How cool is this? To find out the story behind it, check out this blog by a remarkable young man.
Tag: hen harrier
Four easy ways to help hen harriers
Hen harriers are in trouble, and have been for some time (to read all our earlier blog posts about them, click here).
They’re not just in a bit of trouble; they are in seriously dire straits, and most of it has been caused by them being illegally killed (shot, trapped, poisoned, stamped on) whenever they venture on to a moorland that is being managed for driven grouse shooting.
A lot of people we talk to about raptor persecution in general all say the same thing – they feel frustrated and let down by the inability of the ‘authorities’ (e.g. government, police, judicial process) to put a stop to it.
Well things are changing. Recently, there has been a groundswell of imaginative initiatives that are designed to allow ordinary people like us to have our say and get our voices heard. Individually, we may not have much impact, but collectively, we can be very powerful.
Here are four things we, as individuals, can all do very easily, to help hen harriers. Some of them you can do right now without even having to leave your chair!
1. Participate in Hen Harrier Day on August 10th 2014.
There will be a number of peaceful protest demonstrations across the north of England (an area where driven grouse shooting is a dominant ‘sport’) taking place on Sunday 10th August 2014. The idea is to congregate with like-minded people to celebrate the hen harrier and to get some much-needed national and international media attention at a time when most media outlets will be focusing on the opening of the grouse-shooting season (12th August).
One of these protests will be held in the Derbyshire Peak District, with Chris Packham in attendance (see details about this event on Mark Avery’s blog here).
Other protests are planned for Yorkshire, Cumbria, Northumberland and Lancashire although we are still awaiitng full details – to be announced soon on the Birders Against Wildlife Crime (BAWC) website here.
If you can’t make it in person to one of these events, BAWC will be providing information about how you can join in ‘remotely’ by posting pictures on-line.
2. Vote for the RSPB’s SKYDANCER Project in the National Lottery Awards.
The Skydancer Project is a four-year educational initiative aimed at raising awareness and promoting the conservation of hen harriers in the north of England. They have been doing some fantastic work, delivering talks, hosting workshops, running fieldtrips etc. They have recently been nominated for a National Lottery Award (one of seven projects in the running for Best Education Project, selected from over 750 applicants). Winning will mean national media attention on prime time tv. It takes a couple of seconds to vote for them on-line – deadline 23rd July. Click here to vote.
3. Sign the e-petition to ban driven grouse shooting in England.
Mark Avery launched this e-petition almost one month ago (and here is his summary of why it is necessary). Already it has attracted 5,789 votes. Driven grouse-shooting is the number one reason why hen harriers are being killed. It really is a no brainer – please sign here!
4. Support the Ethical Consumer’s ‘Turn Your Back on Grouse’ campaign.
The Ethical Consumer has recently published a well-researched report about the damaging consequences of intensively driven grouse shooting (see here). They have started a campaign calling for a boycott on all businesses connected to the grouse-shooting industry. It’s called ‘Turn Your Back on Grouse’. You can find more info here.
We’re particularly interested in this campaign. We touched on it, briefly, last year when we blogged about Marks & Spencer selling grouse that had originated from Yorkshire and the Scottish Borders – when we asked M&S to name the estates of origin, they were surprisingly coy – see here, here, here and here.
We called in Trading Standards to investigate whether M&S’s claims that “we are working with only the most sustainable and well-managed estates, and do not work with any suppliers that interfere with hen harriers” was actually true, but we haven’t heard anything further. Unfortunately our time is limited and we haven’t pursued it, so it’s very welcome news to see the Ethical Consumer pick up on this issue.
It’s particularly timely, as the Countryside Alliance put out the following statement in April this year:
“Following a meeting with Marks and Spencer and Yorkshire Game, discussions are to take place between the Game to Eat team and the M&S PR Department to devise a suitable media plan to promote grouse in August 2014. The Game-to-Eat campaign sent out over 80,000 game recipe leaflets over the course of the season. The team is now working with development Chef Lee Maycock to create and photograph new recipes for 2014. Lee Maycock has continued to deliver game preparation courses at catering colleges around the country and has had an excellent reception from catering lecturers keen to increase game’s profile. The team attended an end-of-season game dinner at Notting Hill’s The Shed restaurant in early February. The team hosted Shooting Times, Country Life, Sporting Shooter, Fieldsports and Shooting Gazette journalists at this event. Game-to-Eat and the Countryside Alliance Awards are working together to promote the work of butchers selling game”.
Hopefully many of you will get involved with supporting the ‘Turn Your Back on Grouse’ campaign and help give this issue further media and political attention.
Hen harrier photo by Gordon Langsbury.
Wheelhouse responds to latest raptor killings….by doing nothing
Earlier today we blogged about the latest poisoning victim to have been uncovered in Scotland….a dead buzzard that was found in Fife in April (see here).
This evening, Environment Minister Paul Wheelhouse has issued the following statement:
“I have been hugely angered to learn about another case of a poisoned buzzard following on from a separate incident involving the illegal death of a hen harrier in Ayrshire. I have made it very clear that I will not tolerate these criminal and selfish acts and this form of criminality has also been roundly condemned by parliament in a recent debate.
These crimes are not the actions of people who value Scotland’s wildlife and natural environment and I encourage anyone with any information on these despicable crimes to contact Police Scotland on 101.
My officials are working on a pesticide disposal scheme to rid illegal substances from our countryside and I hope to see this up and running very soon while the implementation of changes to the General Licences is in the process of implementation.
Our ongoing review of wildlife crime penalties is due by December and these latest incidents only add to the evidence supporting a toughening of sanctions and penalties on perpetrators.”
We don’t doubt that he’s “hugely angered” – we all are – but we most certainly do question his commitment to taking meaningful action against the raptor killers.
A year ago, give or take a few days, the Minister introduced a series of what he described as ‘further measures’ to combat raptor persecution (see here). Since then, not one of these measures has yet been fully implemented. Also since then, we’ve seen examples, over and over again, of how these crimes are still taking place right across Scotland. Here are some of them:
June 2013: Shot buzzard in the Borders (see here), later revealed to also have been poisoned (see here)
July 2013: Buzzard shot in the throat in North Ayrshire (see here)
August 2013: Red kite found shot at Leadhills (see here)
September 2013: Poisoned buzzard found in Stirlingshire (see here)
October 2013: Langholm hen harrier ‘Blue’ disappears (see here)
October 2013: Half-made raptor trap discovered in Angus (see here)
December 2013: Buzzard died of ‘unnatural causes’ near Tomatin (see here) [we now know it had been shot]
December 2013: Golden eagle ‘Fearnan’ found poisoned on Angus grouse moor (see here)
January 2014: Man reported for hen harrier death in Aberdeenshire (see here)
January 2014: Dead bird (species unknown) & suspected poisoned bait found in South Lanarkshire (see here)
February 2014: Poisoned peregrine found near Leadhills (see here)
March 2014: 22 poisoned raptors (16 red kites + 6 buzzards) found in Ross-shire (see here)
April 2014: Man arrested for alleged attempted raptor trapping in Aberdeenshire (see here)
April 2014: ‘Illegally-killed’ peregrine found near Stirling (see here) [we now know it had been shot]
April 2014: East Scotland sea eagle chick ‘disappears’ on Aberdeenshire grouse moor (see here)
April 2014: Gamekeeper charged for allegedly shooting, bludgeoning & stamping on buzzard in Dumfries (see here)
April 2014: Poisoned buzzard found in Fife (see here)
June 2014: Allegations emerge of ‘coordinated hunt & shooting’ of a hen harrier in Aberdeenshire last year (see here)
June 2014: Hen harrier died “as result of criminal act” near Muirkirk (see here)
These are just the ones that have been made public – we expect there to be a number of others that have not yet been revealed to the public.
Each time, we’ve asked Wheelhouse to act. Each time, he’s told us we need to ‘wait’ for the new measures to take effect but he has adamantly refused to give a time-frame of how long that wait should be. It’s crystal clear, even to a child, that The Untouchables are out of control and waiting for them to stop of their own accord is ridiculous.
The Minister’s response this evening is simply not good enough. A ‘poisoning amnesty’? It sounds good, but the truth is it’s been done before and with no effect. Carbofuran has been banned since 2001 – that’s 13 years ago! Does he really think that these disgusting poisoners are going to hand over their private stashes of poison when they know full well they can continue to use them without fear of consequence? The whole industry denies that poisoning is even happening!
We think the amnesty is being implemented so the Government can be seen to be doing ‘something’ but actually it’s just a bit of cynical window dressing in an attempt to delay taking the proper action that is needed. It’s just another excuse to do nothing.
And actually, this amnesty hasn’t been announced as a reaction to the recently-reported killing of the buzzard and the hen harrier. He announced his intention to launch an amnesty in his speech at the Police Wildlife Crime Conference several months ago. So what has he actually announced in response to the poisoned buzzard and the illegally-killed (probably shot) hen harrier? Absolutely nothing.
The Minister says he “won’t tolerate these criminal and selfish acts“. Sorry, Minister, but that is exactly what you’re doing.
If you feel strongly about this and agree that this government is still failing to address the widespread persecution of protected raptor species, we’d encourage you to email Mr Wheelhouse, cite the list of crimes (above) and demand he takes meaningful action or resign his position as Environment Minister. Email: ministerforenvironment@scotland.gsi.gov.uk
The Untouchables strike again: yet another illegally-killed hen harrier
Here we go again….a female hen harrier has been found dead on moorland near Muirkirk in south west Scotland.
The body was found on Tuesday evening close to a nest containing two live chicks. The cause of death? Police Scotland aren’t saying, surprise surprise.
Det Inspector Graham Duncan of Kilmarnock CID said: “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“.
For god’s sake, why can’t they say how it was killed? It was probably shot – what’s the point of hiding it, other than to appease an influential landowner? They’ll probably tell us it’s for ‘tactical’ purposes, but they know fine well, as we all do, that the chance of anyone being brought to justice for this crime is zero.
It’s just another example of what appears to be one massive cover-up job.
And what’s that about needing to establish why it’s happened? Is he for real? Perhaps he’d like to read the following article, published in the Herald in 2008(!!) about the illegal killing of hen harriers in the Muirkirk area:
Saturday 22 November 2008
‘Pathetic’ response to disappearing hen harriers: Government failing to stop landowners’ illegal killings.
By Rob Edwards, Environment Editor, Herald Scotland
One of Scotland’s premier birds of prey is facing almost terminal decline because government measures meant to protect it from persecution are failing.
The hen harrier, which used to be a familiar feature of the moorlands, is disappearing so fast that experts fear for its future, and have castigated the government’s wildlife agency, Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH), for its “pathetic” response.
Scottish environment minister Michael Russell has said he is “horrified” by the decline. SNH has defended itself by promising renewed action to crack down on wildlife crime and encourage better behaviour by landowners.
The plight of the hen harrier is nowhere better illustrated than across a vast swathe of southwest Scotland between Kilmarnock, New Cumnock and the M74. The area, known as Muirkirk and North Lowther Uplands, was declared a Special Protection Area in 2003 because of the richness of its hen harrier population.
In the 1990s the area supported 29 breeding females as part of one of the largest populations in Britain. By 2004, however, the number of breeding pairs had dropped to 21. The latest counts have found no more than 14 pairs.
Worse are the statistics for the number of young that the birds have successfully managed to fledge. The figure has plummeted from 44 in 2004 to just five in 2008.
Across Scotland, the number of home ranges occupied by hen harriers has fallen from 417 in 2004 to 264 in 2007, and the number of successfully fledged young from 630 to 383.
The figures were provided to the Sunday Herald by Scottish Raptor Study Groups, a network of dedicated experts who regularly monitors birds of prey across the country. They have few doubts over who is to blame.
Kenneth Sludden, secretary of the South Strathclyde Raptor Study Group, ascribes the “alarming” and “almost terminal” decline in Muirkirk and North Lowther mainly to “a concerted cull of raptors by gamekeepers, condoned by factors and landowners”.
He pointed out that SNH had a statutory duty to protect the birds in the area, and accused it of abjectly failing to do so. “The response from SNH management is cosmetic, condescending and pathetically inadequate,” he said.
According to Sludden, landowners were paid £100,000 or more of taxpayers’ money to help conserve hen harrier habitat. But he said the payments were having little effect, and that the monitoring of the work they were meant to fund was “haphazard, and at worse non-existent”.
Meetings with landowners had “descended into farce” after one apologised for arriving late because he had been “shooting a couple of hen harriers”, Sludden said. A gamekeeper also allegedly expressed hatred for the birds, describing them as “rats with wings”.
SNH’s local area manager, Ross Johnston, said he shared Sludden’s concern about the drop in the number of hen harriers. He promised to work with all those involved to develop a “local action plan” for Muirkirk and North Lowther.
“This will focus on raising awareness of the issues, funding positive action to help the hen harriers, carrying out surveillance, and conducting crime-analysis work and enforcement,” he said.
Environment minister Michael Russell said: “I was horrified to hear about the apparent decline in hen harrier numbers at Muirkirk and would be interested to hear more details about potential reasons as to why this has happened.”
The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) pointed out that across Scotland the hen harrier population was significantly lower than habitat and food supply suggested it ought be. “Human interference, especially illegal killing, is known to be the main factor causing this,” said RSPB Scotland’s Duncan Orr-Ewing.
“The Scottish government, SNH, the police and other agencies must redouble their efforts to identify and prosecute the culprits – while encouraging good land management practice.”
So there we have it. Six years on, it’s the same old story, in the same old area, and absolutely NOTHING has changed. The current Environment Minister, Paul Wheelhouse, is just as appalled as Mike Russell was, and yet…..and yet…and yet…it’s the same old platitudes, same old promises, and the killing goes on and The Untouchables are still evading justice.
Great, isn’t it?
Article about the latest killing can be read on the BBC here.
If you want to make a stand against the illegal killing of hen harriers, please consider signing this e-petition to get driven grouse shooting banned (sign here) and make plans to attend one of the public protests against hen harrier persecution taking place on 10th August (see here).
Photo of the hen harrier by Laurie Campbell.
Alleged ‘coordinated hunt & shooting’ of a hen harrier on a Scottish grouse moor
News has emerged today of an incident that allegedly took place on a grouse moor in the Cairngorms National Park, Aberdeenshire, over a year ago.
According to an RSPB press release, on May 30th 2013, two witnesses contacted Police Scotland about what they described as a “coordinated hunt” of a male hen harrier, which ended with the bird allegedly being shot.
‘They explained watching for almost three hours as two individuals, armed with shotguns, criss-crossed the moor, with at least one other individual directing them by radio from his vehicle to the location of where the bird was seen perched’.
Police Scotland launched an ‘investigation’ but apparently insufficient evidence meant that nobody has been charged.
Read the RSPB press release here.
Article about this incident in The Herald here.
It’s all so depressingly familiar.
The ‘investigation’ probably went something like this:
Police Officer: “Have you been shooting at hen harriers?”
Gamekeeper: “No comment”.
Police Officer: “Ok thanks, sorry to have troubled you”.
The Scottish Gamekeepers’ Association has issued a statement about this alleged incident – it’s exactly what you would expect from them – read it here. Apparently the alleged incident never happened and it’s unfair for the RSPB to blame gamekeepers for killing raptors blah blah blah.
Meanwhile, we’re still waiting to hear whether another gamekeeper, who allegedly killed a hen harrier in Aberdeenshire a year ago, will face prosecution. We blogged about his case being reported to the Crown in January this year (see here). It seems the Crown is taking its time to decide whether to proceed, which is quite surprising when you consider that hen harrier persecution is supposedly a wildlife crime priority. Seven months from the time of the alleged incident to report it to the Fiscal? Another five months (& counting) for the Fiscal to decide whether to proceed with a prosecution? Yep, it’s a real priority, isn’t it? Time is running out though – the Fiscal has until mid-July to decide what to do…
If, like us, you’re sick of all the denials, and all the failed ‘investigations’, and all the incidents that The Untouchables keep getting away with, you can sign this petition to ban driven grouse shooting (background info here, sign it here) and you can make plans to take part in one of several peaceful protests against hen harrier persecution – see here for info.
UPDATE 17 August 2016: Coordinated hunt & shooting of a hen harrier in 2013 – location revealed (here)
Crikey! England has three active hen harrier nests!
Here’s some good news for a change – England has three active hen harrier nests this year!
Yes, it’s frankly absurd that a miserly three active nests can cause such celebration, especially when you put it in to context (it’s still less than 1% of the potential English population estimate of 330 pairs) but what the hell, three is three and it’s one more than last year, and we all need something to celebrate.
Two of the nests are reported to be on the United Utilities Estate in Bowland, Lancashire, following a two-year absence. The location of the third nest has not been revealed, probably for obvious security reasons.
The success of these nests is still a long way from certain – one is at the egg stage, one has young chicks and the status of the third has not yet been reported, but it looks like everything possible is being done to promote success with 24/7 nest watches, remote cameras and even a spot of diversionary feeding, all in partnership with the RSPB, local landowner, local council and Natural England.
IF any chicks manage to fledge, and that is a capitalised IF, there will be further concerns for the fate of those dispersing youngsters, especially if they decide to fly towards the grouse moors of Yorkshire where many that have gone before them have un-mysteriously ‘disappeared’….but for now, let’s just enjoy the palpable excitement of Blanaid Denman, the RSPB’s Skydancer Project Officer, as she explains the discovery of this year’s nests – read her excellent blog here.
And a big well done to Blanaid and her team, who have had to put up with so much undeserved criticism over the last few years, notably from one particular organisation that should know better.
If you’re new to this blog and you’re wondering why there are only three active hen harrier nests in England when there is the potential for over 300, click here to read some previous blog entries that explain why.
If you want to know what people are doing about this obscene situation (and more to the point, what YOU can do about it), we suggest you read this (and consider signing the petition) and this (and consider turning out to support these protests). Thanks!
Hen harrier photo by Gordon Langsbury.
Want to see what an intensively driven grouse moor looks like?
Then look no further than Chris Townsend’s latest blog about the Eastern Highlands, complete with photographs, here.
As Chris says, “A savaged, stripped, blasted land“.
Meanwhile, the Scottish Moorland Group (part of Scottish Land & Estates and chaired by Mr Leadhills himself, Andrew Hopetoun), has submitted a briefing note in preparation for a forthcoming meeting of the Scottish Parliament’s Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee. This meeting will take place on Wednesday 4th June and will be discussing the newly-published report from the Land Reform Review Group (we blogged about it here), which places some focus on the future of Scotland’s massive sporting estates.
According to the Scottish Moorland Group’s briefing note, Scottish grouse moors provide the following:
- Land-based businesses working with nature to contribute more to Scotland’s prosperity; and
- Responsible stewardship of Scotland’s natural resources delivering more benefits to Scotland’s people.
Yes, that’s really what it says. In fact there are seven whole pages of this guff. You can read it for yourself (pages 23-30): RACCE_Meeting_Papers_04_06_2014
Funnily enough, there’s no mention of the rampant and illegal killing of raptors that has been taking place for decades on these moors, so much so that it is having a population-level impact on several species, especially the golden eagle and the hen harrier. You don’t get population-level effects from a few one-off poisoning incidents – it has to be killing on an industrial scale to have this sort of effect….
New e-petition: ban driven grouse shooting in England
It’s been coming for some time, and now all patience has finally evaporated.
Mark Avery has launched a new e-petition today, calling for a complete ban on driven grouse shooting in England after it has led to the near-extinction of the Hen Harrier as a breeding species in the English uplands.
We are 100% in support of this e-petition, especially as some of ‘our’ Hen Harriers are known to travel across the political boundary down into England, and vice-versa. It doesn’t matter where you live, be it Scotland, England, Wales, Northern Ireland or the Irish Republic, this issue affects all of our Hen Harriers.
The petition is cleverly timed, too, with the petition’s closing date designed to coincide with the election of the next national government. That’s smart.
Here are Mark’s thoughts on why this e-petition has been created:
“Dear friends
I have just launched an e-petition on the No 10 website calling for a ban on driven grouse shooting in England. At the moment it only has me signed up to it so it needs a bit of support. I’m not really very keen on banning things so it has taken a lot of thought to launch this petition. However, after 60 years of complete legal protection, the Hen Harrier is rarer than it was (in England at least) when it got that protection! And after at least a couple of decades of talking about solutions with the moorland community, in which I played a part for a while, the Hen Harrier is almost extinct in England. There are times when one can reach an understanding with ‘the other side’ but this doesn’t appear to be one of them. The systematic, illegal, wholesale removal of a protected bird from our countryside is a disgrace.
Of course, I would be rather surprised if this e-petition led to the banning of driven grouse shooting but I hope it will highlight the issues around this land use (which are far wider than a protected bird of prey) and make it easier for some sort of sensible solution to emerge. But if grouse shooting were banned, we really wouldn’t miss it at all. You are the first to hear of this e-petition – I will be giving it plenty of publicity over the next 12 months. Please don’t sign the e-petition if you don’t have some sympathy with it – that would be wrong. And I’m not going to know, whether any of you have signed it or not – unless, of course, the number of signatures remains at just the one.
If I can add another 9,999 signatures in the next 365 days then the government, perhaps a different government, will have to respond. If I can add 99,999 signatures, then the issue may be debated in parliament (it would be interesting to hear what Nigel Farage would say!).
Dr Mark Avery”
To sign this e-petition, please click HERE
Well done and thank you, Mark, for taking the initiative.
Photo of the nesting Hen Harrier by Mark Hamblin.
Hen Harrier Day: 10th August 2014
The concept of Hen Harrier Day was inspired last year by Alan Tilmouth (you can read about it on his blog, here). And it was an inspired move – basically for conservationists to take back the so-called ‘Glorious 12th’ (the opening of the grouse- shooting season) and celebrate this beautiful bird that has virtually been ‘cleansed’ from the grouse moors of northern England (and most grouse moors in Scotland, too).
Last year, Hen Harrier Day was celebrated by hundreds of people using the #HenHarrier hash tag on Twitter and other social media. This year, the campaign is going to be even more visible with a series of planned public protests in the northern uplands.
The newly-formed campaign group Birders Against Wildlife Crime (BAWC – of whom Alan Tilmouth is a founding member) has joined forces with Mark Avery to organise four legal, peaceful and media-friendly public protests in four counties where grouse-shooting is a dominant force: Derbyshire, Yorkshire, Cumbria and Northumberland.
The date for the protests has been set as Sunday 10th August 2014. This date was chosen in preference to the inglorious 12th (which falls on a Tues this year) to enable more people to attend.
According to Mark Avery, so far over 200 people have emailed to say they’d like to be involved. This is a fantastic opportunity to make a lot of noise about a subject that has received relatively little media attention in relation to the severity of the situation. The Hen Harrier has virtually been wiped out as a breeding species from England, and is in serious decline in large areas of Scotland (predominantly those areas used for driven grouse shooting).
Enough is enough and it’s time to fight back.
For further information, check out the Hen Harrier Day campaign on the BAWC website here and read today’s BAWC blog with some background info about the campaign here
To express an interest in taking part and to receive updates about the protests, please email Mark Avery: mark@markavery.info
Ross-shire Massacre: local farmers ‘have nothing to hide’
A farmer whose properties have been raided by police as part of the investigation into the Ross-shire Massacre has given an exclusive interview to the BBC (see here).
Ewan Macdonald, on whose land several of the poisoned birds were found, is claiming that he and the local farming community have nothing to hide. The report states that the police have not found anything to link Mr Macdonald to the crimes.
Mr Macdonald runs his farms in partnership with his brother, Shaun. In 2007, Shaun Macdonald was runner-up in the NFU Scotland Farming & Conservation Award, for ‘superb conservation efforts’, sponsored by the RSPB (see here).
Mr Macdonald is calling for an action group comprising landowners, police and RSPB, ‘to investigate the killings’. He suggests that there could be an innocent explanation for the deaths, such as a virus, or somebody feeding meat to the birds of prey which they do not realise has been contaminated.
Hmm. Interestingly, a number of prominent people from within the game-shooting industry have been making almost identical claims on social media in recent days.
Although the police have not yet publicly named the poison involved, it’s not that difficult to make an educated guess as to its identity, given the speed with which these birds died. An article in the Guardian last week (here) reported that a combination of poisons had been used, and also referred to “baits”. That pretty much rules out a ‘virus’ and unintentional feeding of accidentally contaminated meat then, eh?
Meanwhile, in another region of La-La Land, there are more denials about the extent of raptor persecution in Scotland. A row has broken out following Duncan Orr-Ewing’s (RSPB Scotland) comments in Holyrood magazine about persecution levels being comparable to those of the Victorian era (see earlier blog on this here).
In a BBC News article (here), Doug McAdam, CEO of the landowners’ organisation Scottish Land & Estates seems to have taken on the role of the headmaster: “For Mr Orr Ewing to suggest that wildlife crime is returning to Victorian levels is both irresponsible and untrue. He ought to know better“.
Then in a quite astonishing piece of spin, he goes on to say: “Official statistics in recent years have seen, overall, a downward trend in raptor persecution – even at some points demonstrating record low levels of poisoning incidents“.
Conveniently, by using the words ‘official statistics’ and ‘overall’, he has neatly side-stepped the fact that poisoning incidents doubled in 2013, and had the ‘official statistics’ included the discovery of poisoned baits, then the 36 pre-prepared Carbofuran baits found hidden on Leadhills Estate last year would have pushed the ‘official’ figure somewhat higher.
There’s also some waffle from Adam Smith of the GWCT (Scotland), who claims that “for a variety of reasons hen harriers may not be distributed right across the habitats which are suitable for them [i.e. grouse moors], but their national recovery is clear“.
What Mr Smith conveniently ‘forgot’ to mention was that the government’s own commissioned report on hen harrier conservation (published in 2011) demonstrated unequivocally that illegal persecution was the main reason this species isn’t present on large swathes of suitable habitat (i.e. grouse moors), and oh, the results from the latest national survey (conducted in 2010) show a 20% population decline (in Scotland) from the previous survey in 2004 (see here).
And finally, there’s a quote from Des Thompson of SNH. Surely as a member of the Scottish Government’s statutory conservation agency he’d be wanting to make sure that everyone knows that the damning, copious evidence was indisputable, right? Ah…..(we can’t be bothered to type it out – read the BBC article if you’re interested in his opinion).
For any of you who’ve had a gut-full of the on-going persecution of our raptors, the game-shooting industry’s on-going denial of any involvement, and the authorities’ on-going and almost complete failure to address the situation, you might be interested in this post on Mark Avery’s blog. Hope to see many of you on or around 12th August 2014.
Raptor Persecution UK 