Category: Persecution Incidents in England

Man charged in relation to red kite deaths in Cumbria

Further to the blog post in July 2011 about the arrest of a man in connection to the investigation of poisoned and shot red kites in Cumbria (see here), Cumbria Constabulary has today announced that a man has been charged.

Allan Armistead (74), of Oxen Park, Ulverston, has been charged with five offences under the Firearms Act and ten offences under the Control of Pesticides and Food and Environmental Protection Acts.

Armistead is due to appear at Furness and District magistrates court next Tuesday (6 December 2011).

Congratulations to Cumbria Constabulary for securing enough evidence to get the case to court, and for keeping the public updated.

Cumbria Constabulary press release here

BBC news story here

The denials have started – gamekeepers say persecution becoming less of an issue

With tedious predictability, one of the gamekeepers’ representative bodies is trying to play down the latest raptor persecution figures. According to an article in today’s Telegraph, the National Gamekeepers’ Organisation says birds of prey are doing well in the UK and persecution is becoming less of an issue.

If you can be arsed to read any more of these ridiculous statements, the article can be found here.

RSPB’s Birdcrime 2010 report published

The RSPB has published its annual report on raptor persecution in the UK (Birdcrime 2010). Poisoning reports are down (128 reported in 2010; 153 reported in 2009). Birds confirmed poisoned in 2010 include:

20 red kites, 30 buzzards, 8 peregrines, 5 golden eagles, 2 goshawks, 1 sparrowhawk and 1 white-tailed eagle.

Meanwhile, the RSPB are using the publication as an opportunity to call for a crackdown on poisons, according to the BBC website. It says the current law, which makes it illegal to possess certain pesticides, is rendered ‘impotent’ because the list of controlled substances hasn’t been published in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

We’ll write more about the Birdcrime 2010 report over the coming few days. BBC news article here. Birdcrime 2010 report here

 

North Yorkshire worst place for raptor persecution in UK, says RSPB

A report out today in the Independent on Sunday says that birds of prey are being poisoned or shot in the North York Moors and Yorkshire Dales at a rate unknown in any other region in the UK, according to the latest RSPB figures.

The headline is actually quite a misleading statement. Perhaps what it should say is that reports of raptor persecution are highest in North Yorkshire than any other region. We know only too well that reporting and recording is done very differently between regions, and these differences do not neccessarily reflect what is actually happening on the ground.

The latest figures come from the RSPB’s annual Birdcrime report, Birdcrime 2010, which is due to be published on Thursday, so it’s difficult to assess the findings until the report has been released. However, according to the IoS article, “Almost 10 per cent of the 117 incidents against 11 species last year took place in the county, which has consistently recorded high rates of such crime, according to the RSPB“.

The article continues: “The number of reported incidents in North Yorkshire doubled between 2009 and 2010, from 27 to 54, with 10 confirmed cases of bird of prey persecutions. These include the poisoning of four red kites and three buzzards and the shooting of a goshawk. Two-week old chicks [of what species?] were also found laced with a banned pesticide and left as bait in the Yorkshire Dales.”

An RSPB spokesman lays the blame firmly at the feet of intensive upland grouse moors; a BASC spokesman denied the extent of the problem and said “the gamekeeper is a convenient scapegoat.”

All depressingly familiar. The bottom line is, despite the overwhelming evidence of widespread criminal raptor persecution, it is still not possible to get a meaningful prosecution. Until this happens, we will continue to read these appalling statistics.

More on this once the Birdcrime 2010 report has been published.

Article in the Independent on Sunday here

Another poisoned peregrine and the appeal for info comes three months later (again)

The BBC News website is running a story today about another poisoned peregrine. The young bird was apparently discovered three months ago at Whitecleaves Quarry near Buckfastleigh in Devon. The toxicology results, which have only just been released, indicate the bird was poisoned with the banned pesticides Carbofuran and Aldicarb.

This is the third reported poisoning incident in the region in recent weeks, following the reports of four poisoned goshawks and one buzzard in Devon (see here) and two poisoned peregrines in Cornwall (see here).

According to the BBC article, peregrines at Whitecleaves Quarry have been targeted before, with poisoned birds being discovered in 1992, 2004 and 2005.

Devon & Cornwall police are investigating the latest incident, and the RSPB has once again put up a £1,000 reward for information leading to a conviction.

The obvious question – why has it taken three months for this incident to be publicised?

BBC News article here

Two peregrines confirmed poisoned in Cornwall

Devon & Cornwall Police, along with the RSPB, have just announced that two peregrines that were found dead on 21 July this year had been poisoned by the banned pesticide Carbofuran. The RSPB is offering a reward of £1000 for information leading to a conviction.

The two birds, a male and female, were discovered by a member of the public, having been seen alive a few hours earlier hunting along their cliffside nest in St. Just. Cornwall Police Wildlife Crime Officer, P.C. Jack Tarr said: “That these magnificent birds should be killed in this way is truly shocking. This was a pair I’d regularly enjoyed watching hunting off the coast at St. Just and I know they were popular with many other people who walked the cliffs there. We need to find out who did this and bring them to justice“.

Full story on RSPB website here

Article on BBC News here

Article in This is Devon here

Four goshawks and a buzzard found poisoned

The RSPB has put up a reward of £1,000 for information about the deaths of four goshawks and one buzzard which have been found poisoned in Devon. They were discovered in Forestry Commission woods near to Exeter and had been poisoned with the bannned pesticide Carbofuran.

A recent survey suggests that there are no more than 20 breeding pairs of goshawk in Devon.

Ian Parsons, a Forestry Commision ranger, said: “The people that do this to our wildlife not only deprive people of the chance to see these rare birds but they also put the public at risk. The poison involved is lethal to dogs and humans and the land where this happened is open to the public. These people obviously don’t care about the dangers of doing this“.

Anyone with information about these crimes is urged to call Crimestoppers, in confidence, on: 0800-555-111, or email Devon & Cornwall Police Wildlife Crime Officer P.C. Josh Marshall directly: Joshua.MARSHALL2@devonandcornwall.pnn.police.uk

PC Marshall said: “We rely on the public to be our eyes and ears in wildlife crimes such as this. If anyone knows anything about this, please get in touch“.

BBC News story here

Western Morning News article here

Dead red kite is suspected poisoning victim

Toxicology tests are underway on a dead red kite found on farmland in the village of Glaston, Rutland. It is suspected to have been poisoned. Two other poisoned kites were found dead in the area three years ago. In August 2008 a red kite was discovered to have been poisoned by the banned pesticide Carbofuran in a rabbit bait at Glaston. In September 2008, another kite was poisoned with Carbofuran at Seaton, Rutland (see here for details of these two incidents). The lab results from the latest dead kite have not yet been released.

Leicestershire police wildlife crime officer, Neil Hughes, is asking for locals to contact him to report any other poisoning incidents in the same area, such as cats and dogs. Contact Neil: 0116 222 2222.

Story in the Rutland Times here

Appeal pending for convicted gamekeeper Glenn Brown

An appeal is pending for convicted gamekeeper Glenn Brown, who was found guilty in June 2011 of offences relating to the illegal use of a cage trap to catch raptors on the National Trust’s Howden Moor in Derbyshire (see here, here and here).

This information was included in a feature article called ‘Raptors and the persecution of gamekeepers’ in the August 2011 edition of Modern Gamekeeping, written by solicitor Tim Ryan. It’s a tediously unoriginal article (you know, the old ‘planting of raptor corpses on shooting estates in order to get a keeper prosecuted’ routine), for which nobody has ever produced any evidence by the way. If there’s interest, the article can be posted here later.

The basis of Brown’s pending appeal is not given.

National UK poisoning statistics show steady rise

The UK’s national statistics documenting animals poisoned by pesticides have been released by the Wildlife Incident Investigation Scheme. The scheme covers Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The spreadsheet provides poisoning data from 2008 up to the end of the first quarter of 2011 (Jan – March). The figures clearly show an increase in the number of deliberate poisoning incidents recorded (classed as ‘abuse’ in the spreadsheet) nationwide:

2008 – total confirmed abuse incidents = 66.

2009 – total confirmed abuse incidents = 71.

2010 – total confirmed abuse incidents = 80.

Whether this increase is due to a rise in illegal poisoning activities or a better detection rate is unclear. What is clear is that illegal poisoning continues across our landscapes. The figures for the first quarter of 2011 show 17 confirmed abuse incidents.

It’s notable that many of the individually-confirmed abuse incidents have not appeared in the press. It’s also worth reading how many cases are now considered ‘closed’ because the source of the poison hasn’t been established. It would have been interesting to have seen the different locations involved (eg how many were discovered on land managed for game-rearing and shooting?) but once again this level of detail has not been provided.

Spreadsheet available here