Tag: hen harrier

From which grouse shooting estate did Hen Harrier Stelmaria ‘disappear’?

Earlier this month RSPB Scotland announced that four of this year’s satellite-tagged hen harriers had ‘disappeared’ in suspicious circumstances on Scottish grouse moors (see here).

We then highlighted how two of those four missing hen harriers (Margot & Stelmaria) had ‘disappeared’ inside the Cairngorms National Park (see here).

[RPUK map showing approximate last known locations of hen harriers Margot & Stelmaria]

Yesterday we looked at the last known location of hen harrier Margot, which was on a grouse shooting estate that’s either a member of the East Cairngorms Moorland Partnership, or on a grouse shooting estate owned by the Royal family, or on a grouse shooting estate that’s an accredited member of the Wildlife Estates Scotland initiative (see here).

Today we’re going to take a closer look at the last known location of hen harrier Stelmaria.

As with Margot, the initial problem is that her last known location as reported by the RSPB is a bit vague – no grid reference and no named estate. The only details revealed in the RSPB press statement were:

“Stelmaria was last recorded on grouse moor a few miles north west of Ballater, Aberdeenshire on 3rd September“.

Here’s a map showing the location of Mar Lodge Estate (from where Stelmaria, and Margot, hatched earlier this summer) and the location of Ballater:

As you can see from this next map, there are a lot of grouse moors positioned “a few miles north west of Ballater“:

So once again we referred to Andy Wightman’s Who Owns Scotland website to work out which estates are situated “a few miles north west of Ballater” and we found two – Invercauld Estate and Dinnet Estate:

This map may look familiar to some of you. That’s because we used it last year when we were looking at the last known location of another satellite-tagged hen harrier, Calluna, who had also ‘disappeared’ in suspicious circumstances. Calluna vanished “on a grouse moor a few miles north of Ballater” on 12 August 2017, the opening day of the grouse shooting season.

In fact these grouse moors around Ballater are becoming very familiar indeed. We’ve blogged about a number of alleged and confirmed incidents as follows:

There was the discovery of an illegally shot peregrine at the Pass of Ballater in 2011, the reported coordinated hunt and subsequent shooting of an adult hen harrier at Glen Gairn on the border of Invercauld and Dinnet Estates in 2013, and then there were the illegally-set traps that were found nr Geallaig Hill on Invercauld Estate in 2016, which resulted in ‘secret action‘ being taken against a gamekeeper but no prosecution followed, and nor has SNH imposed a General Licence restriction for this incident (and SNH has refused to discuss its decision saying ‘it’s not in the public interest‘ to tell us).

Last year, as mentioned above, satellite-tagged hen harrier ‘Calluna’ disappeared in suspicious circumstances on a grouse moor in this area (here), although it’s not clear whether this was on Invercauld Estate or neighbouring Dinnet Estate and then earlier this year a satellite-tagged white-tailed eagle ‘Blue T’ also ‘disappeared’ without trace on the Invercauld Estate (see here).

And now hen harrier Stelmaria has also vanished.

There’s a pretty clear pattern emerging in this area, but it seems to be one that Scottish Natural Heritage, the Cairngorms National Park Authority and the Scottish Government are all refusing to see.

Did hen harrier Margot ‘disappear’ on a Royal grouse moor?

Earlier this month RSPB Scotland announced that four of this year’s satellite-tagged hen harriers had ‘disappeared’ in suspicious circumstances on Scottish grouse moors (see here).

Yesterday we highlighted how two of those four missing hen harriers (Margot & Stelmaria) had ‘disappeared’ inside the Cairngorms National Park (see here).

Today we’re going to take a closer look at the last known location of hen harrier Margot.

[RPUK map showing approximate last known locations of hen harriers Margot & Stelmaria]

The first problem we have is not knowing the grid reference of Margot’s last known location. All we have is a description from the RSPB Scotland press release as follows:

“Margot disappeared on 29 August [2018], with her last known position on a grouse moor on the Aberdeenshire/Moray border, a few miles south west of the Lecht ski centre“.

Here is the Lecht ski school, on the Cock Bridge to Tomintoul road on the eastern side of the National Park:

The RSPB press statement said Margot’s last known tag signal had been “on a grouse moor…..a few miles south west of the Lechy ski centre“.

As you can see from this zoomed in map, the RSPB’s description doesn’t narrow it down very much as the area to the SW of the ski school is pretty much all driven grouse moor. It’s not like there is an isolated patch of grouse moor that stands out from the wider landscape that would be easy for us to pinpoint:

So then we had a look at Andy Wightman’s Who Owns Scotland website, a fantastic resource that helps readers to, er, find out who owns Scotland. According to Andy’s data, the area “a few miles to the SW of the Lecht ski school” is covered by three estates, Glenavon, Delnadamph and Allargue.

Our search area can be narrowed down further by referring back to the RSPB press statement, which says Margot’s last known signal came from “a grouse moor on the Aberdeenshire/Moray border…..”, which we’ve added as a black line to this map:

Glenavon Estate is apparently, according to this 2015 article in the Sunday Post, owned by a ‘Mr Saleh’, a reclusive Malaysian-based businessman who has never been identified, through a company called Glenavon Ltd. According to Andy Wightman’s website, Glenavon Ltd is registered in Grand Cayman.

The estate offers driven and walked-up grouse shooting (here) and has previously been granted a licence by SNH to kill 900 mountain hares out of season, apparently to protect forestry (here, p.15).

It is one of six estates involved in the East Cairngorms Moorland Partnership, whose objectives include ‘enhancing raptor and other priority species conservation‘.

Delnadamph Estate borders Balmoral and was bought by the Queen (or to be more accurate by her Trustees) in the late 1970s, apparently because Balmoral ‘didn’t have adequate grouse shooting‘. The estate was apparently gifted to Prince Charles on his engagement to Diana and is now used by Charles and Camilla and perhaps other members of the Royal family.

Earlier this year the Balmoral Estate advertised for a new Head Gamekeeper for Delnadamph Estate, someone with ‘extensive knowledge of grouse and moorland management’ (see here). We happen to know (via an FoI on an unrelated issue) that the new Head Keeper was interviewed by Prince Charles and Prince William, no less, and was appointed to this position in late spring 2018, leaving his position as a grouse moor gamekeeper in the Pentland Hills for this job. We understand there are at least two under-keepers at Delnadamph.

Allargue Estate is owned by Mrs Rosemary Walker, according to Andy Wightman’s website. According to the Allargue Estate Management Plan the Walker family have owned this estate since the 17th Century and approximately 65% of the estate is managed for grouse shooting.

Allargue Estate was one of the first fully accredited members of the Wildlife Estates Scotland initiative and the Head gamekeeper here won the Purdey Gold Award in 2014 for Game & Conservation. According to the Purdey Awards website this estate “works tirelessly to uphold the Wildlife Estates Scotland high standards of wildlife management”.

We’ve blogged a little bit about Allargue Estate, not in relation to raptor persecution, but because it is believed this is the estate on whose land a load of men with a truckload of dead mountain hares were photographed in 2016.

To be absolutely clear, not one of these three estates is on our radar as being a raptor persecution hotspot.

Also to be clear, unless the RSPB releases the actual grid reference of hen harrier Margot’s last known location we’re not going to be able to identify the estate from where she vanished. And even if the RSPB did release that information, it still wouldn’t be that informative as the local authority Aberdeenshire/Moray border runs along the boundaries of all three estates. So if, for example, Margot had been shot on that border, the gunman could have shot her from a position on any one of the three estates. Criminal activity on estate boundaries is a well-known tactic to frustrate any potential targeted police investigations.

So to return to the question of whether Margot disappeared from a Royal grouse moor – the answer is possibly, but there’s no way we can be sure. There’s a one in three chance that that’s where she was when her tag suddenly and inexplicably stopped sending signals at the end of August this year.

What happened to her? Well you can draw your own conclusions, in the context of all the other young satellite-tagged hen harriers that have ‘disappeared’ in suspicious circumstances on or close to grouse moors across the UK.

Tomorrow we’ll be looking at the last known location of Margot’s sibling, hen harrier Stelmaria.

[Hen harrier Margot. Photo by RSPB Scotland]

Two of the four missing satellite-tagged hen harriers ‘disappeared’ on grouse moors in Cairngorms National Park

Earlier this month RSPB Scotland announced that four of this year’s satellite-tagged hen harriers had ‘disappeared’ in suspicious circumstances on Scottish grouse moors (see here).

[RPUK map showing approximate last known locations of four satellite-tagged hen harriers]

We said at the time that we’d be coming back to this subject as we were interested in the locations from where the birds had vanished.

Two of those hen harriers (Margot and Stelmaria) both hatched on the National Trust for Scotland’s Mar Lodge Estate in the Cairngorms National Park earlier this summer, and both of them subsequently vanished, also inside the Cairngorms National Park.

[RPUK map showing approximate last known locations of hen harriers Margot & Stelmaria]

We’ll be coming back to have a closer look at these locations tomorrow.

It should be shocking that two hen harriers, a high priority red-listed species, have vanished in suspicious circumstances inside the world-renowned Cairngorms National Park (CNP). But it isn’t. Because this isn’t the first time.

In August 2016 satellite-tagged hen harrier Brian ‘disappeared’ inside the CNP (see here).

In August 2017 satellite-tagged hen harrier Calluna ‘disappeared’ inside the CNP (see here).

In August 2015 satellite-tagged hen harrier Lad didn’t ‘disappear’ but he was found dead, suspected shot, inside the CNP (see here).

But it’s not just satellite-tagged hen harriers. At least 15 satellite-tagged golden eagles have also ‘disappeared’ in suspicious circumstances in recent years inside the CNP (see here). In 2014 the first white-tailed eagle chick to fledge in East Scotland in approx 200 years also ‘disappeared’ in suspicious circumstances inside the CNP (see here) and earlier this year another white-tailed eagle also ‘disappeared’ in suspicious circumstances inside the CNP (see here).

We’ve searched the Cairngorms National Park Authority’s website for a comment/statement about the latest two hen harrier disappearances but we didn’t find anything.

We’ve also searched the Scottish Government’s website for a comment/statement about the latest two hen harrier disappearances inside the CNP but we didn’t find anything there either.

Probably because it’s all a bit embarrassing.

In 2017, following the damning findings of the Golden Eagle Satellite Tag Review, the Scottish Government announced it was to establish a 12-month pilot scheme, funding five police special constables to work in the CNP to focus on deterring and detecting wildlife crime. This scheme was launched in March this year (see here).

This pilot scheme was the Government’s alternative to extending the powers of the SSPCA to allow it to investigate a wider suite of wildlife crime (including raptor persecution) – a decision made after six years of Governmental deliberation under five different Environment Ministers.

It also emerged earlier this year that this pilot scheme was also an alternative to the Government’s 2016 manifesto pledge to establish a Wildlife Crime Investigation Unit as part of Police Scotland – a pledge on which it has now reneged (see here). The idea is that the police special constable scheme could be rolled out across Scotland “if judged to be successful” in the CNP.

We’re not sure what the criteria will be for judging ‘success’ but we can be quite sure that the continued suspicious ‘disappearance’ of satellite-tagged raptors within the CNP cannot possibly be indicative of success.

UPDATE 22 Nov 2018: Did hen harrier Margot ‘disappear’ on a Royal grouse moor? (Here)

UPDATE 23 Nov 2018: From which grouse shooting estate did hen harrier Stelmaria ‘disappear’? (here)

Local community raises concerns about grouse moor management in National Park

The picture often painted by the grouse shooting industry is one of community harmony – a rural idyll where local residents are deliriously enthralled by the activities of the local grouse moor managers and thankful for the boost that grouse shooting brings to the local economy, without which the local community would apparently collapse.

Sounds great, doesn’t it? Until, that is, you realise that the various quotes trotted out in support of the industry are word-for-word identical, even though they were supposedly uttered by local residents living hundreds of miles apart! Quite obviously this was part of a determined PR effort by the industry’s spin doctors to portray widespread support (e.g. see here).

Increasingly, though, we’ve been hearing a different point of view, with local residents finding their voices and speaking out against the damage this industry brings to their door. First we heard from local communities in the Yorkshire Dales National Park (see here and here), then from a community in the Nidderdale Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (see here), and now from a local community in the North York Moors National Park.

Last month, residents of the village of Goathland called a public meeting to discuss their concerns about the environmental consequences of driven grouse moor management in their area, and particularly their concerns about ‘disappearing’ wildlife.

Here’s Goathland, in the heart of this National Park and practically surrounded by driven grouse moors:

This is a National Park – look at the state of it! And those grouse moors spread a lot further west than shown on this map.

Here’s the agenda for the meeting held on 24 October 2018. We note with some irony the third item listed was ‘Raptors disappearing’. Less than two days after this meeting, the satellite tag attached to hen harrier Arthur sent its last signal from a grouse moor in the North York National Park before both it and Arthur ‘disappeared’.

One of our blog readers attended this meeting and made some notes, as follows:

A few days later the official minutes were circulated as follows:

There’s a lot of interesting stuff to work through in both these documents. Many thanks to the blog reader who sent these through.

Very well done to the Goathland residents for raising these issues and for trying to hold someone to account. It’s brilliant to see them challenging the Moorland Association and exposing its propaganda.

If you’d like to support the Goathland residents and add your voice to theirs, you might like to comment on the current Landscapes Review consultation which is gathering evidence on how England’s National Parks and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONBs) should be ‘fit for the future’. If you think intensive grouse moor management and its associated wildlife crime should be ousted from the North York Moors National Park, or that the National Park Authority should be given increased enforcement powers to deal with the associated wildlife crime and environmental damage, then this is your opportunity to comment.

UPDATE 11 January 2019: Local community holds 2nd meeting to raise concerns about grouse moor management in National Park (here)

Satellite-tagged hen harrier Arthur ‘disappears’ near grouse moor in North York Moors National Park

RSPB press release (12/11/18):

A rare Hen Harrier has suddenly disappeared in North Yorkshire, triggering an investigation by the police and the RSPB. This is the ninth bird to disappear in suspicious circumstances in the last 12 weeks.

The bird, named Arthur, hatched from a nest in the Peak District this summer. This was the first time Hen Harriers had successfully bred in the Peak District since 2015. Arthur, along with his sister Octavia, was fitted with a lightweight satellite tag by RSPB staff as part of the Hen Harrier LIFE project, which has enabled the RSPB to track his movements since leaving the nest in July.

[Hen harrier Arthur, photo by Steve Downing]

Transmissions from Arthur’s tag showed him fledging from his nest and remaining faithful to that area in the Peak District. He then moved to the Brecon Beacons, South Wales, in mid-October before flying back north to Nidderdale, North Yorkshire. On the morning of Friday 26 October he flew onto the North York Moors National Park. He registered his last position at 0955hrs when he was just north of Lowna Bridge, near Hutton-le-Hole.

[RPUK maps showing approximate last known location of Hen harrier Arthur in the North York Moors National Park, close to Spaunton Moor, owned by George Winn-Darley, the North York Moors representative for the Moorland Association. Red star denotes Lowna Bridge]

RSPB Investigations staff searched the area of the bird’s last known location but found no sign of either a tag or a body – prompting concerns that the bird may have been deliberately killed and the tag destroyed. In August, his sister Octavia’s tag also suddenly cut out, with her last location coming from a driven grouse moor in the Peak District. No trace was found of her either. The police and the RSPB are appealing for information.

RSPB Assistant Investigations Officer Jack Ashton-Booth said: “Arthur’s last location showed he was in an upland area close to several driven grouse moors. When tagged Hen Harriers have died of natural causes in the past, the tags and bodies of the bird are usually recovered. To find no trace of Arthur or Octavia is extremely concerning. Arthur is the ninth Hen Harrier to suddenly disappear in suspicious circumstances since August. This is gravely concerning given that the species is on the brink of extinction as a breeding bird in England.”

Hen Harriers are one of the UK’s rarest and most persecuted birds of prey. They nest on the ground, often on moorland, and are known for their spectacular courtship display, the ‘skydance’. Like all wild birds, they are protected by law under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 which makes it an offence to intentionally harm or disturb them. Anyone found to have done so faces an unlimited fine and/or up to six months in jail. But, despite full legal protection, studies show that the main factor limiting their population is illegal killing by humans.

Over 30 Hen Harriers were tagged during June and July 2018 in England, Scotland, Wales and the Isle of Man as part of the RSPB’s Hen Harrier LIFE project. Of those, eight birds (Hilma, Octavia, Heulwen, Thor, Athena, Stelmaria, Margot and Arthur) have since disappeared in suspicious circumstances, along with another bird, Heather, who was tagged in 2017.

Calculations based on habitat and prey availability indicate that England should be able to support around 300 Hen Harrier pairs. But this year only 34 chicks fledged from nine English nests, according to a report by Natural England. In 2017 there were only 10 chicks in the whole of England.

The RSPB’s latest Birdcrime report showed that North Yorkshire is consistently the worst county in the UK for recorded bird of prey persecution, accumulating significantly more confirmed incidents in the last five years than anywhere else. Data showed that 15 of the 55 confirmed incidents in England in 2017 took place in North Yorkshire. Since these only represent known, confirmed incidents, the RSPB believes this is just a glimpse of the true scale of the problem, and that many more crimes will have gone unreported and unrecorded.

ENDS

We need action, not trite sound bites on social media

Yesterday was the UK’s first Rural Crime Day – a national initiative organised by the National Police Chief’s Council with a series of police-led events throughout the country to help tackle rural crime, e.g. see here.

As part of this ‘day of action’, the following was posted on the official twitter account of the Scottish Government’s Environment and Rural Economy communications team (@GreenerScotland):

Initially, this looks great. A quote from the Environment Cabinet Secretary (or probably more accurately, from one of her aides) is an indication of the Scottish Government’s interest and acknowledgement of wildlife crime, and that image of the red kite puts the focus clearly on illegal raptor persecution, even though the quote is equally applicable to all six UK National Wildlife Crime Priorities.

If a similar statement from the Secretary of State for the Environment Michael Gove had appeared on DEFRA’s twitter feed we’d have fallen off our chairs, given the Westminster Government’s outright refusal to consider raptor persecution worthy of any political time or concern.

But just because the Westminster Government is so appallingly feeble on this issue, that doesn’t mean we should simply applaud the Scottish Government’s actions just because by comparison they look incredibly progressive.

To be clear, we’re not having a go at the Scottish Government for its efforts to raise awareness; highlighting all types of wildlife crime is always time well spent, but in the case of illegal raptor persecution, what we are criticising is the Government’s superficiality. A lack of awareness about raptor persecution is not the issue. It’s the lack of effective Government action to stamp it out. That’s the issue here.

The Scottish Government has known about illegal raptor persecution since devolution in 1999. It’s been twenty years (yes, twenty long years) since the then Secretary of State Donald Dewar described the situation as “a national disgrace” and went on to say, “The Government, and no doubt the Scottish Parliament will take all possible steps to eliminate persecution“.

Both the Scottish Government and the Scottish Parliament have indeed taken some steps, in fact many steps, including a long list of commissioned reviews, the enactment of new legislation, the provision of new civil sanctions, long-term attempts at partnership-working, and statements from a succession of Environment Ministers that illegal raptor persecution “won’t be tolerated”.

And yet, here we are, twenty years on and none of those steps have proven to be effective –  illegal raptor persecution continues relentlessly.

A trite sound bite on twitter might appease those new to this issue but it’s simply not good enough for those of us who know how deeply ineffective the Scottish Government has been at tackling these crimes.

Another even more ridiculous sound bite appeared on SNH’s official twitter feed a couple of days ago, in response to the news that another four satellite-tagged hen harriers had ‘disappeared’ (almost certainly illegally killed) in recent weeks on Scottish grouse moors. Here’s the tweet:

Seriously? Why is SNH still pretending not to know what’s happening to hen harriers on Scottish grouse moors? The weight of evidence is overwhelming – talk about wilful blindness!

And what does, “….we will help the police to help protect Scotland’s birds of prey” actually mean? How, exactly, will SNH ‘help the police’?

It’s utter drivel. A sound bite designed to promote the misleading impression that the cause of hen harrier disappearances on grouse moors is still an unsolved mystery but on the slim chance that criminality was involved then SNH has the competence to tackle it. What tosh.

Drop the sound bites, drop the pretence and do your job, SNH. That’s what we pay you for, not to facilitate a decades-long wildlife crime spree on Scottish grouse moors.

Four more satellite-tagged hen harriers ‘disappear’ on Scottish grouse moors

Press release from RSPB Scotland (6 Nov 2018):

Four rare hen harriers disappear on Scottish grouse moors: RSPB Scotland appeals for information

RSPB Scotland is appealing for information following the suspicious disappearance of four satellite tagged hen harriers over the last 10 weeks.

All of the birds were tagged at various nest sites, three this summer and one in 2017, in Scotland and Northern England as part of the RSPB’s EU-funded Hen Harrier LIFE project. The last known locations of all four birds were over land managed for grouse shooting.

Satellite tagging technology is increasingly being used to follow the movements of birds of prey, allowing scientists to identify areas important for their feeding, roosting and nesting. The tags are fitted by licensed, trained fieldworkers and are designed to transmit regularly, even after a bird has died. In all four cases, the tags had been functioning without any issues before they suddenly and unexpectedly stopped transmitting, suggesting criminal interference has taken place.

[RPUK map showing the last known locations of the four hen harriers before their satellite tags suddenly and unexpectedly stopped working and the birds ‘disappeared’]

The first bird to disappear, Athena, was one of a small number of chicks to fledge from a nest in Northumberland. She travelled north into Scotland, with her last known position on a grouse moor a few miles north west of Grantown on Spey in Inverness-shire, on 16thAugust.

Two of the birds were tagged on the National Trust for Scotland’s Mar Lodge Estate in Aberdeenshire this summer. Margot disappeared on 29th August, with her last known position on a grouse moor on the Aberdeenshire/Moray border, a few miles south west of the Lecht ski centre. Stelmaria was last recorded on grouse moor a few miles north west of Ballater, Aberdeenshire on 3rd September. Stelmaria’s mother was DeeCee, a hen harrier tagged by the project in Perthshire in 2016.

The fourth missing bird, Heather, was a year older than the others. She was tagged at a nest in Perthshire in 2017, and last recorded on a grouse moor to the north of Glenalmond on 24th September.

[Hen harrier Margot – photo from RSPB Scotland]

Dr. Cathleen Thomas, Project Manager for the RSPB’s Hen Harrier LIFE project said: “To have more hen harriers disappear, including three of this year’s youngsters, is devastating for all of us involved in monitoring these hen harrier chicks. These birds have vanished in similar suspicious circumstances to four other birds tagged by the project that disappeared this summer with last recorded locations on or near grouse moors in England and Wales. These eight suspicious disappearances in the past 10 weeks are a further blow for the conservation of a species whose UK population has declined by 24% since 2004.

The main factor limiting the hen harrier population in the UK is illegal killing associated with intensive management of driven grouse moors. Young hen harrier chicks already face huge survival challenges in their first few years of life without the added threat of illegal persecution.”

Each year a number of the chicks tagged by the project are lost through natural predation or starvation. So far in 2018 the remains of 12 young hen harriers have been recovered. Their tags continued to transmit after they died allowing their remains to be located and for post mortems to take place. These established that they all died of natural causes.

Ian Thomson, Head of Investigations for RSPB Scotland said: “Given the tiny number of hen harrier chicks tagged each year, the regularity with which they disappear, again indicates that we are only ever aware of a tiny proportion of the true number of protected raptors that are being illegally killed.

In common with so many previous disappearances of satellite-tagged birds of prey, each of these missing birds was last known to be on a moor managed for driven grouse shooting before its transmitter suddenly stopped. The picture is becoming ever more clear – in almost all cases when a tagged birds dies naturally we are able to recover its remains; if it disappears over a Scottish grouse moor, it’s never seen or heard of again.”

Information about the birds’ disappearances were passed to Police Scotland, and while local enquiries have taken place in each case, no further information on what has happened to the birds has been found. Anyone who can provide information about any of these missing birds is asked to contact Police Scotland on 101 or the RSPB’s raptor crime hotline on 0300 999 0101.

ENDS

The criminals within the grouse shooting industry couldn’t give the Scottish Government, nor the public, a clearer message. Despite being under the closest scrutiny the industry has ever faced and with the very real threat of enforced regulation and legislation looming large, the message is still ‘screw you all, we’ll do what we like and we’ll continue to do it safe in the knowledge that we’ll never face any consequences’.

And they’d be right. They won’t face any consequences, at least not for a while. Sure, the Scottish Government is all over grouse moor management like a rash right now but we still have to sit and wait for the findings of the Werritty Review, which isn’t due to report until spring 2019. And if Professor Werritty’s review does recommend licensing grouse shooting estates to bring them under some sort of control (any control would be nice), there’ll then be more inevitable delays while consultations ensue and the dark side uses its mighty influence and power to weaken any proposals put forward.

Actual meaningful regulation, properly enforced, could still be years away. Meanwhile, the illegal killing will continue. Since the analysis was completed in January 2017 for the Golden Eagle Satellite Tag Review (which showed that over 40 golden eagles have vanished in recent years on or close to driven grouse moors) a further 14 satellite-tagged raptors have ‘disappeared’ in highly suspicious circumstances in Scotland, and most of them on or close to intensively managed driven grouse moors ( 4 x golden eagles, 8 x hen harriers, 2 x white-tailed eagles).

How many more will be killed before the Scottish Government brings the criminals to account?

Several of the grouse moors from where the latest four hen harriers ‘disappeared’ are of significant interest to us. We’ll be coming back to those in some more blogs later on.

But of course this isn’t just a Scottish issue. South of the border in England and Wales already this year we’ve seen reports of another five hen harriers all ‘disappearing’ in suspicious circumstances on or close to driven grouse moors (Hilma, Octavia and Huelwen here; Thor here; Mabel here).

[RPUK map showing the last known locations of nine satellite-tagged hen harriers across the UK uplands in 2018 before their tags suddenly and unexpectedly cut out and the birds ‘vanished’]

NINE hen harriers, all gone on or close to grouse moors since August! There is no doubt that this is serious organised crime on a national scale, all exposed by the use of satellite tag technology.

Is anybody still wondering why the grouse shooting industry is so keen to corrode public and political confidence in the use of satellite tags?

“They can hide the tags. They can hide the bodies. But they can’t hide the pattern“ (Dr Hugh Webster).

UPDATE 22 Nov 2018: Did hen harrier Margot ‘disappear’ on a royal grouse moor? (Here)

UPDATE 23 Nov 2018: From which grouse shooting estate did hen harrier Stelmaria ‘disappear’? (here)

New paper from Langholm study shows effectiveness of hen harrier diversionary feeding

Diversionary feeding of hen harriers (where alternative food is provided for breeding birds to reduce the number of red grouse chicks they might otherwise have taken) has long been an option for grouse moor managers who complain that hen harriers eat ‘too many’ grouse.

This practice has been studied in depth during the Langholm Moor Demonstration Project (phase 1 and phase 2).

[Photo of diversionary feeding in action at Langholm, by Laurie Campbell]

It’s been known for a while just how successful this technique can be. For example, during the Langholm 1 study the proportion of red grouse found in the diet of hen harriers where diversionary feeding was NOT in place was 12%. During the Langholm 2 study, the proportion of red grouse found in the diet of hen harriers where diversionary feeding WAS in place had dropped to between 0 – 4% (see here and here).

These findings have now been formally written up and published in the scientific journal Bird Study. Unfortunately due to publishing restrictions we’re not permitted to publish the entire paper but here’s the abstract:

It’s good to see this paper finally out and especially good to see that the lead author, as well as several co-authors, is employed by GWCT.

Wouldn’t it be ironic if, at the forthcoming High Court challenge against hen harrier brood meddling (a management option of which the GWCT is one of the biggest supporters), lawyers acting on behalf of challengers Mark Avery and the RSPB presented this paper as evidence that Natural England’s decision to licence brood meddling was unlawful because all other management options (i.e. diversionary feeding) hadn’t been exhausted?

Responses to missing hen harrier Mabel

We learned about the suspicious disappearance of satellite-tagged hen harrier Mabel on Thursday (here), the same day we learned about the suspicious disappearance of satellite-tagged hen harrier Thor (here).

As usual, we’ve been tracking the official responses of the so-called partners in the Raptor Persecution Priority Delivery Group (RPPDG), which was established in 2011 and one of its main objectives is to raise awareness of illegal raptor persecution.

Yesterday we blogged about the official statements made by ‘partners’ in response to Thor’s disappearance near a grouse moor in the Bowland AONB (here). These statements were made by the Northern England Raptor Forum (NERF), Police Supt Nick Lyall (new Chair of the RPPDG) and Amanda Anderson of the Moorland Association (although Amanda still hasn’t got around to publishing her brass necked statement on the MA website).

[Hen harrier Thor, by Steve Downing]

At the time of writing this, there are no official response statements about Thor on the websites of the other RPPDG ‘partners’ including the National Gamekeepers Organisation, Countryside Alliance and BASC. No surprises there, silence has become the norm in these situations (e.g. see here, here, here, here), even though these groups have signed up to raise awareness of this PRIORITY crime.

So how about official responses to the disappearance of hen harrier Mabel who vanished close to a grouse moor on the boundary of the Yorkshire Dales National Park and the Pennines AONB?

At the time of writing we’ve only seen one response, from NERF. It’s well worth a read (here).

As for the rest of the ‘partners’, well their continued silence speaks volumes.

Responses to missing hen harrier Thor

Yesterday we were hit with the news of two missing hen harriers – ‘Thor’, a young bird tagged by the RSPB who disappeared in a wildlife crime hotspot in the Bowland AONB (here) and then later in the day, ‘Mabel’, a young bird tagged by Natural England who disappeared in a wildlife crime hotspot on the boundary of the Yorkshire Dales National Park and the North Pennines AONB (here).

So far there have been a couple of responses to Thor’s disappearance but nothing (yet) about Mabel.

[Hen harrier Thor, by Steve Downing]

NERF (Northern England Raptor Forum) has published a typically robust response on its website (here), pointing out the depressing predictablity of it all and highlighting the miserable performance of the Bowland AONB as an area designated as a Special Protection Area (SPA) for hen harriers.

Also quick to respond was Supt Nick Lyall, the new Chair of the Raptor Persecution Priority Delivery Group (RPPDG) which was established in 2011 as a ‘partnership’ to tackle raptor crime but so far has achieved absolutely nothing of any use.

Nick has only been in post for what seems like a couple of minutes but we’ve been impressed with his openness and his willingness to share his thoughts via his newly established blog. Yesterday evening he posted his response to the news of Thor’s disappearance – read it here.

He talks about his plans to run the first national raptor persecution workshop in November and he also discusses his previously-stated intention to break the silence of many RPPDG ‘partners’ on each raptor persecution case as it emerges, starting with Thor’s disappearance. We’ll come back to that. First we wanted to look at what he had to say about Thor.

It’s a cautiously written piece:

“While it hasn’t been confirmed that this is a result of persecution, the circumstances will naturally lead people to believe this to be the case. I say this because the disappearance has occurred in a location where other hen harriers, namely Hope and Sky also disappeared without trace a few years ago under almost identical circumstances“.

He’s right not to look at Thor’s disappearance as an isolated case and to put it in to context with the disappearance of two other hen harriers (Sky & Hope) who both vanished in the same small area in 2014. However, that’s not the only reason we believe Thor’s ‘disappearance’ is as a result of persecution. Our perspective is wider and we place Thor’s disappearance in the context of all the other young hen harriers that have disappeared in suspicious circumstances on or close to driven grouse moors, time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time again.

There is abolutely no doubt whatsoever about what’s going on here – it is serious and organised crime on a massive scale across the uplands of England, Wales and Scotland. The map below shows just a fraction of the scale in one small region of the UK. No sooner do these young birds fledge and leave their natal area, they are killed. It’s no wonder the English breeding population struggles to reach double figures when the next generation of potential breeders are so relentlessly destroyed. It’s also clear evidence why DEFRA’s ridiculous brood meddling scheme won’t work.

[RPUK map showing the last known locations of ‘missing’ Natural England satellite-tagged hen harriers in the Yorkshire Dales National Park, Nidderdale AONB and Bowland AONB. Red star = HH found dead & confirmed illegally killed; orange star = last known location of missing hen harriers; Black star: missing hen harrier but grid reference withheld by Natural England; orange stars 1, 2 & 3 = last known locations of RSPB-tagged hen harriers Hope, Sky and Thor; Purple star last known location of hen harrier Mabel].

Nick did manage to get statements from two of the RPPDG ‘partners’ – NERF and the Moorland Association. He says he will update his blog as other responses come in.

The statement from the Moorland Association’s Director, Amanda Anderson, deserves special attention:

“We join this appeal without hesitation and it is vital the police receive any possible information. This year we have been hugely encouraged by the best hen harrier breeding season in a decade and the fact that 60% of this year’s successfully fledged chicks had help from gamekeepers. At this stage it is not known if anything has happened to Thor beyond that the tag has stopped transmitting. It is widely recognised that that there is a high natural mortality rate for young hen harriers with only two out of every ten expected to survive their first year. We all know that collaboration is the key to successful conservation. As such, enhanced transparency and greater sharing of satellite tag data from the outset of birds’ lives would be a huge step in the right direction“.

It’s a masterclass in deflection and brass neck. She paints a picture that Thor is probably ok and it’s just that his tag has stopped working and besides natural mortality is expected, but that if anything had happened to him it wouldn’t be anything to do with gamekeepers because they’ve played such a big role this year in the successful fledging of some hen harriers.

She ignores the possibility that Thor’s disappearance might be linked to illegal persecution. She ignores the long history of hen harriers vanishing in suspicious circumstances on or near driven grouse moors. She ignores the decades of scientific studies that show illegal persecution is the main factor threatening this species with breeding extinction in England and shrinking the Scottish population’s distribution. She ignores the fact that the majority of those convicted of killing raptors are gamekeepers. She ignores the fact that we’ve all seen the video evidence of what gamekeepers do to raptors when they think nobody is watching.

She then suggests that sharing satellite tag data would be a great idea. A bit like suggesting G4S should publish its timetables and routes for bank cash deliveries.

We note that Amanda’s statement hasn’t yet made it on to the Moorland Association’s website. The current news headline on that site reads: ‘Real progress being made in the fight against wildlife crime‘.

We’ll keep an eye on Nick’s blog during the day and see if any of the other RPPDG ‘partners’ can be bothered to comment.