Tag: hen harrier

Scottish Land & Estates and their indefensible distortion of the truth

So, following RSPB Scotland’s recent appeal for information relating to the suspicious disappearance of hen harrier Calluna on a grouse moor in the Cairngorms National Park, we’ve blogged a bit about the response given by landowners’ lobby group Scottish Land & Estates (SLE).

First of all we had SLE’s Chairman Lord David Johnstone (Dumfriesshire Dave) quoted in various newspapers on Friday 1 Sept as follows:

“Estates in the area have welcomed a number of hen harriers to the area during August and only today one moor reported three harriers. Local land managers reject the inference that the loss of signal from this tag is connected to grouse moor management and are now offering every assistance in searching the area where the last transmission was recorded. They are dismayed that they were not informed earlier that the tag had stopped transmitting nearly three weeks ago, as this would have assisted the search”.

Then on Saturday 2 Sept we had SLE Board member and Chairman of SLE’s north-east branch, David Fyffe, quoted in a Press & Journal article claiming that RSPB Scotland had not followed the agreed protocol as defined by the Partnership for Action on Wildlife Crime (PAW Scotland) – a claim we exposed as being patently untrue. We argued that David Fyffe owed RSPB Scotland an apology.

Also on Saturday 2 September, the following letter appeared in The Times (Scotland edition) from Dumfriesshire Dave:

MISSING HEN HARRIER

Sir, readers might well infer that the fate of Calluna, the missing satellite-tagged hen harrier, is linked to the management of grouse moors (report, Sept 1). Estates in the Deeside area are appalled at this idea. At this stage, no one knows what has happened to the bird. The problem with the “guilty until proven innocent” attitude taken by the RSPB is that it may be successful in smearing shooting estates but it fails to involve the very people who are best placed to help: land managers and gamekeepers.

The possibility of any species being killed deliberately or accidentally cannot be discounted, and we do not seek to deny that this happened on shooting estates previously. Equally, there have been various instances where sat-tags have stopped working and birds have reappeared later, as the RSPB itself has demonstrated at the Langholm project this year. The search would have been assisted greatly had land managers been informed around the time of Calluna’s disappearance.

David Johnstone, Chairman, Scottish Land & Estates

A response letter from RSPB Scotland has today been published in The Times:

MISSING RAPTOR

Sir, David Johnstone of Scottish Land & Estates (SLE) is wrong to infer that our public appeal for information to find out the fate of a missing satellite tagged hen harrier “Calluna” is an attempt to smear the reputation of local shooting estates (Letter, Sept 2). The satellite tags used are extremely reliable, highlighted recently in a Scottish Government report on missing satellite tagged golden eagles. It is exceptionally rare for a tagged bird, whose tag was working perfectly normally, to simply disappear. When this happens it is rightly treated by the public authorities as highly suspicious, and PAWS (Partnership for Action on Wildlife Crime Scotland) protocols then dictate that local land managers should not be informed.

It is an indisputable fact that the vast majority of other missing satellite tagged raptors that have disappeared in suspicious circumstances have done so on land that is managed for driven grouse shooting. Despite overwhelming evidence to support this assertion, of which SLE is fully aware, they instead choose to ignore facts to suit its narrow agenda and “shoot the messenger”.

Duncan Orr-Ewing, Head of Species and Land Management, RSPB Scotland.

So far, so predictable. SLE using every opportunity to slag off the RSPB and by doing so, shift attention from the actual issue – that yet another sat-tagged raptor has disappeared on another grouse shooting estate.

But then this morning, the following statement appeared on SLE’s website, again attributed to Dumfriesshire Dave:

The statement looks basically to be the same one reported in the press last Friday, but there is an important additional sentence right at the end. Referring to the fact that local land managers were not informed at the time the tag had stopped working, Dumfriesshire Dave says:

“All members of the Partnership Against Wildlife Crime, including ourselves, agree that this is the recommended way of dealing with such incidents“.

Sorry, Dave, but there’s no sugar-coating this – that is a blatant lie. And a demonstrably blatant lie at that. Given that RSPB Scotland is also a member of the PAW partnership, and they clearly disagree with your statement, your claim is an indefensible distortion of the truth.

As we’ve pointed out several times on this blog, the PAW protocol is clear and RSPB Scotland has followed it to the letter.

The behaviour of Scottish Land & Estates is inexcusable and they owe RSPB Scotland a full apology. They also owe the other members of PAW Scotland an apology for misrepresenting the PAW position.

If a full apology is not forthcoming, the PAW Scotland Secretariat should reconsider SLE’s continued membership of this so-called partnership with a view to an immediate suspension, followed by a hearing to consider whether there are sufficient grounds for SLE’s removal from the group.

Political silence in response to missing hen harrier ‘Calluna’

Raptor persecution, and particularly the illegal killing of hen harriers, has been identified as a National Wildlife Crime Priority.

Interesting then, that following last Friday’s news that Police Scotland is investigating the disappearance of another missing hen harrier (‘Calluna‘), who vanished in suspicious circumstances on a grouse moor in the Cairngorms National Park in August, the political response has been total silence.

Roseanna Cunningham MSP, the Environment Cabinet Secretary, said nothing.

Mairi Gougeon MSP, the Hen Harrier Species Champion, said nothing.

Alexander Burnett MSP, in whose constituency Calluna ‘disappeared’, said nothing.

The PAW Scotland website, hosted by the Scottish Government, said nothing.

Alexander Burnett MSP (Conservative), presumably no relation to Bert Burnett of the Scottish Gamekeepers’ Association, has spoken before on the subject of illegal raptor persecution, as well he might, given the high number of reported raptor persecution incidents in his Aberdeenshire West constituency, particularly those recorded on grouse moors areas either within or close to the Cairngorms National Park:

Unfortunately, Alexander doesn’t agree that a licensing scheme for gamebird shooting is required. During the recent deliberations of the Scottish Parliament’s Environment Committee, he said the proposed licensing system was “inappropriate, disproportional and unworkable for the issue of wildlife crime that it seeks to address” and he voted for the licensing petition to be dropped in favour of keeping the status quo.

He also told one of his constituents earlier this summer, in response to a letter about the illegal persecution of hen harriers on grouse moors, that:

‘Game management on grouse moors can make an important contribution to biodiversity by providing cover for wildlife, and through the creation and care of habitats such as woodland, grouse moors, beetle banks and hedgerows‘.

Hmm, that statement sounds familiar. Where have we heard that before? Ah yes, it was part of a standard response trotted out to constituents by a succession of Westminster Conservative MPs last year in the run up to the Westminster ‘debate’ on driven grouse shooting. As pointed out by Mark Avery at the time:

‘Grouse shooting does not help create or protect woodland – in fact trees are not welcome on grouse moors. Grouse shooting does not create beetle banks – these are conservation measures in arable fields. Grouse shooting does not protect hedgerows – these are not a feature of grouse moors. Take out those errors and your letter says ‘grouse shooting provides grouse moors’.

Have another look at that raptor persecution map of the Aberdeenshire West constituency. If it is of concern to you, and you are one of Alexander Burnett’s constituents, please consider writing to him and ask him to explain the widespread criminality within his constituency, particularly in areas managed for grouse and pheasant shooting, and ask him how he intends to address your ongoing concerns.

Email: Alexander.Burnett.MSP@parliament.scot

On cue, Scottish landowners’ rep attacks RSPB re: missing hen harrier Calluna

In a move that is fast becoming as predictable as the disappearance of a satellite-tagged raptor on a driven grouse moor, a representative of landowners’ lobby group Scottish Land & Estates (SLE) has launched an attack on the RSPB following yesterday’s news that hen harrier Calluna has ‘disappeared’ after visiting a Deeside grouse moor.

In an article published in today’s Press & Journal (here), David Fyffe, Board Director of SLE and Chairman of SLE’s north-east branch accuses the RSPB of “smearing shooting groups” and ‘not following the agreed protocol’ when the bird went missing.

In comments which echo those that SLE Chairman David Johnstone made in the press yesterday, Mr Fyffe argues that local landowners should have been alerted as soon as the tag stopped transmitting so that estate staff could ‘help with the search’.

Ah yes, it’s always a great idea to ask potential suspects to help search a potential crime scene to secure potential evidence. Genius.

Who remembers what happened the last time estate staff ‘assisted’ in a search for a missing satellite-tagged raptor? Here’s a reminder – the RSPB staff who were working with Police Scotland staff were falsely accused of being ‘Masked intruders‘, ‘Masked RSPB thugs‘ and ‘RSPB representatives conducting themselves like hunt saboteurs wearing intimidating hoods and masks’ (see here).

And as pointed out in a comment made by a blog reader yesterday, in the case of missing hen harrier Calluna, had the RSPB notified the estate on 12th August when the tag stopped transmitting, the grouse-shooting industry would have wailed vociferously that the timing was just a publicity stunt designed to coincide with the opening of the grouse-shooting season.

It’s all part of a very familiar pantomime.

The RSPB was accused earlier this year of ‘openly ignoring’ the agreed PAW protocol for missing satellite-tagged raptors by not immediately informing the local landowner. At the time we showed that this allegation was blatantly untrue. David Fyffe’s allegation is also a complete fabrication. Here’s a copy of the agreed PAW protocol:

In the case of missing hen harrier Calluna, the sudden cessation of her satellite tag signal was suspicious. Usually if a satellite tag is about to have a technical malfunction there will be prior warning signs in the associated engineering data, particularly a drop in battery voltage  – see here.  But Calluna’s tag was reported to be “working perfectly” prior to its abrupt stop.

In addition to this, Calluna’s tag stopped working in an area with a known history of illegal raptor persecution.

So, having established that the circumstances of Calluna’s disappearance were suspicious, what does the PAW protocol flow chart indicate should happen next? Does it say ‘immediately inform the landowner’? No, of course it doesn’t. It says ‘Contact local police’.

David Fyffe owes the RSPB an apology. Getting one will be as unlikely as hen harrier Calluna being found safe and well (it could happen but nobody’s holding their breath).

UPDATE: 5 September 2017: Scottish Land & Estates and their indefensible distortion of the truth (see here).

Satellite-tagged hen harrier disappears on grouse moor in Cairngorms National Park

Well that didn’t take long, did it? Just a few weeks after fledging, one of the 2017 cohort of satellite-tagged hen harriers has already ‘disappeared’, with its final signal emitted from a grouse moor on the 12th August, the opening day of the grouse-shooting season.

Hen harrier ‘Calluna‘ (photo RSPB Scotland)

RSPB Scotland press release:

SATELLITE-TAGGED HEN HARRIER DISAPPEARS ON DEESIDE GROUSE MOOR

RSPB Scotland has issued an appeal for information after a young hen harrier, fitted with a satellite tag as part of the charity’s EU-funded Hen Harrier LIFE project, disappeared on an Aberdeenshire grouse moor.

‘Calluna‘, a female harrier, was tagged this summer at a nest on the National Trust for Scotland’s Mar Lodge estate, near Braemar. Her transmitter’s data was being monitored by RSPB Scotland and showed that the bird fledged from the nest in July. She left the area in early August, with the data showing her gradually heading east over the Deeside moors. However, while the tag data showed it to be working perfectly, transmissions abruptly ended on 12th August, with no further data transmitted. Calluna’s last recorded position was on a grouse moor a few miles north of Ballater, in the Cairngorms National Park.

Hen harriers are one of the UK’s rarest raptors and the 2016 national survey results released earlier this year showed that even in Scotland, the species’ stronghold, these birds are struggling. The number of breeding pairs in Scotland now stands at 460, a fall of 27 per cent since 2004, with illegal killing in areas managed for driven grouse shooting identified as one of the main drivers of this decline.

David Frew, Operations Manager for the National Trust for Scotland at Mar Lodge Estate, said: “It is deeply saddening to learn that Calluna appears to have been lost, so soon after fledging from Mar Lodge Estate. Hen harriers were persecuted on Deeside for a great many years, and we had hoped that the first successful breeding attempt on Mar Lodge Estate in 2016 would signal the start of a recovery for these magnificent birds in the area.

Only one month after fledging, and having travelled only a relatively short distance, it appears that we will no longer be able to follow the progress of our 2017 chick. We hope however that the data her tag has provided will help to inform a wider understanding of the lives and threats faced by hen harriers.”

Ian Thomson, Head of Investigations at RSPB Scotland said: “This bird joins the lengthening list of satellite-tagged birds of prey that have disappeared, in highly suspicious circumstances, almost exclusively in areas in areas intensively managed for grouse shooting. We are pleased that the Cabinet Secretary for the Environment has commissioned an independent group to look at how grouse moors can be managed sustainably and within the law. We look forward to a further announcement shortly on the membership of this group, and we are committed to assist the work of this enquiry in any way that we can.

The LIFE project team has fitted a significant number of tags to young hen harriers this year, with the very welcome help from landowners, including the National Trust for Scotland, who value these magnificent birds breeding on their property. The transmitters used in this project are incredibly reliable and the sudden halt in data being received from it, with no hint of a malfunction, is very concerning. We ask that if anyone has any information about the disappearance of this bird we urge them to contact Police Scotland as quickly as possible”.

ENDS

Here’s a map we’ve created showing the location of the National Trust for Scotland’s Mar Lodge Estate in the Cairngorms National Park, where Calluna hatched, and the town of Ballater, close to where she disappeared.

The RSPB Scotland press release doesn’t name the estate from where Calluna’s last position was recorded, it just says it was “on a grouse moor a few miles north of Ballater, in the Cairngorms National Park“.

Hmm, let’s have a closer look at that. Here’s a map showing the grouse moor area a few miles north of Ballater. According to estate boundary details that we sourced from Andy Wightman’s Who Owns Scotland website, Calluna’s last position could have been recorded on either an Invercauld Estate grouse moor or a Dinnet Estate grouse moor.

If you’re thinking that this part of the Cairngorms National Park looks familiar, you’d be right, we’ve blogged about it a few times before. 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. This area of Royal Deeside is quite the little raptor persecution hotspot, isn’t it?

The evidence just keeps mounting. Is anyone still wondering why the game-shooting industry is so keen to try and discredit the use of satellite tags on raptors?

We wonder what explanations, to avoid the bleedin’ obvious, they’ll come up with this time? Perhaps they’ll suggest Calluna was sucked in to a vortex created by Hurricane Harvey? Or maybe they’ll say she was hit by a North Korean test missile? They might tell us that Vladimir Putin must have hacked the satellite signals? All just as plausible as the usual tosh they trot out, such as how a fieldworker eating a sandwich at a tagging session causes eagles to die (here), or how non-existent wind farms are responsible for the disappearance of eight sat-tagged golden eagles (here), or how ‘activists’ have been killing sat-tagged raptors as part of a smear campaign against the grouse-shooting industry (here), or how a faulty saltwater switch on tags attached to Olive Ridley turtles on the Indian subcontinent means that all satellite tags are unreliable (here).

We’ll be updating this page throughout the day if and when statements are made by the following:

Response of Environment Secretary Roseanna Cunningham –

Response of Alexander Burnett MSP (Conservative, Aberdeen West) –

Response of Cairngorms National Park Authority – Grant Moir, Chief Exec of CNPA said: “A hen harrier has once again disappeared in the Cairngorms National Park, with a satellite tracker ceasing to transmit. The Park Authority is determined to stop these recurring disappearances. Earlier this week the CNPA met with Police Scotland to discuss how increased use of special constables can help to tackle wildlife crime in the Cairngorms National Park. We also continue to work on other solutions to these issues. The CNPA look forward to the establishment by Scottish Government of the independently-led group to look at the environmental impact of grouse moor management and will feed in to that review“.

Response of Scottish Land & Estates – David Johnstone, chairman of Scottish Land and Estates, said: “Estates in the area have welcomed a number of hen harriers to the area during August and only today one moor reported three harriers. Local land managers reject the inference that the loss of signal from this tag is connected to grouse moor management and are now offering every assistance in searching the area where the last transmission was recorded. They are dismayed that they were not informed earlier that the tag had stopped transmitting nearly three weeks ago, as this would have assisted the search“.

Response of Scottish Wildlife Trust – Susan Davies, director of conservation at the Scottish Wildlife Trust (SWT) said: “It’s extremely disappointing to learn that yet another hen harrier has disappeared over a grouse moor. The most recent surveys show that hen harrier numbers are declining in most parts of Scotland and that illegal persecution is a factor in this decline. Anyone who has information on this bird’s disappearance should contact Police Scotland immediately. 

The Trust has repeatedly called on the Scottish Government to be tougher on wildlife crime and introduce a system of licensing for grouse moor management to encourage sustainable practices. We welcome the recent announcement that a working group will be formed to look at the environmental impact of grouse moors and options for better regulation, and we stand ready to assist this group in any way possible“.

Response of Scottish Gamekeepers’ Association – A spokesman for The Scottish Gamekeepers Association said: “The SGA would urge anyone who saw the bird or knows anything about it to contact Police Scotland. This is the first we have heard of this. Obviously any news like this is very disappointing. The SGA condemns raptor persecution and if any of our members are convicted of a wildlife crime they are removed from our organisation. We have learned from those monitoring tags that birds can move some distance away from where they were last recorded so it is important that, if people know anything, they alert the Police immediately.”

Response of Scottish Moorland Group –

Response of Grampian Moorland Group –

Response of GWCT – Nothing, nada, zilch. But on Twitter they announced the availability of the new GWCT Xmas Cards. That’s nice.

Response of BASC –

Response of Countryside Alliance –

Response of Scottish Association for Country Sports – (from The Times) – Julia Stoddart, head of policy for the SACS, lamented the practice of killing hen harriers to protect grouse. “However, we would remind the RSPB that tag technology can fail for a number of reasons, and that raptors are susceptible to natural causes of death as well as to illegal persecution“, she said.

Other media coverage:

BBC news here

Scotsman here

Press & Journal here

UPDATE 2 September 2017: On cue, Scottish landowners’ rep throws false allegations at RSPB (see here).

UPDATE 4 September 2017: Political silence in response to missing hen harrier Calluna (see here).

UPDATE 5 September 2017: Scottish Land & Estates and their indefensible distortion of the truth (see here).

Raven-killing licence, breeding hen harriers & return of a familiar name at Leadhills Estate

Regular readers of this blog will be very familiar with the Leadhills (Hopetoun) Estate in South Lanarkshire. We’ve been blogging about it for years, not only as a well known hotspot for illegal raptor persecution but also because of the owners’ links to the establishment and to landowners’ lobby group Scottish Land & Estates.

Here’s a map showing the location of Leadhills Estate (dotted lines show the estate boundary of neighbouring Buccleuch Estate, which has in the past been partly ‘managed’ by Leadhills Estate gamekeepers. Estate boundaries from Andy Wightman’s excellent website Who Owns Scotland).

A few months ago we submitted an FoI to SNH on an unrelated issue, and after some prevarication, we’ve finally received a response. Part of that response was quite surprising, on two levels.

First, it turns out that SNH has been issuing licences to kill ravens on Leadhills Estate for the last three years. The evidence supplied to justify the licences seems pretty thin, at best. Have a look at the licence applications, which are remarkably similiar, submitted on behalf of Linlithgow Farms Ltd and the Leadhills Trust here: Leadhills Raven Licence

We don’t know much about the population status of ravens in this part of Scotland but if any blog readers have detailed knowledge, we’d be pleased to hear about it.

However, also of interest to us was the headed notepaper used in the licensing correspondence between the applicant and SNH. Well, well, well, look who’s back:

As many of you will know, this is one of Mark Osborne’s companies. Osborne has a long history with Leadhills Estate. Between 2003-2006 he was listed as a Director of Leadhills Sporting Ltd, a company who held the sporting rights at Leadhills. Osborne resigned in 2006, shortly after the police raided the estate for alleged wildlife crimes (no prosecutions followed).

The sporting rights were later put up for sale in 2008 and Osborne was cited as joint agent (with Savills Estate Agent) in the sale. The sporting rights were again offered for sale in 2013 on a ten-year lease although it’s not clear whether Osborne was involved and it’s not known whether anyone took on the lease. We suspect not, as according to our local sources there hasn’t been any grouse shooting at Leadhills for a number of years; a fact verified by the estate earlier this year in a press release issued by Media House following the reported shooting of a hen harrier on the estate.

The reported shooting of a hen harrier at Leadhills was a bit of a surprise to us. Since the driven grouse shooting stopped and the number of full-time gamekeepers was reduced from ten to two, hen harriers have been making a bit of a comeback here. In 2015 there were three successful nests and this year there are reports of nine nests, and certainly some of those (if not all) have been successful. This is very, very welcome news and we hope, if driven grouse shooting does begin again on these moors, that the hen harriers will continue to thrive.

So, in the absence of driven grouse shooting and the estate’s tolerance of breeding hen harriers, the reported shooting in May of a hen harrier, by an armed man on a quad bike, was very disappointing. This was then closely followed by the reported shooting of a short-eared owl on the estate, this time by an armed man driving a black 4×4 vehicle. Police investigations continue in both cases.

We’re keen to see whether SNH considers the reported shooting of a hen harrier and a short-eared owl sufficient grounds for restricting the use of the General Licence at Leadhills Estate. We’ll have to wait and see. It’s a process that JM Osborne & Co will be quite familiar with; this sporting agency is involved with the management of Raeshaw Estate which had it’s General Licence restricted in 2015 after police uncovered evidence of attempted raptor persecution, and the estate has recently had its subsequent ‘Individual Licence’ revoked and a police investigation is underway for more alleged wildlife crime offences.

Interesting times.

Cabinet Secretary Fergus Ewing’s constituency a hotspot for ‘disappearing’ sat-tagged raptors

A few weeks ago we created a map for Mairi Gougeon MSP (Angus & Mearns, SNP) to show her the areas of her constituency where satellite-tagged raptors had either been found illegally killed or had ‘disappeared’ in suspicious circumstances. Unsurprisingly, the main hotspot area was centred on the grouse moors of the Angus Glens.

Mairi, as the Hen Harrier Species Champion, attended this year’s Hen Harrier Day at Loch Leven where she acknowledged the issues and spoke passionately about the need to address illegal raptor persecution. We welcomed her interest and enthusiasm and look forward to seeing her use her position to good effect.

We’ve now created another map, this time for MSP Fergus Ewing’s constituency of Inverness and Nairn. For new readers, Fergus also holds a senior position in the Scottish Government – he is Cabinet Secretary for the Rural Economy and Connectivity.

This latest map is based on data from the recent expert review of golden eagle satellite tag data and also from the RSPB’s recent map showing the locations of ‘disappeared’ or illegally killed satellite-tagged hen harriers and red kites. Here it is, showing the locations of 15 satellite-tagged raptors (8 x golden eagles, 6 x red kites, 1 x hen harrier) that were either illegally killed in Fergus’s constituency or ‘disappeared’ in suspicious circumstances in his constituency:

And just like the map we created for Mairi, the hotspot areas within Fergus Ewing’s constituency all just happen to be on land managed for driven grouse shooting. Imagine that!

Unlike Mairi Gougeon MSP, as far as we can tell, Cabinet Secretary Fergus Ewing has never publicly spoken out about the illegal persecution of raptors on grouse moors, either within his own constituency or beyond (if anyone has any evidence to the contrary we’ll be happy to post it here).

He did, sort of, hint at it in a statement he made about grouse shooting in 2015 when he was Minister for Business, Energy and Tourism:

“I am very pleased to be able to extend support to all of those who make a success of fields sports in a professional and responsible fashion. Their efforts bring to Scotland a number of visitors who are very welcome and make a significant financial contribution to the sector”

but you’ll note that he very carefully avoided mentioning raptor persecution crimes or any of the other environmentally damaging effects of intensive grouse moor management.

And he can’t claim that he’s unaware of what’s going on – we’ve contacted him on social media many times about this issue, especially when persecution incidents have been detected in his constituency (most recently in July – see here). He has chosen to ignore us at every turn and has given his full public support to grouse moor management in well known raptor persecution hotspots including the Angus Glens and the Monadhliaths.

If you live in Fergus Ewing’s constituency of Inverness and Nairn, you might want to contact him to ask him what he’s doing about the illegal killing of raptors on grouse moors in this area. He has a responsibility to respond to the concerns of his constituents. Email: Fergus.ewing.msp@parliament.scot

If you don’t live in Inverness and Nairn but wish to raise concerns about the level of illegal raptor persecution on the grouse moors of this Cabinet Secretary’s constituency, please use this email address: Scottish.Ministers@gov.scot [and mark it for the attention of Fergus Ewing].

For far too long we’ve allowed certain politicians to get away with wilful blindness about this ongoing criminality. It’s up to all of us to hold these elected representatives to account.

Natural England Hen Harrier satellite tag data – a new development

Natural England has been fitting tags (radio and satellite) to hen harriers since 2002 as part of what was called the Hen Harrier Recovery Project.

That’s 15 years of tagging.

(Photo by Jenny Weston)

In all that time, they’ve managed to publish just two summary reports: A future for the hen harrier in England (2008) and then in 2014, ‘Initial findings of Natural England’s hen harrier tracking programme 2007 to 2014‘ which didn’t really tell us anything we didn’t already know (see here for our analysis).

Despite many years of asking (e.g. see Mark Avery’s 2015 FoI request here), Natural England has refused (e.g. see Natural England’s FoI response here) to release any detailed results to the public. This has been both disappointing and frustrating given that the public has funded this 15-year study and especially given the huge and legitimate public concern about the continued illegal persecution of this species.

Natural England’s explanation for not releasing detailed information has been twofold: firstly we were told that NE ‘intended to analyse and publish the results’ and secondly, NE was funding a staff member (Stephen Murphy) to undertake a part-time PhD on this subject and so the detailed results were expected to form part of that PhD thesis.

According to the NE website, the PhD began in 2006 and was due to be completed in 2014:

Eleven years after it began, we decided to ask NE about the status of this PhD. We were suspicious that it wasn’t going to be completed because most universities invoke rigid time limits for students to submit a doctoral thesis (typically 4 years for a full-time study and 8 years for a part-time study). Universities are often rigorously strict with these time restrictions because higher education institutes are regularly assessed on their research quality (which relates to the subsequent allocation of research funding) and are financially penalised for, amongst other things, late doctoral completion rates. Sometimes, in extenuating circumstances, students can be granted a short time extension, but in this particular case, we very much doubted that a lengthy extension of three years would have been granted.

So we recently submitted an FoI to Natural England, along the same lines as Mark Avery’s previous FoI, to find out what was going on and, most importantly, when we could expect to read the detailed results of this long running study. Here’s the response to that FoI:

As you can see, the PhD has been abandoned. The reason is not given and, to be frank, we’re not particularly interested. There can be any number of explanations, either academic or personal, and it’s not really any of our business. Whatever the reason, it in no way diminishes the widely-held respect for Stephen Murphy’s field expertise.

What is our business, is the huge amount of hen harrier tracking data amassed over the last 15 years. Those data belong in the public domain, and Natural England can now no longer hide behind the excuse of a pending PhD submission, allowing the data to be kept secret.

You’ll notice in the FoI response that NE says it is intending to collaborate with ‘highly respected academics with an expertise in raptor research’ to analyse the data and submit for peer-review in 2018. That’s fine, but depending on the choice of scientific journal, the quality of the research and the quality of the peer-review, this process can often take several years before a paper is finally published.

That’s not good enough.

At the very least, Natural England should be looking at an immediate short-term output detailing very basic information, such as (a) how many sat tags have been fitted?, (b) where and when were they fitted?, (c) in which counties were they fitted?, (d) what was the fate of each of those tagged birds?, (d) how many of those birds were confirmed illegally killed?, (e) where were the corpses found? (county name and habitat type will do if the exact site information is sensitive), (f) how many tagged birds died of natural causes?, (g) how many tags suddenly stopped functioning in suspicious circumstances with birds ‘disappearing’, where, and in what habitat type?, (h) how many of the tagged birds are still alive?

The release of this basic information should not affect the proposed publication of scientific papers (similar information has recently been released for sat tagged golden eagles, red kites and hen harriers in Scotland) but will allow the public the opportunity to use these publicly-funded results to apply political pressure where it is badly needed.

Keeping these results secret does not help hen harriers but does help shield the criminals within the grouse shooting industry who are responsible for bringing this species to its knees.

If any blog readers wish to contact Natural England to ask for the release of these data, here’s the email address: enquiries@naturalengland.org.uk

We’ll be very interested to hear of any responses.

Species Champion Mairi Gougeon MSP speaks up for hen harriers

‘Species Champions’ are members of the Scottish Parliament who have agreed to provide political support and awareness for Scotland’s threatened wildlife, under a scheme organised by Scottish Environment LINK.

Mairi Gougeon (nee Evans) MSP is the Species Champion for the hen harrier, and it was fantastic to see her attend Hen Harrier Day at Loch Leven a couple of weeks ago. She wasn’t the only MSP present – also in attendance was Alexander Stewart MSP (Scottish Conservatives) and Andy Wightman MSP (Scottish Greens) – Andy had cycled from Edinburgh and broke his pedal 5 miles away but still managed to make it on time – impressive!

It was gratifying to see all three of these politicians giving up their Saturday to come along. And they didn’t just turn up for the photo call and then clear off; they spent a considerable amount of time talking with the public, asking pertinent questions (and listening to the responses!) and they all stayed to hear the presentations throughout the afternoon. Mairi even gave a short but very encouraging presentation – you can watch it here (it’s only 4 mins long – well worth a listen, thanks to Guy Shorrock for recording it):

Perhaps of all three politicians in attendance, Mairi had the most cause to be there. Not just as the Hen Harrier Species Champion, but also because her SNP constituency is Angus North & Mearns, which includes the Angus Glens grouse moors, a notorious raptor persecution hotspot.

The history of illegal raptor persecution in this area is well known (see here for a long list of incidents), and it’s also known for its lack of breeding hen harriers – not a single recorded breeding attempt on these grouse moors for 11 years, although there was one breeding attempt in the area this year, but it wasn’t on a driven grouse moor. It’s clear from Mairi’s speech that she is well informed about the situation there.

Here’s a map we’ve created for Mairi to study. It’s a map of her constituency and includes data from the recent expert review of golden eagle satellite tag data and also from the RSPB’s recent map showing the locations of ‘disappeared’ or illegally killed satellite-tagged hen harriers and red kites. It’s quite clear that it’s the grouse moor areas of the Angus Glens that are bringing her constituency in to such disrepute.

Thanks to all three MSPs for their genuine interest in protecting the hen harrier and particular thanks and good luck to Mairi – we hope blog readers will support her endeavours to draw political attention to this species’ plight.

Natural England Board making up justification for Hen Harrier southern reintroduction?

Last month we blogged about the minutes of a Natural England Board meeting (held 22 March 2017) in relation to the proposed reintroduction of hen harriers to southern England. The published minutes stated:

‘The NE Board has considered the overall objective of the southern reintroduction [of hen harriers] and agreed this was to help relic upland populations in respect of the genetic diversity and the overall favourable conservation status of the species”. 

We were curious about the scientific evidence used by Natural England’s Board to assess the genetic diversity of the UK hen harrier population and determine that its genetic diversity is in need of “help”. We were also curious about whether potential donor hen harrier populations had been screened to assess their genetic suitability.

The reason we were so curious is because we were unaware of any genetic assessment ever having been undertaken for the UK hen harrier population, but, considering the scientific credentials of many NE Board members, we assumed they would have insisted on seeing such evidence before making such a claim. So we submitted an FoI to Natural England to ask for these details.

Natural England has responded as follows:

So basically, Natural England is unable to point to any scientific evidence to indicate that the genetic diversity of the UK hen harrier population is in need of ‘help’, and yet the NE Board has claimed that ‘helping’ the species’ genetic diversity is suitable justification for the southern reintroduction project to go ahead.

As Mark Avery said on his blog this morning, ‘Is NE fit for purpose? Quite honestly I don’t think it is. I no longer trust NE to do the right things for nature, and I no longer trust NE to tell the truth about what it is doing‘. We’re in full agreement with that, and based on this latest FoI response, we’d extend that to the NE Board.

More illegal raptor persecution hotspots revealed in new map

Ian Thomson, Head of RSPB Investigations Scotland has written an interesting blog examining the ‘disappearance’ and/or illegal killing of satellite tagged red kites and hen harriers – see here.

It’s well worth a read. And take a close look at this map, illustrating the locations of suspicious disappearances as well as where the corpses have been found:

Here’s a direct quote from Ian:

‘It is clear from this map that, like golden eagles, the distribution of illegally killed or suspiciously disappeared satellite-tagged red kites and hen harriers is far from random, and shows clear clusters in some upland areas. As with the “hotspots” for eagles, these clusters are almost entirely coincident with land dominated by driven grouse shooting management, again including areas like the northern Monadhliaths and the Angus Glens. But, harriers and kites have clearly being targeted in other regions – notably, but not exclusively, upper Strathspey, Strathnairn and the Lowther Hills of S Lanarkshire‘.

Following the recent news that the RSPB, in partnership with LUSH, has satellite-tagged a record number of hen harriers this year, we can expect many more dots to appear on this map, most of them will be added before Xmas.

We’ll be undertaking some finer analyses of this map, probably next week, and we’ll be asking blog readers to get involved. More on that soon.

There’s one other point in Ian’s blog that is worth highlighting here, in response to the unsubstantiated yet repeated claims by some that raptors do better on driven grouse moors than they do on RSPB reserves:

‘More pairs of hen harriers bred successfully on one RSPB reserve on Islay in 2017, than on the grouse moors of Aberdeenshire, Kincardineshire, Angus and the Scottish Borders put together. In fact, RSPB nature reserves hold 10% of Scotland’s breeding population of hen harriers, with 46 pairs in 2016‘.

How many hen harriers do you think bred successfully on Scottish grouse moors in 2016 (where driven shooting took place – not on moors which are currently not being shot)?

Photo of hen harrier Annie, who was found shot on a grouse moor in South Lanarkshire in 2015. (Image: RSPB Scotland).