Category: Persecution Incidents in England

Case against Stody Estate gamekeeper Allen Lambert: part 5

A new trial date has been set in the case against (now former) Stody Estate gamekeeper, Allen Lambert.

At a previous court hearing in December 2013, Lambert, 64, pleaded guilty to storing Mevinphos and Aldicarb pesticides at the Stody Estate in north Norfolk on or about 4th April 2013, as well as storing them without reasonable precautions.

He also admitted a charge of failing to comply with a firearms certificate by poor storage of a .22 Mauser.

He denied further charges including intentionally killing 14 buzzards, a sparrowhawk and a tawny owl between April 1-4 2013, as well as a charge of keeping nine dead buzzards on 4th April 2013.

His trial was previously due to begin in May 2014 but it was adjourned. The new trial date is 1st October 2014.

Previous blogs about this case here, here, here and here.

Gamekeeper convicted for pole-trapping offences

tawny owlMark Stevens, a self-employed gamekeeper who worked on Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Sydmonton Court Estate in Hampshire, has been convicted of setting two illegal traps and has been fined £700 with £650 court costs and a £50 victim surcharge.

Stevens, 42, admitted setting the two pole traps at a pheasant release pen in August last year but claimed he was targeting a grey squirrel that had been eating the pheasants’ food. The traps, which were not set on Lloyd Webber’s estate but on land at nearby Echinnswell, were discovered after a member of the public found a tawny owl hanging upside down with its leg caught in one of the traps. Its leg injuries were so severe it had to be euthanised by a vet.

According to Stevens’ solicitor, the setting of the traps was ‘accidental’.

Well done to the RSPB Investigations Team, Hampshire Constabulary and the Crown Prosecution Service for securing a conviction.

Pole-trapping has been illegal for over 100 years. Stevens is the latest of a number of gamekeepers recently convicted for this barbaric practice (e.g. see here and here). Unsurprisingly, all of them have claimed the traps were targeting squirrels and not birds of prey (as if that makes a difference).

RSPB Investigations video here (WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT)

RSPB Investigations blog here

News story in Daily Mail here

News story on BBC here

 

Head gamekeeper convicted of storing 5 banned poisons: gets conditional discharge

Derek Sanderson, a recently-retired head gamekeeper for a shooting syndicate on the Sledmere Estate in Yorkshire, was yesterday found guilty of storing five banned poisons in his house and in an unlocked outbuilding.

Those poisons were Carbofuran, Aldicarb, Mevinphos, Strychnine and Alphachloralose.

His sentence? A conditional discharge and a £15 victim surcharge!!!!!!!

The court apparently accepted that there was no causal link between the possession of these poisons and a dead buzzard found on Sledmere Estate in 2012 – confirmed as having been poisoned with Aldicarb.

Bob Elliot, Head of RSPB Investigations, has written an excellent blog about this, frankly, unbelievable case, here.

What sort of deterrent value is such a pathetic sentence?

Goshawk found dead in suspicious circumstances on Chatsworth Estate

Goshawk Derbyshire spring trap April 2014The RSPB has posted a £1,000 reward for information that leads to a conviction following the discovery of a dead goshawk found in suspicious circumstances on Chatsworth Estate in Derbyshire.

The dead female bird was found on the estate by a member of the public on 2nd April. A post-mortem revealed the bird had two broken legs, and that both breaks were in the same place – injuries that are consistent with being caught in a spring trap.

The bird had been fitted with a leg ring, showing it had hatched in 2003 in the Peak District National Park, 15km to the north of Chatsworth.

Derbyshire Constabulary and the RSPB are appealing for information.

For full details, including quotes from the RSPB, Derbyshire Constabulary and a Chatsworth Estate representative, see the article on the Derbyshire Constabulary website here.

Peregrine shot in Devon as this year’s tally continues to rise

Perg shot seaton Devon May 2014A critically-injured peregrine was found at Seaton Beach in Devon on Bank Holiday Monday. The bird, soaked and unable to fly, was found by members of the public.

It was taken to a vets but had to be euthanized. Its injuries were consistent with a gunshot wound.

The police quickly issued an appeal for information (see here) and local birder Steve Waite has written about the incident on his blog (see here).

So here we are, another month, another reported raptor persecution crime to add to the year’s growing death toll:

Jan 2014: Shot buzzard, Norfolk.

Jan 2014: Dead bird (species unknown) & poisoned bait, South Lanarkshire.

Feb 2014: Shot buzzard, North Yorkshire.

Feb 2014: Shot buzzard, Norfolk.

Feb 2014: Shot sparrowhawk, Norfolk.

Feb 2014: Spring-trapped buzzard, West Yorkshire.

Feb 2014: Poisoned peregrine, South Lanarkshire.

Mar 2014: Shot peregrine, Dorset.

Mar-April 2014: Poisoned red kites (x 16) & buzzards (x 6), Ross-shire.

April 2014: Man arrested for alleged attempted raptor trapping, Aberdeenshire.

April 2014: Shot buzzard, North Yorkshire.

April 2014: Shot red kite, Northamptonshire.

April 2014: White-tailed eagle ‘disappears’ in suspicious circumstances, Aberdeenshire.

April 2014: Peregrine ‘illegally killed’, Stirlingshire.

May 2014: Shot peregrine, Devon.

Meanwhile, over in Northern Ireland a wildlife crime summit has learned that 90 raptors have been found poisoned there since 2006 – see here.

Buzzard shot dead in North Yorkshire

North Yorks Police logoNo surprise to learn that another buzzard has been shot dead in North Yorkshire, a county with one of the worst records for raptor persecution in the UK (e.g. see here).

The latest victim was found near Soar Spring Wood, between Wathgill Road and Reeth Road, Leyburn, on Easter Sunday. It was killed after being blasted with a shotgun.

North Yorks Police are appealing for info – see here.

The RSPB is suggesting that a clandestine campaign against buzzards is being carried out in the county and they’re calling for custodial sentences for anyone convicted of this offence (see here).

Red kite dies after being shot in Northamptonshire

The RSPCA is appealing for information after a red kite was shot and critically-injured in Northamptonshire earlier this month.

The wounded bird suffered gunshot injuries from the incident in Wellingborough around 4th April. It was taken to a wildlife centre but its injuries were so severe the bird had to be euthanised.

Further details in the Northampton Chronicle & Echo here.

RK Wellingborough

 

 

Fatally-injured spring-trapped buzzard, West Yorks: police appeal for info

Buzzard spring trapped Winscar Reservoir 2While all the media focus has been on the mass poisoning of 16 raptors in Highland Scotland, it’s business as usual in other parts of the UK.

West Yorkshire police are appealing for information after the discovery of a spring-trapped buzzard near Winscar Reservoir back in February.

Walkers found the buzzard in distress and unable to fly. When they approached it they discovered its leg was caught in a large spring trap. They removed the trap and took the bird to a vet but its injuries were so severe it had to be euthanised.

The buzzard was less than a year old and had hatched at Dove Stone, an RSPB/United Utilities Partnership site. It had been ringed as a chick by the Peak District Raptor Monitoring Group.

More details of the crime and police contact details here.

 

Two more raptors shot dead in Norfolk

Norfolk is becoming quite the raptor persecution hotspot….

Norfolk Constabulary are investigating two separate persecution incidents following the discovery of a dead sparrowhawk and a dying buzzard in February.

The sparrowhawk was found with gunshot injuries on 16th February  by walkers on the Brisley Road in Whissonsett, near Fakenham.

One week later walkers heard shooting in Narford Wood near Swaffham and found the dying buzzard which had been shot.

Any information, please call Norfolk Constabulary on 101.

News article from EDP24 here.

Facebook braggers get caught out

dead sparSome people are just very, very stupid.

A couple of days ago someone called Steve R Godfrey posted a picture of a dead sparrowhawk on a private Facebook forum called Forester’s Hunting Community. This group is for those interested in air rifles and shooting. He included the following statement with his photograph:

“This was stalking my friends racing pigeons. He asked for my services“.

In response, many, many group members wrote of their utter disgust and outrage at the inference that Godfrey had killed this bird. The group’s moderators banned Godfrey from the group and reported him to the police.

An update on the group’s Facebook page yesterday stated that Derbyshire police were actively investigating the incident following the high number of complaints that had been received from the shooting community.

Steve R Godfrey’s Facebook account appears to have vanished.

Kudos to the members of the Forester’s Hunting Community for reporting him and to Derbyshire Constabulary for following up.

neknominateAnother investigation has been launched after a video of a man slitting a deer’s throat and drinking its blood was posted on Facebook last month. The ‘stunt’ was allegedly part of the ‘neknominate’ craze where someone drinks alcohol, performs a stunt and then nominates someone else to take part. The video was posted by someone called Shaun Wilson from Newcastle. An article in the Newcastle Chronicle (see here) suggests that the person in the video is a gamekeeper and that he has been suspended from his position on a Northumberland estate.

The National Gamekeepers’ Organisation has confirmed that the gamekeeper is one of their members and they have apparently launched a disciplinary investigation. A committee hearing next month will decide whether the man’s actions are ‘relevant to gamekeeping and whether he has damaged the reputation or profession of gamekeeping’. Don’t hold your breath – this is the same organisation that thinks a conviction for possession of a banned poison is not enough to warrant expulsion from the organisation because ‘it’s not a wildlife crime’ (see here).