Category: News

Moorland Association Chair in poor attempt to undermine RSPB ahead of damning Birdcrime report

Last week the RSPB revealed that yet another satellite-tagged hen harrier, this one called ‘Reiver’, had disappeared in suspicious circumstances in September on a grouse moor in Northumberland (see here).

Reiver is the 57th hen harrier known to have been killed or disappeared in suspicious circumstances on or close to a grouse moor since 2018 (see here). And actually there are more than 57, it’s just that some of the cases have yet to be made public by the police. There hasn’t been a single prosecution for any of these.

The suspicious disappearance of Reiver has attracted significant media coverage, although I didn’t see any of the shooting organisations posting an appeal for information on their websites – which speaks volumes in itself.

Part of the media coverage included an item on BBC Radio Newcastle on Weds 20th October, where radio broadcaster Alfie Joey interviewed Howard Jones (RSPB Investigations Team) and Mark Cunliffe-Lister (Lord Masham of Swinton Estate, also current Chair of the Moorland Association and with a reputation for being a forgetful silly billy, here).

The interview is only available for another 25 days so if you intend to listen do so sooner rather than later, although to be honest you’ll not be missing very much at all. It’s just a repeat of the usual strategy from the Moorland Association – deny everything and do as much as possible to divert attention from the ongoing killing of raptors on grouse moors, preferably by slagging off the RSPB and trying to undermine their status and authority on this issue.

In fact, the last time I heard the Moorland Association on BBC Radio Newcastle the then Moorland Assoc secretary claimed there was ‘no evidence’ of gamekeepers being involved in the persecution of hen harriers (yes, really – see here). Eight years on and not much has changed, with Lord Masham arguing with a straight face that there is still a need to ‘try and understand the cause of these crimes’ and claiming that ‘…clearly as an industry we’re all about welcoming hen harriers and working with them…’

You can listen to the latest radio interview here, starts at 1:39:07

Here are a few other choice quotes from Lord Masham:

“The problem is, the RSPB will just do their own investigations, publish their own information online, with their own conclusions, which is not helping anybody“

and

“I would suggest that we work better with the police and the authorities, try and understand the cause of these crimes, then to take action with them, rather than trying to go out independently as the RSPB seem to do, do their own investigations, publish all their stuff online and seem to avoid the police and the authorities and the law“.

I like listening to radio interviews because it’s fun trying to spot the key words and phrases that the interviewee is trying to shoehorn in to the discussion, no matter what conversational contortions this requires. It tells you quite clearly what the interviewee thinks is the most important, take-home message to get across to listeners.

Some interviewees are seasoned professionals and have mastered this trick with ease. Others, not so much. The funniest example I’ve heard was Nick Halfhide, then Director of Sustainable Development at SNH, who had clearly been briefed to deflect attention from the raven-killing licence SNH had issued and instead talk about saving waders. It was hilariously bad – see here.

In a similar vein, Lord Masham’s obvious intention during this interview was to undermine the work of the RSPB’s investigations team. Unfortunately for him, his disingenuous claim that the RSPB ‘seem to avoid the police and the authorities and the law‘ is not only unfounded, but is easily dismantled with masses of available evidence.

Anyone who has been following this blog recently will have seen the string of multi-agency police-led raids this year, jointly investigating, with the RSPB, suspected raptor persecution crimes on land managed for gamebird shooting, up and down the country (e.g. see here). Indeed, RSPB Investigator Guy Shorrock has just written a blog (here) where he says that in his 30-year career with the RSPB’s investigations team:

‘I have to say the partnership working during the last 12 months or so to tackle raptor persecution has been some of the best I can ever remember. We have had fantastic responses from many police forces including Cheshire, Dorset, Devon, Durham, Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Nottinghamshire, North Yorkshire, North Wales, Suffolk, West Mercia, Wiltshire, and Police Scotland.

Some of the work by police Wildlife Crime Officers in these cases has been outstanding, and the support from the NWCU, Natural England, Welsh Government, CPS and HSE has been genuinely heart-warming. RSPB have been supporting all these enquiries, and have indeed generated several of them, and most are now progressing to court. They include some very serious allegations of extensive persecution which will no doubt cause significant public alarm when the full details and graphic imagery come to light‘.

Does that sound like the RSPB is ‘avoiding working with the police, the authorities and the law’?

No, it doesn’t.

So just what is Lord Masham’s game?

Could it be that the RSPB’s annual Birdcrime report is due to be published any day now, and this latest report will cover the period of lockdown in 2020 when the RSPB has previously reported ‘a surge’ in raptor persecution crimes (e.g. here and here)?

Could it be that the Moorland Association, knowing full well that the damning content of this new report will expose the shooting industry’s so-called claim of ‘zero tolerance for raptor persecution’ as the pathetic, untruthful marketing ploy we all know it to be, is now desperately trying to portray the RSPB as an unreliable source to try and diminish the impact of the new Birdcrime report?

Game-shooting industry silent about short-eared owl found shot on North Pennines grouse moor

Earlier this week I blogged about the discovery of a short-eared owl that had been found shot on a grouse moor on the Wemmergill Estate in the North Pennines AONB (see here).

This is the same estate where two short-eared owls were found shot and stuffed into a hole in 2015 (here) and where a satellite-tagged hen harrier called Marc had ‘disappeared’ in suspicious circumstances in 2018 (here).

Those of us interested in stamping out illegal raptor persecution have made sure that Durham Constabulary’s appeal for information about this latest victim has been distributed far and wide (e.g. see blog here by Chris Woodley-Stewart, Director of the North Pennines AONB partnership, and blog here by the Northern England Raptor Forum).

Unfortunately, the leading game-shooting organisations, some of whose members have been and/or are currently under investigation for various raptor persecution crimes, have once again failed to publicise or condemn this crime. I’ve just looked at the websites of the National Gamekeepers Organisation, BASC, Countryside Alliance and the Moorland Association and not one of them has published the police appeal or issued their own appeal.

It’s worth remembering that these organisations also serve on the Raptor Persecution Priority Delivery Group (RPPDG), along with Government officials, police and NGOs. One of the roles of the RPPDG is apparently to raise awareness of ongoing raptor persecution crimes.

I’m not sure how staying silent meets this objective.

On the subject of the RPPDG, I’ve written to the Head of the National Wildlife Crime Unit and asked whether the Countryside Alliance representative, former Police Inspector Phil Davies, will be removed from the RPPDG following his participation in a webinar where criminal information was disseminated about persecuting wildlife and avoiding prosecution (see here). I await a response with interest.

UPDATE 25th October 2021: Police boot off Countryside Alliance rep from all wildlife crime priority delivery groups after hunting webinar trial (here)

New release location being sought for white-tailed eagles in Norfolk

Following last week’s news that the Wild Ken Hill Estate in Norfolk has inexplicably backed out of hosting a project for the restoration of white-tailed eagles in East Anglia, which was due to start next year (see here), project leaders at The Roy Dennis Wildlife Foundation have announced that the search is on for a new release location.

A statement posted on the Roy Dennis Wildlife Foundation website reads:

‘We are very disappointed that Wild Ken Hill do not wish to proceed with the White-tailed Eagle reintroduction project that Natural England licenced earlier this year. The early results from the Isle of Wight project are extremely encouraging, and we continue to believe that East Anglia is highly suitable for the second stage of the restoration of the White-tailed Eagle in England, as detailed in the Ken Hill feasibility report.  As such, we are now seeking an alternative location, and are in consultation with Natural England about this. We hope to report more news in due course‘.

Given the number of pheasant and partridge shooting estates in Norfolk, including the royal Sandringham Estate with its reputation for hosting raptors (ahem), and the game-shooting industry’s repeated claims about how raptors are always welcome, there shouldn’t be any difficulty finding a new venue to support the planned release of young eagles.

Should there?!

Judicial review on beaver culling in Scotland – a good result

Beaver culling is off-topic for this blog but there are wider implications relevant to the culling of other protected species, including raptors.

Earlier this year, Scottish charity Trees for Life launched a judicial review against the Government’s beaver-killing policy, whereby it was argued that NatureScot was too quick to issue beaver-killing licences to landowners and should only have issued licences after all other non-lethal options had been considered.

[Photo by Scotland: The Big Picture]

It’s important to note that neither Trees for Life, nor indeed any of their significant financial supporters (e.g. Wild Justice) were arguing that beavers should never ever be culled under any circumstances. That was a myth generated by some hard-of-thinking members of the farming/shooting community. The actual main thrust of the argument was that culling should have been a last resort, not a first resort.

Blog readers helped raise the funds required by Trees for Life to take on the legal challenge (thank you) and the case was heard in June (here). Of great interest to me was that the National Farmers Union Scotland (NFUS) and landowner lobby group Scottish Land & Estates (SLE) both joined forces with NatureScot to fight the legal challenge because, according to an NFUS letter to members in April,

……. if Trees for Life wins the judicial review, along with ‘uninformed pressure’ from conservationists, then there may be implications for the ‘control’ (killing) of other species including ‘sea eagles, badgers, geese and ravens’ (see here).

Yesterday the court published its judgement and the headline news is that Trees for Life won one out of five of its legal points, but the point that it did win on was significant, in that it was ruled NatureScot’s current beaver killing licences are unlawful and the agency must in future fully set out the reasons, in writing, it believes a licence to kill a beaver is warranted. This is important because unless NatureScot can demonstrate each time that all non-lethal options have been considered first, each licence is open to legal challenge. There can be no more ‘rubber stamping of death’ as has been the case so far.

This legal ruling has obvious implications for the licensed killing of all other protected species in Scotland, and most importantly as far as I’m concerned implications for the constant, behind-the-scenes agitating by the game shooting and farming industry to be given licences to kill birds of prey such as buzzards, sparrowhawks, red kites, hen harriers, even white-tailed eagles (e.g. see here, here, here).

This legal ruling from Lady Carmichael doesn’t put the issuing of licences to kill beyond reach, and that was never intended anyway, but it does emphasise the high level of consideration that NatureScot will have to demonstrate before it issues any further licences. This is a very long way from NatureScot’s recent attitude, e.g. “Let’s have more trials [culls], whether it’s about ravens or other things” just to see what happens, as stated by NatureScot’s Director of Sustainable Development in 2018 (see here).

A Trees for Life press release on yesterday’s ruling can be read here

NatureScot response here

Very many congratulations to the team from Trees for Life. Judicial reviews are not for the faint-hearted and they require a huge amount of hard work and effort. I think they’ve achieved a significant win here.

Some other news coverage with commentary from both sides can be found here:

BBC News

Scotsman

National

3 month suspended sentence for possession of two shot buzzards strung up on farmland

Press statement from National Parks & Wildlife Service (Ireland), 21 October 2021:

Three Month Suspended Jail Sentence for the Possession of two dead Buzzards

A County Laois man has been given a three month suspended prison sentence for the possession of two dead Buzzards, which were found strung up on his land.

On Friday the 15th of October, at Portlaoise District Court, Mr. Desmond Crawford, Roskelton, Mountrath, Co. Laois pleaded guilty to the unlawful possession of two dead Buzzards contrary to Section 45 (2) & 45 (7) of the Wildlife Acts. The offence took place on the 19th of April 2020 at Clonadacasey, Mountrath, Co. Laois. The offence was investigated by the National Parks & Wildlife Service (NPWS) of the Department of Housing, Local Government, and Heritage. It was prosecuted under the Wildlife Acts by Rory Hanniffy BL, instructed by Sandra Mahon, State Solicitor for County Offaly.

In his evidence to the Court, District Conservation Officer Mr Kieran Buckley of the NPWS told Judge Catherine Staines that he, accompanied by two NPWS Conservation Rangers from neighbouring areas, travelled to Clonadacasey to investigate a complaint from a member of the public that two dead Buzzards were tied up to an electricity post and a fence stake in cultivated fields.

Upon arrival, the NPWS searched the area and found one dead Buzzard strung up by its outstretched wings to an electricity post and another dead Buzzard strung up by its legs to a fence stake. Following a line of inquiry, Mr Buckley established that Mr. Crawford was farming the land where he found the two dead Buzzards. Accompanied by NPWS Officers Robert Edge and Colm Malone, Mr. Buckley then interviewed Mr Crawford under caution about the incident.

At the District Court sitting, photographs of the two dead Buzzards and X-ray evidence were presented to Judge Catherine Staines. Mr Buckley told the Judge that the X-ray evidence left no doubt that both Buzzards had been shot, adding that the tight pattern of the lead shot showed clear evidence that both birds were shot at close range. He added that given the time of year, the dead Buzzards may have been a breeding pair. This, he said, would leave them vulnerable to being shot at their nest. Mr Buckley also told the Judge that Buzzards were the most frequent casualty of bird of prey persecutions and added that the NPWS is determined to tackle wildlife crimes of this nature, particularly when this species has recovered from the brink of extinction.

The defence solicitor, Josephine Fitzpatrick, told the Judge that Mr. Crawford denied he had shot the Buzzards, but he was very sorry for what he had done and apologised to the Court.

In her summation, Judge Staines expressed her abhorrence at the undignified manner in which two beautiful birds were displayed, saying it showed no respect whatsoever. It was, she said, “an example of a disgusting lack of respect in an outrageous act of wildlife crime”.  

Judge Staines then detailed to the court that she had to consider a prison sentence as an appropriate way to deal with this matter. She convicted Mr. Crawford of the possession of the two Dead Buzzards under Section 45 (2) and 45 (7) of the Wildlife Acts and imposed a three-month sentence of imprisonment, which she suspended on the Accused’s own bond for a period of one year.

The Minister of State for Heritage and Electoral Reform at the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Malcolm Noonan TD said that recent judgements in the District Courts indicate clearly that wildlife crimes have serious consequences:

“I welcome the conviction in this awful case and would like to thank everyone involved in securing it. I particularly welcome the comments of Judge Staines, who acknowledged the outrageousness of the crime and the lack of respect shown to these beautiful birds. Recent judgements being handed down in the Courts to people convicted of deliberately destroying habitats or harming wildlife are sending out a clear signal that, as a society, we will no longer tolerate such actions. Wildlife crime is serious, and it has serious consequences. We need to protect nature,” he said.

Ciara O’Mahony, Regional Manager of the South East Region of the National Parks and Wildlife Service at the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, welcomed the reporting of this matter by a concerned member of the public, and encouraged more who witness wildlife crimes such as this to come forward in confidence to the NPWS.

“We are increasingly receiving contact about wildlife crime and habitat destruction, from people who are concerned about biodiversity loss. We welcome such reports, and the nature conservation consciousness and awareness that they represent,” she said. 

Any member of the public wishing to report possible wildlife crime or illegal habitat destruction in Ireland can contact the NPWS through natureconservation@housing.gov.ie or direct to local NPWS staff. For more detail on wildlife legislation, see www.npws.ie

Information in relation to recording incidents involving birds of prey, including Buzzards, “Recording and Addressing Persecution and Threats to our Raptors. A Review of Incidents” can be found in: https://www.npws.ie/sites/default/files/publications/pdf/IWM126.pdf

ENDS

Four men charged with raptor persecution offences on game shooting estate in south Scotland

Police Scotland issued the following statement yesterday:

Four men charged with wildlife crime offences in Stewartry

Police Scotland can confirm that four men have been charged in connection with a number of wildlife crime offences in the Stewartry area of Dumfries & Galloway.

Extensive investigations have been ongoing throughout 2021 following reports of ongoing persecution against protected birds of prey and wildlife in the area of Parton near Castle Douglas which culminated with the arrest of the men, aged 59, 52, 46 and 31.

A report has been submitted to the Procurator Fiscal.

Wildlife Crime Officer Constable John Cowan said: “All allegations of wildlife crime are taken very seriously and matters such as this will be investigated vigorously in Dumfries & Galloway.

“We have excellent relationships with members of the public in our rural communities and they are only too keen to let us know when the magnificent wildlife in the area is coming to harm.

“We will continue to robustly investigate wildlife crime alongside our many partners in the hope that we can completely eradicate such practices.”

ENDS

UPDATE 1st October 2023: Man convicted for killing pine marten on Scottish gamebird shooting estate but something odd going on here…(here)

UPDATE 16 November 2023: Charges dropped for raptor persecution offences committed on Overlaggan Estate, Dumfries & Galloway (here)

Further evidence to support a review of Countryside Alliance’s position on raptor group

A couple of days ago I wrote a blog about whether the Countryside Alliance’s position as a member of the Raptor Persecution Priority Delivery Group (RPPDG) should be reviewed following the judge’s summary comments during the sentencing of huntsman Mark Hankinson, who had been convicted of encouraging or assisting others to commit an offence during a series of private webinars last year (see here).

The judge, Deputy Chief Magistrate Tan Ikram, had intimated in his summing up that the webinar contributions of former Chief Inspector Phil Davies and his references to ‘smoke screens’ and ‘creating elements of doubt’ [in my view, in order for hunting personnel to avoid potential prosecution] were questionable at best, although Mr Davies was neither charged or prosecuted.

Mr Davies is a member of the RPPDG as the Countryside Alliance’s representative.

Since I wrote that blog, more detail has emerged that further increases the justification for reviewing Mr Davies’ position on the RPPDG.

In an exclusive article published today by iNews, it is claimed that the police are ‘furious’ that only Mark Hankinson was prosecuted, because they wanted to see all six webinar contributors face prosecution but the CPS said there was insufficient evidence to proceed.

The article goes on to claim that The League Against Cruel Sports, which was the official complainant in the action, called on the CPS to reopen cases against Lord Mancroft and others involved in the meetings, including Mr Davies.

Whether there was or wasn’t sufficient evidence to prosecute all six, the fact is that Mr Davies’ participated in a webinar that covered the illegal persecution of wildlife, resulting in a conviction for Hankinson, and there hasn’t been any indication that Mr Davies, or any of the other contributors for that matter, challenged Hankinson’s criminal briefing at the time it was delivered. That may be insufficient evidence to prosecute but it does absolutely nothing for public confidence. In my view, Mr Davies’ continued involvement as a member of the RPPDG is no longer tenable on that basis alone.

Here is a copy of the iNews article:

Police officers behind the conviction of a leading figure in the fox hunting lobby have told i they are “furious” that a member of the House of Lords was not prosecuted.

Lord Mancroft, one of 92 hereditary peers who remain in the upper house, was one of six leading hunting figures who appeared in leaked videos that offered advice on deflecting protesters and police.

Police sources said they wanted the CPS to prosecute him­ but that prosecutors did not find sufficient evidence.

Last week Mark Hankinson, a director of the Master of Foxhounds Association (MFHA), was found guilty of encouraging and assisting hunts across the country to evade the ban on fox hunting.

Passing judgment in Westminster magistrates’ court, Deputy Chief Magistrate Tan Ikram ordered Mr Hankinson to pay a fine of £1,000 along with a contribution of £2,500 towards legal costs.

However, Devon police officers involved in the case since August 2020 said they believed Mr Hankinson should not have been the only person charged under Section 44 of the Serious Crime Act 2007.

One of the investigating officers said that they wanted “six charged, including Lord Mancroft, but the CPS only charged Hankinson. We were furious that Mancroft wasn’t charged.”

Another officer said that the CPS had originally considered charging six of the officials on the leaked webinars to around 100 invited hunt enthusiasts, but that the CPS only accepted the prosecution of Mr Hankinson.

The case centred on the practice of trail laying, which is not illegal and involves the laying of a scent for riders and hounds to follow. It replicates what a traditional hunt would have looked like, but without a fox being chased, injured or killed.

However, Mr Ikram ruled that Mr Hankinson was advising on how trail laying was being used as a cover for illegal hunting.

Investigating officers and anti-hunt groups claim Lord Mancroft was another of the MFHA officials offering advice.

Mr Ikram also referred to Lord Mancroft’s comments during what was meant to be a private online meeting for hunt masters.

Lord Mancroft, who was identified on the videos as Benjamin Mancroft, told the attendees to be careful what they record on body cams during a hunt.

It is common practice for both hunters and saboteurs to record hunts in order to gather evidence of any wrongdoing from either side.

During the webinars, which were recorded on 11 August last year, Lord Mancroft, who was chairman of the MFHA until May this year, said: “Those of you who are filming and recording, please don’t stand there recording the opposition [hunt saboteurs]… flying their gizmos and blowing horns and say ‘isn’t that marvellous that they haven’t seen us because we’ve just caught a fox behind them’ or something like that. I mean you’ve got to be very careful about who’s saying what.

Referring to Lord Mancroft’s comments, Mr Ikram told the court: “I did not hear from him and, of course, the defendant isn’t responsible for another’s words. That said, all the words of the others are relevant because it tells me something about the events he was speaking at and the ‘overall agenda’ in which he was also speaking. I do make clear that the defendant is to be judged wholly on what he said but others’ words, in my view, provide context to what he said.”

Mr Ikram also pointed to comments on the videos made by Phil Davies, police liaison officer at the Countryside Alliance and former chief inspector at Dyfed Powys Police.

Advising on the advantages of laying trails, Mr Davies told hunt masters: “Now, you know more about hunting than the saboteurs or the courts know, but what it will do is create that smokescreen, or that element of doubt that we haven’t deliberately hunted a fox, so if nothing else you need to record that and it will help us to write the defence to your huntsman.”

Responding to Mr Davies’s comments, Mr Ikram told the court: “Mr Davies is, of course, right that the speakers do know more about hunting than this court. This court does however understand well concepts such as creating smokescreens and creating ‘elements of doubt on deliberately hunting foxes’ (and I emphasise the word deliberately). This court is also very familiar with the writing of defences.”

The League Against Cruel Sports, which was the official complainant in the action, called on the CPS to reopen cases against Lord Mancroft and others involved in the meetings, including Mr Davies.

A spokeswoman for the League said: “Questions need to be answered by the CPS as to why others on the webinars were not dealt with in the same manner as Hankinson.

“The CPS needs to reinvestigate why those people were not charged. Because, obviously, the threshold of evidence was met for Hankinson so there surely are questions that need to be asked about whether the threshold had been met for Lord Mancroft and the others, like Phil Davies.”

However, a spokesman for the CPS said that only the evidence against Mr Hankinson was enough to bring a prosecution.

The CPS spokesman said: “We considered possible charges against six suspects and concluded that Mark Hankinson’s case was the only one that met our legal test for a prosecution.”

A spokesman for the MFHA said the group was considering an appeal against Mr Hankinson’s conviction.

Lord Mancroft and Mr Davies were contacted for comment. Devon and Cornwall Police declined to comment.

ENDS

As an aside, the League Against Cruel Sports has published a fascinating blog which provides some insight to how the prosecution against Hankinson came about – here.

UPDATE 25th October 2021: Police boot off Countryside Alliance rep from all wildlife crime priority delivery groups after hunting webinar trial (here)

Short-eared owl confirmed shot in Teesdale grouse moor area where two short-eared owls previously found shot

Article published in the Northern Echo yesterday:

Short-eared owl shot and killed in Teesdale

POLICE are appealing for information after a short-eared owl was shot down in Teesdale earlier this year.

A post-mortem on the bird has confirmed the likely cause of its death was being shot with a shot gun.

The owl was found by the side of the road in May.

PC Lorraine Nelson said: “Persecuting birds of prey is never acceptable and we will always do everything we can to work with partners to act on information received about alleged criminal activity.

“We would encourage anyone with information on this incident to get in touch.”

Jack Ashton-Booth, RSPB Investigations Officer, said: “Short-eared owls are declining nationally as a species.

“Yet they are still widely targeted in our UK uplands: this is the third shot short-eared owl we are aware of in this area in the last six years.

“In 2015 two dead short-eared owls, both of which had been shot, were found in a hole on moorland just over 1km away.

“Each of those birds could have gone on to have three, four or five chicks, had they been allowed to live.

“When I think of the scale of even just one area of moorland, and its array of nooks and crannies… how many more of these stunning birds could have been shot and concealed down holes or buried under peat?

“It’s impossible to know.

“This illegal killing must stop.

“I urge any of you who may have information regarding individuals targeting these birds to come forward and call them out.”

If you have any information, call 101 and ask to speak to PC Nelson.

Alternatively, call the RSPB confidential hotline on 0300 999 0101.

ENDS

This short-eared owl was found shot in May close to the Selset Reservoir in Teesdale, which is an area dominated by land managed for driven grouse shooting, as you can see from this Google map showing the tell-tale rectangular strips of burned heather:

According to RSPB Investigations Officer Jack Ashton-Booth, the latest victim was discovered just over 1km from where two short-eared owls had been found shot and buried in potholes on the Wemmergill Estate in 2015 (see here). Nobody was prosecuted for those two offences, just as nobody will be prosecuted for this latest wildlife crime.

Wemmergill Estate is also the last known location of satellite-tagged hen harrier Marc, who vanished in suspicious circumstances on this grouse moor in 2018 (see here).

The article published yesterday in the Northern Echo was presumably based on information from Durham Constabulary, and claims that the police are appealing for information. I can’t find anything about the crime, investigation or subsequent appeal on the Durham Constabulary website or the police’s Facebook page. If it is there, it’s well hidden.

And once again, it has taken five months for this ‘appeal’ to emerge. I suppose that’s an improvement on the seven months it took Durham Constabulary to appeal for information after the discovery of the two shot owls found in 2015.

Yesterday’s article in the Northern Echo states that:

‘A post-mortem on the bird has confirmed the likely cause of its death was being shot with a shot gun‘.

My understanding is that the post-mortem report confirmed the owl had been shot and that was the cause of its death shortly afterwards.

There may be more news to come about this latest crime. I will update the blog if/when I receive further information.

UPDATE 18.00hrs:

The RSPB investigations team has confirmed on Twitter that this latest shot short-eared owl was found dead on a grouse moor (estate unnamed but believed to be the same estate (Wemmergill) where two short-eared owls were found shot and shoved down a pothole in 2015.

Also, Chris Woodley-Stewart, Director of the North Pennines AONB Partnership has written a blog on the AONB website to draw attention to this latest crime (see here). Well done, Chris.

‘Stop killer threats to animal-lover Chris Packham’, says broadcaster James Whale

This comment piece from TV and radio broadcaster James Whale was published in The Express yesterday, in response to the ongoing and targeted abuse directed at Chris Packham by many within the hunting & shooting sector, encouraged by some of the industry’s large membership organisations.

Thanks to blog reader Keith Dancey for the link.

CHRIS Packham, whom I interviewed only the other day, is having to put up with some of the most disgusting behaviour. Opponents of the wildlife campaigner seem to think it is their right to threaten his home and his life, to tell him they are they going to kill him, to tell him his family is not safe.

This is the most revolting thing I have ever heard, I’m also furious with Facebook for not doing anything about some of the trolling that certain people get. I’m not talking about myself – I don’t care, I ignore them as they’re cretinous – but let’s think about it.

The people who are undertaking this mission to try to destroy Chris Packham are those who think he is trying to destroy what they call their fun, their hobby and maybe even their “tradition”. These are the people who think it is perfectly acceptable to go out and kill animals for the fun of it.

There are many such examples, from shooting birds to culling badgers for really no reason to Britain’s best known tradition – foxhunting. In my childhood and early life there was nothing more exciting than seeing the hunt gathering outside their local pub for a stirrup cup and then riding magnificently off into a sunny misty morning with the hounds baying.

But on reflection, when out in the field with the so-called terrier men digging the foxes from their lairs, the hounds running them to ground and literally ripping them limb from limb, it was pretty disgusting.

In past ages we used to enjoy dog fighting, cockfighting, bear baiting and various other forms of entertainment now considered disgusting.

When fox and stag hunting were legally banned, drag hunting, just using a lure for the dogs and hunters to follow, was introduced, but bloodsports fans want the laws repealed and find ways round them.

Tradition doesn’t last forever: we can talk about it, we can look back on it and I don’t want to see any pictures or statues of hunts destroyed. It is all part of our history. But those people who are prepared to carry on the pursuit of killing for fun have to be stopped. And so must their pastimes – if you can call them that.

ENDS

With straight faces, shooting org BASC denies encouraging online abuse of Chris Packham, his step daughter & others

The following article was published in The Times last Saturday.

It sits behind a paywall so I’ve reproduced it below:

The BBC Springwatch presenter Chris Packham has described how his stepdaughter faced a torrent of online abuse after a game-shooting organisation drew attention to her social media account and the fact they are related.

Megan McCubbin, 25, faced weeks of “vile and hateful” messages after the British Association for Shooting & Conservation (BASC), pointed out her connection to Packham, 60.

Packham, who has frequently taken aim at the game-bird industry, alleges that the BASC tacitly extended an invitation to online trolls: “Here’s a young woman, a friend of Chris’s who has started working with him why don’t you have a go?”

A long-running campaign of death threats against the naturalist escalated sharply late last Friday when two men set a car on fire outside his home in the New Forest.

CCTV footage shows one man pulling on a balaclava before stepping out of a Land Rover. He sets light to what appears to be a fuse; moments later the car explodes.

“These people knew exactly what they were doing,” Packham said. “I would suggest that they had prior experience in blowing cars up.”

He added: “I think maybe because I was bullied at school, I don’t have a fear of physical violence. But if they do it to me and they get away with it, they’ll do it to other environmental campaigners. What’s next will it be an exploding car outside Greta [Thunberg’s] house?”

A spokesman for the BASC said that it did not condone online abuse. It had the right to point out to its members that McCubbin was a youth ambassador for the League Against Cruel Sports, which campaigns against shooting, he said.

“McCubbin is using the celebrity status provided by the BBC [where she is a co-presenter of Springwatch] to promote an anti-shooting agenda; we’re allowed to be critical of that,” he added. “Packham plays a very astute game. He is very good at causing the sort of publicity that attacks shooting.”

Packham has received death threats for years. In 2019, after he campaigned to end the indiscriminate shooting of jays, wood pigeons and other birds that many in the countryside consider wrongly, he says to be vermin, two dead crows were strung up outside his home.

On another occasion, an anonymous letter suggested that a traffic accident could be arranged to kill him. Fox and badger carcasses have been dumped on his drive.

Packham said it was possible that the arson attack, which is being investigated by police, was carried out by local vandals or internet trolls. However, he thinks that it was committed too efficiently for that. “I think this is probably fox-hunting related,” he said.

He has been calling for members of the National Trust to vote for a ban on trail hunting, where hounds follow a scent rather than a fox, on its land.

He suspects that the attack may have been timed to coincide with the verdict in the case of a leading huntsman who was prosecuted for allegedly providing advice on how to hunt foxes illegally, behind a smokescreen of trail hunting.

“Fox hunting was always going to come to an end,” Packham said. “But the nails are being driven in faster than they’d anticipated.” A backlash was inevitable, he added.

Speaking to The Times at the Natural History Museum in London this week, where he was presenting the Wildlife Photographer of the Year awards, he was critical of how the online abuse he received had been policed. “It’s a little unfair that when black footballers receive unwanted and appalling hate crime the issue can be dealt with,” he said in a video he posted on Twitter.

“And that’s great, of course, and I would support that fully. But I am surprised that when environmentalists like myself receive similarly hateful torrents of relentless abuse nothing can be done about it.”

The arson attack on his home was part of a broader pattern, he said. “We’re living, post-pandemic, in a very angry time. A time of polarisation and division, the likes of which I’ve not seen before.”

In the past Packham has accused gamekeepers of “genocidal” practices and said that fox-hunting has a “psychopathic element”. He said that he preferred the word “extermination” to extinction” when discussing largescale biodiversity loss.

He once got into trouble for arguing that the giant panda was not worth the time, trouble and expense of saving from extinction, adding that he would happily eat the last one.

“I do weaponise vernacular to some extent,” he said. “I think that language is important, and it’s a very, very powerful tool. It has the power to incite and inflame people. No doubt about that but in a competitive world, we’ve got to get our stories out there.”

ENDS

BASC has responded to this article by stating:

“It’s ludicrous to suggest that BASC would encourage online abuse, whether that’s Chris Packham, his step daughter or anyone else for that matter“.

The BASC website article referred to by Chris in The Times was published last year and can be read here. In my view it’s targeted and abusive and celebrates how Megan’s “woke guff was admirably tackled in the comments thread by those who understand there is a far more positive side to grouse shooting“.

You can also read BASC Director Duncan Thomas’s misogynistic online abuse (here) and the apology he was later forced to make (here).

You can make up your own mind whether or not you think it’s ‘ludicrous’ to suggest that BASC staff have published online abuse about named individuals and incited others to join in.