Category: News

Moorland Association feeling the pressure

moorland association logoLast week the Moorland Association (MA) went in to full damage limitation mode and sent around an e-newsletter to its members about recent events (e.g. here and here) that, in its view, had damaged the MA’s reputation.

It’s amusing that the MA still thinks it has a reputation to damage. Newsflash for the MA: your reputation has been in tatters for some considerable time (e.g. see here).

Anyway, back to the newsletter. Mark Avery blogged about it (here) and it’s well worth reading his thoughts.

What Mark didn’t do was publish the actual newsletter, so we thought we’d do that here: Moorland Association Newsletter June 2016

It’s interesting to read just how worried the MA is about all the adverse publicity, especially that generated on social media. For all its public spin and denials and propaganda, behind closed doors the MA is certainly feeling the pressure like never before.

Let’s help bring down the curtain on their absurd pantomime – please join 45,000+ people and sign the e-petition to ban driven grouse shooting HERE

Goshawks still under threat in Peak District National Park

An interesting blog (here) has just been posted about the tentative success of goshawks this year in the Peak District National Park.

Written by Mark Thomas of the RSPB Investigations Team, the blog documents the appalling persecution of goshawks that has taken place within the boundary of this National Park over the years. It discusses how several active goshawk nests have been visited at night by masked, armed men (an identical tactic has been used to persecute goshawks within the Cairngorms National Park – e.g. see here) resulting in nest failures.

This year, four active goshawk nests have been discovered in the Upper Derwent Valley within the Peak District National Park and three of those are still active, now with recently-fledged young. Another goshawk nest within the NP is known to have failed with all the evidence pointing towards the adults being shot (see here).

Now, some might/undoubtedly will jump on these results (i.e. the three ‘successful’ nests) and use them to claim that raptor persecution is on the decline within the Park. They’d be fools to do so.

Just because these nests have successfully fledged young, it doesn’t mean that those young birds are now safe. Far from it. Cast your minds back to 2010 and another apparently ‘successful’ goshawk nest in the Peak District National Park. Here is what happened to them:

3 dead gos

The above is an excerpt from the Peak Nest Watch 2010 end of season report, which is a(nother) sorry catalogue of raptor persecution involving goshawks and other raptor species within this National Park. The full report can be downloaded here: peak_nestwatch_2010

The RSPB Investigations Team are no fools and their latest blog mentions that their cameras will remain in place at these 2016 nests and monitoring will continue for some considerable time, to find out whether these young birds will be left alone.

As they say, time will tell.

Hands off our Hen Harriers: Picnic at Grimwith Reservoir, Yorkshire Dales National Park

HandOffRed2
We’re told that the picnic/stroll/chat about the lack of Hen Harriers in England this year – ‘a tiny handful’ (RSPB) – will be held at Grimwith Reservoir car park at midday on Saturday (this Saturday! Saturday 25 June).
It will be nice to meet up with many friends and register our anger at the lack of Hen Harriers in the Yorkshire Dales National Park and elsewhere in the English uplands, and in many parts of the UK uplands.
Grimwith Reservoir car park is large and ideally placed for a stroll around the reservoir to take a look at the grouse butts set into the wall on the far side and the line of butts at the eastern end of the reservoir.  There is a clear view (if the weather is OK – surely it will be) across the characteristic chequerboard-pattern of burned heather patches.
Grimwith Reservoir is on the western side of OS Explorer map 298, Nidderdale, at 063641.
See you there perhaps?

Natural England issues impotent gas gun guidance

Last September we asked the statutory conservation agencies Scottish Natural Heritage and Natural England to issue urgent guidance about the use of propane gas guns in the uplands (here). We, and others, were concerned that these devices were being used to prevent hen harriers from nesting on grouse moors.

Bird scarer 1 - Copy

Both organisations committed to investigating this issue (see here and here) and Natural England promised it would publish this guidance before the start of the 2016 breeding season. It failed to do so.

Meanwhile, further evidence of the (mis)-use of gas guns on grouse moors emerged, this time within a National Park (e.g. see here and here).

SNH then managed to issue some contradictory advice (see here) which left us none the wiser.

Now Natural England has finally responded with this:

Thank you for your email, and my apologies for the delay in replying. I am conscious of the concerns that have been expressed around the use of gas guns on some moorlands in England and we have been keen to clarify the legal position around their use.

In doing this, we have found that their use is much wider than solely in the uplands. As a result, we have worked with Scottish Natural Heritage to develop some guidance, setting out the circumstances when permissions may be required for the deployment of gas guns. This is attached for your information.

We are also in discussion with the grouse shooting industry, to develop some best practice principles for the use of gas guns. The aim is to provide simple advice on their deployment, and help to avoid disturbance to birds nesting on protected sites.

I hope this information is helpful. If you have any further queries, please contact John Barrett at john.barrett@naturalengland.org.uk, and he will be happy to provide further information.

Yours sincerely

Alan Law

END

Are you ready to see the ‘guidance’ that has taken Natural England and SNH nine months to produce? Hold on to your seats, here it is:

Gas gun guidance NE - Copy

In a nutshell, the ‘guidance’ is: make sure your gas gun doesn’t disturb breeding Schedule 1 birds. Oh, and if your grouse moor is part of a SSSI designation, you’ll need to ask permission first.

Yep, that’s it.

Vicarious liability prosecution: Andrew Duncan (Newlands Estate) part 7

Criminal proceedings continued on 17th June against landowner Andrew Walter Bryce Duncan, who is alleged to be vicariously liable for the crimes committed by gamekeeper William (Billy) Dick in April 2014.

Gamekeeper Dick was convicted in August 2015 of killing a buzzard on the Newlands Estate, Dumfriesshire by striking it with rocks and repeatedly stamping on it (see here). Dick was sentenced in September 2015 and was given a £2000 fine (see here), although he is appealing his conviction.

Here’s a quick review of the proceedings against Andrew Duncan so far:

Hearing #1 (18th August 2015): Trial date set for 23rd Nov 2015, with an intermediate diet scheduled for 20th Oct 2015.

Hearing #2 (20th October 2015): Case adjourned. November trial date dumped. Notional diet hearing (where a trial date may be set) scheduled for 18th January 2016.

Hearing #3 (18th January 2016): Case adjourned. Another notional diet & debate scheduled for 11th March 2016.

Hearing #4 (11th March 2016): Case adjourned, pending the result of gamekeeper Billy Dick’s appeal. Another notional diet scheduled for 4th April 2016.

Hearing #5 (4th April 2016): Case adjourned, pending the result of gamekeeper Billy Dick’s appeal. Another notional diet scheduled for 3rd June 2016.

Hearing #6 (3rd June 2016): Case adjourned, pending the result of gamekeeper Billy Dick’s appeal. Another notional diet scheduled for 17th June 2016.

Hearing #7 (17th June 2016): Case adjourned, pending the result of gamekeeper Billy Dick’s appeal. Another notional diet scheduled for 15th July 2016.

For those interested in gamekeeper Billy Dick’s appeal, we blogged about it here.

Vicarious liability in relation to the persecution of raptors in Scotland (where one person may potentially be legally responsible for the criminal actions of another person working under their supervision) came in to force four and a half years ago on 1st January 2012. To date there have been two successful convictions: one in December 2014 (see here) and one in December 2015 (see here).  One further case did not reach the prosecution stage due, we believe, to the difficulties associated with identifying the management structure on the estate where the crimes were committed (see here).

Henry’s picnic Sat 25 June: Yorkshire Dales National Park

HowMany (2)
Next week, on Saturday 25 June, whether we have voted Brexit or Remain, there will be a Hen Harrier rally to mark this year’s virtual absence of nesting Hen Harriers from the English uplands.
Full details will appear here and elsewhere next Wednesday but we have now been told by the organisers that it will be in the Yorkshire Dales National Park.  Watch this space.
HandOffRed2

Case against gamekeeper Stanley Gordon re shot hen harrier Part 2

Criminal proceedings continued at Elgin Sheriff Court yesterday against Scottish gamekeeper Stanley Gordon.

Mr Gordon, 60, of Cabrach, Moray, is facing charges in connection with the alleged shooting of a hen harrier in June 2013.

The case continued without plea and the next hearing will be 14th July 2016.

Previous blog on this case here

 

 

General Licence restriction not worth paper it’s written on

SNH logo 2Further to yesterday’s blog about the status of the General Licence restriction on Raeshaw Estate (see here), SNH has now provided an explanation.

You’d better make sure you’re sitting down:

“Thank you for your email to Andrew Bachell. I am writing to give you an update.

SNH issued a restriction on the use of General Licences in two separate locations in November 2015. Following this, Raeshaw Farms Limited petitioned the Courts to seek a Judicial Review (JR) of our decision. The Court has yet to make a decision as to whether or not a JR will proceed but we expect a decision shortly.

As an interim measure during the petitions process the Judge suspended the restriction up until 10th June 2016. This date has now passed and the use of General Licences on this land is once more prohibited. Our website has been updated accordingly.

In response to an application from Raeshaw Farms Limited, we have granted them an individual licence to carry out some activities otherwise permitted under General Licence. This licence is subject to specific conditions and controls. This will allow the business to continue to operate but under tighter scrutiny rather than the relatively ‘light touch’ approach to Regulation that General Licences afford.

We will issue a press statement once the legal proceedings have concluded.

Yours sincerely,

Nick Halfhide, SNH Director of Operations”

END

This is unbelievable, even by SNH standards.

SNH issued a General Licence restriction order on Raeshaw Estate as a sanction for recent alleged raptor persecution crimes, on the basis of evidence provided to SNH by Police Scotland (see here and here). Even though that evidence wasn’t enough for a criminal prosecution, SNH must have been satisfied that it was sufficient to warrant this penalty, otherwise they wouldn’t have issued the GL restriction order.

Raeshaw Estate has been the subject of several police raids in connection with alleged wildlife crime since 2004, although none have resulted in a prosecution (see here).

SNH’s procedures for issuing a GL restriction are now subject to a potential judicial review but the GL restriction is now back in place on Raeshaw Estate after a temporary suspension by the court.

So why the hell has SNH now issued an individual licence to permit the very activities their GL restriction is supposed to prevent?!

What is the point of having a GL restriction in place if SNH is then going to totally undermine it by issuing an individual licence?

SNH says the individual licence is “subject to specific conditions and controls”. And what might they be? Unless you’ve got an enforcement officer shadowing the individual licence holder (wholly impractical and unrealistic), SNH is placing a huge amount of trust in the individual licence user to comply with these ‘specific conditions and controls’. That’ll be the trust that SNH deemed absent from the estate when it issued the GL restriction order.

UNBELIEVABLE. Remember this the next time the Scottish Government says it’s getting tough on wildlife crime.

Mossdale Estate resigns from Moorland Association over illegal pole traps incident

pole trapIt’s been two weeks since the news emerged that a gamekeeper on the Mossdale Estate in the Yorkshire Dales National Park had been filmed setting three illegal pole traps on a grouse moor where a female hen harrier had been observed hunting (see here).

It’s been 12 days since the Moorland Association admitted that the owner of Mossdale Estate was a member of the MA (see here) and how disgusted they were that these crimes had taken place, but not quite disgusted enough to kick the owner out of their organisation.

It’s taken them a while (perhaps because they were still recovering from being “very sad” over the National Trust’s decision to terminate the lease of a grouse moor tenant in the Peak District National Park (see here) but now the Moorland Association is in full damage limitation mode.

The following statement has just appeared on their website:

Illegally set traps – final statement

15th June 2016

Statement from Moorland Association Director, Amanda Anderson:

“The MA has formally reviewed the incident on Mossdale Estate where an underkeeper admitted to setting traps illegally. The keeper is no longer employed by the estate. Mossdale has also resigned its membership of the MA”.

END

So, still not quite disgusted enough to expel this member, then?

And what of the gamekeeper, ‘no longer employed by the estate’? Was he allowed to resign or was he sacked? And is/was he a member of the National Gamekeepers’ Organisation? We did ask this question 12 days ago but the National Gamekeepers’ Organisation hasn’t yet responded. Perhaps they too have been ‘very sad’ about recent events and haven’t yet been able to face the world. Let’s ask them again. Emails to: info@nationalgamekeepers.org.uk 

There’s some other unfinished business also relating to these crimes. We’re still waiting to hear back from Acting Assistant Chief Constable Amanda Oliver of North Yorkshire Police, who 15 days ago promised “a full review” of why this criminal gamekeeper was let off with a police caution instead of being prosecuted (see here). To be fair, she was on holiday when she made this promise so we’re happy to give her a bit more time to publish her findings.

Photo: one of three illegal pole traps found on the Mossdale Estate. (Photo by RSPB Investigations).

Police investigate suspicious death of tenth red kite in North Yorkshire

RKHarrogateNorth Yorkshire Police are investigating the suspicious death of yet another red kite – the tenth red kite to have been either shot or found dead in suspicious circumstances in North Yorkshire in the last few months.

The latest victim was found at Timble Ings near Harrogate, just a short distance from Blubberhouse Moor where another red kite was found shot and critically injured a few weeks ago (see here).

Although the cause of death of this latest red kite has not yet been established, it’s not difficult to see why North Yorkshire Police are treating it as suspicious at this stage. The eastern side of the Yorkshire Dales National Park and the adjoining Nidderdale AONB are notorious black spots for illegal raptor persecution, particularly for hen harriers (see here) and red kites (see here). The area is dominated by driven grouse moors.

Article on the latest dead red kite can be read in the Harrogate Advertiser here

UPDATE 5.30pm: North Yorkshire Police have now confirmed this red kite had been shot. Well done to them for putting out a quick statement and appeal for information (here).

E-petition to ban driven grouse shooting can be signed here