James Kempster, 37, of Bury Brickfield Park, Totton appeared at Southampton Magistrates Court on Tuesday 10th September 2024 to face charges in relation to the dumping of approximately 50 hares, a shot barn owl and a shot kestrel outside Broughton community shop near Stockbridge, Hampshire in March this year.
Hampshire Police charged Kempster in August with possessing live/dead Schedule 1 wild bird or its parts, possessing live/dead non-Schedule 1 wild bird or parts, and causing £5,000 worth of criminal damage to the shop window.
The shot kestrel and shot barn owl had been impaled on the shop door handles and blood & guts had been smeared over the windows. Photo: Broughton Community Shop
Kempster spoke only to confirm his name and address and did not enter a plea. The case was adjourned and will continue on 23 September 2023. Kemspter’s bail conditions ban him from entering Broughton.
Natural England has published its latest update (Aug 2024) on the fates of the satellite-tracked hen harriers it has tagged and subsequently been following, which reveals that eight more have either been found dead (and are listed as ‘awaiting post mortem’) or have gone ‘missing’ in suspicious circumstances.
Strangely (but not really), I haven’t seen a single press release from Natural England and/or the police about any of these 2024 incidents.
I mentioned two of them in a blog in early August (here) after Natural England told me in response to an FoI request in June that they were withholding information about the two cases so as not to jeopardise police investigations. Since then, the number has risen.
It has now emerged from Natural England’s August 2024 update that five of the eight have been found dead and are listed as ‘awaiting post mortem’, with one of these now upgraded to a full blown police investigation, and three others are listed as ‘missing, fate unknown’. The last known transmissions of these eight harriers were in February, March, April, May, June, July and August and three of them are brood meddled youngsters.
Here’s the list:
FOUND DEAD, AWAITING POST MORTEM:
Hen harrier ‘Susie’, female, Tag ID 201122. Last known transmission 12 February 2024, Northumberland. Found dead. Site confidential. In NE’s April 2024 update, Susie was listed as, ‘recovered, awaiting post mortem‘. Now her listing says, ‘Ongoing police investigation, final transmission location temporarily withheld at police request‘. You might remember ‘Susie’ – she’s the hen harrier whose chicks were brutally stamped on and crushed to death in their nest on a grouse moor in Whernside in the Yorkshire Dales National Park, in June 2022 (here).
Hen harrier R2-M1-23 (brood meddled in 2023), male, Tag ID 213927a. Last known transmission 7 March 2024, Devon. ‘Recovered, awaiting post mortem‘. I can’t believe the post mortem hasn’t been conducted six months on. This bird, along with Susie, is apparently the subject of a police investigation, according to Natural England’s earlier FoI response to me in June. [UPDATE 18 Dec 2024: Natural England has now reported this HH died of natural causes].
Hen harrier ‘Edna’, female, Tag ID 161143a. Last known transmission 7 June 2024, Northumberland. ‘Recovered, awaiting post mortem‘. Three months later and no post mortem result?
Hen harrier, female, Tag ID 254843. Last known transmission 29 July 2024, Northumberland. ‘Recovered, awaiting post mortem‘.
Hen harrier, male, Tag ID 254839. Last known transmission 5 August 2024, Northumberland. ‘Recovered, awaiting post mortem‘.
MISSING FATE UNKNOWN:
Hen harrier ‘Ken’, male, Tag ID 213849a. Last known transmission 24 April 2024, Bowland. Grid Ref: SD684601. ‘Missing, fate unknown‘. Very close to a grouse moor.
Hen harrier R2-M2-23 (brood meddled in 2023), male, Tag ID 213928. Last known transmission 17 May 2024, Nidderdale. Grid Ref: SE043754. ‘Missing fate unknown‘. Right next to a grouse moor. Apparently this is Yorkshire Water-owned land, where the shooting is rented out to Middlesmoor Estate – some of you may remember a previous blog about Middlesmoor Estate and a now former Moorland Association Director – here for those who want a reminder.
Hen harrier R2-F1-23 (brood meddled in 2023), female, Tag ID 213923. Last known transmission 25 June, Yorkshire Dales National Park. Grid Ref: NY985082. ‘Missing fate unknown‘. On a grouse moor, apparently on the Arkengarth Estate owned by the Duke of Norfolk.
These eight are in addition to the hen harrier ‘Shalimar’ who disappeared in suspicious circumstances on a grouse moor in the notorious Angus Glens in February 2024 (here) and the list also doesn’t include any of the RSPB’s tagged hen harriers – we’re waiting to hear about how many they’ve lost so far this year. And it’s only September – we’re now in peak hen-harrier-killing-season so I’m sure there’ll be more added to the list by the end of the year.
Not all of the most recent eight may turn out to be the victims of crime – we need to wait for the post mortem results to be published before they can be assigned, but some of them definitely can now be added to the running tally of illegally killed/’missing’ hen harriers, which currently stands at 123 harriers since brood meddling began in 2018.
You know, brood meddling, the so-called partnership (sham) where grouse moor owners gave Natural England a ‘gentlemens’ agreement’ that hen harriers wouldn’t be killed as long as Natural England/DEFRA removed hen harrier chicks from grouse moors during the breeding season. Given the number of harriers that have been killed during the partnership (sham), that ‘gentlemens’ agreement’ turned out to be utter tosh. And now the ‘partnership’ has gone belly up because the grouse moor owners are in a rage about the police wanting to catch the armed criminals responsible for all the killing, which the grouse moor owners claim have nothing to do with them but strangely don’t seem concerned about the apparent armed trespassers visiting their private estates to commit serious firearms offences and other crime!
I’ll be updating the hen harrier death list shortly…
Police Scotland appeal for information (26 August 2024):
APPEAL FOR INFORMATION FOLLOWING DEATH OF OSPREY IN PERTHSHIRE
We are appealing for information following the death of an osprey in Perthshire.
On Monday, 12 August, 2024 the injured osprey was found in distress by a gamekeeper in the Glen Doll area. The SSPCA was called and the bird taken to the wildlife resource centre in Fishcross for treatment, however it had to be euthanised due to the severity of the injuries.
Following further investigations, x-rays revealed the osprey had been shot and Police Scotland was contacted.
Officers are appealing for anyone with information on what happened to contact them.
Detective Constable Daniel Crilley, Wildlife Crime Investigation, said: “It’s illegal to kill any protected species and we’re working with partner agencies to fully investigate the circumstances.
“Information from the local community is vital and I’d ask anyone who was in the area around 12 August and thinks they may have information which could assist our enquiries to come forward. We’re keen to speak to anyone who may have seen anything suspicious or has information about shooting activity in the area.”
Anyone with information is urged to contact Police Scotland on 101 quoting reference 1671 of 26 August. Alternatively, you can call Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.
It’s unusual for an Osprey to be shot in the UK, given that they’re a fish-eating specialist and therefore no threat to gamebirds such as red grouse, pheasants or partridges.
Police Scotland’s appeal for information doesn’t say what type of gun was used (shotgun or air rifle) which would have been evident from the x-ray, nor the extent of the osprey’s injuries (i.e. was it able to still fly? If not, it was obviously shot close to where it was found), so it’s quite difficult to comment in detail.
However, given it was found on the opening day of the annual grouse shooting season, in the Angus Glens, an area dominated by driven grouse moors and with a long, long history of illegal raptor persecution, then it’s difficult not to perceive this osprey has been shot by somebody out on a day’s grouse shooting.
Perhaps a case of mistaken identity? One too many sloe gins? Something similar has happened before, that time it was a buzzard shot during a pheasant shoot (see here).
Oh, and the osprey shooting happened inside the Cairngorms National Park.
What better advertisement for the gamebird shooting industry, eh?
This will be an interesting investigation to follow. If it was shot on a moor when a grouse shoot was taking place, how will that impact on the estate’s new licence?
Over the last few months I’ve heard from various well-placed sources that hen harrier brood meddling has not taken place this year.
For new blog readers, hen harrier brood meddling is a conservation sham sanctioned by DEFRA as part of its ludicrous ‘Hen Harrier Action Plan‘ and carried out by Natural England, in cahoots with the very industry responsible for the species’ catastrophic decline in England. In general terms, the plan involves the removal of hen harrier chicks and eggs from grouse moors, rear them in captivity, then release them back into the uplands just in time for the start of the grouse-shooting season where they’ll be illegally killed. It’s plainly bonkers. For more background see here and here.
Photo: Laurie Campbell
I’ve asked Natural England (the licensing authority for hen harrier brood meddling) about the status of brood meddling this year but they haven’t responded yet.
If the rumours are true, and brood meddling hasn’t taken place this year despite there being broods available to meddle with, it raises a lot of questions, not just about what happened this year but also about any future prospects for brood meddling, whether that be as part of the continuing so-called scientific trial or the full roll-out of brood meddling as a recurrent annual practice, which is what the grouse shooting industry wants (laughingly calling it a ‘conservation licence’)!
Long-term blog readers will know that the initial brood meddling trial ran for five years from 2018-2022 inclusive. At the end of that trial, the brood meddling project board (which unbelievably includes vested-interest representatives from the grouse shooting industry such as the Moorland Association and GWCT, as well as the licence applicant, Jemima Parry Jones, who’s paid by the MA to do the brood meddling) decided it wanted to extend the trial and Natural England agreed to a further five year trial period (here).
An initial two-year extension licence was granted for 2023 and 2024 (NE isn’t permitted to grant a licence for longer than a two-year period in one go) with a few changes to the licence conditions as requested by the ‘project board’, including:
An increase in the number of times a pair of breeding hen harriers can have their nest brood meddled (previously, intervention was restricted to prevent the same pair being brood meddled in successive years – this time intervention was permitted in successive years);
No further requirement to satellite tag ALL the brood meddled chicks, only a sub-sample;
In the case of the North Pennines Special Protection Area (SPA) Southern Zone, no further requirement for brood meddled birds from this Zone to be released back into this Zone specifically, but still must be released into the wider North Pennines SPA (the project board had sought to remove entirely the requirement for brood meddled birds to be returned to the same SPA from where they were originally removed – this is important, I’ll come back to this point below).
For more detail about the changes to the licence conditions for 2023/2024 extension, see this Case Submission to Natural England’s High Risk Casework Panel in April 2023 and released to me under FoI:
So if the brood meddling ‘project board’ was so keen for an extension to the brood meddling trial/sham, why would they only take advantage of the extension for one year (2023) instead of the two years for which it was licensed? Just adding a one year extension to the trial doesn’t seem sufficient time (to me) to provide the data required to address the questions the so-called scientific trial was seeking to address, which is why NE approved a two-year licence extension within an extended five-year trial extension.
Well, there are a few hypotheses circulating about that. Of course these are all speculative at the moment because we don’t know for sure that brood meddling didn’t take place this year, but let’s assume for now that it didn’t.
The first hypothesis is that the grouse shooting industry simply hasn’t been able to find sufficient ‘receptor sites’ where the brood meddled chicks would be released post-captivity. We know, from an official internal NE report released via FoI, dated April 2022 (heading into the last year of the initial five year trial), that only four estates had been involved as ‘intervention sites’ (i.e. their hen harriers were brood meddled: one nest in 2019, two nests in 2020 and two nests in 2021) and only three estates had functioned as ‘receptor sites’. That’s not very many estates willing to engage in hen harrier brood meddling, is it?
Incidentally, data from the 2022 breeding season show there were four broods meddled with that year and six broods meddled with in 2024. I haven’t seen any information about how many estates were involved (as intervention or receptor sites) but the figure must still be staggeringly low.
Out of a purported 190 grouse moor member estates, the Moorland Association seems only to have found a handful willing to participate in the brood meddling trial, whether as an ‘intervention’ site or a ‘receptor’ site. I wonder why that is?
It could be that a lot of grouse shooting estates don’t see the point of getting involved in brood meddling because they’ve already got a tried and tested way of removing hen harriers from their moors (i.e. illegally killing them) and the chance of getting caught and prosecuted for it is virtually nil (see here).
It could be that a lot of grouse shooting estates won’t get involved in brood meddling unless it’s guaranteed that after the ‘trial’ period, brood meddling will be rolled out as a standard, legal technique that grouse moor owners can use every year to get rid of hen harriers. There’s some evidence that this hypothesis is more than speculative, as follows:
Cast you minds back to Valentine’s Day 2023 when the Natural England Board and some of its senior staff had a day out at Swinton Estate in Nidderdale (an estate at the epicentre of hen harrier brood meddling and also an estate with a long track record of confirmed and suspected raptor persecution offences, including some relating to hen harriers). I wrote about that day out (here and here).
After their soiree on the Swinton grouse moors, Natural England’s Board and senior staff went out to dinner and invited some fascinating guests. The NE Board had been issued with an internal briefing document to help them navigate what were described as “elephant traps and tricky issues”, which included hen harrier brood meddling. Here’s the briefing document, released to me under FoI – pay attention on page 3 under the heading Future of Brood Management, where it says this:
“NE Board has taken the in-principle decision to continue participation I [sic] brood management on a scientific trial basis. The MA is the principal partner in the trail [sic], promoting participation by estates, organising and funding release facilities and enabling access for our fieldworkers to tag and monitor chicks. Along with all our brood management partners, they are rightly proud of the success so far and are clear that an estate’s appetite for tolerating or welcoming breeding hen harriers is directly related to the availability of brood management as a ‘pressure valve’ to avoid a build-up of breeding hen harriers. The MA has supported the proposal of extending the trial but is clear that this should lead to the eventual wide availability of the technique as a practical and affordable tool“. (Emphasis added by me).
Also of interest in this internal briefing document is the news that the Moorland Association had asked for a ‘fixed release site’ (for brood meddled hen harriers) instead of having to release the birds back the same SPA from where they were removed. The MA had suggested Moorhouse NNR in Upper Teesdale or Ingleborough NNR in the Yorkshire Dales National Park as potential fixed sites. NE didn’t support this and the briefing document states:
“[REDACTED] judgement is that this represents too great a risk to the ‘NNR-brand’ as a whole and individual sites as long as illegal persecution remains a real threat to any hen harrier nest: additionally the MA should have sufficient contacts with access to vast tracts of suitable land if a long term commitment to hen harrier recovery is their goal“. [Emphasis is mine].
So there’s that issue I flagged earlier about the difficulty the MA appears to be having in providing ‘receptor’ sites. Funnily enough, this issue has also been raised again this year in a Moorland Association blog posted on 12 April 2024 (here), where there is quite a lot of moaning about having to release brood meddled hen harriers back in to the same SPA from where they were removed, and of course the now obligatory veiled threat about this potentially being in breach of IUCN guidelines, an argument the MA has also used recently in relation to the Police-led Hen Harrier Taskforce and one that the National Wildlife Crime Unit has summarily dismissed (see here).
A further hypothesis that’s been put forward about why the hen harrier brood meddling sham appears to have collapsed this year is that the Moorland Association probably doesn’t want to have to keep spending a fortune on paying for satellite tags when those tags are the primary source of evidence that demonstrate that brood meddling has not put an end to hen harrier persecution – indeed, last year (2023) was the worst on record since the brood meddling sham began in 2018, with 33 individual hen harriers reported as being illegally killed or to have disappeared in suspicious circumstances, including 13 brood meddled birds, and most of them on or close to driven grouse moors:
Over the next few weeks there should be more information available about this year’s hen harrier breeding season, including the number of breeding attempts, breeding failures and successes, the number of hen harriers satellite-tagged by Natural England and by the RSPB in various regions, the number of dead/missing hen harriers reported so far this year, and whether brood meddling did take place this year or whether the whole sham has just come tumbling down.
Whatever has happened this year, Natural England’s two-year extended brood meddling licence (2023-2024) has now expired and we can expect a substantial review of the seven-year ‘scientific trial’ which will be used to determine whether the trial is now closed or extended again, whether the grouse shooting industry will get a permanent ‘conservation licence’ (ha!) to continually remove hen harriers from the grouse moors, or whether the new Government will be pressed into dropping the whole sorry pantomime and instead focus its attention (and our money) into taking more effective action against the hen harrier killers.
Press release from Hampshire Constabulary (13 August 2024):
MAN CHARGED IN CONNECTION WITH BROUGHTON WILDLIFE CRIME INVESTIGATION
A man has been charged in connection with an incident in which dead animals were left outside a shop in Broughton.
James Kempster, 37, of Marchwood Road in Totton, has been charged with possessing live/dead Schedule 1 wild bird or its parts, possessing live/dead non-Schedule 1 wild bird or parts, and criminal damage.
On the morning of March 15 this year, police received reports that around 50 dead hares, a kestrel and a barn owl were found outside Broughton Community Shop in High Street.
Officers from Hampshire & Isle of Wight Constabulary’s Country Watch Team have been investigating the incident alongside the Criminal Investigation Department, which has now resulted in these charges.
Kempster is due to appear at Southampton Magistrates Court on Tuesday 10 September.
ENDS
For previous blogs on this case see here, here and here.
As this case is now live, comments are turned off until criminal proceedings have concluded so as not to jeopardise the case.
Derbyshire Police are appealing for information after a sparrowhawk died from gunshot injuries.
The injured sparrowhawk was found by a member of the public on 24 July 2024 in the Walton area of Chesterfield and was taken to the Pet Samaritans Animal Sanctuary in Old Whittington.
A Derbyshire Police spokesperson said:
“The injured Sparrow Hawk was found by a member of public in the Walton area on July 24. On closer inspection, it has become apparent that the bird has been shot by what we believe to be an air rifle.
Sadly, despite the best efforts from the staff at Pet Samaritans, the Sparrow Hawk has since died from its injuries.
Sparrow Hawks are protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 which means that it is illegal to intentionally kill, harm or physically move them. Anyone found guilty of killing a Sparrow Hawk could face an unlimited fine and up to six months imprisonment“.
If you have any information about this incident please contact Derbyshire Police’s Rural Crime Team via 101 or email: drct@derbyshire.police.uk and quote reference number 24*454772.
Two criminal investigations are underway following the discovery of two dead hen harriers earlier this spring.
According to Natural England’s most recent update on the fates of its satellite-tagged hen harriers (updates are periodical – the most recent was April 2024), the following two harriers have been found dead, one at an undisclosed location in Northumberland and another at an undisclosed location in Devon:
Hen harrier ‘Susie’, female, Tag ID: 201122, satellite-tagged in Cumbria on 21 July 2020. Date of last transmission: 12 February 2024 in Northumberland. Notes: “Recovered awaiting PM” [post mortem].
Hen harrier R2-M1-23, male, Tag ID: 213927, satellite-tagged as part of the brood meddling trial /sham on 19 July 2023 at site BM-R2-Cumbria. Date of last transmission: 7 March 2024 in Devon. Notes: “Recovered awaiting PM”.
You might remember ‘Susie’ – she’s the hen harrier whose chicks were brutally stamped on and crushed to death in their nest on a grouse moor in Whernside in the Yorkshire Dales National Park, in June 2022 (here).
I hadn’t seen any media about the latest two dead hen harriers so in May I submitted an FoI to Natural England to ask for the details of the post mortem reports to determine whether they’d been killed illegally.
Natural England responded in June and told me the information was being withheld under Regulation 12(5)(b) which states:
“A public authority may refuse to disclose information to the extent that its disclosure would adversely affect: (b) the course of justice, the ability of a person to receive a fair trial or the ability of a public authority to conduct an enquiry of a criminal or disciplinary nature”.
Natural England also told me:
“Natural England can confirm the investigations for the two Hen Harriers cases are live. As such it is our view that this exception covers the information we hold in scope of your request and therefore we are withholding because if it were to be disclosed at this stage it could comprise the result and have a serious impact on the ongoing process and proceedings“.
Natural England’s response suggests that criminality is indeed suspected but I’ll await confirmation before adding these two to the ever-growing list of hen harriers that have been illegally killed / disappeared in suspicious circumstances since the brood meddling sham began in 2018 (the running tally currently stands as 123 hen harriers).
These are the second and third known investigations this year, following the suspicious disappearance of a hen harrier called ‘Shalimar’ on a grouse moor in the Angus Glens on 15 February 2024 (see here).
Although I was at a wildlife crime forum in London last month where a police officer from the NWCU’s Hen Harrier Taskforce told the audience that there were currently five investigations ongoing, although no details were provided.
A man has been charged with killing two wild birds with an air rifle after police received reports of someone seen dumping a Tawny Owl and a Woodpigeon in a wheelie bin in Colne, Lancashire, in March 2024.
Joe Morris, 28, of White Grove, Colne, Lancashire has been charged with killing a non-Schedule 1 bird, causing unnecessary suffering to a protected animal and possessing an air weapon in a public place.
He is due to appear before Blackburn Magistrates on 22 August 2024.
UPDATE 29 April 2025: Lancashire man convicted of shooting Tawny Owl in local park (here)
Press release from Police Scotland (28 June 2024):
APPEAL FOR INFORMATION AFTER GOSHAWK NEST FOUND ABANDONED NEAR LOCH GYNACK
Police are appealing for information after a suspected attempt to target birds of prey in the Strathspey area.
On Saturday, 8 June, 2024, officers received a report of an active Goshawk nest having been found abandoned in suspicious circumstances, within a forest near Loch Gynack.
Enquiries were carried out at the site, in partnership with RSPB Scotland, showing the nest had been deliberately targeted with a shotgun. The nest and damaged branches were taken for x-ray with the assistance of staff at the Kincraig Highland Wildlife Park.
Police Constable Daniel Sutherland, Highland and Islands Wildlife Crime Liaison officer, said: “All birds of prey are fully protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 and it is illegal to kill them. I am asking anyone in the local community who may be able to help with our enquiries to come forward.
“The area is close to popular walking paths from Newton More. If you were walking in the area during May or early June, and may have seen or heard anything suspicious, then please get in touch.”
Anyone with information is asked to contact Police Scotland on 101, quoting reference CR/0211821/24, or make a call anonymously to the charity Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.
ENDS
UPDATE 24 October 2025: BBC’s Highland Cops programme features investigation into shot out Goshawk nest in Cairngorms National Park (here)
Blog readers may recall a press release in April 2024 from North Yorkshire Police detailing the execution of a search warrant on an unnamed grouse moor in the Yorkshire Dales National Park, in relation to the illegal persecution of hen harriers (see here).
This hen harrier was euthanised after suffering catastrophic injuries in an illegal trap set next to its nest on a grouse moor in Scotland in 2019. Photo by Ruth Tingay
The very first line of that press release said this:
“On Wednesday, (17 April 2024), a National Harrier Task Force operation was held at an undisclosed location in the Yorkshire Dales“.
That was the first time I’d heard of the ‘National Harrier Task Force’ but I’ve since learned much more about it.
I’ll begin this blog with the reproduction of a press article about the new Taskforce that appeared on a relatively obscure website (CandoFM) in May 2024, then I’ll provide some of my own commentary on this new initiative.
Here’s the press article:
Hen Harrier Task Force Launched To Tackle Illegal Persecution
A new task force has been launched to tackle the illegal persecution of hen harriers, one of the rarest bird of prey species in the UK.
The National Wildlife Crime Unit (NWCU) will use innovative technology and strategic partnerships to detect, deter and disrupt offenders.
Given the rarity of hen harriers, significant resource is invested in their conservation. Satellite tags are fitted to the birds to research their ecology, but these tags have also revealed a concerning amount of illegal killing.
Criminals are intent on targeting this vulnerable species and operate with impunity. There have been no successful prosecutions in recent years despite the efforts of the police and partners.
In response, the launch of the Hen Harrier Task Force, led by Detective Inspector Mark Harrison of the NWCU, represents a pivotal shift in combating wildlife crime.
“The persecution of birds of prey is not just a wildlife issue; it’s serious crime blighting our countryside,” said DI Harrison. “With the launch of the Hen Harrier Task Force, we are determined to disrupt illegal activity and protect this vulnerable species.”
Central to the bird of prey task force’s approach is standardising reporting practices and improving the police response to incidents. Police and partners will work together to ensure resources are deployed swiftly and investigative opportunities are maximised. The task force will also bring together partners to engage with local communities and raise the profile of hen harrier persecution in a unified effort against wildlife crime.
“We cannot tackle this problem alone,” emphasised DI Harrison. “Through proactive partnerships and community engagement, we can strengthen our response and hold perpetrators to account.”
The task force will tackle crimes involving satellite tagged birds of prey. It is data-led, relying on analysis of police data and hotspot mapping. The NWCU has identified crime hot spots where they can focus enforcement efforts, as well as other areas of historic vulnerabilities where they will be seeking to revisit and raise their presence with landowners and land users. These meetings are an opportunity to highlight the issues/risks and identify ways to prevent further incidents from occurring.
Rather than purely focusing on the wildlife aspect of the crime, DI Harrison has tasked his team with taking a holistic view of the criminality and considering all types of offences. Criminals will often steal and destroy the satellite tags to conceal their offending. This could constitute criminal damage, theft and fraud. In the last few years alone, £100,000 worth of satellite tags have been lost in circumstances suspected to be criminal. The apparent use of firearms adds a further level of seriousness to these cases.
Recent examples of this include Anu, a hen harrier in South Yorkshire, which had its satellite tag deliberately cut off by someone possibly using scissors or a knife. Asta, a hen harrier in North Yorkshire, is another example. Although the dead bird was not found, its tag was recovered from a dead crow. The NWCU suspect that fitting the tag to a crow was an attempt to make it look like the hen harrier was still alive and hide the fact that it had been illegally killed. Unfortunately, the crow also died from unknown causes.
The task force’s multifaceted approach includes:
Improved incident response: Standardised reporting processes enable rapid response to suspicious incidents, ensuring investigative opportunities are maximised.
Innovative technology: From tracking drones to specialised detection dogs, the task force uses innovative tools to overcome logistical challenges and enhance evidence collection in remote areas.
Strategic partnerships: The taskforce brings together law enforcement, government agencies, non-governmental organisations, landowners and communities to tackle crime in hotspot areas.
Community awareness Initiatives: Building on successful models like Operation Owl, the task force seeks to boost public support and encourage vigilance against wildlife crime.
As the task force gains momentum, the team will be dedicated to protecting the UK’s hen harriers. Through collaboration and innovation, it is set to make a lasting impact in the fight against wildlife crime.
About the Hen Harrier Task Force
The Hen Harrier Task Force is an initiative led by the UK National Wildlife Crime Unit and supported by seven police forces (Cumbria, Derbyshire, Durham, Northumbria, North Yorkshire, South Yorkshire and West Yorkshire), DEFRA, the RSPB, National Gamekeepers’ Organisation, British Association for Shooting and Conservation (BASC), The Wildlife Trusts, GWCT, national parks, Country Land and Business Association (CLA), Natural England and The Moorland Association to combat the persecution of hen harriers in the UK. The taskforce aims to detect, deter, and disrupt offenders involved in wildlife crime by using technology and improving partnership working.
ENDS
My initial reaction to this new Taskforce was one of deep cynicism. Given some of the organisations involved, it just looks like yet another pseudo-‘partnership’ that will achieve nothing other than providing a convenient vehicle for DEFRA and its raptor-killing mates within the grouse shooting industry to be able to pretend that they have a zero tolerance approach to the illegal killing of hen harriers because they are all ‘cooperating’ on this Taskforce.
It’s a ploy that’s been utilised many times before and has simply facilitated the continued illegal killing of hen harriers (and other raptor species) without anyone being held to account. The RPPDG (Raptor Persecution Priority Delivery Group) is a prime example – established thirteen years ago in 2011 and has served no useful purpose in terms of tackling raptor persecution, but has provided numerous Government Ministers with an opportunity to appear to be dealing with it. Utter greenwashing.
Those of you with long memories will remember Operation Artemis, another police-led initiative launched twenty years ago in 2004 designed to work in ‘partnership’ with grouse moor owners to tackle the illegal killing of hen harriers. Here’s some info about it from the RSPB’s 2004 Birdcrime Report:
As described by the RSPB, Op Artemis was not well-received by the shooting industry, even resulting in an article published in The Times where the then Chief Executive of the Countryside Alliance, Simon Hart (who later became Chief Whip for the Conservatives) said the police operation was “part of a wider witch-hunt against gamekeepers“.
Operation Artemis stumbled along until 2007 when it was closed down after achieving nothing at all. Here are two more write-ups about it from the RSPB’s Birdcrime Reports in 2006 and 2007 respectively:
Given the complete failure of Operation Artemis to effectively tackle the illegal killing of hen harriers on driven grouse moors, how will this latest initiative, the National Hen Harrier Taskforce, rolled out some 20 years later, be any different?
Well, there are some positive differences.
This time around, the police have the benefit of access to hen harrier satellite-tracking data (provided by Natural England and the RSPB) which has allowed the National Wildlife Crime Unit (NWCU) to identify clear persecution hotspots, i.e. the estates where a disproportionate number of hen harriers are killed / ‘go missing’ in comparison to the rest of the species’ range.
These wildlife crime hotspots have been known for years but this time the NWCU has done its own analysis on the tag data and, even though it has drawn the same conclusions as the RSPB previously, because the hotspots have been identified by the Police it cuts off any opportunity for estate owners to claim that the data are ‘biased’ or ‘fabricated’ simply because the data belonged to the RSPB. In other words, the estate owners/managers can’t so easily dismiss the data as not being credible.
Another major difference this time around is that the police officer leading the Taskforce, Detective Inspector Mark Harrison, is taking a much more strategic approach. He’s not only looking at the offence of killing a hen harrier – he’s looking at the wider, associated offences such as theft (of very expensive satellite tags) and firearms offences. In combination, these crimes amount to a considerable and serious level of offending and can open the door to the police receiving permission to undertake covert tactics, including surveillance and communications monitoring.
To reach that stage, certain steps have be taken first as part of a longer-term strategy. These include police visits to the known hotspot estates (and I understand that there have now been several of these visits in addition to the one in the Yorkshire Dales National Park that was reported in April). If, after these visits, hen harrier persecution continues to be suspected at those hotspots, the police will then be in a position to demonstrate to senior officers that the ‘nicely nicely’ approach has been tried but hasn’t worked and so permission to begin more covert tactics is more likely to be granted.
Permission should be granted just on the basis of suspected firearms offences taking place. If the estate owners / managers / gamekeepers are denying any knowledge of the offences (which is what they’ve been doing for 30+ years) then the police can legitimately conclude that ‘someone’ [apparently unidentified] is running around an estate committing firearms offences and is clearly a threat to the public. As the fundamental role of the police is a duty to protect the public then I can’t see how permission to deploy more covert tactics can legitimately be withheld under these circumstances.
Of course none of these ideas are anything new – we’ve all been saying for years that if estate owners / managers / gamekeepers claim not to know who’s committing firearms offences on their land then there’s a serious concern that armed individuals are running amok and those estate owners / managers / gamekeepers should be fully supportive of the police doing everything they can to find them, just as any of us would if armed criminals were operating on our property.
However, the difference this time is that here we have a senior police officer, with a background specialism in covert surveillance (and thus a deep understanding of what hoops need to be jumped through to get permission for covert ops), prepared to push the envelope and take a more radical approach and actually implement this strategy instead of just talking about it, and I applaud him for that. Whether he’ll be allowed to stay in post for long enough to carry through with this strategy remains to be seen.
Another new initiative with this Hen Harrier Taskforce is a ‘mutual aid agreement’ between a number of police forces. One of the big issues in tackling wildlife crime, and particularly raptor persecution, has always been the availability of a wildlife crime officer to attend the scene promptly to secure evidence. We all know that the police are stretched, budgets are stretched, and it’s not always possible to get an officer on scene quickly – sometimes delays run into days and weeks, which is ridiculous. The mutual aid agreement means that a number of regional police forces have committed to making officers available at short notice for cross-border searches if the local officers can’t attend in time. If that works in practice, it should be good.
Once on scene, the Taskforce is also utilising a wide array of new techniques and equipment to aid any searches. These include the use of drones working within the range of satellite tag signals and the use of specialised detection dogs trained to search for bird corpses, amongst other things.
This all sounds very promising, on paper. Although to be fair, the Taskforce has already started the strategic plan by paying visits to those known persecution hotspots and has given fair warning to the estates about what they can expect if the persecution continues.
The only issue I have with that approach at the moment is that those crime hotspot estates have not been publicly named. The police say this is because they’re trying to build relationships of trust. I say they’re shielding the criminals. I have been told that the decision not to name hotspot estates is ‘not set in stone’ and may be revisited.
Let’s see.
I wish the Taskforce well and, given the current rate of ongoing hen harrier persecution on grouse moors, I’ll expect to see results in the not-too distant future.
UPDATE 17 July 2024: Is the Moorland Association already trying to sabotage the police’s new National Hen Harrier Taskforce? (here)
Raptor Persecution UK 