Tag: hen harrier

Nine days ago I blogged about the suspicious disappearance of a satellite-tagged hen harrier called ‘Fortune’ who had vanished from an undisclosed roost site in Northumberland in September 2020 (see here).

Well guess what? Another one has gone, also from an undisclosed roost site in Northumberland.

This one was called ‘Rosie’, who was tagged (#57278) at a nest site (Northumberland 1) in July 2019 and the tag’s last known fix was 23 March 2020, also in Northumberland. Natural England has this marked in its database as ‘Missing fate unknown. At roost (site confidential)‘.

[Hen harrier Rosie when she was being tagged. Photo by Natural England]

Some of you may remember Rosie. She was previously reported as ‘missing’ in October 2019 (here) but then was reported to be alive and well later in the month (see here and here) and just wearing one of those Lotek tags whose limited functionality has proven to be problematic for tracking hen harriers (e.g. see here). I think it’s reasonable to assume that, ten months on and as there still hasn’t been a signal from her tag, then this is likely to be more than a tag reliability issue this time.

To be fair to Natural England, Rosie’s suspicious disappearance in March 2020 was not concealed – it was included in Natural England’s September 2020 tagged birds update but I didn’t spot it until now. Although perhaps if Natural England had bothered to publicise her suspicious disappearance at the time….

So, along with missing tagged hen harrier Fortune, that’s two gone at an undisclosed roost site in Northumberland this year. Whether that’s the same roost site only Natural England knows. Why can’t the roost sites be numbered, like the nest sites are, to disguise the actual location for security reasons but at least indicate positional proximity?

BASC’s £10K bung to Natural England to help fund winter roost monitoring doesn’t seem to be working very well, does it?

Rosie will now be added to the list of confirmed illegally killed/missing suspected killed hen harriers in the UK since 2018 – the running total is currently 50 but there’s more to come….standby.

Cast your minds back to September 2020, when the RSPB claimed that a Natural England fieldworker had filmed a gunman, with an eagle owl, close to a hen harrier nest site in Cumbria (see here).

The RSPB, quite fairly, considered that the tethering of an eagle owl and the positioning of an armed man nearby was evidence that the eagle owl was being used as a decoy to attract in raptors (perhaps hen harriers) which could then be shot at close range. It’s an increasingly familiar sight on some grouse moors (e.g. see here), despite the use of a tethered live decoy being illegal (but let’s face it, the grouse shooting industry isn’t exactly feted for its adherence to the law).

A police investigation in Cumbria ensued, but allegations were later made that a Natural England staff member had unintentionally frustrated the criminal investigation by contravening legal protocol and phoning up the suspected gunman and asking whether he was the person who’d been seen, with the owl decoy, near to the hen harrier nest the previous day (see here). The investigation came to an abrupt halt but Natural England denied that its staff member’s actions had any bearing on this decision (see here). We’ll never know for sure because Natural England can’t be trusted to be upfront about anything relating to the hen harrier and its precarious conservation status (e.g. see here for the latest example of why Natural England shouldn’t be trusted).

The other interesting aspect about this case was the suggestion that this estate was actively involved with Natural England’s insane hen harrier brood meddling trial last year. The suggestion was made in the RSPB blog although certainty was lacking due to the secrecy surrounding the location of brood meddled nest sites.

For new blog readers, hen harrier brood meddling is a conservation sham sanctioned by DEFRA as part of its ludicrous ‘Hen Harrier Action Plan‘ and carried out by Natural England (NE), in cahoots with the very industry responsible for the species’ catastrophic decline in England. For more background see here.

[A more realistic view of DEFRA’s hen harrier action plan. Cartoon by Dr Gerard Hobley]

Thanks to one of our blog readers making a Freedom of Information request to Natural England, it can now be confirmed that yes, this [unnamed] grouse-shooting estate where a gunman was filmed crouching close to a tethered eagle owl, in the territory of a pair of breeding hen harriers, was also one of the estates where Natural England licensed the removal of hen harrier chicks for brood meddling last year.

Although it took Natural England a couple of goes to confirm this, first of all denying it and then having to send an email two weeks later to correct the information:

It leaves you brimming with confidence in Natural England’s competence, doesn’t it?

The biggest joke in all of this is that the brood meddling trial is supposed to test whether those people responsible for killing hen harriers illegally would stop killing hen harriers if the chicks were brood meddled (removed from the grouse moor in June at the critical grouse-rearing stage and then returned to the wild in August). It’s a sort of ‘gentleman’s agreement’, as I saw it described by one commentator the other day. The problem is, there doesn’t seem to be many ‘gentlemen’ involved, or at least not honourable ones.

The irony of permitting brood meddling to take place on an estate under police investigation for suspected raptor persecution is not lost on any of us.

Many thanks to blog reader Grace Newton, who also happens to be a journalist writing for the Yorkshire Post, who has followed up by writing an article on Tuesday’s blog about hen harrier Harold, who disappeared in suspicious circumstances on a grouse moor in the Yorkshire Dales in September 2020.

The article includes some commentary from Natural England, who said that the grouse moor from where Harold vanished ‘was searched by police several times and nothing was found‘ and that ‘the investigation remains ongoing‘.

The article also suggests that the lame ‘appeal’ (here) put out by Natural England on twitter refers to Harold.

Where is the Natural England appeal about the brood meddled hen harrier #55152 that also vanished in North Yorkshire in September 2020, and hen harrier Fortune who vanished at an undisclosed location in Northumberland, also in September 2020?

The full article in the Yorkshire Post is available here

Following a Freedom of Information request to Natural England, we now know that three satellite-tagged hen harriers vanished off the face of the earth in September 2020 – one next to a grouse moor in North Yorkshire (here), one on a grouse moor in the Yorkshire Dales National Park (here) and one at an undisclosed location in Northumberland which may or may not have been a grouse moor (here).

These disappearances follow the inevitable and now very familiar pattern of so many before them, which has led scientists to conclude that ‘hen harriers in Britain suffer elevated levels of mortality on grouse moors, which is most likely the result of illegal killing’ (see here).

What seems to have infuriated the public the most about this awful news is Natural England’s silence on the three disappearances. Although yesterday evening NE did manage to put out this vague and utterly unconvincing tweet, presumably in an attempt to save face:

Natural England has known about these three disappearances for four months and has said absolutely nothing about them. Why is that?

Would it have anything to do with the recent financial ‘agreement’ it signed with representatives of the grouse shooting industry? You know, the one where BASC bunged £10K to Natural England to support two NE fieldworkers to undertake hen harrier monitoring at winter roost sites?

The Memorandum of Agreement between the two parties is an extraordinary document. Drafted by lawyers, it’s turgid and seems to focus excessively on the use of BASC’s logo, but it’s also entertaining in parts.

It includes a clause that both parties agree not to slag off one another in public (!) and then a line about not saying anything ‘that is contrary to the principles of the Programme’:

I haven’t been able to find any definition of what the ‘Principles of the Programme’ are, but perhaps publicising the fact that three tagged hen harriers have vanished in suspicious circumstances, at least two of them on or next to grouse moors, would be considered ‘contrary to the principles of the Programme’?

For anyone interested, here’s the Memorandum of Agreement between BASC and Natural England, released under an FoI request:

Perhaps we should donate £10K to Natural England on the understanding that it WILL publicise, in a timely manner, embarrassing details like the loss of yet another hen harrier on yet another grouse moor? Oh but hang on, wouldn’t that be considered a bribe?

To be fair, Natural England’s reluctance to reveal these continued losses is probably absolutely nothing to do with any financial agreement it’s entered in to with representatives from the grouse shooting industry. Let’s face it, NE has been slow to publicise these incidents for years, it’s nothing new.

Another hen harrier has gone ‘missing’, the third to be reported in the last 24hrs.

As with the two most recent reports (see here and here), this information has had to be dragged out of Natural England via a Freedom of Information request.

This time it’s a young female, optimistically named ‘Fortune’, who was tagged (#162150) on 15th June 2020 at a nest site in Northumberland (site 1). In August 2020 she was reportedly in Dumfries & Galloway but on 16th September her tag’s last known fix came from an undisclosed site in Northumberland, listed by Natural England as, ‘Site confidential important hen harrier roost’. She was wearing a tag with known reliability, in contrast to the tag worn by recently-disappeared hen harrier Harold.

There’s no further information.

[A random photo of a young hen harrier by RSPB]

The illegal killing of hen harriers at winter roost sites has long been recognised by raptor fieldworkers as being of huge concern. In 2019 an armed man with dogs was filmed by the RSPB Investigations Team at an undisclosed roost site in Yorkshire (see here). The day before, satellite-tagged hen harrier ‘River’ vanished from the same roost site (here). Imagine that!

So that’s three satellite-tagged hen harriers that all vanished in September 2020, one next to a grouse moor in Yorkshire, one on a grouse moor in the Yorkshire Dales National Park, and one at an undisclosed roost site somewhere in Northumberland.

And they’re not the only ones – more details are yet to see the light of day.

Following yesterday’s news that one of the brood meddled hen harrier chicks had ‘vanished’ next to a grouse moor just beyond the boundary of the Yorkshire Dales National Park (see here), today I bring you news that another satellite-tagged hen harrier has vanished, this time on a grouse moor inside the Yorkshire Dales National Park.

This information has also come from a Freedom of Information request to Natural England.

Hen harrier ‘Harold’ was tagged (#57272) in the Yorkshire Dales on 4th June 2020. His tag’s last known fix came from a grouse moor at NY830036 on 19th September 2020.

Funnily enough, another young hen harrier called Dryad, tagged by the RSPB, was also reported ‘missing’ from the same place on 7th September 2020. Imagine that! (See here).

[Grouse moors rise above small villages and hamlets inside the Yorkshire Dales National Park. Photo by Ruth Tingay]

[The last known fix from Harold’s satellite tag at grid ref NY830036, surrounded by the burnt strips of the grouse moors]

There is a caveat with Harold’s disappearance. The tag that Natural England fitted was one of the tags that has previously been identified as being unreliable due to its limited functionality (see here for a discussion) and has since been removed from the brood meddling trial at the insistence of the scientific advisory group. So why the hell is Natural England still using this tag on other hen harriers?

You’ll have to draw your own conclusions about the fate of Harold. And why Natural England hasn’t deemed it worthy of any publicity, despite me asking about it in December (here) and despite its own extensive research that demonstrates how often these young hen harriers are suspected to be illegally killed on or close to grouse moors (see here).

Harold’s disappearance will be added to the ever-increasing list of missing or confirmed dead hen harriers since 2018 (currently standing at 46 after yesterday’s news). But it won’t be added just yet because there’s more bad news about satellite-tagged hen harriers still to come.

Standby.

UPDATE 14 January 2021: This blog has been picked up by the Yorkshire Post (here)

One of last year’s brood meddled hen harriers has ‘disappeared’ next to a Yorkshire grouse moor.

For new blog readers, hen harrier brood meddling is a conservation sham sanctioned by DEFRA as part of its ludicrous ‘Hen Harrier Action Plan‘ and carried out by Natural England (NE), in cahoots with the very industry responsible for the species’ catastrophic decline in England. For more background see here.

[Cartoon by Dr Gerard Hobley]

As you’ll recall, despite all five of the 2019 brood meddling cohort being ‘missing’ presumed dead, four of them in suspicious circumstances (see here), Natural England decided in 2020 that another load of chicks should be brood meddled to appease the grouse shooting lobby (see here). Those chicks, along with other, non-brood meddled chicks, were fitted with satellite tags.

In September we learned that four of the 2020 tagged cohort were already gone – one dead (likely predated) and three ‘missing’ (here), but none of these had been brood meddled.

Since then, Natural England hasn’t provided any updates and, since the autumn is peak hen harrier-killing season on grouse moors, I submitted an FoI to Natural England in December to find out what was going on, especially as there’d been rumours from fieldworkers that at least one tagged harrier had vanished in a notorious grouse shooting area in the Yorkshire Dales National Park.

Natural England has now responded and the news isn’t good, although it’ll come as absolutely no surprise whatsoever.

According to the information released by Natural England under FoI regs, a number of satellite tagged hen harriers have gone ‘missing’ since September 2020 – further blogs on these will follow shortly.

One of those missing is a brood-meddled hen harrier (Tag #55152) originally removed from a nest (BMR1) in North Yorkshire. He was tagged on 11 July 2020 and his tag’s last known fix was on 20th September 2020, right next to a grouse moor in North Yorkshire, grid reference SE103956.

[The last known fix of Tag #55152 on 20th September 2020]

There’s no further information available and I haven’t seen any appeal for information from North Yorkshire Police or Natural England.

The disappearance of this bird means that there are now 46 hen harriers ‘missing’ or confirmed illegally killed since 2018 (see here). I won’t update the victim list just yet because as mentioned above, there are others to add.

Standby.

As for the rest of the nine hen harriers brood meddled in 2020, according to Natural England six are still transmitting (as of December 2020), one died in captivity before release and one died of natural causes in October 2020 (Tag #55154).

The legal basis of hen harrier brood meddling has been challenged in the courts by both Mark Avery and the RSPB. An appeals hearing is due later this month (see here for details).