Last June we blogged about the death of an adult female hen harrier near Muirkirk, south west Scotland. Her corpse had been found in May 2014 on moorland close to a nest containing two young hen harrier chicks (see here). At the time, Police Scotland refused to reveal the cause of death. A statement from Detective Inspector Graham Duncan of Kilmarnock CID went as follows:
“Whilst at this time we cannot divulge how the bird was killed, we do believe it was the result of a criminal act and we need to establish why this has happened“.
Quite an astonishing statement if you’re aware of the 30+ years of hen harrier persecution in this supposed Hen Harrier Special Protection Area (e.g. see here).
We didn’t hear anything else from Police Scotland about this ‘investigation’.
Eight months later in February 2015 we blogged about this case again (see here) when SASA published a report on persecution cases in 2014. Here’s what the report said about this particular crime:
“Cause of death withheld due to specialist knowledge“.
Now 11 months after the bird was killed, we finally find out the cause of death. She’d been shot. We only know this because the information was released as part of the Government’s raptor persecution crime maps, published 10 days ago (see here).
Wonder if/when SNH is going to place a General Licence restriction order on this moorland? Although SNH’s track record for implementing restrictions hasn’t been very impressive to date (e.g. see here).
