Photo: live buzzard caught in illegal pole trap
Tag: buzzard
Stuff and nonsense
The airwaves are busy with criticism of last night’s episode of Countryfile, which featured a few pieces on evil birds of prey, especially buzzards and peregrines.
It’s too tedious to reproduce all the arguments here – we’ve heard it all before, although the SGA chairman Alex Hogg’s apparent inability to count was quite amusing. In a voiceover we were told that Alex was due to release 700 pheasant poults into his woodland pens (prior to letting them loose into the wider countryside so they can be shot dead). The interviewer (Tom Heap)Â then asked Alex if he had any idea how many poults he might be losing to buzzards. Alex’s response: “We’re probably losing, getting on for over a thousand pheasants in a year to buzzards“. Hmm.
At least the RSPB’s Duncan Orr-Ewing was able to provide some balanced and constructive discussion, but it was disappointing that the producers failed to include any meaningful discussion on the persecution issue. Tom Heap took to his Twitter account after the programme and offered this:
“Am intrigued…many accusing #countryfile of buzzard bias. Why? Real country issue, meticulous balance. Proud of our work“.
For anyone who missed it, the episode can be seen on BBC iPlayer for the next seven days (here).
Gamekeeper convicted after trapped buzzard starved to death
Following the post we wrote on 31 May 2012 (see here), another Scottish gamekeeper has been convicted of a wildlife crime offence, this time for allowing a buzzard to starve to death inside a crow cage trap.
Jonathan Smith Graham (30), a gamekeeper on Glen Lyon Estate in Perthshire (see here), pleaded guilty to using a crow cage trap in which a buzzard was trapped and then starved to death. He has been fined £450 which is pretty pathetic when you consider the scope of available penalties (up to £5,000 &/or 6 months in prison), but perhaps more importantly he has now been banned from operating a crow cage trap for five years. Sheriff McCreadie’s comments about Graham’s actions (and in-actions) were also greatly encouraging and are welcomed. Credit to Tayside Police for undertaking the investigation on their own initiative and to wildlife fiscal Shona McJannett for a successful prosecution.
For the details of this case see here, here and here.
Some questions:
1. Will Jonathan Smith Graham be sacked from his gamekeeper job at Glen Lyon Estate now he has a wildlife crime conviction? Ask them directly: sally@glenlyonestate.co.uk
2. Was he/is he a member of the Scottish Gamekeepers’ Association? (His defence lawyer was David McKie – the SGA’s solicitor – just coincidence?). If he is a member, will he be expelled now he has a wildlife crime conviction? Ask them directly: info@scottishgamekeepers.co.uk and while you’re there, ask them if they’re ready to say yet whether convicted gamekeeper Robert Christie (Lindertis Estate) is/was a member (see here).
3. Why hasn’t the SGA issued a public statement condemning the actions of this gamekeeper? Ask them directly: info@scottishgamekeepers.co.uk
4. Is Glen Lyon Estate a member of Scottish Land and Estates? Ask them directly: info@scottishlandandestates@co.uk
What aren’t they telling us and why aren’t they telling us?
It seems blogger Alan Tilmouth was much more astute than us. Last week we blogged about Alan’s FoI to DEFRA to find out which Northumberland shoots were set to host the DEFRA buzzard ‘study’. DEFRA wrote back to Alan to ask whether he still wanted to proceed with his FoI even though the ‘study’ had now been cancelled. Alan saw this as a ‘concealment’ attempt by DEFRA – we saw it as just a delaying tactic (see here). We were wrong!
DEFRA has now written to Alan again, this time to tell him that yes, they hold the information he requested but no, they aren’t going to reveal it for ‘public safety’ reasons!!! See Alan’s blog here for their full statement.
Public safety my arse! Does anyone else smell the rancid odour of a cover up? Time to write to the Information Commissioner, Alan!
It seems DEFRA aren’t very good at responding to FoI requests, especially those relating to the game-shooting industry. Mark Avery has also been having trouble getting DEFRA to respond to his FoIs about Walshaw grouse moor (see here).
Talking of cover ups, still no official word from Tayside Police, Grampian Police or the RSPB on that dead golden eagle that we reported on Monday (see here). Hmmm…
#buzzardgate aftermath
Following DEFRA’s recent u-turn on their planned ‘study’ that included blasting buzzard nests with shotguns and catching up adult buzzards and sticking them in an aviary for the rest of their lives (see here), questions are still being asked about the finer details of the ‘study’.
Blogger Alan Tilmouth, who was one of the most active in the campaign against the proposed ‘study’, wrote a FoI request to DEFRA to find out the names and locations of the ‘study’ sites. Today he received a response, which he suggests is an attempt by DEFRA to conceal the information (see Alan’s blog here). I’m not sure that I’d agree that it’s a concealment attempt, but perhaps a delaying tactic nonetheless. Well done Alan – looking forward to their next response!
#Buzzardgate continues to receive media attention and today a letter was published in the Independent calling for a pledge on buzzard protection, as well as calls for action to stop the continued illegal persecution of birds of prey. The letter was signed by an eclectic mix of organisations, some of whom have not previously entered into the arena of campaigning directly for raptor protection (RSPB, National Trust, Greenpeace UK, Friends of the Earth, Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust, Hawk & Owl Trust, Mammal Society, Badger Trust, People’s Trust for Endangered Species, Northern England Raptor Forum, Humane Society International, Butterfly Conservation and the British Mountaineering Council). Good on them and let’s hope we hear more from them all in the coming months. We’re stronger together. Letter here.
SGA leaders try to spin the science….but fail
Those award-winning scientific gurus at the Scottish Gamekeepers’ Association have been sharing their intellectual acumen as they interpret recent scientific research relating to raptors.
First up is Professor Bert Burnett, who chose Facebook as his outlet (well, scientific journals are just so passé) for an examination of the recent paper on historical eagle distribution in the UK and Ireland (see here). His thesis starts with this:
“The RSPB are even more powerful than i thought. The are now able to contact the dead, who had the foresight to record raptor numbers on blocks of stone knowing that the RSPB would be needing the info in 3,000 years time. Has anyone actually checked the validity of this latest garbage from RSPB? We have also had teradactals etc in the uk, have the RSPB got the population info on them as well? With a bunch of irate 21st century farmers breathing down their necks, me thinks the RSPB are getting fidgity“.
Thirty-four minutes later, Professor Burnett decided that actually, this peer-reviewed scientific paper might be useful after all, as it appears to support his hypothesis that eagles are not constrained by persecution and certainly not by gamekeepers, no siree bob:
“looking at the post 3000 year population figures from RSPB i note that the golden eagle pop. was 650 for the uk as a whole. Scotland has 440 now, living in a much changed counryside from 3000bc, i would think this is a huge success story not the doom and gloom pushed out by the RSPB“.
Had Professor Burnett studied the data in a little bit more detail, he would have noted that the golden eagle breeding population estimate for c. 500 was actually 1,000 – 1,500 pairs. Oops.
Professor Burnett’s esteemed colleague, Professor Alex Hogg, also had his own unique interpretation on recent scientific research, this time on the DEFRA buzzard ‘study’. Choosing that highly-acclaimed scientific journal Shooting Times to report his scientific results, Prof Hogg wrote this:
“In Scotland, we are already ahead of where England is now with this [the proposed buzzard ‘study’ that included the destruction of nests and permanent removal of adult buzzards into captivity]. The trials have been done“. (Read full article here).
Really? Where and when were these trials done in Scotland, and where are the published, peer-reviewed results?
Professors Burnett and Hogg are not the only ones from the game-shooting community who have been demonstrating a shocking ability to misinterpret science….more in a following post.
George Monbiot: a journalist who says it like it is
George Monbiot is fast becoming my favourite journalist (and not just because he uses this blog as a source of information!).
In his latest article, due to be published in the Guardian tomorrow but released on his website tonight (see here), Monbiot digs a little deeper inside the #buzzardgate debacle and uncovers some fascinating information.
In addition to #buzzardgate he also discusses the scandalous state of the English hen harrier population. He is one of very few authors willing to state, categorically and without caveats or apologies, that the missing English hen harriers [approx 329 pairs] ‘have been shot or poisoned by grouse-shooting estates’. There’s no dilution or ‘maybes’ or ‘possiblys’ in the name of so-called ‘partnership building’ – English hen harriers have been wiped out by grouse-shooting estates and Monbiot is not afraid to say so.
If you read Monbiot’s biography (here) you’ll see that the thing he fears is ‘other people’s cowardice’.
We can all learn from him.
DEFRA backs down on buzzard ‘management’ trial!!
News just in, from Defra’s twitter account, Richard Benyon says the following:
“We’ve listened to public concerns, so we are stopping current research and developing new proposals on #buzzards”
Fantastic news (well, at least until we find out what these ‘new proposals’ entail). A big, fat, massive WELL DONE to everyone who blogged, tweeted, emailed, petition-signed etc about this outrageous ‘study’. The people have been heard! It’s incredible to see how effective 9 days of campaigning can be!
By the way, it looks like GWCT had tendered for the buzzard ‘study’ (see here). They seem to be quite good at undertaking unpopular ‘research’ – they’re currently carrying out a ‘study’ funded by those doyens of conservation, Songbird Survival, which involves a large scale corvid removal experiment (basically killing crows & magpies and calling it science….hmm, sound familiar? See here). If you’re not sure who Songbird Survival are, see here.
We’ll post responses about the DEFRA u-turn here as and when they are published:
Update on DEFRA website here (scroll down underneath the ‘mythbuster’ bit)
Article in the Guardian here (includes info about new research proposals)
RSPB response here
BBC news article here
Article in the Independent here
Article in the Telegraph here
Mark Avery’s thoughts here
Country Land & Business Association (CLA)Â response here
British Assoc. for Shooting & Conservation (BASC) response here (just a statement, no opinion offered)
Countryside Alliance response here (Benyon’s glum chums)
National Gamekeepers’ Organisation response here (not very happy either)
Buzz off Benyon, & other news from the murky underworld of raptor persecution
There are no signs of the public’s outrage subsiding over #Buzzardgate. You only have to type in the words ‘buzzard’ and ‘DEFRA’ into a search engine and the strength of feeling against DEFRA’s outlandish plan is almost palpable.
The best article we’ve read, so far, is that written by George Monbiot in the Guardian (here). There’s also a good article by Michael McCarthy in the Independent today, entitled ‘Richard Benyon: The bird-brained minister (see here). Although McCarthy seems to think that the buzzard-nest destroyers will start their shotgun antics as of this Friday (1st June), presumably because that was the proposed start date in DEFRA’s research tender document (see here). However, the buzzard breeding season is well underway and many nests now contain small chicks and the DEFRA ‘study’ suggests that nests will be destroyed during ‘construction’; it doesn’t say anything about destroying active nests containing breeding adults, eggs and/or young (not that that would stop the trigger-happy nest destroyers, of course).
But perhaps the destructive parts of this study won’t start this Friday (if they ever start at all, depending on how loudly we all shout our objections). According to the June edition of ‘Modern Gamekeeping’ (which could just as easily have been called ‘Victorian Gamekeeping’ because nothing seems to have changed except for new bits of kit designed to help the ‘keeper kill more wildlife), the trial’s start date is not that clear:
“Though DEFRA insists it is too early to comment on the finer details of the study, it is expected to launch some time this year. A spokesperson said: “The tender for the research project on management techniques to reduce the predation of pheasant poults by buzzards closed yesterday. We will announce the successful bid later in the summer“”.
Modern Gamekeeping isn’t available online (another example of its misnomer) but a photograph of its buzzard trial cover story can be found on Alan Tilmouth’s blog (here). Incidentally, Alan Tilmouth has been one of the most prolific tweeters on this issue and we know he was directly responsible for directing some ‘important’ people to this blog when we led on this story last week, so many thanks Alan, and good luck with your DEFRA FoI request to find out which Northumberland estates are involved; we’re all VERY interested in those results.
Another DEFRA FoI request has been lodged by ‘SWBirdWatch’ which can be followed on the public website ‘What Do They Know?’ (see here).
Since the buzzard trial story hit the news last week, several commentators on various blogs and websites have mentioned that the game-shooting lobby may have shot themselves in the foot over their latest attempt to get rid of raptors, because now the full glare of the spotlight has been turned onto their industry, with mainstream media taking a real interest. Mark Avery’s blog this morning (see here) focuses on some of the questions now being asked by a wider audience where previously they were just being asked by a smaller minority of special-interest groups. All good stuff.
For those who haven’t already done so, there are two main petitions to sign to show your disapproval of the buzzard trial – please, take a minute to sign both of them and let Mr Benyon feel the full force of our discontent:
In other news, Tom McKellar is due to be sentenced today (he’s the gamekeeper from Glen Orchy who was convicted in April of possessing the banned pesticide Carbofuran, although he didn’t face any charges over the dead golden eagle found at Glen Orchy which had been poisoned by er… Carbofuran – see here). We’ve received some further information about that poisoned eagle and we’ll discuss it once McKellar’s case has ended.
Another hearing opening today concerns the head keeper at Edradynate Estate in Perthshire. More on that case in due course…
BTO backs out of buzzard plan
The following statement has appeared on the British Trust for Ornithology’s website:
Following recent discussion in the media on Defra’s proposals regarding Buzzards and Pheasants, Andy Clements comments on the BTO’s position.
“Alongside RSPB, Raptor Study Groups, GWCT & a range of other stakeholders, BTO has attended two meetings at Defra in a scientific advisory capacity.Â
BTO has not tendered for the work and we have declined an invitation to be part of the Project Advisory Group. We have also indicated we no longer wish to be part of the ongoing stakeholder group.
If Defra ask us for specific independent scientific advice, for example up to date population estimates for Buzzard, we would provide that advice as normal.”
Andy Clements, BTO Director
Well done, BTO!
Raptor Persecution UK 