hen harrier – Page 35 – Raptor Persecution UK

The five brood meddled hen harriers from 2019 are all ‘missing’

At the end of May we blogged about how Natural England had just issued another licence to permit hen harrier brood meddling on grouse moors again this year (see here).

For new blog readers, hen harrier brood meddling is a conservation sham sanctioned by DEFRA and carried out by Natural England, in cahoots with the very industry responsible for the species’ catastrophic decline in England. For more background see here.

[Photo of an UNMEDDLED hen harrier, by Laurie Campbell]

We had a number of concerns about this second licence being issued on 20 May 2020, not least the complete lack of transparency about the fate of the five hen harrier chicks that had been brood meddled in 2019. The last we’d heard three of the five had ‘disappeared’ on grouse moors in northern England in autumn 2019 (here) although then one came back online (here) and it then became apparent that some of the satellite tags used last year were different to the tags used previously and were not as reliable (see here).

On 28 May we asked Natural England for information about the status of these five birds (amongst other things). Natural England Director Rob Cooke has provided the following information to us this afternoon:

So there we have it. All five birds considered to be ‘missing’. One of the disappearances could be attributed to natural causes (#55147, assumed dead during a sea crossing from France to the UK) but the other four all look highly suspicious.

We do know that the GPS Lotek tags have proven to be unreliable on this species (see here) but the longer the tag silence continues, the worse it looks. (We’ve got more info on these tags and will blog separately about the decision to use this particular tag type for this ‘trial’).

[The five brood meddled hen harrier chicks in 2019, now all ‘missing’]

And questions on tag unreliability aside, the ‘missing’ status of these five is hardly a surprise – it’s a pattern that we’ve seen for years, that’s been confirmed by rigorous scientific analysis (of Natural England’s own bloody data, see here) and a pattern that continues even after the grouse shooting industry has the brass neck to pretend that it’s cleaned up its act – 33 ‘missing’ or confirmed killed HH in last two years alone, and that total does not include the brood meddled hen harriers – see here.

What’s more astonishing than anything is the fact that Natural England has issued another brood meddling licence this year, knowing full well the status of last year’s brood meddled birds, and wrote a blog celebrating the so-called ‘success’ of last year’s trial (see here)!

It simply beggars belief.

Last autumn when two of the brood meddled hen harriers were reported as ‘missing’ in suspicious circumstances, we asked Natural England what was its exit strategy and when would it pull the plug on this ludicrous five-year ‘trial’ (see here)?

Natural England said it would ‘take in to account the results to date’ when considering whether to issue another licence for this year (see here).

It looks like the results have been taken in to account and summarily dismissed.

Today Mark Avery wrote that he is still waiting to hear about another court date to have his appeal against brood meddling heard (along with the RSPB’s legal challenge). He provides a useful time line of what’s happened to date (see here).

Meanwhile, somewhere on a grouse moor in northern England, a brood of hen harriers will be being targeted (if they haven’t already been taken)……

[Illustration by Gerard Hobley]

‘The grouse moor industry accounted for the mainland extinction of hen harriers once before’

While the news sinks in that yet another two young hen harriers have ‘disappeared’ in suspicious circumstances on driven grouse moors (see here), making a total of at least 33 that have either vanished or been found illegally killed in the two years since the grouse shooting industry would have us believe it has cleaned up its act (see here), writer Jim Crumley reminds us that this industry has wiped out hen harriers before and it can / will do it again unless the authorities get a grip.

[Hen harrier photo by Laurie Campbell]

Published in The Scots Magazine, under the heading ‘Hypnotic Hen Harriers’, Crumley writes:

‘There are certain places in Scotland that have a track record for making birds of prey disappear, up to and including eagles – almost always in parts of the country obsessed with grouse shooting.

They protest every time some wildlife organisation or other goes public about the demise of one more harrier. They’ll tell you that when satellite tags suddenly stop working, it could be because the tag failed – they hardly ever do – and there’s no proof the bird has been illegally killed. That is often true as it’s rare that the corpse is ever found – they have become adept at disposing of dead harriers and eagles.

But in the case of the hen harrier, the weight of circumstantial evidence is huge and it’s also historic. Making hen harriers disappear is nothing new‘.

Read his article in full here

Two more hen harriers ‘disappear’ in suspicious circumstances on grouse moors in & next to Cairngorms National Park

News has emerged that another two satellite-tagged hen harriers have ‘disappeared’ in suspicious circumstances on two separate grouse moors, one in the Cairngorms National Park and one right next to it.

The source of this news is unusual, in that it isn’t in the form of a police appeal for information, it doesn’t come from the RSPB’s Hen Harrier LIFE Project and nor does it involve hen harriers tagged by Natural England south of the border.

This time the news is from an organisation called Wildland (see website here). This is a collection of estates in the Cairngorms and Sutherland, bought by the Polvsen family and being managed with an impressive vision for conservation. Wildland is also a pivotal partner in the wider conservation project called Cairngorms Connect (see website here) which ambitiously aims to restore ecological processes, habitats and species across an enormous area of the National Park.

Wildland has been involved with satellite-tracking golden eagles for a while now, and last year it also fitted tags to hen harriers that had hatched on its estates. In a beautifully-produced blog that was published on Friday, the fates of three of those hen harriers have now been publicised.

You can read the blog here

Anyone who knows anything about hen harriers in the UK uplands will not be surprised to learn that two of the three young hen harriers have since ‘disappeared’ and the last known transmission locations of the tags were both on driven grouse moors – one at Dalnaspidal on the SW edge of the National Park (last signal on 5 September 2019) and the other one at Invercauld, Royal Deeside, on the east side of the park (last signal on 24 September 2019). Regular blog readers may be familiar with these areas.

The third hen harrier didn’t disappear in suspicious circumstances over a grouse moor – this one was found dead in a field in Aberdeenshire although the cause of death has not been published.

[An overview of the movements of the three satellite-tracked hen harriers and their last known locations]

Interestingly, the Wildland blog also provides information about the functionality of the three tags with details given about the tags’ battery status (all working perfectly well) – this is a key indication that the ‘sudden stop no malfunction’ scenario of the two tags/hen harriers that vanished is indeed suspicious and not simply a predicted engineering malfunction, which researchers can identify by a steady decline in battery charge (e.g. see here).

The Wildland blog doesn’t provide any information about a police investigation in to the suspicious disappearances of the two young hen harriers, and nor have we seen any publicity about these disappearances even though the birds vanished nine months ago in September 2019. That’s disappointing, especially as the RSPB was publishing information about a suspected shot hen harrier and two others that had vanished on Scottish grouse moors in autumn 2019 (see here).

Nevertheless, now the news is out we can add these two Wildland hen harriers to the ever-expanding list of hen harriers (at least 33 now) believed to have been illegally killed since 2018, the year when grouse shooting industry reps would have us believe that hen harriers were welcomed back on the grouse moors:

February 2018: Hen harrier Saorsa ‘disappeared’ in the Angus Glens in Scotland (here). The Scottish Gamekeepers Association later published wholly inaccurate information claiming the bird had been re-sighted. The RSPB dismissed this as “completely false” (here).

5 February 2018: Hen harrier Marc ‘disappeared’ on a grouse moor in Durham (here)

9 February 2018: Hen harrier Aalin ‘disappeared’ on a grouse moor in Wales (here)

March 2018: Hen harrier Blue ‘disappeared’ in the Lake District National Park (here)

March 2018: Hen harrier Finn ‘disappeared’ near Moffat in Scotland (here)

18 April 2018: Hen harrier Lia ‘disappeared’ in Wales and her corpse was retrieved in a field in May 2018. Cause of death was unconfirmed but police treating death as suspicious (here)

8 August 2018: Hen harrier Hilma ‘disappeared’ on a grouse moor in Northumberland (here).

16 August 2018: Hen harrier Athena ‘disappeared’ on a grouse moor in Scotland (here)

26 August 2018: Hen Harrier Octavia ‘disappeared’ on a grouse moor in the Peak District National Park (here)

29 August 2018: Hen harrier Margot ‘disappeared’ on a grouse moor in Scotland (here)

29 August 2018: Hen Harrier Heulwen ‘disappeared’ on a grouse moor in Wales (here)

3 September 2018: Hen harrier Stelmaria ‘disappeared’ on a grouse moor in Scotland (here)

24 September 2018: Hen harrier Heather ‘disappeared’ on a grouse moor in Scotland (here)

2 October 2018: Hen harrier Mabel ‘disappeared’ on a grouse moor on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales National Park (here)

3 October 2018: Hen Harrier Thor ‘disappeared’ next to a grouse moor in Bowland, Lanacashire (here)

26 October 2018: Hen harrier Arthur ‘disappeared’ on a grouse moor in the North York Moors National Park (here)

10 November 2018: Hen harrier Rannoch ‘disappeared’ on a grouse moor in Scotland (here). Her corpse was found nearby in May 2019 – she’d been killed in an illegally-set spring trap (here).

14 November 2018: Hen harrier River ‘disappeared’ on a grouse moor in the Nidderdale AONB (here). Her corpse was found nearby in April 2019 – she’d been illegally shot (here).

16 January 2019: Hen harrier Vulcan ‘disappeared’ in Wiltshire close to Natural England’s proposed reintroduction site (here)

7 February 2019: Hen harrier Skylar ‘disappeared’ next to a grouse moor in South Lanarkshire (here)

22 April 2019: Hen harrier Marci ‘disappeared’ on a grouse moor in the Cairngorms National Park (here)

11 May 2019: A male hen harrier was caught in an illegally-set trap next to his nest on a grouse moor in South Lanarkshire. He didn’t survive (here)

7 June 2019: A hen harrier was found dead on a grouse moor in Scotland. A post mortem stated the bird had died as a result of ‘penetrating trauma’ injuries and that this bird had previously been shot (here)

5 September 2019: Wildland Hen Harrier 1 ‘disappeared’ on a grouse moor nr Dalnaspidal on the edge of the Cairngorms National Park (this post)

11 September 2019: Hen harrier Romario ‘disappeared’ on a grouse moor in the Cairngorms National Park (here)

24 September 2019: Wildland Hen Harrier 2 ‘disappeared’ on a grouse moor at Invercauld in the Cairngorms National Park (this post)

10 October 2019: Hen harrier Ada ‘disappeared’ on a grouse moor in the North Pennines AONB (here)

12 October 2019: Hen harrier Thistle ‘disappeared’ on a grouse moor in Sutherland (here)

18 October 2019: Member of the public reports the witnessed shooting of a male hen harrier on White Syke Hill in North Yorkshire (here)

November 2019: Hen harrier Mary found illegally poisoned on a pheasant shoot in Ireland (here)

January 2020: Members of the public report the witnessed shooting of a male hen harrier on Threshfield Moor in the Yorkshire Dales National Park (here)

There are two more satellite-tagged hen harriers (Tony & Rain) that are reported either confirmed or suspected to have been illegally killed in the RSPB’s Hen Harrier LIFE Project Report but no further details are available.

And then there were last year’s brood meddled hen harrier chicks that have been reported ‘missing’ but as they’re carrying a new type of tag known to be unreliable it’s not known if they’ve been illegally killed or if they’re still ok. For the purposes of this mini-analysis we will discount these birds.

So that makes a total of at least 33 hen harriers that are known to have either ‘disappeared’ in suspicious circumstances or have been witnessed being shot or have been found illegally killed in the last two years. And still we’re expected to believe that everything’s perfect, that the grouse shooting industry is not riddled with armed criminals and that hen harriers are doing just fine, thriving even, according to the shooting industry’s propaganda.

BBC Countryfile highlights raptor persecution on grouse moors

Last night’s edition of Countryfile on the BBC included a ten minute slot on raptor persecution.

It’s available to watch on BBCiPlayer (here) for the next 11 months (starts 10.40 min).

To be honest, after watching the compelling piece on raptor persecution that featured on Channel 4 News on Friday (see here), Countryfile’s effort was a bit limp and underwhelming.

Having said that, we should bear in mind that to the average Countryfile viewer, the fact that gamekeepers are still killing birds of prey in 21st Century Britain will have been quite a shock so ten mins of exposure on such a prime time programme is to be welcomed. There was also some cracking footage of hen harriers.

But for those of us all too familiar with this subject, this programme grated in some areas.

Presenter Tom Heap pitched the subject as a ‘political war between gamekeepers and the RSPB’ – sorry, Tom, but you’re about ten years out of date. Look around, there’s an ever-increasing community of organisations and individuals who are fighting hard against the grouse shooting industry and not just on the raptor persecution issue.

Tom also repeated the wildly inaccurate but often cited claim that the game-shooting industry is worth £2 billion to the rural economy. It’s worth nothing of the sort – keep an eye on Mark Avery’s blog as we anticipate a forensic dissection of this particular topic. [Update: read Mark’s blog here]

Then we had Steve Bloomfield from BASC who was complaining about ‘sweeping statements’ being made about raptor persecution that, according to him, infer everyone in gameshooting is killing raptors. He might just as well have stamped his feet and said, ‘It’s so unfair!’ The so-called ‘sweeping statements’ that I’ve seen are nothing of the sort – they’re statements of fact. For example, that the RSPB has received an increase in reported raptor persecution incidents during lockdown and the majority of those have been on land managed for game shooting.

Another example, from a senior police officer (Insp Matt Hagen, North Yorkshire Police), who told Channel 4 News and Countryfile that reported incidents had certainly increased since lockdown and that ALL his investigations were currently centred on gamekeepers on grouse moors.

To be honest, I can’t be bothered to write anymore of a review. It’s just going over the same old ground, time and time again. Watch the video if you like but if you watched the Channel 4 News video on Friday you’ll not learn much new from this one.

Meanwhile, let’s get back to the Bransdale case and those industry connections…..

Shameful Natural England issues another licence for hen harrier brood meddling

Last week, Natural England announced that it had issued another licence to enable hen harrier brood meddling to take place this year.

It 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). We all know this won’t work because we know that young hen harriers are killed routinely during the grouse shooting season, and especially in September and October and yet still DEFRA, Natural England and their grouse shooting mates have pressed ahead with this five year ‘trial’. For more background on hen harrier brood meddling see here.

Here is a copy of Natural England’s recent announcement:

Breeding hen harriers in England are at a critical population level. Natural England is involved in a number of initiatives to help ensure hen harriers recover including Defra’s Hen Harrier Recovery Plan.

One of these initiatives is the hen harrier brood management trial. The 5 year brood management trial is designed to determine how many hen harriers can live alongside grouse before they have an impact on grouse numbers through predating them. Natural England is also involved in monitoring surveys, protecting hen harriers from persecution and exploring re-introduction into the South of England.

Brood management involves the removal of hen harrier eggs and/or chicks to a dedicated hatching and rearing facility, where they are hand-reared in captivity, before being transferred to specially-constructed pens in hen harrier breeding habitat, from which they are then re-introduced into the wild in the uplands of northern England.

We issued the first 2 year trial licence in 2018. Earlier this year we received an application to renew this licence for a further two years. A renewal licence application has now been processed and we issued the licence on 20^th May 2020.

Successful brood management intervention took place in 2019. All five chicks from the intervention nest were successfully raised to become healthy fledglings and released. That is a strong success rate compared to the 2018 nesting data which show that five of the 14 wild nests failed entirely and only two of the 14 wild nests were able to fledge five chicks.

We understand that some people may have questions and concerns over the taking of birds from the wild and so I wanted to outline more about this decision.

Evidence suggests that hand-rearing hen harriers in captivity before releasing them into the wild can lead to an improvement in their numbers and therefore their conservation status. Brood management is the sixth action within the Defra Hen Harrier Recovery Plan. One of the success criteria of the plan is to build confidence with land managers that thriving harrier populations can coexist with local business interests and contribute to a thriving rural economy.

This intervention may only occur in areas where there are already enough hen harrier nests to protect their numbers in the local population. The ‘trigger’ for brood management to commence is two successful nests occurring within 10km of each other, on a grouse moor.

The licence is time-limited for a 2-year period and places stringent conditions on the trial. We have rigorously scrutinised the licence application and will work closely with the licence applicant throughout the duration of the trial to ensure that all elements are carried out proportionately and effectively, to bring about the best possible outcome for hen harriers.

The applicant will have to provide evidence that they have taken every precaution to ensure the welfare of the birds or local populations are not affected.

We understand that there are active hen harrier nests this year that meet the licensed criteria for trial brood management and willing landowners who want to be part of the trial.

We will shortly publish the redacted licence and a link will be provided here.

ENDS

There is so much to say about this, but we’ll come back to it in separate blogs.

For now, we have asked Natural England to provide the following information:

What is the status of the five satellite-tagged hen harrier chicks from the 2019 brood meddled nest? The last we heard three of the five had ‘disappeared’ (here) although then one came back online (here) and it then became apparent that some of the satellite tags used last year were different to the tags used previously and were not as reliable (see here). [SEE UPDATE AT FOOT OF BLOG]
Can we see a copy of the annual report of the 2019 brood meddling trial that the HH Brood Meddling Project Team is required to provide, as laid out in the Brood Meddling Management Plan.
Can we see a copy of the approved minutes of the Scientific Advisory Group’s meetings, to date.
Can we see the ‘report by licensee of action taken under the 2019 licence’ which was due to be submitted to NE no later than 14 days after the licence expired (20 Jan 2020) as a condition (#8) of last year’s licence.

More soon, including some shocking new information…….

[Sketch by Gerard Hobley]

UPDATE 8 June 2020: The five brood meddled hen harriers from 2019 are all ‘missing’ (see here)

Don’t laugh, but here’s the new Moorland Association chairman, Lord Masham

The Moorland Association, a lobby group for England’s grouse moor owners, has elected a new Chairman and its choice speaks volumes.

Mark Cunliffe-Lister (Lord Masham in some circles) owns the Swinton Estate in Nidderdale. This estate may sound familiar to some readers, and that’s because we’ve had reason to blog about it several times over the years.

The grouse moor on Swinton Estate is where satellite-tagged hen harrier Bowland Betty’s shot corpse was found in 2012 (see here) although there was no evidence to suggest her killing had anything to do with anyone on the estate, it was just rotten luck that she died there. The grouse shooting industry then pretended that she hadn’t been shot at all, even after forensic evidence confirmed she had indeed, been shot (see here). It was just rotten luck that people preferred the opinion of expert forensic scientists from the University College London Institute of Orthopaedics and Musculoskeletal Science instead of the non-expert opinion of some non-expert, non-scientists at the Countryside Alliance.

In another example of rotten luck another shot hen harrier’s corpse was found on a grouse moor at Swinton Estate in 2019 (see here); this time it was a satellite-tagged bird called River who had disappeared on the estate in November 2018. The day after she vanished, at dusk an unidentified gunman had been seen with two dogs walking through a known hen harrier roost site on the estate (see here). Again, there was no evidence to suggest River’s killing had anything to do with anyone on the estate, it was just rotten luck (again) that she died there.

[Hen harrier River’s corpse being retrieved from a grouse moor on Swinton Estate in April 2019. Photo by RSPB]

In another case of rotten luck (there’s a lot of it about in Nidderdale), a Swinton Estate gamekeeper was convicted in 2014 for setting an illegal pole trap on the estate (see here).

[Photo of the illegal pole trap set by a gamekeeper on Swinton Estate, photo by RSPB]

Now, some might argue that the Swinton Estate should have been expelled from the Moorland Association after this gamekeeper’s conviction. However, that would have been most unfair – pole traps had only been banned in the UK for 110 years at that point, it’s not as though the poor fellow had had sufficient time to adjust to the new rules. So what better way for the Moorland Association to show its support than to elect the estate owner to become Chair? Bravo!

Swinton Estate was back in the news last year as it reportedly hosted successfully breeding hen harriers for the first time in many, many years. Swinton was so enamoured with them that it donated the chicks to Natural England’s brood meddling scheme which, according to this article in last weekend’s Yorkshire Post Country Week (see pressing below), is a ‘hen harrier conservation’ project which ‘alleviates the overpopulation of hen harriers in one area by redistributing them into unpopulated areas‘!!!!!!!!! Wow! Let’s just take a moment to admire the breathtaking distortion on display there.

Meanwhile, according to Lord Masham, ‘the project was working well‘….er, really? What a forgetful silly billy Lord Masham is – he ‘forgot’ to mention the difficulty in finding another land owner willing to host the brood meddled hen harrier chicks on release (see here), he ‘forgot’ to mention the suspicious disappearance of several of those brood meddled chicks after release (see here), he ‘forgot’ to mention the decision to use a new type of untested satellite tag on some of those brood meddled chicks (see here), he ‘forgot’ to mention the 31 (at least) hen harriers believed to have been illegally killed since 2018, the year when grouse shooting industry reps would have us believe that hen harriers were welcomed back on the grouse moors, he ‘forgot’ to mention last year’s scientific paper that demonstrated 72% of satellite tagged hen harriers were believed to have been illegally killed on or near grouse moors (see here), he ‘forgot’ to mention that far from being ‘overpopulated’, thanks to illegal persecution on grouse moors England has single-figure hen harrier nests where there should be 330+ (see here), he ‘forgot’ to mention the ongoing police investigations in to the alleged witnessed shooting of two hen harriers on grouse moors this year (see here) and he ‘forgot’ to mention the ongoing legal challenge against brood meddling by actual conservationists (see here) who can see it for exactly what it is – a Government-sponsored sham (see here).

Most of the article’s content is a re-hash of the Moorland Association’s press statement on Lord Masham’s appointment (see here – well worth a read for a good laugh) but there’s one statement in particular that appears in the article but not in the MA’s press release:

According to the Yorkshire Post article, Lord Masham said ‘there was still the historical perception that raptors were persecuted by gamekeepers….’

And there it is. That one single sentence tells us everything we need to know. An ‘historical perception‘? Yep, it’s clear to see why Lord Masham was elected; he’s going to fit right in. Moorland Association Director Amanda Anderson may well have some competition for the title of Top Contortionist in the coming weeks as we await details of the recent police investigations of alleged raptor persecution on a number of grouse moors….

North Yorkshire Police frustrated at ongoing raptor persecution

Following on from the news that yet another shot raptor has been found in Nidderdale AONB (see here), there’s a topical news feature in today’s Yorkshire Post about the ongoing illegal persecution of birds of prey in North Yorkshire.

The article starts off well and focuses on quotes from Inspector Matt Hagen, who leads the North Yorks Police Rural Task Force and also from Supt Nick Lyall, Chair of the Raptor Persecution Priority Delivery Group (RPPDG – the so-called partnership approach to tackling raptor persecution).

Here’s an extract:

The shooting, poisoning and trapping of birds such as red kites and buzzards is a crime previously described by the RSPB as “a stain on our countryside” and has risen in recent years after they were introduced to Yorkshire in the late nineties.

It is thought the offences have been happening for a long time, although increased awareness from the national police campaign Operation Owl has led to a rise in reports from the public.

Nidderdale in particular has been highlighted as a hotspot for the crime, while shootings of birds of prey have also been reported around West Yorkshire.

Disturbingly, there have also been reports of pets being killed after eating poisoned meat left out in suspected attempts at targeting scavenging birds of prey.

Between November 2018 and March of this year, there were 15 crimes recorded in North Yorkshire alone of birds being shot, poisoned or trapped, or tagged birds reported missing. Of these, nine had been shot, including a barn owl found shot in Ryedale in December 2019.

[A shot buzzard found in North Yorkshire in 2018, photo via North Yorkshire Police]

Inspector Matt Hagen, who is Head of North Yorkshire Police’s Rural Taskforce, said: “These crimes are very difficult to investigate because they happen in isolated places and there is often no one around to witness them.

“From what I have seen, some of the people that persecute birds of prey are of the opinion that they diminish the numbers of pheasants, grouse or partridges.

“Many gamekeepers are very pro-conservation, but it just takes one or two individuals in that industry to make a real impact. This is especially the case with hen harriers because they are so endangered. Many birds of prey that are persecuted we find that they were on a grouse moor, or at least near to one of those areas.

“I do know that with the hen harriers, there are not many left in this country, and if this carries on it may well be that they disappear.”

Poisoning is also an issue, where perpetrators leave out poisoned rabbit carcasses for carrion-eating birds such as red kites to find. This poses a risk to local wildlife, pets and even children, police have said.

Insp Hagen added: “We recently had two dogs poisoned in Pateley Bridge, one of whom sadly died. This is still being investigated, but it happened in an area known as a hotspot for these crimes.”

Operation Owl is a campaign originally spearheaded by North Yorkshire Police which has since been made into a national campaign urging the public to be eyes and ears for crimes committed against birds of prey, as most occur in remote areas.

Superintendent Nick Lyall of Bedfordshire Police currently leads the campaign, and has been meeting with the Crown Prosecution Service and senior Government ministers to urge for the crimes to be upgraded from summary-only offences – which can only be dealt with by magistrates and have more lenient sentences – to either-way offences, meaning they can be tried in a crown court.

Supt Lyall said: “We can do search warrants linked to wildlife crimes, but we can’t use our serious crime tactics of covert policing, such as surveillance, to catch these offenders. So for example, if we knew of a nest that was being targeted, we currently can’t put cameras in to see who was disturbing that nest.”

Supt Lyall added that only one or two people are convicted each year for crimes against these birds, with police relying mainly on witnesses as evidence.

“With the remote places these crimes are happening in, that makes it very difficult to prosecute,” he added.

The impact of these crimes is not just felt by the community, but on the environment as well.

A report published by the Nidderdale Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty in September revealed that red kites were failing to expand breeding territory from Wharfedale into neighbouring Nidderdale.

– END OF EXTRACT –

It was pretty accurate reporting up to this point but then it descended in to farce, first with this statement from the journalist:

‘Despite this there is hope, and most gamekeepers and landowners are now strongly committed to conserving all species, with 2019 being a record year for endangered hen harriers breeding’.

There’s a short, but crucially important, word missing from this statement, and that word is ‘say’. As in, ‘…..most gamekeepers and landowners say they’re now strongly committed to conserving all species……’

Of course they’re going to say they’re against raptor persecution – they’ve been saying that for 66 years, ever since the Protection of Birds Act 1954 was enacted. However, all the evidence, of humongous proportions, suggests otherwise!

The article then continues with contributions from Amanda Anderson (Moorland Association) and John Clarke (National Gamekeepers Organisation) both churning out the familiar patter about supposed ‘zero tolerance‘ of raptor persecution and Amanda particularly focusing on the so-called ‘enthusiastic’ support of moorland estates for hen harriers!

She ‘forgot’ to mention the two current police investigations in to the alleged witnessed shooting of hen harriers on two grouse moors and the game shooting industry’s subsequent silence (see here). She also ‘forgot’ to mention the 31 (at least) hen harriers believed to have been illegally killed since 2018, the year when grouse shooting industry reps would have us believe that hen harriers were welcomed back on the grouse moors. She also ‘forgot’ to mention the 2019 research paper that demonstrated that at least 72% of satellite-tracked hen harriers tagged by Natural England were believed to have been illegally killed on British grouse moors.

[This hen harrier was caught in an illegally-set spring trap (which almost severed his leg) on a grouse moor on Leadhills Estate last year. He didn’t survive. Read his grim story here. Photo by Ruth Tingay]

Meanwhile, back in the real world unofficial reports from around the UK but particularly from areas managed for driven grouse shooting in the north of England indicate that raptor persecution crimes are still being committed, and that includes hen harriers being targeted yet again.

There’s a famous quote that springs to mind that some journalists would do well to consider:

“If someone says it’s raining, and another person says it’s dry, it’s not your job to quote them both. Your job is to look out the f***ing window and find out which is true“.

Concern for safety of birds of prey on grouse moors during lockdown

Conservationists are deeply concerned about the safety of birds of prey, particularly on grouse moors, during the Coronavirus lockdown as many nest sites will be unmonitored for the first time in almost two decades.

In an article on The Ferret website yesterday Scottish Raptor Study Group (SRSG) communications secretary Logan Steele is quoted:

“SRSG is very concerned about the probable increase in incidents of raptor persecution during the lockdown. In particular on driven grouse moors, gamekeepers will be under less scrutiny from raptor workers and recreational visitors and so will effectively have a free hand.

The two species most at risk are hen harriers and golden eagles which are perceived to pose the greatest risk to grouse stocks and are routinely shot, trapped or poisoned“.

The RSPB is also concerned. Head of Species and Land, Duncan Orr-Ewing said:

“Raptor persecution has continued unabated with numerous well-publicised cases of shootings, illegal trap use and other crimes both north and south of the border despite the driven grouse shooting industry being under intense scrutiny – particularly in Scotland where the government has just published the findings of a three year review of grouse moor management.

We don’t believe that under the current circumstances of significantly reduced public access to our uplands, anyone is naive enough to think that wildlife criminals won’t be making the most of this opportunity to kill any species they perceive to be a threat, with a minimal chance of their crimes being witnessed or detected“.

The full article can be read here: http://theferret.scot/birds-of-prey-monitoring-coronavirus/

Two hen harriers shot on two North Yorkshire grouse moors: shooting industry’s response

At the end of January 2020 several prominent organisations from the game-shooting industry (BASC, Moorland Assoc, National Gamekeepers Org, Countryside Alliance) and the Country Landowners Association made a huge thing about acknowledging 66-year-old wildlife protection legislation when they announced a professed ‘zero tolerance’ for the illegal killing of birds of prey (see here).

Since then police in North Yorkshire, the epicentre of UK raptor persecution, have issued two public statements (on 12th and 17th March) about the witnessed shooting of two male hen harriers, one on a grouse moor in the Bowland AONB (here) and one on a grouse moor in the Yorkshire Dales National Park (here). The illegal killing of hen harriers has been identified as a National Wildlife Crime Priority. This species is on its knees, thanks to criminals within the grouse shooting industry.

It was also revealed that, unusually, North Yorkshire Police had been able to make two arrests in relation to these reported crimes; this was welcome news and in both press releases the police asked the public to come forward with any further information as their inquiries continued.

[Conservationist Chris Packham holding the corpse of an illegally trapped hen harrier that was found on a grouse moor in Scotland last year. Photo by Ruth Tingay]

You might think, given the recently professed ‘zero tolerance’ of these offences, that police appeals for information about these two disturbing crimes reported on Yorkshire grouse moors would provide the perfect opportunity for the grouse-shooting industry to offer its full support to the investigations and to encourage members of the public to step forward with info, especially if there was concern about dangerous unidentified armed criminals running amok on privately-owned land, right?

Well apparently not. We’ve looked at the websites of the five organisations to search for statements and this is what we found:

BASC: nothing

Moorland Association: nothing

National Gamekeepers Organisation: nothing

Countryside Alliance: nothing

CLA: nothing

Ah, you may say, well they’re all too busy focusing on the coronavirus so haven’t had time to share information about illegal raptor persecution.

Well, that may have been a credible argument had we not found the National Gamekeepers Organisation and Countryside Alliance yesterday making urgent demands of DEFRA’s Secretary of State George Eustice to issue licences that permit gamekeepers to continue killing stoats and sidestep new restrictions (see here and here).

Meanwhile, with the hypocrisy knob turned up to high, BASC has been howling with moral indignation about the timing of Wild Justice’s decision to challenge the casual killing of birds in Wales (see here).

Zero tolerance of illegal raptor persecution? Yeah, right.

(Another) hen harrier shot on a grouse moor in Yorkshire Dales National Park – police arrest suspect

Just five days ago we blogged about the shooting of a male hen harrier on a grouse moor in the Bowland Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, just across the boundary of the Yorkshire Dales National Park, that had been witnessed by a member of the public. Impressively, North Yorkshire Police arrested a suspect and he has been released pending further enquiries and forensic testing (see here).

Here we go again.

ANOTHER hen harrier has been shot on ANOTHER grouse moor, this time inside the Yorkshire Dales National Park and again it was witnessed by members of the public and again, North Yorkshire Police have arrested a suspect.

Here’s the police press release, published today (17 March 2020):

Two members of the public witness Hen Harrier being shot near Grassington

North Yorkshire Police are investigating the shooting of another Hen Harrier.

Two members of the public witnessed an incident which they believed was the shooting of a male Hen Harrier.

The incident occurred on Threshfield Moor at approximately 10.45hrs on Monday 27th January 2020.

North Yorkshire Police have been conducting enquiries and a man has been arrested in connection with this investigation.

Anyone with further information about this incident or who may have seen anything in the area shortly before the bird was shot, please call North Yorkshire Police on Tel 101 quoting reference # 12200015792.

If you wish to remain anonymous you can pass information to Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.

This is the second incident of this type to take place in the last six months, with another hen harrier believed to have been shot in October 2019 near Keasden.

ENDS

Hang on a minute – Threshfield Moor? That rings a bell.

[RPUK map showing location of Threshfield Moor in the Yorkshire Dales National Park]

[Photo of the Threshfield grouse moor by Chris Heaton]

Ah yes, Threshfield Moor was reportedly the last known location of another male hen harrier, called John, who ‘disappeared’ in suspicious circumstances in October 2017 – see here.

The people believed to be the owners of Threshfield Moor are interesting and they have interesting connections – see here. Obviously they’ll be devastated to learn about the alleged illegal shooting of a hen harrier on their grouse moor and we’re sure will be doing everything they can to assist the police investigation.

Well done North Yorkshire Police – two arrests for two hen harrier shootings in the space of a few months – that’s really impressive work and the officers involved deserve much credit. There’s clearly some evidence to support reasonable suspicion of involvement because otherwise these arrests wouldn’t have been possible but whether there’s sufficient evidence to proceed to prosecution(s) remains to be seen. Whatever the outcome(s), these latest police investigations in to the alleged shooting of hen harriers on grouse moors expose the shooting industry’s desperate propaganda campaign for what it is and Natural England/DEFRA’s wilful blindness to the bleeding obvious.

So, grouse shooting industry, how’s that professed ‘zero tolerance‘ of illegal raptor persecution going?

So, Natural England /DEFRA, how that’s seriously flawed Hen Harrier (In)Action Plan working out?

Here’s a clue -let’s add the shooting of this latest hen harrier to the ever-expanding list of hen harriers (at least 31 now) believed to have been illegally killed since 2018, the year when grouse shooting industry reps would have us believe that hen harriers were welcomed back on the grouse moors: