Gougeon’s call for greater co-operation and collaboration and look forward to working with other organisations with the same objective at heart.

We are concerned about the fate of the hen harrier found near Dunoon.

This bird has been found in area which is heavily afforested and a long way from any grouse moor. We echo the police appeal for information.”

ENDS

Photo of satellite-tagged hen harrier ‘Annie‘, found shot dead on a Scottish grouse moor in 2015, shortly after the Heads Up for Hen Harriers Project began [photo by RSPB Scotland].

Full credit to Mairi for being quick off the mark and using her position to reiterate in the national press that, “One of the main reasons why the hen harrier population hasn’t flourished is the fact there has been illegal persecution of this species over a long period”. That’s exactly what the Hen Harrier Species Champion needs to be saying and we applaud her for doing so.

But this idea that ‘conservationists need to be working closer with the gameshooting industry to tackle illegal raptor persecution and then everything will get better’ is indicative that Mairi is new to this game – and she is. That’s not her fault and she’s taking the position that every other reasonable person takes when they first join this ‘debate’ – that of thinking that if only both ‘sides’ would sit and talk/cooperate then this whole sorry mess could be resolved. Mark Avery wrote a detailed blog about this earlier in the year (see here), and although it’s slanted towards ineffective long-term talking in England, the same applies to Scotland.

The bottom line is that as long as one ‘partner’ (or in this case, many partners) continues to deny the extent of illegal persecution (e.g. see here) even when the evidence continues to mount that the illegal killing continues, then that ‘partnership’ is doomed to fail.

In the case of hen harriers in Scotland, the so-called Heads up for Harriers ‘partnership’ has been a scam right from the start – we’ve blogged about it a lot (e.g. see here, here, here, here, here, here) and only recently this view was aired in Parliament by MSP Andy Wightman (see here). We are currently pursuing an FoI with SNH to expose what we believe is a very serious political cover up about this project (see here) – more on this in the new year.

And all the time this ‘partnership’ has been running, hen harriers have continued to be killed.

Conservationists are tired of the rhetoric, tired of the propaganda, tired of the lies, tired of the ineffective judicial system and tired beyond belief of the never-ending illegal killing.

For hen harriers to start recovering in Scotland (and in England), no amount of ‘closer cooperation’ between conservationists and the game shooting industry will ever work. Only one thing will work – and that is for the raptor killers to stop their criminal activities. And as they can’t (or won’t) do it after 60+ years of self-regulation, then they only have themselves to blame as the strength of public disgust brings about enforced political change.

Have a read of the first comment under the article in The National – nobody’s fooled by this scam anymore and no amount of Xmas goodwill is going to change that:

Bruce Anderson: Scotland’s big landowners have signed up for this because it is just the latest in a long line of window dressing ‘partnerships’ which provide cover and a veneer of respectability for the routine criminal destruction of protected wildlife across nearly all Scottish grouse moors. Mari Gougeon has done some very good work championing hen harriers but she is naive if she thinks that ‘working together’ with Tim Baynes and the grouse industry will have any effect on the organised crime and big money that have left huge ares of Scotland devoid of hen harriers and other protected raptors.

UPDATE 27 December 2017: ‘Closer cooperation to protect hen harriers’ – what does that mean, exactly? (here)

RSPB’s perspective on DEFRA’s useless raptor persecution maps

Last week we blogged about the publication of DEFRA’s latest raptor persecution maps (2011-2015), as developed by the Raptor Persecution Priority Delivery Group (RPPDG).

We were highly critical of the maps (here) because we considered them to be inaccurate and out of date, difficult to navigate, and we argued that they would not, as DEFRA had claimed, help tackle wildlife crime. It was our opinion that DEFRA had published these useless maps as a desperate attempt, in the face of growing public concern, to make it look like it was actually doing something to tackle illegal raptor persecution.

The Northern England Raptor Forum (NERF), a member of the RPPDG, shared many of our concerns and publicly distanced itself from the maps (see here).

One of our main concerns about DEFRA’s useless maps was the amount of missing data (i.e. incidents that had been deliberately excluded, such as poisoned baits) and we said we would contact the RSPB to ask how many raptor persecution incidents they had recorded during the same period, for comparison.

It’s now very apparent that we were right to have concerns, not just about the poor quality of the maps but also of the dysfunctionality of the RPPDG, which, remember, is supposed to be a working partnership, but when you read the RSPB’s comments (below) and the statement from NERF, it’s pretty clear that the RPPDG is yet another partnership-working sham.

Many thanks to the RSPB’s Senior Investigations Officer Guy Shorrock who sent us the following insights yesterday:

Dear Raptor Persecution Scotland

Further to your email of the 15 December 2017 asking for details of confirmed raptor persecution data recorded by the RSPB from 2011 to 2015 inclusive I can provide the following information.

For this five year period we have 309 confirmed raptor persecution incidents, 106 of which are pesticide related incidents. Other than the pesticide incidents sourced through the government’s Wildlife Incident Investigation Scheme (WIIS), nearly all of this data (shooting/trapping) for the RPPDG map was supplied by the RSPB. In overview, the RPPDG map has 262 data points, the difference from the RSPB 309 data points is due to: –

  • RSPB has 106 confirmed bird of prey poison incidents vs only 66 plotted on the RPPDG map (see below re WIIS data)
  • Thirteen confirmed bird of prey persecution incidents supplied by RSPB were not included as they did not fit the group’s criteria
  • A few errors in how the RSPB supplied data has been displayed – (there are 6 more incidents than there should be on the map, as four of the incidents we provided have been plotted as ten).

Data from WIIS for this period has been plotted at 66 incidents on the RPPDG map.  RSPB have the same WIIS data as representing 106 incidents, the two main reasons for this difference are that: –

1) incidents such as poisoned baits have not been included on the RPPDG map, and

2) the toxicology data supplied by WIIS has not been separated out into individual wildlife crime incidents.

RSPB use consistent spatial and temporal rules to decide how raptor persecution incidents should be recorded. This same method is applied to the WIIS toxicology data to produce wildlife crime incidents. The Glanusk case you mention in your blog provides a good example. During 2012 and 2013 a number of poison baits and victims were discovered on the Glanusk Estate, Wales over a twelve month period at a number of different locations. Using our rules we have mapped this as a total of 13 incidents. The RPPDG map has not included the poison baits and has grouped the raptor victims into a single incident.

RPPDG members, with the exception of NERF, had agreed the following phrase within a statement to go with the map ‘The inclusion of all categories of confirmed raptor persecution incidents (including e.g. poison baits, confirmed attempted incidents) will be considered for future updates’. We are disappointed that this clarification was not included and only became aware of this omission when the Defra media release was actually put out. I have tried to call Defra this morning to ask why this was omitted but have been unable to contact the relevant person. We were also surprised to see that Defra had linked the RPPDG map as a tool to support their Hen Harrier Action Plan. We were not aware that this was their intention, this was not part of the prepared RPPDG statement, and RSPB do not accept this is a valid claim.

RSPB believes that joint initiatives that help raise the awareness of raptor persecution are highly worthwhile and has invested significant time and resource supporting the NWCU and NE in the production of the RPPDG map. However, we do not accept the claim that this map by itself will enable the police in England and Wales to crack down on enforcement where it is needed most, as it is not providing anything we didn’t know already. RSPB has been publishing maps and details of confirmed incidents for over 20 years, in addition there is a huge amount of intelligence information gathered by RSPB and the statutory agencies plus a wide range of published work on raptor ecology and links to persecution. For example, it is clear that land on and around intensively managed grouse moors in the north of England are areas where species such as hen harrier and peregrine falcon are most at risk from persecution.

We believe the production of reliable and publicly accessible raptor persecution maps is a valuable initiative. Going forward, we hope future maps will include all raptor persecution incidents and that the toxicology results from WIIS will be properly categorised into wildlife crime incident data. Maps should also clarify whether any data has been omitted.

In order to make meaningful inroads into this difficult problem, the RSPB believe the key issue for the government to address is improving accountability on sporting estates. Key recommendations mentioned in our recent Birdcrime report include: –

‘Introduce a system of licensing for driven grouse shooting. Self-regulation has been given a chance but is not working. Therefore we propose introducing a fair set of rules in the form of a licensing system and code of practice, underpinned by law, to ensure shoots are operating legally and sustainably. This would also provide an effective deterrent to criminal activity, including loss of a licence to shoot in the most serious cases’.

‘Ensure shoot owners and managers can be held accountable for the actions of their gamekeepers by extending the vicarious liability legislation employed in Scotland to the rest of the UK’.

Just for the record, our first Birdcrime type annual report started in 1990, and first map of confirmed persecution incidents was in the 1994 report. I have attached a map of confirmed raptor persecution incidents from 1990 to 2016 (including RSPB & WIIS data) – this has 2545 data points (incidents for which we have a grid reference). As these are just the very tip of the iceberg, it is a rather sobering thought that there will undoubtedly have been tens of thousands of undiscovered and unreported confirmed incidents during this same period.

Guy Shorrock, RSPB Senior Investigations Officer

 

Satellite-tagged hen harrier ‘Kathy’ found dead in suspicious circumstances

Press release from Police Scotland, 20 December 2017:

Police Scotland and RSPB Scotland are issuing a joint appeal for information after a young hen harrier was discovered dead with unexplained injuries on an estate near Dunoon.

“Kathy”, a female bird, was satellite tagged as a chick on the Cowal Peninsula in August this year (2017) as part of the RSPB’s EU-funded Hen Harrier LIFE+ Project.

After fledging in late August, Kathy remained in the vicinity of the nest she hatched in for the next month. RSPB Scotland staff monitoring her tracking device became concerned when data suggested she hadn’t moved on October 3.

A search was carried out on October 5 when Kathy’s body was discovered.

The post-mortem results indicated that the bird had unexplained injuries which may be the result of criminality.

PC Donald Mackay from Police Scotland, said: “I appeal for anyone who knows what happened to Kathy to contact Police Scotland so that we can establish how she may have died. Although this would be an isolated incident in my area, it is concerning that a raptor may have been deliberately killed in Argyll. Hen harriers are a particularly fragile bird of prey in terms of their numbers in the UK, and Police Scotland will work with its partners to thoroughly investigate this incident and robustly deal with any person who may have been involved.”

Will Hayward, Investigations Officer for RSPB Scotland, said: “We are advised that this hen harrier has died from unexplained injuries that may be the result of criminality. If criminal cause of death is confirmed, this incident will sadly be another statistic to add to a catalogue of hen harriers that meet their end in this way. Only through the use of satellite technology are we finally getting an accurate picture of the true scale of a human persecution problem that has been denied by some parties for decades. We look forward to hearing the results of the police investigation into this hen harrier death in due course.”

Hen harriers are one of the country’s most threatened birds of prey with the latest national survey recording only 460 breeding pairs in Scotland, a drop of 27% since 2004. Anyone with information is asked to contact Police Scotland on 101 and ask to speak to a Wildlife Crime Officer.

ENDS

Two and a half months to make an appeal for information? Even allowing for the time it takes to conduct a post mortem and interview estate employees, that’s nowhere near good enough.

A photograph of Kathy has not been made available so here’s a photo of another dead satellite-tagged hen harrier (Caroll) found earlier this year. Photo by Northumberland Police.

UPDATE 24 December 2017: MSP urges closer cooperation to protect hen harriers – a futile request while illegal raptor killing continues (here).

Yorkshire Dales ‘could have too many hen harriers before long’

Clive Aslet is a former Editor of Country Life magazine who boasts of being ‘an acknowledged leading authority on Britain and its way of life‘, whatever that means.

One thing’s for sure, Mr Aslet is no leading authority on the principles of ecology.

He wrote a bizarre comment piece for The Times, published last week in response to DEFRA’s new (not new) raptor persecution maps, as follows:

BIRDS OF PREY NEED PROTECTION FROM HUMAN PREDATORS

The protection of raptors, such as hawks, eagles, buzzards and falcons, is one of the great success stories of the British countryside. When JA Baker wrote his classic The Peregrine fifty years ago, many species were in long-term decline, thanks largely to insecticides used in intensive agriculture and the severe winters of the early 1960s. Numbers have risen sharply since DTT and its like were banned, and raptors were given legal protection. Peregrines now even nest on London skyscrapers.

There have been successful reintroductions, such as that of the red kite: it’s common to see a dozen of these enormous birds now circling over the M40 in Oxfordshire. But successes like these worry country people who know that having too many large carnivores at the top of the food chain means that other species will suffer. Red kites are scavengers (hence their preference for roads, which provide a ready supply of carcasses) but when carrion becomes scarce they turn to living prey.

Grouse moors are a special problem. For the moor owner, grouse are a valuable crop. The bird provides a livelihood to the keepers who control predators such as foxes, stoats and rats that prey on eggs and chicks. Vermin control also allows wading birds like plovers, lapwings and curlews to nest in safety: it’s a wonderful thing to visit a moor teeming with wading birds as well as grouse, whether or not you plan to shoot any of them. But as a report published today shows, many keepers trap or kill hen harriers and sparrow hawks that threaten the viability of the shoot. They deserve to be prosecuted.

At last, landowners are getting the message that this behaviour is unacceptable, and are making greater efforts to conserve raptors. The prospect of the law in Scotland, which targets landowners as well as keepers, being introduced in England has concentrated minds. As has the possibility of a Labour government banning shooting altogether and making grouse moors worthless.

But there remains, as in many areas of conservation, a geographical imbalance. Some areas have too many raptors, others none at all. Exmoor, for example, has no hen harriers; before long, given the male bird’s promiscuity, the Yorkshire Dales could have too many.

Relocating broods from overpopulated areas to underpopulated ones is the answer — opposed, sadly, by the RSPB. Brexit offers a way out of this problem. Freed from the need for a one-size-fits-all approach, we can create the flexible conservation policy our birds of prey deserve.

ENDS

Leaving aside his obvious failure to grasp the simple conventions of predator/prey relationships (we can’t be bothered to turn this in to a lesson on the basics of ecology), we wanted to focus on just the last three paragraphs of his article.

Aslet seems to be muddled about brood meddling. He argues that “Relocating broods from overpopulated areas to underpopulated ones is the answer“. But that’s not what DEFRA’s hen harrier brood meddling is about. It might well be what the grouse shooting industry thought it was about, and wanted it to be about, when they first signed up for it – ‘Yeah, great, let’s get rid of hen harriers from our grouse moors and ship them off down to southern England so they can’t interfere with our shooting days in the northern uplands’, but as we now know, any hen harrier chicks removed from grouse moors and raised in captivity as part of DEFRA’s absurd brood meddling plan, will HAVE to be released back in to the uplands close to where they were first removed, and their release will coincide with the start of the grouse-shooting season. They cannot be used as the source birds for DEFRA’s equally absurd southern England reintroduction plan.

As for Aslet’s claim that “before long, given the male bird’s promiscuity, the Yorkshire Dales could have too many” [hen harriers], chance would be a fine thing! According to this report, there were only three successful hen harrier breeding attempts in the Yorkshire Dales National Park between 2000-2007, and since then, there haven’t been any!

Aslet also claims, “At last, landowners are getting the message that this behaviour is unacceptable, and are making greater efforts to conserve raptors“. Really? Some landowners are, for sure, but how many of those landowners manage driven grouse moors? It’s all very well saying that raptor persecution is unacceptable and pretending to be on board, but the proof, as they say, is in the pudding. There were only three successful hen harrier breeding attempts in the whole of England this year, and for the second year in a row, not one of those was on a driven grouse moor.

BASC suffers bout of amnesia

Just when we thought BASC was getting with the programme, it comes out with this drivel about the recently published raptor persecution map for England & Wales:

This is a screengrab of part of an article that was published on the BASC website – the full article can be read here.

BASC seems to be suffering from a bout of amnesia. The recently published map is not “the first comprehensive raptor persecution map for England & Wales“, as BASC claims. Far from it! The RSPB has been publishing comprehensive raptor persecution maps for decades, including incidents of shootings, trappings and nest destruction. In fact the RSPB maps have been far more comprehensive than the latest DEFRA map, because they’ve included information about poisoned baits and attempted raptor killing; incidents which have conveniently been removed from the new DEFRA map at the behest of certain organisations within the Raptor Persecution Priority Delivery Group (RPPDG).

Here’s an example of a comprehensive raptor persecution map published 15 years ago by the RSPB in the 2002 RSPB Birdcrime report. This is the earliest Birdcrime report we could find online but there are also reports (and maps) that were published earlier than this.

BASC also repeats the claim that the ‘new’ (not new) raptor persecution map “will allow enforcement to be effectively targeted“. This is also complete nonsense, as we discussed a few days ago (here) and as the Northern England Raptor Forum (NERF) also pointed out (here). Indeed, it’s one of the reasons why NERF removed its support of the ‘new’ (not new) raptor persecution map.

That’s not to say the map doesn’t have any value at all – it certainly does, but that value is in raising awareness amongst the general public that illegal raptor persecution continues, and that much of it is associated with land managed for game shooting.

To be seen as a credible voice fighting against raptor persecution, BASC needs to stop pretending that the RPPDG is way ahead of the game and is making progress on tackling raptor persecution. This is pure progaganda – we know it and BASC knows it.

Taxpayers’ money used to fund nonsensical questionnaire on Hen Harrier Action Plan

While Natural England is busily keeping secret its plans for hen harrier brood meddling, unbelievably it has funded a new ‘study’ to find out what members of the public think about the Hen Harrier Action Plan!

Some of you may have received an email recently from an academic researcher asking you to fill in an online questionnaire, which is part of a ‘study’ that aims to “understand the different perceptions of hen harriers and examine support for the different measures proposed by DEFRA to recover the hen harrier population“.

The ‘study’ is being undertaken by the Universities of Bangor and Aberdeen, and is “funded by Natural England“. What this actually means is that you, the British taxpayer, has funded it.

We don’t know how much public money has been wasted on this pointless study, but a similar study proposed by researchers at the Universities of Aberdeen and Kent (to guage the opinions of grouse moor owners) was estimated to cost in the region of £50,000 (see here).

It’s kind of hard to see how public opinion of the Hen Harrier Action Plan will be of any genuine research value given that much of the detail about the six action points in this Hen Harrier Action Plan has so far been kept secret!

The questionnaire targets a certain sector of society and the cover letter says, “You have been chosen as a respondent because you are a member of an organisation with an interest in birds in England“. The survey’s question 2 gives an indication about which organisations have been invited to participate:

Many of the questions relate to the respondents’ views on each of the six action points listed in the Hen Harrier Action Plan, such as this one:

It’s a ridiculous question to ask because although in principle the first four of these measures could (and should) increase the number of hen harriers in England, they clearly haven’t worked even though most of the measures have been undertaken for years! For example:

Monitoring (“currently in operation“) hasn’t increased the hen harrier population.

Diversionary feeding (“currently in operation“) hasn’t increased the hen harrier population (and has yet to even be put in to practice by any grouse moor manager in England – see here).

Improving intelligence information and enforcement (“currently in operation“) hasn’t increased the hen harrier population (which is hardly a suprise when you realise that this particular measure is supposedly being led by the Raptor Persecution Priority Delivery Group [RPPDG] – the group that has taken years to produce out of date and inaccurate raptor persecution maps).

Nest and winter roost protection (“currently in operation“) hasn’t increased the hen harrier population.

Here’s another ridiculous question:

Again, none of the first four measures, which have been in operation for years, has resulted in the reduction of illegal hen harrier persecution.

It’s impossible to say whether brood meddling and the southern England reintroduction will reduce illegal killing because we haven’t yet been allowed to see detailed proposals for these two measures.

However, some questions are easier to answer:

We’re not publishing a link to the online questionnaire because undoubtedly it’ll be hijacked by those with a vested interest in making it look like the Hen Harrier Action Plan has widespread public support. Indeed, the questionnaire may already have been hijacked – the respondent is not required to provide any evidence of their identity, but only to indicate from which organisation they received the questionnaire. This will enable false claims that the respondent got the questionnaire from the RSPB or from the Northern England Raptor Forum (two groups that fundamentally oppose the Hen Harrier Action Plan), and thus their views that the Hen Harrier Action Plan is a brilliant thing will be falsely portrayed in the results as coming from members of these two organisations.

What a waste of public funds.

Natural England refuses to release Hen Harrier Brood Meddling Plan

Natural England continues its tirade of a lack of transparency and public accountability in relation to the Hen Harrier Action Plan.

As regular blog readers will know, we’ve spent over a year trying to get details about the most controversial part of the HH Action Plan – the brood meddling scheme. Natural England has point blank refused almost every single FoI request we’ve submitted on this subject, citing concerns about how publication might ‘prejudice’ the on-going licence application for brood meddling (from Natural England, to, er Natural England).

We did, however, manage to get something out of Natural England in late November 2017 – we blogged about it here.

Part of what we learned was that the Brood Meddling Team (including representatives from GWCT, Hawk & Owl Trust, Moorland Association, Natural England, International Centre for Birds of Prey, and Aberdeen University) had held a meeting in June 2017 to discuss the draft Hen Harrier Brood Management Plan.

Naturally, we were keen to see this draft Brood Meddling Plan so we asked Natural England for a copy.

True to form, Natural England has refused:

In many respects Natural England’s refusal to be upfront about anything to do with hen harriers will not come as a surprise to anybody. However, we were surprised at this particular refusal given that the draft brief for the proposed reintroduction of hen harriers to southern England HAS been released after several FoI attempts (see here).

Hmm. What is in the Brood Meddling Plan that Natural England doesn’t want anyone to see?

Silly old us, eh? Wanting to see how Natural England is abusing our taxes to remove hen harriers from grouse moors.

We won’t have to wait long to find out. Natural England has previously told us that the brood meddling licence application, that has been under consideration for about 9 months, should be completed “by the end of the year”. Assuming the licence is approved, Natural England will have to release it, and the associated brood meddling plan, for public scrutiny.

Irish Raptor Study Group Annual Conference – bookings now open

The Irish Raptor Study Group is hosting its 2018 annual conference on Saturday 27th January 2018, at The Green Isle Conference & Leisure Hotel in Dublin.

The conference is open to all, tickets cost 25 Euros.

Booking details: IRSG_2018Conference_BookingForm