Tag: hen harrier

Moorland Association feeling the pressure

moorland association logoLast week the Moorland Association (MA) went in to full damage limitation mode and sent around an e-newsletter to its members about recent events (e.g. here and here) that, in its view, had damaged the MA’s reputation.

It’s amusing that the MA still thinks it has a reputation to damage. Newsflash for the MA: your reputation has been in tatters for some considerable time (e.g. see here).

Anyway, back to the newsletter. Mark Avery blogged about it (here) and it’s well worth reading his thoughts.

What Mark didn’t do was publish the actual newsletter, so we thought we’d do that here: Moorland Association Newsletter June 2016

It’s interesting to read just how worried the MA is about all the adverse publicity, especially that generated on social media. For all its public spin and denials and propaganda, behind closed doors the MA is certainly feeling the pressure like never before.

Let’s help bring down the curtain on their absurd pantomime – please join 45,000+ people and sign the e-petition to ban driven grouse shooting HERE

Hands off our Hen Harriers: Picnic at Grimwith Reservoir, Yorkshire Dales National Park

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We’re told that the picnic/stroll/chat about the lack of Hen Harriers in England this year – ‘a tiny handful’ (RSPB) – will be held at Grimwith Reservoir car park at midday on Saturday (this Saturday! Saturday 25 June).
It will be nice to meet up with many friends and register our anger at the lack of Hen Harriers in the Yorkshire Dales National Park and elsewhere in the English uplands, and in many parts of the UK uplands.
Grimwith Reservoir car park is large and ideally placed for a stroll around the reservoir to take a look at the grouse butts set into the wall on the far side and the line of butts at the eastern end of the reservoir.  There is a clear view (if the weather is OK – surely it will be) across the characteristic chequerboard-pattern of burned heather patches.
Grimwith Reservoir is on the western side of OS Explorer map 298, Nidderdale, at 063641.
See you there perhaps?

Natural England issues impotent gas gun guidance

Last September we asked the statutory conservation agencies Scottish Natural Heritage and Natural England to issue urgent guidance about the use of propane gas guns in the uplands (here). We, and others, were concerned that these devices were being used to prevent hen harriers from nesting on grouse moors.

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Both organisations committed to investigating this issue (see here and here) and Natural England promised it would publish this guidance before the start of the 2016 breeding season. It failed to do so.

Meanwhile, further evidence of the (mis)-use of gas guns on grouse moors emerged, this time within a National Park (e.g. see here and here).

SNH then managed to issue some contradictory advice (see here) which left us none the wiser.

Now Natural England has finally responded with this:

Thank you for your email, and my apologies for the delay in replying. I am conscious of the concerns that have been expressed around the use of gas guns on some moorlands in England and we have been keen to clarify the legal position around their use.

In doing this, we have found that their use is much wider than solely in the uplands. As a result, we have worked with Scottish Natural Heritage to develop some guidance, setting out the circumstances when permissions may be required for the deployment of gas guns. This is attached for your information.

We are also in discussion with the grouse shooting industry, to develop some best practice principles for the use of gas guns. The aim is to provide simple advice on their deployment, and help to avoid disturbance to birds nesting on protected sites.

I hope this information is helpful. If you have any further queries, please contact John Barrett at john.barrett@naturalengland.org.uk, and he will be happy to provide further information.

Yours sincerely

Alan Law

END

Are you ready to see the ‘guidance’ that has taken Natural England and SNH nine months to produce? Hold on to your seats, here it is:

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In a nutshell, the ‘guidance’ is: make sure your gas gun doesn’t disturb breeding Schedule 1 birds. Oh, and if your grouse moor is part of a SSSI designation, you’ll need to ask permission first.

Yep, that’s it.

Henry’s picnic Sat 25 June: Yorkshire Dales National Park

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Next week, on Saturday 25 June, whether we have voted Brexit or Remain, there will be a Hen Harrier rally to mark this year’s virtual absence of nesting Hen Harriers from the English uplands.
Full details will appear here and elsewhere next Wednesday but we have now been told by the organisers that it will be in the Yorkshire Dales National Park.  Watch this space.
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Case against gamekeeper Stanley Gordon re shot hen harrier Part 2

Criminal proceedings continued at Elgin Sheriff Court yesterday against Scottish gamekeeper Stanley Gordon.

Mr Gordon, 60, of Cabrach, Moray, is facing charges in connection with the alleged shooting of a hen harrier in June 2013.

The case continued without plea and the next hearing will be 14th July 2016.

Previous blog on this case here

 

 

Mossdale Estate resigns from Moorland Association over illegal pole traps incident

pole trapIt’s been two weeks since the news emerged that a gamekeeper on the Mossdale Estate in the Yorkshire Dales National Park had been filmed setting three illegal pole traps on a grouse moor where a female hen harrier had been observed hunting (see here).

It’s been 12 days since the Moorland Association admitted that the owner of Mossdale Estate was a member of the MA (see here) and how disgusted they were that these crimes had taken place, but not quite disgusted enough to kick the owner out of their organisation.

It’s taken them a while (perhaps because they were still recovering from being “very sad” over the National Trust’s decision to terminate the lease of a grouse moor tenant in the Peak District National Park (see here) but now the Moorland Association is in full damage limitation mode.

The following statement has just appeared on their website:

Illegally set traps – final statement

15th June 2016

Statement from Moorland Association Director, Amanda Anderson:

“The MA has formally reviewed the incident on Mossdale Estate where an underkeeper admitted to setting traps illegally. The keeper is no longer employed by the estate. Mossdale has also resigned its membership of the MA”.

END

So, still not quite disgusted enough to expel this member, then?

And what of the gamekeeper, ‘no longer employed by the estate’? Was he allowed to resign or was he sacked? And is/was he a member of the National Gamekeepers’ Organisation? We did ask this question 12 days ago but the National Gamekeepers’ Organisation hasn’t yet responded. Perhaps they too have been ‘very sad’ about recent events and haven’t yet been able to face the world. Let’s ask them again. Emails to: info@nationalgamekeepers.org.uk 

There’s some other unfinished business also relating to these crimes. We’re still waiting to hear back from Acting Assistant Chief Constable Amanda Oliver of North Yorkshire Police, who 15 days ago promised “a full review” of why this criminal gamekeeper was let off with a police caution instead of being prosecuted (see here). To be fair, she was on holiday when she made this promise so we’re happy to give her a bit more time to publish her findings.

Photo: one of three illegal pole traps found on the Mossdale Estate. (Photo by RSPB Investigations).

Police investigate suspicious death of tenth red kite in North Yorkshire

RKHarrogateNorth Yorkshire Police are investigating the suspicious death of yet another red kite – the tenth red kite to have been either shot or found dead in suspicious circumstances in North Yorkshire in the last few months.

The latest victim was found at Timble Ings near Harrogate, just a short distance from Blubberhouse Moor where another red kite was found shot and critically injured a few weeks ago (see here).

Although the cause of death of this latest red kite has not yet been established, it’s not difficult to see why North Yorkshire Police are treating it as suspicious at this stage. The eastern side of the Yorkshire Dales National Park and the adjoining Nidderdale AONB are notorious black spots for illegal raptor persecution, particularly for hen harriers (see here) and red kites (see here). The area is dominated by driven grouse moors.

Article on the latest dead red kite can be read in the Harrogate Advertiser here

UPDATE 5.30pm: North Yorkshire Police have now confirmed this red kite had been shot. Well done to them for putting out a quick statement and appeal for information (here).

E-petition to ban driven grouse shooting can be signed here

Scarey man on an Angus Glens grouse moor

SCAREY MAN - CopyHere’s another entry for the Mysterious Visiting Fairies’ Guide to Getting Rid of Hen Harriers on Grouse Moors.

Filmed on a grouse moor in the Angus Glens (that well-known ‘wildlife haven‘) last week, it’s really little wonder that hen harriers haven’t bred on these grouse moors since 2006.

This is a Scarey Man Birdscarer. Powered by a 12 volt battery it can be set to display every 18 minutes for 25 seconds. It emits a loud noise (siren) and can also be illuminated for night work.

Turn up the volume, sit back and enjoy the short video HERE

 

 

 

 

Grouse moor management bang out of order

There are lots of ways gamekeepers sorry, mysterious visiting fairies, can, and obviously do, get rid of pesky hen harriers from the grouse moors of upland England and Scotland.

Options available might include disturbing them with booming gas guns (here), or lying in wait with a decoy hen harrier (here), or setting illegal pole traps to catch them (here), or burning out their nests (here), or poisoning them (here), or catching them with baited spring traps on the ground (here), or stamping on their chicks (here), or shooting them (here), or removing their eggs/chicks as part of a government-sanctioned plan designed to appease grouse moor owners (here).

Here’s another method that can be included in the Mysterious Visiting Fairies’ Guide to Getting Rid of Hen Harriers on Grouse Moors. The following two photographs were taken on a grouse moor in the Angus Glens last week (thanks to the contributor who sent these):

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This is a bird-scaring banger rope, draped around a gatepost. These banger ropes are designed to mimic the intermittent sound of a shotgun and are used for scaring birds from agricultural crops. You set fire to one end of the rope and as it burns, it’ll cause loud explosions as the flame reaches the banger units. Some ropes are designed to burn for six hours, setting fire to the explosives at 15 or 30 minute intervals. Other ropes are designed to burn through the night for up to 12 hours.

Obviously, it’s a really good idea to deploy these explosive banger ropes in areas where the public are likely to access (say, like on a gatepost), on land that is susceptible to wild fire (say, like a heather moor), and in areas where nesting birds (including gamebirds, waders and ground-nesting raptors) are trying to breed (say, like a driven grouse moor).

It seems like the mysterious visiting fairies think June is an ace time to deploy them on grouse moors because here are some more photographs taken on a North Yorkshire grouse moor just four days ago. This time the banger rope had been deployed inside a (wooden!) grouse butt and the remains were quite evident on the ground. The smell of burning still hung in the air.

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Here’s a close up of the back and front of one of the tags found inside the butt, photographed when we got home. These were Portek banger ropes:

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National Trust pulls grouse shooting lease in Peak District National Park

The National Trust has just gone from zero to hero in a move that will send shock waves throughout the grouse-shooting industry and will draw wide acclaim from conservationists.

You may remember at the end of April this year we published a video of an armed man, sitting next to a decoy hen harrier, on a grouse moor in the Peak District National Park (see here). This grouse moor was one of three owned by the National Trust within the National Park, and was leased to a previously unnamed shooting tenant (but see below).

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In our opinion, this video depicted somebody lying in wait for a passing hen harrier to come in and mob the decoy bird, bringing the live bird in to close enough range to be shot.

Blog readers from here and from Mark Avery’s website (here) were encouraged to contact the National Trust and ask them what they thought was going on in this video and what they intended to do about it. We know that many of you did just that. The National Trust responded (here) and said they were launching an investigation after the police investigation had failed to make progress.

A couple of weeks later we contacted the National Trust again and asked for an update. We speculated whether they’d be bold or whether they’d bottle it (here). To be honest, we fully expected them to bottle it, as so many other organisations have done when it comes to standing up against the grouse-shooting industry.

We were wrong, and have never been so happy to be wrong! The National Trust has just issued the following statement, and what a statement it is, in every sense of the word:

National Trust Public Statement:

The National Trust has today given notice that the current shooting leases at Hope Woodlands and Park Hall in Derbyshire will end in April 2018.

The charity said it had taken the decision to exercise a break clause in the lease to end the relationship four years early.

Andy Beer, National Trust’s Director for the Midlands, said: “We have a clear vision for land management and wildlife restoration on the High Peak Moors, which was developed in full consultation with our tenants and other key stakeholders.

All our tenants have signed up to deliver to the vision and understand their responsibilities. We work very closely with our tenants and support, consult and discuss any issues relating to the plan on a regular basis.

However, in this case we have decided, after a meeting with the tenant, that we should revoke the lease four years early as it became clear that we could no longer have confidence that they were committed to the delivery of our vision for the land.

We have given the tenant 22 months’ notice and will start the process of looking for a replacement in 2017, when we will be happy to receive applications from partners who can demonstrate how moorland management and shooting can deliver great nature conservation in a way that is compatible with public access.

We remain committed to the High Peak Moors Vision. As with all our conservation aims, we review and evaluate progress periodically. When considering renewals of individual shooting leases in future we will take into careful account the extent to which our objectives have been met, in particular relating to increasing raptor populations.”

Jon Stewart, General Manager, Peak District National Trust

END

This is a ground-breaking move from the National Trust. It’s a huge decision! Basically the NT is saying that it will no longer tolerate the illegal persecution of raptors, whether suspected or actual, on land that it leases to grouse-shooting tenants. It also won’t tolerate the environmentally-devastating impacts of intensively managed driven grouse moors. Let’s hope the next tenant is someone who prefers the far less damaging ‘walked-up’ style of grouse shooting instead.

So finally, after all these years, we now have an organisation that is prepared to be bold and stand up against the previously untouchable grouse-shooting industry! And not just on this grouse moor, which, incidentally, is currently-but-not-for-much-longer managed by Mark Osborne, a name that has often cropped up on this blog and in other media (try Google if you don’t know who he is), but also on other NT-leased grouse moors. Look at that final sentence of the NT statement; if raptor populations are not allowed to recover on these driven grouse moors, tenants can expect their leases to also be pulled.

The NT deserves every plaudit coming its way for this decision and we’d encourage as many of you as possible to contact Jon Stewart and congratulate him and the NT on such a courageously pioneering move. Emails please to: Jon.Stewart@nationaltrust.org.uk 

Not everyone is happy with the NT’s decision, not least the Moorland Association (the representative body of grouse moor owners in England). The Moorland Association has issued the following statement in response to the NT’s news:

STATEMENT from Moorland Association chairman, Robert Benson:

The  Moorland Association is very sad that the National Trust has taken the decision to terminate a sporting lease early. This is the result of a breakdown in confidence in the current tenant’s commitment to the delivery of NT’s Vision and will take effect in April 2018.

We are, however, delighted that the NT has recognised the importance of grouse shooting to help deliver its High Peak Vision and is putting in place a new shooting tenant in order to deliver this.

The MA will do all it can to help this process.

END

What’s hilarious about this statement, apart from them being “very sad”, (remember their anagram? ‘A Sad Morons’ Coalition’) is the headline they’ve used on their website to announce their statement. It reads:

“National Trust supports grouse shooting on its land”.

If ever you needed a perfect example of the lengths the grouse-shooting industry will go to to spread idiotic propaganda and spin, this has to be it!

It’s also amusing to note that they’ve quoted the National Trust’s statement, but have conveniently ‘forgotten’ to include the last paragraph about how NT leases are unlikely to be renewed in future if there’s no sign of a recovery of raptor populations on those grouse moors.

Unlike the Moorland Association, we are, of course, VERY HAPPY with the NT’s news, and not least because it’s a clear demonstration of the influence public pressure can have. Without doubt, the NT’s decision has been made as a direct result of the public’s response to that video nasty filmed on NT land. Hats off to the two birdwatchers who had the wit to film what they were seeing, to the person who sent us that video and asked us to publish it, and to all of you who responded and contacted the National Trust to let them know how strongly you felt. This is a massive result and you all played a big part.

Onwards.

The e-petition to ban driven grouse shooting can be signed HERE

Media coverage

BBC news here

Mark Avery blog here