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The Scottish Government is persisting with its ‘Heads Up For Hen Harriers’ project – an initiative aimed at getting the general public involved with reporting sightings of hen harriers so the authorities can work out where they are and why they’re in decline. This ‘initiative’ was launched in April and now it’s back in the news.

The BBC has a film report from a hen harrier nest site in Perthshire (here)  – well done Wendy Mattingley from the Tayside Raptor Study Group for telling it how it is.

In addition to the film, Environment Minister Paul Wheelhouse was interviewed on Good Morning Scotland earlier today (audio clip available for 7 days here, starts at 2.13.40).

Here is a transcript of the radio interview:

GMS: Why do you need the public’s help here considering that the hen harrier is so intensively studied already?

PW: Well it’s because the hen harrier is an extremely sort of charismatic bird, I mean it’s not one that’s maybe well known and as well publicised but it’s a particularly wonderful species. The male is grey and white and black wing tips and it’s particularly sort of striking when people do see it. Many people regard the hen harrier as their favourite bird so we’re hoping to raise the profile of the species because it is under pressure from a number of problems and we know that there are only 505 sort of territorial pairs in Scotland as of three years ago and that had been a very significant decline since about six years prior to that so it is an important bird, it’s a very important bird for the landscape that it’s living in and we want to do all we can to protect it.

GMS: And what’s the problem, why is it in particular being targeted?

PW: Well one of the difficulties we have with the hen harrier is understanding exactly what it is that’s causing the numbers to decline. There certainly is a concern about illegal persecution of the bird, but there may be other possible changes in its climate and land-use issues such as forestry and grazing which might be impacting on their numbers, but it’s widely recognised that persecution has been a major factor, particularly where there’s been conflict with grouse management in the past.

GMS: Now there has been a clampdown legally on this, but is it working? It doesn’t seem to be.

PW: Well it’s certainly something we’re keen to find out. Certainly the work we’ve done through Heads Up for Hen Harriers, announced earlier in April, has indicated that the birds are present in places we didn’t know they were previously present so there’s some indication that the range is slightly bigger than we had thought, but we’re still evaluating the kind of sightings and going back checking whether they are accurate or not, but there’s certainly been, you know, pressure on numbers, we know that they’re not protected in England in the way they are in Scotland and so we’ve lost some, we believe, that have gone over the border and been persecuted there but the majority of problems are, I think, home grown ones and we need to sort of clamp down, as you say, on illegal persecution.

GMS: And do you think there is now a case to prosecute the landowners?

PW: Well certainly we have, through the WANE Act, the Wildlife & Natural Environment Act in 2011, put in place vicarious liability provisions which mean that no landowner can escape their responsibility of those that work for them. We’ve not yet seen a prosecution under vicarious liability but, you know, I imagine at some point in the future there probably will be one which will test the legal powers that we now have. But I think it’s already having an impact, that power, on the behaviour of landowners who are doing much more to train their staff, to ensure that they do not do anything to disturb or threaten species such as the hen harrier, so I hope that work does have a long-term benefit. But we’re always looking for, you know, the potential to prosecute a vicarious liability case just to test the waters.

GMS: And these organisations representing landowners, gamekeepers and field sports enthusiasts have condemned the illegal persecution but do you think, do you feel that they are on board here, that they are doing enough?

PW: I think the overwhelming majority of landowners are absolutely on side and are doing their best to try and tackle problems of illegal persecution. There are obviously, you know, suggestions of one or two estates which have had difficulties and the police authorities are sort of following those up and the Partnership for Action Against Wildlife Crime Scotland, which I chair, is working with landowners who are members of that organisation to try and improve practices and ensure that we do everything we can to protect species like the hen harrier, but other species as well such as the golden eagle and sea eagles which have also had, unfortunately, persecution in recent years. We also announced recently a number of provisions which we’re taking to try and strengthen our action on illegal persecution of raptors and they are supported, I think, by a number of key organisations such as gamekeepers and indeed the landowners.

GMS: We’ll have to leave it there, Paul Wheelhouse, the Scottish Environment Minister.

What wasn’t said in this interview was that there is the potential for an estimated 1467-1790 pairs of hen harriers to live in Scotland, according to the Hen Harrier Conservation Framework report, published by the government in 2011. However, the latest national survey results (from 2010) only found 505 pairs. And surprise surprise, the main areas where these birds are absent is on land managed as driven grouse moor in the Eastern Highlands and Southern Uplands. Sound familiar? Yep, exactly the same places where golden eagles are in trouble. What an amazing coincidence.

So, where are the 962-1,285 missing pairs of hen harriers? Wheelhouse is suggesting that the Heads Up for Hen Harriers initiative may have found some of them (although the results are still to be analysed and verified so his statement is rather premature to say the least). It’ll be fascinating to see those results in due course – perhaps they’ve found 1,000 pairs holed up in a crack den on a Glaswegian housing estate.

It is quite astonishing that still, more than 20 years after the alarm was first raised about the connection between driven grouse moors and hen harrier persecution, the authorities continue to play down the scale of the persecution issue and say, “One of the difficulties we have with the hen harrier is understanding what it is that’s causing the numbers to decline” and then pretend that the majority of the grouse-shooting industry is supportive of hen harriers. There are some who are on board, for sure, but the weight of evidence shows that those estates are in the minority – there must be a significant number of estates still ‘at it’ to have the population-level effect that we’re seeing.

We wrote a scathing critique of the Heads Up for Hen Harrier initiative when it was first launched in April. Rather than repeat it all here, it’s easier just to provide the link for those interested in reading it: see here. Our view hasn’t changed.

Hen Harriers will feature again on Reporting Scotland this evening.

The photo below is a reminder of what happens to hen harriers on grouse moors. This one was caught in an illegally-set trap on Moy Estate – he was lucky, he was found in time by raptor workers and he survived…for that day anyway.