A gamekeeper in the Scottish Borders has been convicted today after two supposedly protected birds of prey (a barn owl and a goshawk) died inside a trap which he neglected to check.
There’s an article about this case in the Border Telegraph this evening, which I’ll copy below, and then I’ll add some further commentary below that.
Here’s the Border Telegraph piece:
Borders gamekeeper ‘recklessly’ killed two protected birds
A GAMEKEEPER who recklessly killed two protected birds on a Borders estate by leaving open the door of a multi crow cage trap [Ed: see commentary at foot of this blog] has been fined £300 at Selkirk Sheriff Court.
An owl and a goshawk perished from exposure and a lack of food and water at Cathpair Farm near Stow on September 13 last year.
Fifty-three-year-old Peter Givens, of Keepers Cottage, Cathpair, pleaded guilty to recklessly taking and killing the wild birds under the Wildlife and Countryside Act.
His lawyer explained that Givens had used the crow trap for the lambing season earlier in the year but thought had had [sic] secured it properly when no longer required.
Wildlife and environmental crime depute fiscal Joe Stewart said: “An ecologist carrying out a survey on the estate came across a crow cage trap near some woodland.
“He noticed a barn owl lying deceased in the trap which was in an advanced state of decomposition and had obviously been there for a long time.
“The door was closed and the trap was in use.
“The local wildlife police attended carrying out a search and he found another bird in the trap which was a goshawk.”
An identification tag on the trap was traced to Givens.
Mr Stewart said the trap should have been removed.
Givens’ lawyer said his client had been a gamekeeper for more than 30 years and had no previous convictions.
He said around the start of the COVID pandemic in March 2020 the trap was put in place and checked on a regular basis in case other birds were trapped.
He explained that there had been a lot of crows at the start of the lambing season but this had tailed off by May.
The lawyer continued: “He thought the trap had been deactivated. There was no intention to keep the trap operating.
“What happened on September 13 came as a shock to him and a source of embarrassment and sadness for the damage he has caused.
“He has accepted he failed to deactivate the trap properly.
“He accepts his conduct was reckless but it was not intentional and he is very remorseful.”
Sheriff Peter Paterson said: “This was an oversight rather than an intentional act.
“It was not a deliberate act to trap predators with the unintended consequences.”
Sheriff Paterson added: “I take into account your spotless record and while this was reckless, it was not intentional.”
He reduced the fine from £375 to £300 to reflect the guilty plea with a £20 victim surcharge added.
ENDS
Ok, so first a technical correction on the court reporter’s write up in the Border Telegraph. The article states the gamekeeper had killed the two birds of prey ‘by leaving open the door of a multi crow cage trap’. This can’t be accurate. Had he left the door open, the barn owl and the goshawk would have been able to escape! What is more likely to have happened is the gamekeeper kept the cage door shut, which is an offence if the trap is no longer in use because, as we’ve seen, birds can enter the trap through a roof opening (either a ‘ladder’ or funnel design) but then they cannot escape back up.
Anybody who operates a multi-cage crow trap under the General Licences in Scotland MUST render the trap ‘incapable of use’ if the trap is not being used, and this means either removing the door entirely or padlocking it open. Leaving the door closed when the trap is not in use is an offence.
I was interested to read the gamekeeper’s lawyer’s defence: “…..the gamekeeper thought he had secured it properly when no longer required“. I’m not sure how someone can believe they’ve secured a cage trap ‘properly’ if they haven’t obeyed the General Licence terms and conditions and either (a) removed the door or (b) padlocked it open. There’s no possibility of ‘accidentally’ doing half a job here – you either remove the door or you don’t, or you padlock the door open, or you don’t.
I was also interested to see that the guilty gamekeeper was 53 years old and had been a gamekeeper for ‘more than 30 years’. These were details given by his lawyer in his defence. I’d argue that those details should have gone against the gamekeeper – he’s been in the wildlife-killing business for long enough to know the risks and certainly to know the law. Indeed, I understand Peter Givens was the former Head Gamekeeper on nearby Raeshaw Estate. This is an estate that has been at the centre of multiple wildlife crime investigations for many, many years and was the subject of the very first General Licence restriction in 2015, based on clear police evidence that wildlife crimes had been committed there, although there was insufficient evidence to prosecute any individual (see here).
Even after the General Licence restriction was imposed on Raeshaw Estate, even more alleged wildlife crimes were uncovered which resulted in the estate’s Individual licences being revoked by SNH in 2017 (here).
There is no evidence nor indeed suggestion that Peter Givens was involved in any of those alleged offences but the point of highlighting this background is that he would certainly have been aware of the police investigations and thus the importance of adhering to the law, which he failed to do in this latest case (which incidentally did not take place on Raeshaw Estate – Givens has since moved to a smaller shoot].
The lawyer also made a point of telling the Sheriff that Givens had no previous convictions, and his ‘spotless record’ was taken in to account by Sheriff Paterson when Givens was sentenced.
And the punishment for ‘recklessly’ killing two Schedule 1 birds of prey? A £300 fine and a £20 victim surcharge.
You can decide for yourselves whether this will be sufficient deterrent for other gamekeepers to ensure they adhere to the terms and conditions of the General Licences to prevent protected species being trapped in a literal death trap and starving to death.
Today is the 26th November 2021. It’s been exactly one year since the then Environment Minister Mairi Gougeon announced the Scottish Government’s long-awaited response to the Werritty Review on grouse moor management and a decision to implement a licensing scheme for grouse shooting.
How we got to that position was the subject of a talk I presented at the REVIVE national conference a couple of weeks ago, hosted by Chris Packham at Perth Concert Hall.
[Chris Packham opening the REVIVE coalition for grouse moor reform conference. Photo by Ruth Tingay]
There had been an intention for a recording of the entire event to be made available but we learned subsequently that unfortunately the venue’s audio system had failed. REVIVE’s campaign manager, Max Wiszniewski has since published a conference overview (here) but I thought I’d take the opportunity to share the main points from my talk, to try and put Mairi Gougeon’s announcement in to some sort of context, and it seems fitting to do that today.
My opening slide was a screengrab of Minister Gougeon making that historic statement on 26th November 2020:
“The key recommendation put forward in the Werritty report – is that a ‘licensing scheme be introduced for the shooting of grouse’. This is a recommendation that I accept.
However, while I the understand why the review group also recommended that such a scheme should be introduced if, after five years, ‘there is no marked improvement in the ecological sustainability of grouse moor management’, I believe that the Government needs to act sooner than this and begin developing a licensing scheme now”.
There’s no question that this was a significant statement and although some campaigners were disappointingly dismissive (including several commentators on this blog), I think that when you understand the history of exactly what it took to get there, over many, many years of hard campaigning at substantial personal cost to many, you’ll hopefully appreciate why so many of us celebrated it as a huge victory. It’s not the end point, not by any means, but it is hugely symbolic of the direction of travel.
My next slide is a photo that I use in pretty much every talk I give on raptor persecution in the UK:
This is a photograph of a young golden eagle, found illegally poisoned on a grouse moor in the Cairngorms National Park in 2006. It was photographed by former RSPB Investigator Dave Dick (now retired) who had been sent out to retrieve it for post mortem. He had picked up many other illegally killed birds of prey on grouse moors over the years, but this image epitomises everything in its pitiful, poignant, senselessness.
I asked the audience to hold this image in their head as the talk progressed to cover some of the key moments in this long campaign against criminal activity and for effective law enforcement against those criminals.
I started with the basics – the 1954 Protection of Birds Act which brought legal protection for all raptor species in the UK, with the exception of the sparrowhawk which finally received full protection in 1961. So for most UK birds of prey, they’ve supposedly been protected for 67 years! This isn’t a new law that society needs time to adjust to and for which we should forgive any lack of adherence. This legislation was enacted a lifetime ago and was probably in place before every current working gamekeeper was even born. Ignorance of the law is no defence and that statement applies here, in spades.
In 1998, 44 years after raptors were declared ‘protected species’ in law, the then Secretary of State, Donald Dewar described the level of raptor persecution in Scotland as “a national disgrace“. He promised that following devolution the following year, the Scottish Government would take “all possible steps to eradicate it”.
RSPB Scotland started publishing annual reports in 1994, meticulously documenting raptor persecution. Their 20th report, published in 2004, documented that 779 birds of prey had been confirmed illegally killed between 1994 and 2004. This figure was considered the tip of the iceberg as wildlife crime, including raptor persecution, is widely recognised as being under-recorded for a number of reasons.
During the late 1990s-mid-2000s, and actually continuing to this day, researchers published a suite of scientific papers documenting the impact of illegal raptor persecution. This wasn’t just the odd ‘rogue incident’ here and there; raptor persecution was so extensive and systematic it was having population-level impacts on a number of species, notably the golden eagle, hen harrier, peregrine and red kite. The peer-reviewed evidence was conclusive – much of the killing was linked to game-shooting, and particularly to driven grouse moor management.
[An expanse of driven grouse moors inside the Cairngorms National Park. Photo by Ruth Tingay]
In 2000, the UK Raptor Working Group (established in 1995 and comprising a variety of statutory agencies, conservation NGOs and game-shooting bodies) published a report with a series of recommendations to address the recovery of bird of prey populations and their perceived impact on gamebirds, moorland management and pigeon racing.
In 2002, Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) advised the Scottish Executive to accept most of the recommendations of the 2000 report and this led to many developments, with a particular focus on partnership working. Most of these so-called partnerships have since proven to be utterly ineffective (e.g. Partnership for Action Against Wildlife Crime Raptor Group, Heads Up for Hen Harriers) mostly due to them being heavily weighted towards game-shooting interests who seem intent on preventing progress by means of constant denial and obfuscation.
In 2004, raptor satellite-tagging began as a novel method of studying the biology and ecology of several species, notably the golden eagle. The significance of this will become apparent later.
[Two young golden eagles fitted with satellite tags prior to fledging. Photo by Dan Kitwood]
In 2005 the Possession of Pesticides (Scotland) Order was enacted, making it an offence for anyone to possess any of the eight highly toxic poisons used most frequently for killing birds of prey. This piece of legislation has proven useful in that it has allowed law enforcement agencies to prosecute for the lesser offence of ‘possession’ in cases where it has been virtually impossible to provide sufficient evidence to prosecute for actually poisoning a bird of prey.
In 2007 an adult golden eagle was found poisoned at her nest site in the Borders. She was part of the only breeding pair in the region. Nobody was prosecuted and the ensuing public outrage resulted in the then Environment Minister Mike Russell ordering a Thematic Review into the prevention, investigation and prosecution of wildlife crime, which led to a series of recommendations to improve enforcement activities.
[Police officer Mark Rafferty holding the poisoned corpse of the Borders golden eagle. Photo by Dave Dick]
In 2010, this blog was launched primarily to raise public awareness about the scale of illegal raptor persecution in Scotland. It was later widened to cover the whole of the UK. It’s had over 7.5 million views to date.
In 2011, the Scottish Government launched a poisons disposal scheme, offering a sort of ‘amnesty’ and the safe destruction of any banned poisons that might have been left over from when it was legal for people to have these toxins in their possession (i.e. pre-2005).
Also in 2011, Peter Peacock MSP put forward an amendment for the Wildlife & Natural Environment (Scotland) Bill to introduce additional powers for the Scottish SPCA to enable them to investigate a wider suite of wildlife crime, including raptor persecution. Then Environment Minister Roseanna Cunningham rejected the amendment but committed to launch a public consultation on this subject.
Later in 2011 the Wildlife & Natural Environment (Scotland) Act was enacted and in 2012 this led to the Scottish Government having to publish its first annual wildlife crime report. The legislation also brought in vicarious liability, providing an opportunity for prosecutions against landowners and sporting agents whose employees had committed certain offences linked to raptor persecution. After almost ten years there have only been two successful prosecutions. That’s not because there haven’t been more opportunities for prosecution – there have been plenty – it’s because for the most part the Crown Office has refused to take the cases. When pushed for an explanation we’ve simply been told ‘it’s not in the public interest to proceed’. One case was not progressed because the landowner / hierarchy of supervision could not be established because the identity of the person was hidden in an offshore trust.
In 2013 the then Environment Minister Paul Wheelhouse ordered a review of the penalties available for wildlife crime and appointed Professor Poustie to lead the review.
Also in 2013, after RSPB video evidence was published showing a gamekeeper allegedly shooting a hen harrier on its nest on a grouse moor in Morayshire, which led to a prosecution that was later dropped because the Crown Office ruled the evidence ‘inadmissible’, huge public uproar led to Environment Minister Paul Wheelhouse having discussions with the Lord Advocate about maximising opportunities for prosecution and the Lord Advocate subsequently instructed the Crown Office to utilise all investigative tools for enforcement against wildlife crime. This had zero impact – several other high profile cases involving RSPB video evidence have also since been dropped due to this apparent inadmissibility.
[A screen grab from an RSPB video showing the alleged shooting of a hen harrier on a grouse moor]
In 2014 Environment Minister Paul Wheelhouse introduced General Licence restrictions for shooting estates where police evidence confirmed that raptor persecution had taken place but where there was insufficient evidence to bring a prosecution against a named individual. This was supposed to be a ‘reputational driver’ to deter crimes but has proven to be utterly ineffective with just a handful of restrictions applied over the last seven years and most ‘sanctioned’ estates simply given an individual licence to allow them to continue the activities which were supposed to have been restricted under the General Licence. It’s just bonkers.
Also in 2014, Paul Wheelhouse ordered a review of gamebird management systems in other European countries to see whether these different management approaches could help address ongoing raptor persecution in Scotland.
Also in 2014, the Scottish Government finally launched a public consultation on increased powers for the SSPCA, three years after first agreeing to set this up.
In 2014, Mark Avery and Chris Packham launched the concept of Hen Harrier Day to draw attention to the plight of the hen harrier, timed to coincide with the start of the grouse shooting season on 12th August. Hen Harrier Day has now become an annual event and volunteers Andrea Hudspeth and Andrea Goddard have organised these high profile events in Scotland.
In 2015, with raptor poisoning crimes still occurring, not content that the poisoners had already been given an opportunity to hand in their illegal stashes back in 2011, the Scottish Government launched its second poisons amnesty scheme, ten years after it became an offence to possess these dangerous toxins. How many chances do these gamekeepers get?
Also in 2015, SNH launched its ridiculous Heads up for Hen Harriers project – joining forces with shooting estates to fix nest cameras at hen harrier nests to determine the cause of breeding failures on grouse moors (yes, really!). It was doomed to failure because obviously the gamekeepers on estates where the cameras had been installed would not destroy the harriers/nests (at least not while the birds were within camera range) and the study’s ‘findings’ would then be skewed towards natural predator events and poor weather conditions which the grouse shooting industry would then point to as being the main cause of hen harrier breeding failure on grouse moors. It was nothing more than a greenwashing project.
Also in 2015, Scottish Environment LINK published a damning report demonstrating that wildlife crime enforcement measures were still weak, inconsistent & ineffective, seven years after the HM Inspector of Constabulary published its Thematic Review into the prevention, investigation and prosecution of wildlife crime and its subsequent recommendations to improve enforcement measures. Even today, apart from the RSPB’s meticulous records, it’s virtually impossible to get accurate raptor persecution statistics due to incoherent recording across agencies and Police Scotland’s strange decisions to sometimes withhold information, long after investigations have closed.
Also in 2015, Professor Poustie’s review of wildlife crime penalties was published, making a series of recommendations to substantially increase penalties for certain types of wildlife crime, including raptor persecution.
A year later in 2016, then Environment Minister Dr Aileen McLeod accepted the Poustie Review recommendations to substantially increase penalties for wildlife crime. These were not finally enacted until four years later in the Animals and Wildlife (Penalties, Protections and Powers) (Scotland) Act 2020, increasing the maximum penalty for the most serious animal welfare and wildlife crimes to five years imprisonment and unlimited fines. We have yet to see these utilised by the courts.
Also in 2016 the Scottish Government made a manifesto pledge to establish a Wildlife Crime Investigation Unit as part of Police Scotland. This has not happened and appears to have been quietly dropped.
Also in 2016, the Scottish Raptor Study Group (SRSG) launched a petition to the Scottish Parliament calling for the introduction of a state-regulated licensing system for gamebird shooting. These volunteers who later spoke so passionately and convincingly in front of a televised Parliamentary committee in 2017 were subjected to a barrage of offensive online abuse from a number of gamekeepers and their hangers-on and this hate campaign continues to this day.
[SRSG members Patrick Stirling-Aird, Andrea Hudspeth, Logan Steele and Duncan Orr-Ewing outside the Scottish Parliament building. Photo by SRSG]
2016 also saw what in my opinion was the most significant and important event in the road leading to the introduction of grouse moor licensing. The RSPB published a press release about the suspicious disappearance of eight satellite-tagged golden eagles on grouse moors in the Monadhliaths between 2011-2016. Public outrage about this news, combined with the fact that nobody had ever being successfully prosecuted for killing a golden eagle, led to then Environment Cabinet Secretary Roseanna Cunningham calling for a review of golden eagle satellite tag data to establish whether there was a pattern to the disappearance of tagged eagles and whether there was a link with driven grouse shooting. Of course we all knew there was, but it was significant that the Cabinet Secretary had officially requested the analysis. Predictably, this Government-sponsored review coincided with a concerted smear campaign by the grouse shooting industry to undermine the functionality and reliability of satellite tags and the integrity of the highly qualified and licensed researchers who were fitting the tags to eagles. This continues to this day.
In 2017 the review of gamebird management in other European countries was published, showing that gamebird shooting in the UK was the most unregulated and unaccountable system of all those reviewed. This didn’t result in any direct action from the Scottish Government other than an instruction for the Werritty panel to consider the report’s findings as part of its Grouse Moor Management Review.
Also in 2017 Cabinet Secretary Roseanna Cunningham responded to the public consultation on increased SSPCA powers (3 yrs after the consultation closed!) & rejected it ‘based on legal advice’ which was never explained. As an alternative, she announced a Police Special Constables pilot scheme in the Cairngorms National Park to help detect raptor persecution crimes and bring the offenders before the courts.
The most significant event in 2017 was the publication of the Golden Eagle Satellite Tag Review. This comprehensive and forensic review was devastating, showing that almost one third of satellite-tagged golden eagles (131 of them) had been illegally killed or had ‘disappeared’ in suspicious circumstances between 2004-2016, and there were irrefutable geographic clusters centred on some driven grouse moors:
On the basis of this report, Cabinet Secretary Roseanna Cunningham ordered yet another independent review, this time to assess the environmental impact of grouse moor management and to provide recommendations and options for regulation, including the potential for a licensing scheme. Professor Werritty was appointed to lead the review.
In 2018 REVIVE was launched – a consortium of environmental, social justice and animal welfare groups seeking grouse moor reform in Scotland. The well-attended launch took place in Edinburgh and Chris Packham was the keynote speaker. Inevitably this led to yet another smear campaign by certain elements of the grouse shooting industry which continues to this day.
[Photo by REVIVE]
In 2019 the Police Special Constables pilot scheme in the Cairngorms National Park came to an end in complete failure. They didn’t report a single wildlife crime during this two-year scheme but illegal raptor persecution continued, as evidenced by the RSPB’S annual reports.
In December 2019 the Werritty Report was finally published two and a half years after it was commissioned. It highlighted many of the problems associated with driven grouse moor management but crucially it recommended a further five-year wait before the introduction of a licensing scheme to allow the grouse shooting industry yet more opportunity to oust the criminals within rather than have regulation foisted on it by legislation. This recommendation was clearly a result of having a number of representatives from the grouse shooting industry serving on the so-called independent panel. Meanwhile, the raptor killing continued.
In 2020 MSP Mark Ruskell (Scottish Greens) proposed increased powers for the SSPCA as an amendment in the Animals & Wildlife Bill. The then Environment Minister Mairi Gougeon rejected the amendment but promised to establish a task force later in summer to consider increased powers. Deja vu, anyone?
In November 2020 the Animals and Wildlife (Penalties, Protections and Powers) (Scotland) Act was enacted, increasing the maximum penalty for the most serious animal welfare and wildlife crimes to five years imprisonment and unlimited fines (after the recommendations of the Poustie review published in 2015). This raises the status of some offences to ‘serious’ and thus for the first time allows the Police to seek permission to utilise covert video surveillance in areas where raptor persecution is suspected. I know there is enthusiasm for this from a number of police officers and I look forward to seeing some results.
In December 2020, a year after receiving the Werrity Review, Environment Minister Mairi Gougeon announced the Scottish Government’s intention to introduce a licensing scheme for grouse moors without waiting for a further five years as the review had recommended.
[NB: I understand that Ian Thomson, Head of Investigations at RSPB Scotland will publish a blog later today (26th November 2021) detailing what has happened in the year following this announcement. I will publish the blog here when it’s available]. Update – Ian’s blog available here
In January 2021 the new Environment Minister Ben MacPherson responded to a Parliamentary Question from Mark Ruskell MSP and admits that the promised taskforce to consider increased powers for the SSPCA had not yet formed but was ‘expected later this year’. This is ten years on from when increased powers for the SSPCA was first mooted in the Scottish Parliament.
In September 2021 the Scottish Government published its five-year Programme for Government and it included commitments to deliver the recommendations of the Werritty review, and to establish a taskforce to review increased powers for the SSPCA, to report by the end of 2022. Yet another Environment Minister (the 9th one?) is in post – Mairi McAllan.
In October 2021 the ridiculous Heads Up for Hen Harriers ‘partnership’ project was closed, with SNH declaring it a ‘success’. It wasn’t, at all. I’ll be blogging about this separately in the next few days.
Meanwhile, in May 2021 a young golden eagle was found deliberately poisoned, lying dead next to a poisoned bait, on an Invercauld Estate grouse moor inside the Cairngorms National Park. Sixty-seven years after raptors gained legal protection and 23 years after Donald Dewar declared raptor persecution in Scotland ‘a national disgrace’, golden eagles and other raptors are still being illegally killed on some driven grouse moors.
[The poisoned golden eagle, next to the poisoned hare bait, on a grouse moor on Invercauld Estate in the Cairngorms National Park in May 2021. Photo by RSPB Scotland]
So despite all this campaigning and political movement, nothing has changed on the ground. Golden eagles (and other raptor species) are still being killed on grouse moors, even inside the Cairngorms National Park, and still not one person has been successfully prosecuted.
It’s shameful that we, ordinary members of the public, have to campaign just to have the law upheld, but its even more shameful that despite decades of compelling evidence, the Scottish Government has still not taken effective action against the criminals within the driven grouse shooting industry.
Even so, we should absolutely celebrate how far we have come, and it’s been hard work and at great personal cost to many, but don’t underestimate just how much more work there is to come.
Crikey, it’s coming to something when The Times (Scottish edition) headlines with this:
Royal family ‘hypocritical’ to have grouse shooting at Balmoral.
This paper is not known for its criticism of the establishment and especially not of establishment hobbies such as driven grouse shooting (e.g. it was only on Sunday the paper was publishing what looked very much like an attempted stitch-up of Chris Packham at the behest of a load of gamekeepers (or more likely the gamekeepers’ masters)).
Anyway, today’s headlining article is very welcome. I’m afraid it sits behind a paywall but as it’s based on the writing of Nick Kempe, whose brilliant blog ParksWatchScotland should be a must-read for anyone interested in the mis-management of Scotland’s two national parks, the Cairngorms and Loch Lomond & the Trossachs, then I’d encourage you to cut out the middle man and go direct to Nick’s blog.
The blog post on which today’s article in The Times is based is this one:
COP26, the Royal Family and the failures of the Cairngorms National Park, published by Nick on 12th November 2021 and can be read here.
And if that whets your appetite, there’s now a follow-on blog called:
The £23m sale of the Abergeldie Estate – the Royal Family should pay for their environmental damage, published by Nick on 22nd November 2021 (here).
It’s a fascinating and useful discussion which will help inform your reaction the next time you hear a senior Royal claiming green / conservation credentials.
Yesterday the Sunday Times (Scotland) ran an opportunistic piece, presumably at the behest of a load of gamekeepers.
Written by Deputy Editor Mark Macaskill, it was claimed that a ‘moorland consortium’ had invited Chris Packham to visit a grouse moor to watch them set it alight, in response to Chris’s derision of muirburn whilst COP26 was taking place just down the road.
It transpires that the ‘moorland consortium’ in question is the one representing Scotland’s regional moorland groups, some of whose members are either currently, or recently have been, under police investigation for alleged raptor persecution crimes (e.g. members of the Angus Glens Moorland Group, Tomatin Moorland Group, Strathdearn & Speyside Moorland Group, Grampian Moorland Group, Tayside & Central Moorland Group), but this doesn’t appear to be a barrier to getting the deputy editor of the Times to publish favourable articles. Friends in high places, no doubt.
Anyway, a quote from the moorland groups’ co-ordinator, Lianne MacLennan, included this line:
“There is an opportunity to foster a better understanding and take the heat out of a polarised debate“.
I spoke to Chris about this and at the time of writing, Chris hadn’t received the invitation but he was still pushed for a quote by Macaskill. That quote was then minimised in the print edition of the article (apparently due to lack of space) and not fully presented even in the digital edition, where space is not an issue.
It’s strange that when journalists ask for a quote they don’t use it in full. This happens a lot.
Here is Chris’s quote, in full:
“Thank you for the invitation. Whilst I have a genuine desire to reach a point when real conservationists and some of the responsible factions of the game shooting industry can again sit around a table and make progress, I fear we are not yet at that point.
So I would gladly visit an estate to witness the burning . . . as long as I was also shown the whereabouts of all the graves of illegally killed raptors were buried. Until the wholesale slaughter of our precious birds of prey ends, I’m out. Its an intractable blockage to progress – stop the killing and we can start talking. And also, science, proper science, isn’t about whether Mars Bars get singed or not. Just saying . . .“
[Chris with the corpse of a male hen harrier that had been caught in a barbaric trap that had been set illegally next to the harrier’s nest on a driven grouse moor. Photo by Ruth Tingay]
Here is a copy of the digital edition of the article:
Packham urged to take heat out of moorland burns
Mark Macaskill, Sunday November 21 2021
Chris Packham has declined an invitation to witness the controlled burning of Scottish moorlands after his comments during the Cop26 climate talks that Scotland was “sticking two fingers up” to a world in ecological crisis.
The naturalist and host of BBC Winterwatch, who was the victim of an arson attack at his home in Hampshire last month, used social media to highlight muirburn, which he believes contributes to carbon emissions and should be banned. He was accused of claiming, falsely, that peat, a natural carbon store, was being burnt on grouse moors.
In an effort to “take the heat” out of the debate, a moorland consortium asked Packham to be their guest on a Scottish estate to see muirburn in action.
Packham said that he was willing to engage with the shooting industry but pointed to the illegal persecution of birds of prey as a stumbling block.
“Whilst I have a genuine desire to reach a point when real conservationists and some of the responsible factions of the game shooting industry can again sit around a table and make progress , I fear we are not yet at that point . So I would gladly visit an estate to witness the burning . . . as long as I was also shown the whereabouts of all the graves of illegally killed raptors. Until the wholesale slaughter of our precious birds of prey ends , I’m out . Its an intractable blockage to progress – stop the killing and we can start talking.”
Bodies such as the Scottish Gamekeepers Association (SGA) insist that muirburn removes surface vegetation while leaving underlying layers of moss and peat intact. The practice is approved under licence from NatureScot, the government agency.
Environmentalists argue that burning on peatlands releases carbon into the atmosphere, undermining efforts to reduce emissions to help control climate change.
During the muirburn season from October to April it is estimated that the equivalent of 87,000 football pitches is burned.
Lianne MacLennan, co-ordinator of Scotland’s regional moorland groups, said that muirburn was conducted carefully and pointed to a Scottish government report last year which suggested that many bird species fared better where muirburn had taken place, although further research was required.
“Muirburn plays a vital role in preventing the type of climate-busting wildfires that lost a million tonnes of carbon in Moray and the Flow Country in 2019 and can help retain carbon in peatlands,” she said. “ We have written to Chris Packham in the hope he will come out and see what actually happens when trained, professional gamekeepers carry out the activity.”
A letter sent to Packham on Friday stated: “There is an opportunity to foster a better understanding and take the heat out of a polarised debate.”
Five years ago a small rural company in Lancashire (Bowland Brewery) was subjected to a disgraceful online hate campaign by gamekeepers and others from the game-shooting industry, simply because the brewery was supporting an RSPB hen harrier conservation project by donating profits from the sales of its Skydancer beer to the project. A promotional photograph of Chris Packham and Mark Avery enjoying the beer was apparently enough to enrage some gamekeepers to the point where they couldn’t control the urge to target the brewery with a torrent of online abuse and threats (see here).
This hate campaign back-fired somewhat after decent, ordinary people read about what was going on and turned out in their droves to buy the beer online and support the brewery (e.g. see comments here).
Five years later, you might have thought the gamekeepers would have moved on from such tactics, especially as they’ve been complaining a lot about the alleged online abuse they claim to be suffering (see here). You’d also think that now the police are paying close attention to the social media accounts of those applying for firearms and shotgun licences (e.g. see here), especially following the mass shooting / murders in Plymouth carried out by a licenced gun user earlier this year (see here), then maybe the more intemperate gamekeepers might have learnt some self control before hurling abuse and threats at people who just happen to hold a different opinion to them.
But no, apparently not.
This time the target of abuse is a small, rural company called East Coast Organics, who farm and then use electric vehicles to deliver their organic produce to customers within a 25 mile radius of the farm in East Lothian.
Last week, East Coast Organics posted this comment on their Facebook page in support of the forthcoming REVIVE coalition conference on grouse moor reform:
This simple, innocuous statement seems to have triggered the usual suspects in the gamekeeping /game-shooting world and the East Coast Organics Facebook page was flooded with abuse and threats by some pretty vile and stupid men and women who were being egged on by a particularly unpleasant narcissist from their community who has been at the centre of abuse and harassment campaigns for years.
Fortunately, East Coast Organics has reported those involved in the hate campaign to Facebook and many of the comments have now been removed. The more sinister trolls have also been reported to the police. A few fake reviews remain on the page but many have also now been removed.
Unlike Bowland Brewery, East Coast Organics doesn’t sell its produce nationwide, which is a shame. But if you live within 25 miles of their farm (check whether they deliver to your postcode here, includes much of Edinburgh) please consider showing them some solidarity and support by buying one of their fruit/veg boxes. You might also want to consider writing a supportive review on their Facebook page.
Rural Affairs Minister Mairi Gougeon is a fan after a recent visit to the farm and will no doubt be horrified to learn about these latest attacks:
Press release from REVIVE, the coalition for grouse moor reform:
11th November 2021
Scotland’s Muirburn Shame
National Park burns while world leaders discuss climate emergency in Glasgow
Scottish landowners are being accused of putting two fingers up to COP26 as they cause environmental damage through muirburn during the global climate conference.
REVIVE, the coalition for grouse moor reform has published graphic footage of muirburn in the Cairngorms National Park, highlighting the hypocrisy of the practice as Scotland hosts UN climate talks to reach agreement to tackle the climate emergency. The footage filmed by REVIVE partners, the League Against Cruel Sports Scotland, shows large swathes of moorland burning intensively.
[Gamekeepers setting fire to heather on peatland on Edinglassie Estate, Cairngorms National Park last week. Photo by League Against Cruel Sports Scotland]
League Against Cruel Sports Scotland Director, Robbie Marsland said: “It beggars belief that heather burning on this scale is happening at the very same time as a global summit on climate change.
“Every year thousands of hectares of heather goes up in smoke in Scotland’s highlands and much of it is on deep peat. The heather is burnt to increase the number of grouse that can be shot for entertainment.
“Our film also shows the dramatic impact of the burning – a treeless brown desert stretching to the horizon. But this is just the impact which is visible. What we can’t see is the carbon stored on this land leaking into the atmosphere, undermining efforts to reduce climate emissions. In the context of the international conference on the climate crisis this to me, looks like these landowners are putting up two fingers to COP 26.”
Muirburn involves burning heather moorland to provide unnatural habitats for game birds to increase numbers for sport shooting. The practice is an issue of growing concern due to the increasing extent and intensity of burning on grouse moors, and particularly the effects of burning over deep peat.
Dr Richard Dixon, Director of Friends of the Earth Scotland, a REVIVE coalition partner said: “Allowing landowners to burn land indiscriminately puts our vital peatlands at incredible risk by allowing the carbon it stores to leak into the atmosphere, undermining other efforts to reduce climate emissions.
“This is a very serious issue for grouse moors, because much of that land is high in peat, and peaty soils contain a massive amount of carbon. With the eyes of the world on Scotland’s climate action, the management of all our peat-rich grouse moorland will have to improve radically to contribute to national efforts to cut emissions.”
The Scottish Government recently announced a series of measures to license grouse moors, including addressing issues such as muirburn, following the Werritty Review of grouse moor management.
Campaign Manager for REVIVE Max Wiszniewski added: “With every sector under pressure to reduce carbon emissions and help tackle the climate emergency it is staggering that muirburn for a purpose as unnecessary as increasing the number of grouse that can be shot for entertainment is deemed acceptable. Scotland’s vital peat reserves are under constant threat from the damage caused by increasingly intensive muir burning on grouse moors and we would urge the Scottish Government to ban this environmentally damaging practice.
“The footage shows moor land in the Highlands quite literally on fire with huge plumes of smoke billowing into the atmosphere. Muirburn is just one of a number of unpalatable practices in the circle of destruction that surround grouse moors causing significant environmental, social and animal welfare concerns.”
Muirburn season runs from 1st October until 15th April in Scotland. [Ed: and incredibly can be extended to 30th April with landowner permission!]
ENDS
Here is a short video:
The Daily Record also has an article on this today (here), which provides detail of the identities of the estates featured in this footage – reported to be Edinglassie Estate and Allargue Estate. If you can look beyond the tabloid sensationalism, it’s an interesting read.
I particularly liked this bit:
[Robbie] Marsland, [Director of League Against Cruel Sports Scotland] said arguments put up by estate owners for burning the heather are bogus.
He said: “The people who burn the land regularly claim they do it to help conserve lapwing. However, the clue of their real motive is rather obviously in the title of the moors. They’re not called lapwing moors, they’re called grouse moors“.
There’s also a quote from Stuart Young, Chief Executive of Dunecht Estates (which includes Edinglassie Estate) whose reported comments included this:
“Controlled fires following the official Muirburn Code do not damage the peat underneath and also serve as an essential management tool to prevent and reduce the extent and severity of uncontrolled wildfires which are a really serious threat to the nature conservation and carbon sequestration benefits provided by moorland“.
It’s cleverly worded, but of course fails to acknowledge that not all grouse moor owners comply with the (mostly voluntary) Muirburn Code. With the intensification of grouse moor management in some areas of Scotland comes an increase in the extent and intensity of rotational heather burning. These fires have even been lit on areas of deep peat (forbidden by the voluntary Muirburn Code, which many land managers seem to simply ignore) causing damage to protected blanket bog habitat – in fact 40% of the area of land burned for grouse moor management in Scotland is on deep peat according to a 2019 report commissioned & published by the Revive Coalition (see here).
Meanwhile, last month conservation campaign group Wild Justice was refused permission for judicial review of the much criticised and frankly grossly inadequate regulations brought in by DEFRA to limit vegetation burning on peatland soils in the uplands of England. Wild Justice has appealed this ruling and a decision is expected in early December.
Ps. REVIVE’s annual conference will take place in Perth this Sunday (14th Nov) and tickets are still available (here). Speakers include Chris Packham, Lesley Riddoch, Andy Wightman and others (see programme here). Please note, the start time has been put back to 11am to accommodate attendees arriving on public transport.
Last week I blogged about how a Suffolk gamekeeper was due at Ipswich Magistrates Court to face a charge of poisoning a buzzard, having already pleaded guilty to several pesticide storage and firearms offences (see here).
This case stemmed from a multi-agency raid last January (here) after the discovery of an illegally poisoned buzzard in September 2020 which had been found close to pheasant-rearing pens near Lakenheath.
[The illegally-poisoned buzzard found close to the pheasant-rearing pens. Photos by RSPB]
The case was heard yesterday and it appears that the buzzard-poisoning charge was dropped, probably due to insufficient evidence, because despite the gamekeeper having this particular poison (Bendiocarb) in his possession, the prosecution would need to demonstrate that he was the person who laid the poisoned bait that subsequently killed this buzzard. The fact that the poisoned buzzard was found in close proximity to his workplace, and that he had the same poison in his possession, is simply not enough.
We can all draw our own conclusions of course, based on the balance of probability, but in English law the balance of probability is insufficient to convict for this particular offence. That’s not the fault of the police, the RSPB, the Crown Prosecution Service or the magistrate.
In this case, the gamekeeper, Shane Leech, 33, of Maids Cross Hill, Lakenheath, Suffolk, was convicted of six charges relating to pesticide and firearms offences and was given a Community Order of 80 hours unpaid work, ordered to pay £105 costs and a £95 Victim Surcharge.
I’ll leave it to you to decide whether the punishment fits the crime(s) and whether it offers any semblance of a deterrent to anyone who might be considering committing similar offences.
The RSPB has published two blogs about this case. The first one provides an overview of the case and offers praise to the work of Suffolk Police and the Crown Prosecution Service (see here).
The second blog is a more detailed discussion about the difficulties of bringing a successful prosecution for the illegal poisoning of birds of prey (see here). It also includes this shocking image of a pile of dead pheasants apparently being prepared for human consumption in the same room where the poison was being stored illegally!
A new trial date has been set for a gamekeeper from the Angus Glens who is accused of multiple offences relating to alleged animal fighting and animal suffering.
Property on the Millden Estate was searched under warrant in October 2019 in a joint SSPCA and Police Scotland investigation (see here), as well as a simultaneous search at another property in Aberdeenshire (more on that fascinating case once the Millden case has finished).
A number of dogs were seized during the raid and a Millden Estate spokesperson later stated the gamekeeper had been suspended pending further investigation (see here and here).
The gamekeeper was charged with animal cruelty offences and was due in court in December last year but the case was continued to May 2021 with a trial date set for June 2021 (see here).
[Headline from The Times in October 2019]
The trial date in June 2021 came and went (see here) and was further delayed. The new trial date is 3rd December 2021.
A number of dead buzzards were also reportedly found during the raid at Millden and I am currently waiting for Police Scotland to provide an update on that investigation. (The SSPCA is dealing with the alleged animal fighting offences, Police Scotland is dealing with the dead raptors).
As there are still live court proceedings, blog comments are restricted until the case has concluded. Thanks.
A gamekeeper is due in court on Monday 8th November accused of poisoning a buzzard.
He has already pleaded guilty to a number of firearms offences and a number of pesticide storage offences.
At an earlier hearing in August, the gamekeeper pleaded not guilty to poisoning the buzzard so the case was sent for trial.
This case stems from a multi-agency raid, led by Suffolk Police, at a property last January (see here).
[Police officers seized a number of firearms during the raid. Photo via Suffolk Police]
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. Comments on this particular blog also won’t be accepted until the case concludes so as not to prejudice proceedings. Thanks for your understanding.
UPDATE 9th November 2021: Gamekeeper convicted for pesticide and firearms offences but buzzard-poisoning charge is dropped (here)
Timed to publish on the same day as the RSPB’s Birdcrime report, documenting how 2020 was the ‘worst year on record’ for crimes against birds of prey in the UK (see here), National Geographic has just published a lengthy article, written by journalist Rene Ebersole who visited the UK earlier this year specifically to research the subject of raptor persecution on grouse moors.
Rene visited quite a few field sites and interviewed a lot of people for this piece, including Mark Thomas (RSPB Investigations), Mark Avery (Wild Justice), Caroline Middleton Gordon (Moorland Association), Matt Hagen (North Yorkshire Police and RPPDG), Mark Cunliffe-Lister (Swinton Estate & Moorland Association), Steve Downing (Northern England Raptor Forum), the witness who saw ‘gamekeepers’ shooting buzzards on the Bransdale Estate last year, and some others.
I could spend a long time analysing the contributions from these people but unfortunately I don’t have the time today. I will try and come back to it at some point though, because some of it, especially Cunliffe-Lister’s comments, deserve ripping to shreds. If you’re going to read the article, and I’d urge you to because it’s very, very good, I’d recommend you don’t have a hot drink anywhere nearby when you read Cunliffe-Lister’s predictable denials and diversions. For example:
“Grouse shooting had some bad times when raptors were being controlled illegally historically, but now we’re all being responsible and working a way forward, so we can still keep somebody living in this house and working up here, rather than giving up“.
What a prat. It’s these constant denials from senior figures in the shooting industry, in the face of decades worth of overwhelming science and evidence, that provide the raptor killers with the confidence to continue their crimes on the shooting estates, safe in the knowledge they’re probably going to be protected.
North Yorkshire Police Inspector Matt Hagen deserves a medal simply for being prepared to stand up and say it how he sees it, at great risk to his personal and professional life knowing how the nasty brigade has turned on previous officers who’ve dared to form and express an opinion based on evidence and experience.
He talks about knowing the identity of the Nidderdale poisoner, of how the Bransdale gamekeepers all gave ‘no comment’ interviews when questioned about the five shot buzzards found buried on the estate, how ‘shocked and disgusted’ he is about the high level of raptor persecution in the UK, how it’s ‘more likely than not‘ that hen harrier River was shot on the Swinton Estate, despite the ridiculous and largely implausible explanations of estate owner Cunliffe-Lister, and how gamekeepers “all know what is going on, and they cover it up“.
He’s not wrong. This pie chart from the latest RSPB Birdcrime report shows that almost three-quarters of those convicted of raptor persecution crimes in the last 30 years worked in, or had connections to, the game-shooting industry.
The National Geographic article is free and open access. You can read it HERE
Well done, journalist Rene Ebersole and her photographer Anastasia Taylor-Lind – it’s a very good piece and it’s excellent that these disgraceful crimes are being featured by a highly respected organisation such as National Geographic, being exposed to a much wider international audience.
UPDATE: A PDF of the article can now be downloaded here:
Raptor Persecution UK 