Further to today’s news that gamekeeper John Orrey, 63, of Hall Farm, Kneeton, Nottinghamshire was sentenced today at Nottingham Magistrates Court for battering to death two buzzards he’d caught inside a trap (see here), here’s a piece from BBC journalist Simon Hare on East Midlands Today. Hare door-stepped Orrey as he left the court today but Orrey refused to comment.
Tom Grose from the RSPB Investigations team deserves credit for his poise and professionalism in what must have been a harrowing case.
Unfortunately this short video will expire at 7pm tomorrow (Saturday 29th Jan 2022) so watch it while you have the chance. Starts at 04.40 min:
A gamekeeper has been sentenced to a total of 20 weeks’ imprisonment suspended for 12 months and fined £1000 after pleading guilty to killing two buzzards on land managed for pheasant shooting after an investigation by Nottinghamshire Police and the RSPB.
Shocking footage was played in court, showing John Orrey, 63, of Hall Farm, Kneeton, brutally killing two healthy buzzards inside a cage trap, into which they had been lured.
The court heard how, early in January 2021, members of the public reported a live buzzard caught in a cage trap in Kneeton, Nottinghamshire. Following up the report, an RSPB Investigations Officer located the trap on a pheasant shoot. There was a live buzzard inside – later confirmed to be a different bird than the one first reported – along with the carcasses of a pheasant and two stock doves, used as bait to attract the buzzard.
Cage traps can be used legally under license for certain reasons to catch corvids such as crows and magpies. However the law states that traps must be checked at least every 25 hours, and anything caught accidentally must be released unharmed.
The buzzard was released due to concerns for its welfare and the RSPB Officer installed a remote camera.
A review of the footage revealed that the trap had been visited on several occasions by a man – later identified as John Orrey – driving a green 4×4. Two buzzards entered the trap on separate, consecutive days, no doubt attracted to the carrion in the harsh weather. On both occasions Orrey entered the trap and bludgeoned the buzzards to death with the long handle of a slash hook.
[Ed: A five-minute video of these offences has been produced by the RSPB’s Investigations Team. WARNING – it contains distressing footage]
Nottinghamshire Police were notified and swiftly identified the suspect as John Orrey, a gamekeeper on a pheasant shoot on the land in question. A warrant was obtained to search his premises. In a barn near his home was the same green 4×4 with a long-handled slash hook in the boot. The bodies of the buzzards had likely been disposed of. A forensic examination of the two stock doves confirmed they had been illegally shot.
Buzzards and stock doves are legally protected by the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. To intentionally kill or injure one is a criminal offence and could result in an unlimited fine or up to six months in jail.
Orrey pleaded guilty to all charges in December 2021 and was sentenced today (28 January) at Nottinghamshire Magistrates’ Court. In relation to the killing of the buzzards, for each bird he received an 18-week suspended sentence to run concurrently and a £500 fine for each bird. He was also ordered to pay £650 costs and £50 victim surcharge, and £180 compensation to the Wild Justice Raptor Forensics Fund.
District Judge Grace Leong remarked: “This was a shocking and unnecessary act of cruelty and violence.”
Tom Grose, RSPB Investigations Officer, said: “When I first saw the footage I was shocked and sickened. The birds were subject to a repeated torrent of blows before being thrown into the boot of a vehicle. This was clearly a premeditated operation and yet again illustrates that the shooting industry has a serious problem that needs to be sorted. Killing birds of prey has been illegal for decades, and yet it is still commonplace. Why? Clearly the punishments are no deterrent and the courts must look at using the full range of sentences available – including jail – to signal clearly that this sort of behaviour is simply not acceptable.
“Better regulation is needed too. The RSPB has repeatedly asked for the conditions on cage traps to be tightened. The UK Government must follow the recommendations of the recent
UN assessment, which calls for stronger regulation of the shooting industry and to allow for the removal of licences to use these traps.”
Chief Inspector Heather Sutton, Nottinghamshire Police’s lead for rural crime, said: “This sentencing is extremely significant and I hope it demonstrates just how seriously Nottinghamshire Police takes reports of rural crime and how we will work together with our partners to bring anyone committing these horrific offences to justice. It is unacceptable that any wildlife should experience the kind of ordeal John Orrey subjected them to.”
Orrey pleaded guilty to 5 x WCA and 4 x firearms charges:
• Possession of two dead stock doves.
• Intentionally killing a common buzzard on 8/1/21
• Intentionally killing a common buzzard on 9/1/21
• Using a cage trap to kill or take a wild bird
• Possession of an article (slash hook) capable of being used to commit an offence
• Failure to comply with condition of shotgun certificate (weapon not securely stored)
• Failure to comply with condition of firearms certificate (ammunition not securely stored)
• Failure to comply with condition of firearms certificate (weapons and ammunition not securely stored)
• Possessing ammunition for a firearm without a certificate
I understand a blog from the RSPB is imminent, providing more detail and commentary than this press release.
I’ll post both as soon as they become available.
UPDATE 15.20hrs: An article in the Newark Advertiser provides more detail about the case and states that Orrey’s shotgun licence has been revoked (see here).
UPDATE 15.50hrs: The blog by the RSPB’s Investigations Team can be read here
UPDATE 18.50hrs: Photo of buzzard-killer John Orrey from BBC News:
UPDATE 19.10hrs: Wild Justice Raptor Forensic Fund helps secure conviction of buzzard-killing gamekeeper John Orrey (here)
UPDATE 21.00hrs: “A shocking and unnecessary act of cruelty and violence” says Judge sentencing gamekeeper John Orrey (here)
A gamekeeper will be sentenced at Nottinghamshire Magistrates Court today after he pleaded guilty to beating to death two buzzards that he caught inside a crow cage trap in Nottinghamshire in January 2021 (see here for previous blog). There are additional offences, including a firearms offence.
[Nottinghamshire Police visited the crime scene to collect evidence with the RSPB Investigations Team in January last year. Photo via Nottinghamshire Police Rural Crime Team].
I think we can expect to see extensive coverage of this case from the RSPB, including the video of the so-far-unnamed gamekeeper killing the buzzards, once sentencing has been handed down. I also understand there may be coverage on Channel 4 News this evening.
RSPB Investigations Officer Guy Shorrock published an insightful blog yesterday (‘Cage traps in the spotlight across the UK’) detailing the ongoing and widespread mis-use and abuse of crow cage traps, often used by criminal gamekeepers to trap and kill raptors, sometimes deliberately and sometimes through reckless negligence.
His blog provided details of an incident in Wales in April last year, and I don’t recall seeing any media coverage of this case. The following text is reproduced directly from Guy’s blog:
A case from April last year again highlights our concerns. A member of public found a crow cage trap on sheep grazing farmland in North Wales containing a buzzard, a red kite and multiple crows. The finder released all the birds and reported it to us.
As with all cage traps outside Scotland, without marking and registration it can far more difficult, often impossible, to identify the trap operator. A visit by my colleague Niall Owen confirmed the presence of a lamb carcass, which should have been properly disposed of and not used as bait, along with two carrion crows. A week later the trap held two crows and a buzzard plus the bodies of two further crows. To identify a trap operator, and to determine whether the licence conditions were being complied with, a covert camera was installed for a couple of days. At this point, there was no clear contravention of the licence conditions. The buzzard was in good health, so it was left in situ and provided with fresh water and food just in case visits were not made. One dead crow was seized and sent off for a post-mortem. Two days later the buzzard was still present, thankfully alive and well, so was released unharmed. We informed North Wales Police who identified the farmer operating the trap and ensured it was rendered incapable of trapping.
[Buzzard caught inside the cage trap, photo by Niall Owen, RSPB. This bird was released by the RSPB when it became clear the trap was not being operated lawfully]
The post-mortem on the carrion crow confirmed the bird had died of starvation, confirming further breaches of the licence conditions and animal welfare regulations. Had the original finder and ourselves not released the trapped birds, we fear they would have met the same fate. This case was about negligence rather than any deliberate targeting of birds of prey, and following the police investigation, the operator was given a Community Resolution Order. This had a requirement that they could not operate cage traps until a suitable course has been attended.
Guy’s blog is timely as we await the sentencing of a gamekeeper who has recently been convicted of killing two buzzards in a cage trap in Nottinghamshire (see here). The RSPB has what Guy describes as ‘graphic footage’ filmed on a covert camera showing exactly how the gamekeeper used the trap to catch and then kill two buzzards. I understand the RSPB will release this video evidence after sentencing next week.
I’d encourage you to read Guy’s blog in full (here) to understand the different approaches being deployed (or not) to address these offences in England, Scotland and Wales and how members of the public can help catch the killers.
The North York Moors National Park Authority (NYMNPA) is currently consulting on its draft management plan, which aims to set out a series of priority actions to help the Park tackle issues which include ‘recovery from the COVID pandemic, escalating climate and nature emergencies, increasing mental and physical health problems among the general population, and the need to change the way we look after our landscapes‘.
I had a quick read through this document at the weekend and was surprised to see how little substance it contained and how vague its stated 22 priority objectives were. For example, whilst there was general commentary around ‘active restoration’ of degraded blanket bog and peat habitats, the only reference I found that might possibly allude to the massive environmental problems caused by intensive driven grouse shooting, which dominates the landscape of this National Park, was this:
Objective 8 –Work with our moorland community to support the sustainable management of moorland to ensure it retains a natural remoteness which supports a greater variety of species and habitats.
I didn’t find one single reference to tackling wildlife crime, and especially raptor persecution, which has long been recognised as an ongoing characteristic of this National Park. For example, just in the last few years alone we’ve seen a shot buzzard (here), a poisoned buzzard (here), deliberate disturbance of a goshawk breeding attempt (here), a satellite-tagged hen harrier vanish in suspicious circumstances (here), another shot buzzard (here), and another shot buzzard (here), a goshawk trapped, reportedly killed and taken away in sack (here), another poisoned buzzard (here), an illegally-set trap (here), and five shot buzzards found stuffed under a rock (here).
Nor did I find any reference to targeting the mass release of non-native gamebirds (pheasants and red-legged partridge) or assessing the damage they cause inside the National Park. It seems the North York Moor National Park Authority could do with taking a look at the Cairngorms National Park Authority’s management plan, which has recently included this issue as one of its priorities (see here).
The North York Moors National Park draft management plan is important, because it aims to set out its vision for how the National Park will be in 20 years time.
According to the NYMNPA website, ‘the draft plan is the result of a series of conversations with stakeholders and partners over the last year. The proposals it contains are not set in stone. Neither we nor our partners possess a monopoly of wisdom. This document invites discussion, input and feedback so that the final plan can properly reflect as wide a range of views as possible. It is an opportunity for everyone to collaborate with us to create a shared plan that will shape the future of the North York Moors National Park‘.
The Park Authority wants your views, whether you live in the Park or you are a visitor. Particularly, it wants to know whether it has ‘missed something that is important to you’:
If you share my concerns about ongoing raptor persecution in this National Park, and the unregulated mass release of non-native species for shooting, I’d encourage you to contact the NYMNPA and ask them to prioritise tackling these issues in the management plan. Contact details are shown in the image above.
Please note, the consultation closes this Friday (21st January 2022).
Further to the blog post on 4th January 2022 (here), a gamekeeper has pleaded guilty to five offences committed in Nottinghamshire in January 2021, including the illegal killing of two buzzards, the unlawful use of a trap, the unlawful possession of two stock doves and a firearms offence.
[Nottinghamshire Police visited the crime scene to collect evidence with the RSPB Investigations Team in January last year. Photo via Nottinghamshire Police Rural Crime Team]
His guilty plea means he has avoided a trial (and thus saved the court time) for which he’ll no doubt be rewarded when it comes to sentencing.
Sentencing has been deferred until later this month. I expect the full horror of his crimes, and his identity, to be publicised at that time. It’ll be interesting to see whether he has any ‘professional’ affiliations to any of the shooting organisations that claim to operate a ‘zero tolerance’ policy on raptor persecution.
A Raptor Forensic Fund, established in 2020 by Wild Justice to help provide financial support to police investigations into alleged raptor persecution crime, has played a part in this conviction.
This is the 4th gamekeeper to be convicted of wildlife crimes/raptor persecution since November 2021. The three others were gamekeeper Shane Leech (33) in Suffolk (here), gamekeeper Peter Givens (53) in the Scottish Borders (here) and gamekeeper Hilton Prest (58) in Cheshire (here).
Kudos to Nottinghamshire Police Rural Crime Team, the RSPB Investigations Team and the CPS for their hard work in securing this result. Excellent partnership working in action!
UPDATE 28th January 2022: Gamekeeper to be sentenced for beating to death two buzzards in a trap (here)
The trial of a gamekeeper accused of killing buzzards is due to begin this week almost a year to the day of the alleged offences.
On 12th January 2021 Nottinghamshire Police, working in partnership with the RSPB Investigations Team, attended a location in the Kneeton area following reports of concern (see here). A gamekeeper was later arrested and charged with the alleged killing of buzzards (here).
[Police attending the scene of a crow cage trap in January 2021. Photo via Nottingham Police]
The gamekeeper appeared in court in August and entered a plea of not guilty (see here) so a trial date was set for January 2022.
The trial is due to begin on Thurs 6th January 2022.
This is the 4th gamekeeper to be brought before the courts since November 2021 – the three others were all convicted of various offences including gamekeeper Shane Leech (33) in Suffolk (here), gamekeeper Peter Givens (53) in the Scottish Borders (here) and gamekeeper Hilton Prest (58) in Cheshire (here).
Please note, as this is a live case no further detail will be provided here until the case has concluded or there is official commentary from the court reporter. Comments on this particular blog also won’t be accepted until the case concludes so as not to prejudice proceedings. Thanks for your understanding.
Three more satellite-tagged hen harriers have gone missing in suspicious circumstances, according to the most recent data published by Natural England just before Xmas.
One went missing in July 2021, one in August and one in September. Neither the police or Natural England have issued any media press releases or made any public appeals for information about any of them. Instead, the grouse-shooting industry was given free-rein to publish propaganda all summer and autumn about ‘how hen harriers are thriving in the English uplands’, without any of the regulatory authorities challenging this rhetoric with any vigour.
[A young hen harrier. Photographer unknown]
Periodically Natural England publishes a table showing the fates of hen harriers it has satellite-tagged. These updates are infrequent and typically occur two to three times a year. In the latest (December) update, the following three hen harriers are listed as ‘missing, fate unknown’:
Hen Harrier Asta (female), tagged on 10th July 2020 at ‘Northumberland 3’ site. The date of last contact is given as 24th July 2021 in the North Pennines. The site location is given as ‘Site confidential’.
Hen Harrier Josephine (female), tagged on 30th June 2021 at ‘Northumberland 2’ site. The date of last contact is given as 14th August 2021 in Northumberland. The site location is given as ‘Site confidential – ongoing’.
Hen Harrier R2-F-1-21 (female), a brood meddled chick tagged on 20th July 2021 from site location ‘BM R2 Cumbria’. The date of last contact is given as 24th September 2021 in Northumberland. No specific site information is given and the comments section states ‘searches ongoing’.
These disappearances were mentioned in a Natural England blog which was published at the same time as the December data update. The blog is attributed to Dave Slater, Director for Wildlife Licensing and Enforcement Cases at NE, although I don’t think he wrote it – it’s quite a different style when compared with his previous missives. Anyway, these three missing hen harriers are mentioned in the blog, although they’re not exactly given headline prominence – this paragraph appears towards the end of the blog:
You’ll also note that the tags on three of this year’s seven brood meddled hen harrier chicks have stopped transmitting. One of these (Hen Harrier R2-F-1-21) is one of the three ‘missing fate unknown’ harriers I mentioned at the top of this blog. The other two brood meddled chicks have been found dead and their corpses retrieved and sent for post mortem. Those two are:
Brood meddled male Hen Harrier R2-M2-21, tagged on 20th July 2021 from nest site ‘BM R2 Cumbria’. The date of last contact is given in NE’s data table as 27th October 2021 and the location is given as ‘Cumbria, site confidential, hen harrier roost site’. The notes section says, ‘Recovered dead 28th October 2021, awaiting PM results’.
Brood meddled male Hen Harrier R2-M3-21, tagged on 20th July 2021 from nest site ‘BM R2 Cumbria’. The date of last contact is given as 27th October 2021 and the location is given as ‘County Durham’. The notes section says, ‘Recovered dead 28th October 2021, awaiting PM results’.
These two dead brood-meddled hen harriers are also mentioned in Natural England’s blog as follows:
It seems strange that the post-mortem results were not yet available by the time the Natural England blog was published on 15th December, given that both corpses were retrieved some seven weeks earlier.
I was also surprised to see the statement, ‘The finding circumstances did not suggest that the birds were illegally killed‘. Yeah, I think the same was said about Bowland Betty, the hen harrier found dead on a grouse moor at Swinton Estate, where the cause of death was only revealed after a pioneering forensic examination by scientists at the University College London Institute of Orthopaedics and Musculoskeletal Science, which found a tiny fragment of lead at the site of a leg fracture, confirming that she had been shot (see this scientific peer reviewed paper published in the journal Veterinary Record in 2015: hopkins-et-al-2015_bowlandbetty_vetrecord and see here for a good laugh at the Countryside Alliance’s ‘expert’ opinion).
I might be wrong of course, but this latest statement from Natural England looks suspiciously like yet another damage-limitation exercise. I’ll be following up on those two mortem results.
In the meantime, it just leaves me to update the very long list of hen harriers that have been confirmed as illegally killed or suspected to have been killed since 2018, mostly on or close to driven grouse moors. A pattern of criminality that has been obvious to many of us for years – and has been demonstrated scientifically with Natural England’s own data – see here.
I’ll add the link here when I’ve written that blog.
UPDATE 2nd January 2022: 60 hen harriers confirmed illegally killed or ‘missing’ since 2018, most of them on or close to UK grouse moors (here)
The Derbyshire Wildlife Trust (DWT) is pretty proactive when it comes to birds of prey, which is just as well given the appalling levels of raptor persecution in the county, not least those associated with the grouse moors of the Dark Peak area of the Peak District National Park (e.g. see here).
Enthusiastic supporters of, and contributors to, Hen Harrier Day, DWT also runs the Upland Skies Bird of Prey Project which is supported by funding from the National Lottery (here) and earlier this year DWT announced the recruitment of a member of staff dedicated to peregrine protection thanks to funding from the Government’s Green Recovery Challenge Fund (here).
Now the Trust is advertising a position for a part-time Engagement Trainee (£19,047 per annum) to work within the Wilder Communities Team to help deliver a programme of work to inspire people to take action for wildlife.
In this role, you’ll:
• Support the Derby City Peregrine Project.
• Work on a Peregrine protection project in Derbyshire.
• Raise awareness and education of raptor persecution.
To be successful you will:
• Be passionate about inspiring people to care and act for nature.
• Have great communication and engagement skills.
• Be able to work with partners to deliver a project.
Responsibilities
In this role, you’ll receive training and support to:
• Assist in the planning and delivery of DWT’s Wilder Engagement work, specifically to develop and deliver an awareness raising programme of Derbyshire’s peregrines and other birds of prey.
• Recruit and coordinate volunteers for watch points and monitoring of sites.
• Develop an excellent understanding of bird of prey persecution in the UK for further educational awareness to the public.
About you
This role might be right for you if:
• You would like to deliver activities that are engaging and informative.
• You’ve had some experience working with volunteers.
• You have a good understanding of ecology and the wildlife of the British Isles.
• You have strong organisational skills and enjoy managing changing priorities.
This role will be based at DWT’s office in Middleton but candidates will be expected to work at various locations around the county. A balance of home and on site working will be allowed.
Interviews are planned for Monday 31st January 2022.
This is a part-time position of 25 hours per week and will involve working regular Saturdays.
The successful applicant will be required to undergo an enhanced DBS check as this role involves working with people under 18 year old.
Closing date is 16 January 2022. Interviews are planned for Monday 31st January 2022.
On 17th December 2021, I blogged about how Natural England (NE) had been keeping a terrible, terrible secret about the gruesome fate of one of its satellite-tagged hen harriers earlier this year (see here), preferring instead to sit back and watch its so-called ‘partners’ in the grouse-shooting industry claim false credit for ‘protecting’ this species.
I guess that’s what happens when NE accepts a £10K bung from grouse-shooting industry reps on condition that NE doesn’t publicly criticise them (see here). So much for NE being an independent regulator, eh?
In that pre-Xmas blog I asked NE to make a statement about this particular crime and I suggested they may like to include a comment about whether they thought the hen harrier’s wings had been ripped off while she was still alive, based on the evidence in NE’s possession.
You’ll note I was careful not to reveal any information in that blog that could potentially affect a police investigation, i.e. tag number, bird’s name, location of incident, habitat type, etc.
Natural England didn’t respond directly on the blog but instead published a comment on Twitter on 20th December in response to Chris Packham’s request for information:
This is a complete cop-out by Natural England.
Yes, there is indeed an on-going police investigation but it’s going nowhere, just like the other 57 police investigations into the illegal killing of hen harriers in the last three years (see here).
This particular investigation began over 9 months ago. Nobody has been interviewed, let alone arrested or charged, and the likelihood of a prosecution is precisely zero. That’s not necessarily the result of police ineptitude; as regular blog readers will be all too painfully aware, these crimes are notoriously difficult to prosecute given the remoteness of the location and the lack of witnesses, although in this case the police do have some explaining to do – details on that will be forthcoming in due course.
Saying nothing by hiding behind the excuse of a live police investigation is simply a convenient cover for Natural England not to have to admit that its hen harrier brood meddling trial is a conservation sham because hen harriers are still being brutalised by the industry with which NE has jumped in to bed.
There is absolutely no reason whatsoever why NE cannot make a statement about this latest horrific crime – it can easily be done without compromising the police investigation.
Instead, we got this from NE Chairman Tony Juniper on Xmas Eve:
I intend to write more about this latest persecution crime in the near future.
UPDATE 7th March 2022: Natural England still silent, apparently on police orders, about hen harrier whose wings were torn off (here)
UPDATE 25th August 2022: Hen harrier’s ‘wings removed’ & its satellite tag fitted to a crow in sick ploy to disguise the crime (here)
