Henry spent last week in Bowland, Lancashire, dodging bullets.
He made it out alive, which is more than can be said for a lot of his friends (see here, here, here, here,here).
He spent the Bank Holiday weekend relaxing in Cley, Norfolk, gathering his thoughts and bracing himself for another trip north in search of one of those elusive females.
Henry’s in Bowland, Lancashire, pondering whether he should visit the Abbeystead Estate.
The vast Abbeystead Estate is owned by trusts on behalf of Gerald Grosvenor, the 6th Duke of Westminster (another former vice president of the Game Conservancy Trust [now GWCT]).
Eleven years ago, Abbeystead Estate was one of several grouse-shooting estates that refused to sign a pledge to accept laws protecting the hen harrier. Abbeystead’s Estate Manager gave the following explanation:
“The Abbeystead estate’s view is that we already had the English Nature hen harrier recovery unit running for two or three years and we had been very supportive. Our police came to see us with this declaration to sign, which I was not going to do. We thought the whole thing very heavy-handed” (see here).
Martyn Howat, the then chairman of English Nature’s hen harrier recovery project, said: “On the Bowland fells, English Nature have a good relationship with the gamekeepers and managers of privately owned grouse moors, particularly the Duke of Westminster’s estate“.
For an eye-opening example of the good relationship between English Nature (now Natural England) and the Abbeystead Estate, here is a fascinating read.
Talking of Martyn Howat, that name rings a bell. Ah yes, here he is.
Henry’s still in the Yorkshire Dales National Park and today he visited the Grinton Estate in Swaledale as his search for a potential mate continues.
Apparently HRH Prince Charles has shot grouse here.
The Grinton Estate is owned by Lord Peel, a former President of the Game Conservancy Trust (now known as GWCT).
In 2001, Willie Peel was quoted in a Telegraph article: “I say, let’s have more hen harriers, but we want the freedom to control them so that they don’t decimate the grouse“.
No hen harriers were to be seen on Henry’s visit. In fact no raptors were seen. But there were plenty of grouse shooting butts to mess around in.
Henry left a nice gift in one of them.
After visiting the grouse moors of Swinton Estate, Henry paid a visit to the estate’s luxury hotel, Swinton Park, in Masham.
The Swinton Park Hotel was the venue for one of GWCT’s dinner auctions in November last year (see here). What an interesting choice of venue for the GWCT.
Henry is visiting the Swinton Estate today – a vast area of moorland in the Yorkshire Dales that is managed for driven grouse shooting.
This is a particularly poignant visit. In July 2012, not very far from where this photo was taken, the dead body of Bowland Betty was found.
Bowland Betty was a young hen harrier from a 2011 nest in Bowland, Lancashire. She was named after Bet Lynch, the barmaid from Corrie. Bowland Betty was satellite-tracked and the public followed her movements across England and Scotland until her miserable death the following year. She’d been shot. You can read her story here.
You might also be interested in the Countryside Alliance’s view of this crime – here.
Henry has arrived in the Yorkshire Dales National Park.
So many grouse moors, so few hen harriers.
The last successful hen harrier breeding attempt here was in 2007, and it was only successful thanks to the provision of supplementary feeding after the male parent ‘disappeared’.
Eight years later….where are all the breeding harriers?
Henry will be visiting several grouse moors this week as he searches in vain for a mate and a safe place to breed.
Meanwhile, campaign group Birders Against Wildlife Crime are fundraising to help support Henry’s Tour and other campaigning initiatives such as this year’s Hen Harrier Day (Sunday August 9th). If you’ve got a few quid to spare and you want to help out, please see here.
Today Henry went to visit the Hawk & Owl Trust.
He wanted to hear their view on the ‘disappearance‘ of three adult male hen harriers from active nests in Lancashire’s Forest of Bowland.
What does the Hawk & Owl Trust think might have happened to those three breeding birds?
Does the Hawk & Owl Trust think their ‘disappearance’ has anything to do with the grouse-shooting community in Bowland?
How will the ‘disappearance’ of those three breeding birds affect the Hawk & Owl Trust’s proposed brood-meddling trial?
48 hours after the news broke, the Hawk & Owl Trust has yet to publish a formal statement on their website or even casually mention it on their Twitter account.
Perhaps they’re still in talks with other pro-brood meddlers as to how to play this one, because the GWCT, Moorland Association and National Gamekeepers’ Organisation are all still to make formal statements.
Meanwhile, the RSPB has issued a second statement and has offered a £10,000 reward for any information which leads to a conviction. They clearly think crimes have been committed, as does Lancashire Constabulary (who are investigating) and as does anybody with a passing knowledge of the history of hen harrier persecution on driven grouse moors.
Even Natural England, the Government’s statutory conservation agency tasked with protecting hen harriers has managed to make a statement (here), for what it’s worth. Although they still haven’t managed to release the full results of their hen harrier satellite tagging study which began 8 years ago (see here).
This photograph of Mark Avery occupying a grouse butt in the North York Moors was supposed to illustrate a post entitled ‘Henry’s Tour: Day 25’, which was going to be all about voting for the environment in today’s general election. Circumstances have dictated a change of plan.
In the aftermath of yesterday’s appalling news that three adult male hen harriers have ‘disappeared’ from three active nests in the Forest of Bowland, emotions have been running high.
Many of us were engulfed by a thick red mist and we reacted angrily on social media last night – and quite right too. No apologies from us on that score. It felt personal and that’s exactly how it needs to feel if we’re to maintain this fight because it’s going to be a long-running and bloody battle.
This morning the red mist has subsided but has been replaced with a deep burning anger that won’t be shrugged off, nor appeased by superficial expressions of sadness from those within the grouse-shooting industry.
In the midst of last night’s fury it was tempting (and indeed some of us were tempted) to suggest some radical, unlawful action. That’s hardly surprising given the almost entirely absent political will and enforcement measures that could stop this travesty. But calmer heads must prevail; unlawful activity is what we’re protesting against so we have to stick within the law ourselves.
That doesn’t mean that our resolve has been tempered. Far from it. If anything, yesterday’s news has only served to inflame that resolve. It just means we have to be smarter, more creative and even more visible than before. Make no mistake, this is a war and we’re not going to run for cover now.
There were a lot of phone calls made last night and there will be many more meetings of minds as we work out our next moves. For now, there are several ways you can channel your anger:
1. Occupy the butts.
Go to a grouse moor, find a grouse butt, take a photograph of yourself occupying the butt. In the very near future there will be a webpage where these images can be posted. Finding one of these butts is easy – you don’t have to walk for miles across the moors – a lot of them are right there by the roadside. Grouse butts are normally marked on OS maps at 1:25000 scale. Try www.streetmap.co.uk and zoom in on your favourite moor.
It’s not illegal to stand in a grouse butt and take a photograph, as long as you are not damaging it nor interfering with ‘lawful activity’ (i.e. disrupting a driven grouse shoot). Some people have suggested doing this on the Inglorious 12th – that’s not a good idea. We’d encourage you to visit a grouse butt at any time between now and Hen Harrier Day (Sun 9th August) – just 3 months away – before the shooting starts on 12th August.
2. Vote Hen Harrier as the National Bird.
This is a campaign organised by David Lindo (The Urban Birder) to try and find the nation’s favourite bird. To be honest, we haven’t paid much attention to it before now, partly because we are supporting RSPB Scotland’s petition to name the golden eagle as Scotland’s national bird (although it has since become mired in ludicrous bureaucracy as Ministers argue whether there’s a ‘need’ for a national bird – see here), and partly in respect of nationalist sensitivities. However, what is clear is that the hen harrier’s plight needs far greater public awareness than it currently has and an easy way to raise that awareness is to get this species noticed in a ‘national’ (UK) albeit unofficial poll. Incredibly, it has already made the final ‘top ten’ so in many ways this is already a success, but the closer it gets to being voted as number one, the more publicity it will receive. Voting closes at midnight tonight. You can vote here.
Finally, this isn’t over. The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good people do nothing.
Henry is visiting the premises of Yorkshire Game in North Yorkshire.
According to its website, Yorkshire Game supplies fresh and frozen oven ready game and wild venison to supermarkets, wholesalers, butchers and food service. Their most popular products are grouse, pheasant, partridge, hare, rabbit, wild venison, wild duck and woodpigeon.
You might remember we blogged about Yorkshire Game quite a lot last year. Yorkshire Game was the sole supplier of grouse to Marks and Spencer: See this information sheet – Marks and Spencer Game
However, when we, Mark Avery, Ethical Consumer, RSPB, and many others asked Marks and Spencer to reassure their customers that they were sourcing their grouse from estates that weren’t involved in the illegal persecution of hen harriers and other protected species (see here, here, here, here), they couldn’t. They couldn’t even tell us the name of the individual estates because that was considered “commercially sensitive information“, which was slightly odd for a company that is big on traceability and is more than happy to tell you the name of the actual farmer who has supplied their beef and lamb!
Anyway, as we all know, increasing public pressure forced Marks and Spencer to eventually make the bold move to stop selling grouse for the forseeable future, stating, “We have not been able to guarantee a responsible source of red grouse in the numbers we need” (see here).
That was a big result. We’ll be watching with interest to see what happens this year.
Meanwhile, Mark Avery has today published a long list of London restaurants who are believed to sell red grouse and he’s encouraging people to contact those restaurants to ask them about the provenance of their grouse. Hopefully many of you will join in.
We’ll also be keeping an eye on Yorkshire Game’s website, which prominently features the word ‘Traceable’ on its home page. It also has a sub-category named ‘Suppliers’ which should make for interesting reading, if Yorkshire Game ever get around to finishing the site’s construction. Which of those suppliers are grouse moors in North Yorkshire and which of those moors has supported the successful breeding of hen harriers in recent years? According to our information (which comes from an impeccable source) hen harriers haven’t bred successfully in North Yorkshire since 2007!
We’re also interested in Yorkshire Game’s sister company, The Blackface Meat Company in Scotland. According to their website, they ‘insist on traceability’, they source their gamebirds from ‘selected Scottish estates’ which are ‘well managed’ and grouse is their ‘speciality’. Sounds like a wonderful company who’d be happy to share information about the provenance of their game birds. Let’s see, shall we?
Henry is visiting Lartington, a small village in Teesdale in the northern Pennines.
To understand the significance of this location, please see Mark Avery’s blog here.
Mark has written to several London restaurants, all believed to sell grouse, to ask them about the provenance of the red grouse they serve and also what measures they’ve taken to ensure ‘their’ red grouse are from a sustainable source.
We’ve written to ten Scottish restaurants, three of which are Michelin-starred, all believed to sell grouse, to ask them the same questions.
We’ll publish their responses (or lack of) here in due course.
Raptor Persecution UK 