Category: Persecution Incidents in England

Fantastic news!

Mark Avery is going back to the Royal Courts of Justice in London after being given permission by the Appeal Court to challenge an earlier court decision that hen harrier brood meddling is legal.

[Back to the High Court for Mark and his brilliant legal team. Photo by Ruth Tingay]

The RSPB has also been given permission to appeal.

As Mark explains on his blog today (here), details of the exact grounds for an appeal have not yet been given, nor has a court date, although according to this public notice record it should be before 6th July 2020!

I wonder how many more brood meddled hen harrier chicks will have vanished in suspicious circumstances by then? Two of them disappeared within weeks of being released from captivity back in to the uplands this year: one on a grouse moor in County Durham on 9th Sept (here) and one ten days later on a grouse moor in the Yorkshire Dales National Park on 19 Sept (here).

We don’t know what’s happened to either of them, although an informed and educated guess would suggest they’ve both been illegally killed, exposing the sheer stupidity and futility of the brood meddling scheme.

Well done Mark and the RSPB for continuing the fight.

Following earlier blogs about the two ‘missing’ brood meddled hen harriers (here), one of which vanished on a grouse moor in County Durham on 9th September 2019 (here), further detail has now emerged about the loss of the second harrier.

Here’s a press statement published this afternoon by North Yorkshire Police:

Appeal for information about a missing satellite-tagged hen harrier

Police are appealing for information about a missing satellite-tagged hen harrier.

The young male bird was tagged at its release site in the Yorkshire Dales on 30 July 2019, as part of the hen harrier brood management scheme. The bird had not been named, but is known to the Natural England monitoring team as 183704.

It is known from satellite tag data that the bird had recently spent a few days in the Forest of Bowland in Lancashire. On the morning of 19 September it had spent time near Thirlmere in the Lake District, before passing through the Mallerstang Common area in the afternoon. At 6.03pm that same evening the last transmission from the tag was received in the Seavy Gutter area of Askrigg Common, but the bird could have flown on for some distance since the last transmission.

Since then no further transmissions have been received from the tag. Natural England field staff have carried out checks with a hand-held scanner and monitored known roost sites, but the bird has not been found.

North Yorkshire Police have carried out two searches, the first being an initial search in the area of the last known transmission, and the second being a more extensive search covering several square kilometres, along with local enquiries. There have been no further sightings of the harrier or transmissions from the tag. Farmers, land owners and gamekeepers in the area have given both Natural England and North Yorkshire Police full cooperation with the search.

The bird is a juvenile male and will still be brown in colour. The bird was ringed and will bear the BTO ring number EA54306.

At this time North Yorkshire Police are keen to locate the bird safe and well, but if found deceased the bird can be subject to post mortem to establish if the cause of death was from natural causes or predation, or if criminal activity was involved.

If you find the bird or have any information please contact North Yorkshire Police on 101 and quote reference number 12190177425.

ENDS

At least this police press release doesn’t include a ridiculously glowing estate testimonial (unlike this one) but what’s all this about ‘Farmers, land owners and gamekeepers in the area have given both Natural England and North Yorkshire Police full cooperation with the search‘? So what? Why is that information included? When do you ever see this type of information in any other police appeal for information?

‘Police are investigating a burglary at 123 Letsbe Avenue and the homeowner has given full cooperation with the investigation’.

‘Police are investigating an assault on a dog walker in Dodge Country Park and the park rangers have given full cooperation with the investigation’.

The police (and Natural England and DEFRA for that matter) need to stop pandering to the game shooting industry, which is well known to harbour a criminal element, and just report on the facts of the case.

That gripe aside, this is a decent press statement from North Yorkshire Police and provides useful detail about the date of the tag’s last known transmission and the location. That another satellite-tagged hen harrier has vanished in suspicious circumstances on a grouse moor in the Yorkshire Dales National Park will come as no surprise to anybody. This National Park is a dark pit of persecution for most birds of prey that dare to fly there.

Askrigg Common is marked with a red star on this map:

The Seavy Gutter area of Askrigg Common is circled:

At least part of Askrigg Common is used for driven grouse shooting and the shooting rights appear to be owned by the neighbouring Gunnerside Estate, who in 2015 applied for planning permission for a beaters lunch hut, claiming amongst other things that this building would be in the ‘public interest through the economic and social benefits associated with the shooting activities run by the Estate‘! See: Planning consent Gunnerside lunch hut 2016

As ever, with no hen harrier corpse and no tag, it is impossible for this bird’s disappearance to even be recorded formally as a crime, even though the Government’s very own commissioned research has shown that the 72% of young satellite tagged hen harriers that have vanished in suspicious circumstances are most likely to have been illegally killed on grouse moors.

This is the pitiful state of hen harrier conservation in the UK in 2019.

Durham Constabulary has issued a press statement about one of the two brood meddled hen harrier chicks that vanished off the face of the earth in September, which the Moorland Association was so keen to play down.

From it we learn that this young male hen harrier ‘disappeared’ on 9th September 2019 (what’s that, just over a month from being released from captivity?) and its last satellite tag signal came from a grouse moor on the Bowes Estate in County Durham.

[Bowes Moor, photo from Natural England]

It’s good that the police have managed to put together a press release about this missing hen harrier but the content is quite extraordinary. As you’d expect it includes statements from ‘partner’ organisations such as Natural England and the North Pennines AONB Partnership, but it also includes what almost amounts to a testimonial from the Bowes Estate, including the line:

“The police have stressed that there is no suspicion of any wrongdoing by Bowes Estate or its staff…...”

Really? That would be an astonishing statement from the police. A police spokesman said that the possibility of a crime being committed had not been ruled out, so presumably everybody is still under suspicion, whether connected to the estate or not? And no, that doesn’t mean we’re accusing the estate staff of anything.

Here’s the press release in full:

Concerns over welfare of missing hen harrier

4 October 2019

Bowes Moor is managed for grouse shooting and Natural England has a restoration plan in place for the SSSI. It makes for a very interesting read (increased frequency of burning, burning in designated ‘no burn’ areas, active draining, vehicle damage on blanket bog…….):

Bowes Moor SSSI Restoration Plan 2018_2028

A ‘seriously injured’ Marsh harrier was found in the Bowes area in 2011 with gunshot injuries to both wings and a leg (see here) leading to an offer of a reward for information. We’re not aware of any subsequent prosecutions (thanks Guy Shorrock for the info).

We’re still waiting for further details of the second brood meddled hen harrier that vanished. We know it disappeared in September, in North Yorkshire, on a grouse moor, but no further information has been revealed yet.

Following on from the news earlier this week that two of this year’s five brood meddled hen harrier chicks have ‘disappeared’ in suspicious circumstances (both on grouse moors, we’ve been told unofficially), questions have been asked about when Natural England will pull the plug on this outrageous five year ‘trial’.

[The most pitiful photograph of the year: the five brood meddled hen harrier chicks, removed from their nest and parents to appease the grouse shooting industry. After being released again in August, two have since vanished in suspicious circumstances]

Although the corpses of the two ‘missing’ hen harriers haven’t been found (hardly a surprise, those people killing these birds have learned to cover their tracks and destroy the evidence thus preventing any prospect of being prosecuted), expert opinion from both within and outwith the shooting industry is pretty clear about what’s likely to have happened to them:

Natural England does have an exit strategy for the hen harrier brood meddling trial, as laid out in the Project Plan, although the terms of reference are a bit vague, perhaps deliberately so:

So there is scope in this exit strategy to stop the trial at any time rather than having to endure a full five years of this pantomime – that’s good – but look at the section highlighted in red above: it is not clear how many brood meddled hen harriers have to ‘disappear’ or be found and confirmed to have been illegally killed before a decision is made to pull the plug.

We’ve been seeking clarity on this but so far Natural England has dodged the question:

This question was also put directly to Natural England during a meeting with Wild Justice in August. The interim CEO and one of her Directors said they didn’t know off the top of their heads but would find out and get back to us. So far, nothing.

The licence to brood meddle hen harriers in England expires in January 2020 (it was only issued on a two-year basis, for legal reasons) so it’ll be interesting to see whether Natural England issues it again and if so, how it deals with the knowledge that two of the five (and possibly more by then) have most likely been killed on grouse moors.

We’re also still waiting to hear from the court to find out whether Mark Avery and the RSPB can appeal an earlier decision and have the brood meddling ‘trial’ declared unlawful.

Well, well, well.

As predicted by absolutely everybody with half a brain, some of this year’s brood meddled hen harrier chicks have ‘disappeared’ and it’s not even the end of September. Quelle surprise!

However, if you’d just seen the Moorland Association’s headline and first few paragraphs of their press release you’d never know that two of the five have disappeared in suspicious circumstances. This latest media output is perhaps the most disingenuous we’ve ever seen from the Moorland Association, and that’s saying something from an organisation notorious for distorting the facts!

In fact you have to get down as far as paragraph six before you’re told that two have disappeared, although the text doesn’t actually tell you that they’ve disappeared. Here’s the full press release, just for the record:

It’s quite the masterclass in distraction techniques, isn’t it?!

Mark Avery has already pulled apart some of this press release (see here) including comments about the maps not matching the text.

What we’re interested in is this:

1. When did these two birds disappear? No dates are provided in the press release.
2. In which county or counties did these two birds disappear? There is no geographic location provided in the press release. [See update at foot of blog]
3. On what type of habitat did the last known fix come from for each tag? Was it a grouse moor in one or both cases?
4. Were the last two locations on land owned/managed by Moorland Association members?
5. What sort of tags were the two birds carrying and what were the details of each tag’s transmission cycle? (i.e. how many data transfer cycles have now passed without data being transmitted)?
6. Who is monitoring the tag data?
7. Have the police been informed? If so, who informed them? Was it the Moorland Association or was it somebody else?
8. Are these two disappearances the subject of a live police investigation? [See update at foot of blog]
9. Have the police been given access to the tag data?
10. Have any police searches been carried out? If yes, were these searches undertaken without giving the landowner prior notification?
11. Why hasn’t Natural England made a statement?
12. What is Natural England’s policy for declaring the brood meddling trial a failure? i.e. How many satellite tagged brood meddled chicks have to ‘disappear’ before Natural England makes that declaration? One? Two? Three? Four? Five? This question was actually put to Natural England during a recent meeting between Wild Justice & Natural England’s interim CEO and one of its Directors. Natural England said they didn’t know but would find out. So far they haven’t come back with an answer.
13. When will DEFRA acknowledge that the grouse shooting industry is completely out of control and unable to self-regulate?
14. And when will DEFRA do something about it?

For those who might have missed it, here’s what the Government-commissioned science says about satellite-tagged hen harriers in northern England – 72% of those tagged so far [by Natural England] have been done in on grouse moors (see here). We await the results of the RSPB’s five-year tagging data with interest.

And for those who might have missed it, here’s the Moorland Association practically begging its members not to kill any hen harriers this year (see here).

UPDATE midnight:

Police Supt Nick Lyall has tweeted the following this evening:

UPDATE 1 October 2019: Moorland Association’s brood meddling press release amounts to abuse of process (here)

UPDATE 3 October 2019: When will Natural England pull the plug on hen harrier brood meddling? (here)

UPDATE 4 October 2019: Brood meddled hen harrier chick vanished from grouse moor on Bowes Estate, County Durham (here)

UPDATE 8 October 2019: 2nd brood meddled hen harrier chick vanished from grouse moor in Yorkshire Dales National Park (here)

UPDATE 15 October 2019: 3rd brood meddled hen harrier ‘disappears’ in suspicious circumstances (here)