Last weekend the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) issued an appeal for information following the discovery of an injured Peregrine that had been shot and was found in a garden on Station Road, Strabane, County Tyrone on the evening of Friday 9th January 2026 (see here).
The Peregrine’s broken leg has now been pinned by a vet and the bird is being cared for by Dooletter Wildlife Rescue, who have provided the following update on social media:
The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) has launched an investigation and an appeal for information after a Peregrine was found with gunshot injuries in County Tyrone.
The Peregrine was found in a garden on Station Road, Strabane on the evening of Friday 9th January 2026. According to an article on the BBC News website, the PSNI said it was found with a leg injury and that ‘the injury was consistent with a bullet wound, which would require specialist treatment‘.
I doubt very much whether it’s a ‘bullet’ injury – it would have taken the bird’s whole leg off – much more likely to have been caused by a shotgun or an air rifle, or perhaps a catapult. Without seeing an x-ray it’s difficult to know.
According to my sources the Peregrine has a broken leg and is currently receiving expert care from an experienced wildlife rehabilitator.
18 January 2026: Update on the shot Peregrine in Strabane, Northern Ireland (here)
The illegal laundering of wild UK Peregrines for falconers in the Middle East has received wide media coverage in recent years.
A police-led multi-agency operation named Operation Tantallon, which began in 2021, resulted in two men being convicted in 2023 of laundering Scottish Peregrines (see here) and a Worcestershire man is currently facing 21 charges relating to the keeping and trading of wild Peregrines, alleged to have taken place between 2018 and 2022 (see here).
An article in The Guardian in February 2024 reported that Operation Tantallon had led to more than 3,000 active inquiries within the captive-trade of Peregrines across the UK, with 36 searches carried out. It is “the biggest UK wildlife crime police investigation to date in the UK”, said Chief Inspector Kevin Kelly, the head of the National Wildlife Crime Unit (NCWU). “When we get to the end of this year, we’ll really be able to show that this is a large-scale, national and international crime type.” The police believe this trade is worth £21m in undisclosed revenue to the UK.
Strange, then, that the UK supported a recent proposal to downlist the Peregrine from Appendix to 1 to Appendix II of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) to allow capture of wild Peregrines and international trade to meet demands for falconry. Fortunately, the proposal was defeated in December 2025 (here).
A new article in The Guardian, published on Monday 5 January 2026, has now reported that demand from falconers in the Middle East has led to ‘hundreds’ of UK Peregrine nests being raided over the last decade to supply this illegal trade.
The article says, ‘Demand for wild birds [UK Peregrines] appears to be coming from two directions, experts and police say. The first is direct from falconers in the Middle East who want wild birds for racing. The second is from some breeding facilities [in the UK] that need them as parents to feed a booming appetite for hybrid falcons and legally exportable, captive-bred birds‘.
The NWCU says there are now 160 falcon breeding facilities in the UK, up from about 27 in the 1980s. The police inspected 27 of the 160 falcon breeding facilities during 2023 and 2024, during which 15 wild Peregrines were discovered and confirmed by DNA testing.
Journalists attending a recent International Hunting and Equestrian Exhibition in Abu Dhabi, where ‘elite’ falcons were on display, were told by a number of traders of their preference for wild-caught British Peregrines, rather than captive-bred falcons, due to the ‘purity of their bloodline and their speed’.
The article includes comments from those with a vested interest in the legal trade of captive-bred falcons: a UK falcon breeder who supplies birds to royals in the UAE and Bahrain, the CEO of the International Association for Falconry, and a falcon trader in the United Arab Emirates, who all either downplay the extent of the illegal trade, or deny completely that it exists.
This will be a familiar narrative to those who follow the issue of illegal persecution of birds of prey on UK gamebird shooting estates.
Readers can make up their own minds. The article is well worth a read – here.
Further to this morning’s blog about a Peregrine being euthanised after being found with gunshot injuries in Leicestershire (see here), the Leicestershire Wildlife Hospital has released more details and has issued an appeal for information, as follows:
APPEAL FOR INFORMATION
Yesterday we admitted a peregrine falcon that was found grounded in a garden on Smeeton Road, Kibworth.
Our team collected the peregrine and her assessment found that she had been shot [suspected to have been an air rifle]. This could have happened any time between the 21st and 23rd December.
Peregrine falcons are a schedule 1 bird in the UK. It is an illegal act to intentionally harm or kill them.
This crime has been reported to the police and we are now appealing for any information you may have.
Have you seen anything suspicious?
Have you heard any gunshots?
Did you see this crime take place?
If you have ANY information, please contact the police [call 101] on with reference number 25000748549.
The peregrine sadly had to be put to sleep as she was suffering from a severe break to her right humerus – likely as a result of the fall after being shot. She was this years young, from Leicester cathedral, known as X6F (her ring number).
Please share to help find the information needed!
ENDS
A young peregrine that fledged from Leicestershire Cathedral this summer has been euthanised after being found with gunshot injuries in nearby Kibworth.
A post on social media yesterday by the Leicestershire Peregrine Project, an initiative run by the Leicestershire & Rutland Ornithological Society in collaboration with Leicester City Council and Leicester Cathedral, reads as follows:
In happier news for Peregrines in Leicestershire, Market Harborough District Council’s planning committee has recently approved the installation of a Peregrine nest platform on the council’s Grade II listed Symington Building.
Leader of the council Phil Knowles said the Peregrines “are a much-loved feature of Market Harborough”, and added: “We are delivering what we believe our community wants.”
The work will take place in time for the 2026 breeding season and is being sponsored by WW Brown & Sons, the local building contractor carrying out restoration work on the historic landmark.
More detail on the BBC News website (here).
UPDATE 16.00hrs: Appeal for information about the shot Peregrine in Leicestershire (here)
Derbyshire Police Rural Crime Team posted the following on Facebook on 3 December 2025:
WILDLIFE CRIME AWARENESS – INJURED PEREGRINE
Between 01/09/25 – 08/09/25, we received a report from the Youlgrave [Youlgreave] area that a peregrine falcon had been sadly shot.
After x-rays it showed that the incident caused the bird’s wing to shatter.
Thankfully, this story doesn’t end in tragedy — the peregrine is alive and currently undergoing rehabilitation.
This post is a reminder that peregrines are legally protected, and it is a criminal offence to intentionally injure or kill them under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981.
If you witness wildlife crime or anything suspicious:
Report via 101 or 999
Or report online https://orlo.uk/reportacrime_C7Dn3
If you have any information relating to this incident, please quote 25*580157
Together, we can protect our wildlife
ENDS
It’s not known where or when this Peregrine was shot, but given the extent of its injuries it’s unlikely to have been able to fly far from that location.
I don’t know why it’s taken Derbyshire Constabulary three months to appeal for information on a supposed priority wildlife crime.
To the relief of many raptor conservationists, a proposal to downlist the Peregrine Falcon from Appendix 1 to Appendix II of CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species), which would allow the capture and trade of wild Peregrines) has been thwarted at the 20th Conference of the Parties on CITES (CoP20), currently taking place in Uzbekistan.
Peregrines have been listed as an endangered species on CITES Appendix 1 since 1975, prohibiting international trade of this species, following the catastrophic effect of pesticides on Peregrine populations globally.
Since then, many populations have ‘recovered’ after significant conservation effort over many decades, although recent declines of ‘recovered’ populations are reported in a number of countries, and the species’ status is still poorly understood in many other countries.
Canada and the USA proposed downlisting the Peregrine from Appendix to 1 to Appendix II to allow capture of wild Peregrines and international trade to meet demands for falconry. Here’s a copy of the proposal to the CITES Conference of Parties:
However, a large number of raptor biologists and conservationists from around the world, many of them specialising in Peregrine research, opposed the proposal and warned of the high risk to some populations.
This excellent paper published recently in the scientific journal Animal Conservation explains those concerns:
A vote on the downlisting proposal took place at the CITES Conference yesterday (3 Dec 2025) and did not receive sufficient support to pass and the proposal was rejected.
Here is a note of what happened, published by the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) in its Earth Negotiations Bulletin as part of its daily CITES Conference reporting:
This is good news for Peregrines globally, but I haven’t seen, nor do I understand, the UK’s rationale for supporting the proposal. If any blog readers have information about that, it’d be interesting to read.
Even if the proposal had been agreed at an international scale, national governments would still retain responsibility for regulating ‘wild take’ in their own countries.
You may remember in March this year, Defra endorsed Natural England’s recommendations for a presumption AGAINST the issuing of licences for taking wild birds of prey for falconry (see here).
The theft of wild Peregrines in the UK for trade continues to be a problem. Recent prosecutions include the conviction of two men found guilty of laundering wild Peregrines stolen from nest sites across south Scotland (see here) and an ongoing prosecution of a man in Worcestershire accused of 21 charges relating to the possession and trade of wild Peregrines (here).
Press release from Cairngorms National Park Authority (24 November 2025)
PEREGRINE NUMBERS IN DECLINE IN CAIRNGORMS NATIONAL PARK
The last UK-wide survey of peregrines took place in 2014 and covered Scotland as a whole, showing a 9% decline in numbers across the country. The Scottish Raptor Monitoring Scheme also found some evidence of a decline from 2009-18; however, no survey was undertaken to assess peregrine populations specifically within the National Park during that time.
In 2024 the Cairngorms National Park Authority collaborated with three of the regional branches of the Scottish Raptor Study Group: Highland, North East of Scotland and Tayside and Fife, to carry out a survey to establish how many peregrine sites within the National Park were occupied and assess their breeding success.
Raptor Study Groups have records going back to the 1960s of sites where peregrines have bred within the Cairngorms National Park and these were used as the basis for the survey. The study shows that the estimated number of peregrine pairs in the breeding season within the National Park has declined by 56% since 2002, with less than half of territorial pairs successfully fledging young in 2024.
Contributing factors are likely to include upland land management practices, decreased prey availability for peregrines, wildlife crime and, more recently, outbreaks of Avian Flu.
It is a complex picture, and more research is needed to understand the key factors and gain a better understand of upland raptor population dynamics – including interspecific competition (ie competition for resources between individuals of different species) and the influence of prey availability. It will require action from the Park Authority working with a range of partners, including the Raptor Study Groups, NGOs and estates on the ground, as well as NatureScot and other public bodies, to explore what can be done to try and turn the tide for peregrine and all raptors in the National Park.
Dr Sarah Henshall, Head of Conservation at the Cairngorms National Park Authority, said: “This is the first time we have been able to get a clear view of peregrine falcon numbers in the National Park and it paints a bleak picture. We will be working closely with Raptor Study Groups, estates and other experts to explore a range of options such as the installation of nest cameras to help us understand bird behaviour, DNA work to support wildlife crime prevention initiatives and GPS tagging to get information on bird movements and survival.
“Our ongoing conservation work, from ecological restoration to increasing the sustainability of moorland management, aims to benefit habitats for peregrine and other key upland species. This survey further highlights the importance of this work and strengthens our resolve to help this iconic bird thrive.”
ENDS
The report can be read / downloaded here:
My commentary:
The continued decline of Peregrines in the Cairngorms National Park comes as no surprise whatsoever, and its link to intensively-managed driven grouse moors even less so.
The illegal persecution of Peregrines on driven grouse moors is an issue that has been documented repeatedly in scientific papers since the early 1990s, nationally (e.g. see here) and regionally (e.g. see here for research from northern England). A particularly illuminating paper published in 2015 reported specifically on the decline of breeding Peregrines on grouse moors in North-East Scotland, including those on the eastern side of the Cairngorms National Park (here).
This latest report from the Cairngorms National Park Authority, based on fieldwork undertaken by the Scottish Raptor Study Group, is a welcome addition to the literature and will help inform the new requirement (under the Wildlife Management & Muirburn Act 2024) to monitor and report every five years on the status of a number of raptor species (Peregrine, Golden Eagle, Hen Harrier & Merlin) on grouse moors in Scotland as a measure of how well / badly the legislation is working.
The report’s findings are cautious, citing a number of factors that could be potential drivers influencing the recent decline (e.g. Bird Flu, interspecific competition etc) but these cannot, and do not, account for the long-term decline of Peregrines in the uplands, either within the Cairngorms National Park or in other upland areas. I’m pleased to see the report acknowledge this.
Let’s not kid ourselves. The Cairngorms National Park Authority has known for some time that illegal raptor persecution is a huge issue within the Park boundary – check out what the CNPA was proposing in 2013 to tackle the problem (see here) – unsurprisingly, it didn’t work.
The latest report includes an analysis of the relationship between Peregrine breeding site occupancy and the intensity of grouse moor management (ranging from ‘low’ to ‘high’ management intensity and everything in between).
The results speak for themselves:
Press release from independent group, Wildlife Poisoning Research UK, 15th November 2025.
WHERE THE POISONED BODIES WERE FOUND!
Many people probably imagine that the use of poisons to kill protected wildlife is something out of the pre-Victorian era, like cock fighting and bull baiting. However, this senseless and cruel slaughter is still happening in Britain, with many mammals and birds of prey suffering horrific and agonising deaths, even though this practice has been banned since 1911.
It is a crime which not only kills wildlife, but also kills much loved family pets and can even kill people. This is a wildlife crime that frequently occurs on remote and private land where the chance of detection is very low and most victims are never found. Those cases which are reported and then investigated must be considered to be a very small tip of a very large ‘iceberg’ of sickening rural felonies.
In 2017, in an attempt to combat this wildlife crime, the UK Government initiated a project to map incidents of illegal bird poisonings. This provided information to the public and other interested parties as to where these crimes were taking place and it was intended that these maps would be updated annually to “provide an invaluable intelligence tool to help fight crimes against birds of prey” (Defra press release 2017).
It now appears that these wildlife poison crime maps have not been updated and there is very little governmental action informing the public that these crimes are still occurring and wildlife is still being deliberately poisoned.
Wildlife Poisoning Research UK (WPRUK) works to place information about the environmental impact of pesticides, biocides and other toxic chemicals into the public domain so that the general public and the media have a better understanding of this situation. Data on cases of deliberate poisoning of birds has been obtained using Freedom of Information requests. This has enabled WPRUK to produce maps showing where these poisoned birds have been found. This is information which the Government, for whatever reason, has now apparently declined to put into the public domain.
WPRUK has now released a report pinpointing where the poisoned birds have been found in Northern England. Future maps will cover other parts of the UK.
Between 2015 to 2023, the bodies of 73 legally protected birds, mostly birds of prey, were found in Northern England. These birds had been illegally and deliberately killed using poisons; 31 birds being Schedule 1 Wildlife and Countryside Act (1981) species, which have the highest level of protection. Due to the very small chance of poisoned birds being found, the real numbers of birds being killed by this criminal activity is likely to be far higher. To date, no one has been convicted for killing any of these 73 birds.
There were two areas in Northern England where particularly high numbers of poisoned birds were found. These were Nidderdale in North Yorkshire and the Glapwell area in Derbyshire.
Releasing the report, Dr Ed Blane from WPRUK said: “The fact that 114 years after this sickening practice was banned, individuals are still poisoning our wildlife is deeply disturbing. People visit the countryside to enjoy nature and they will be truly alarmed to learn that poison is still being used to kill wildlife.”
If this continues it might severely impact on plans to re-introduce white tailed eagles to Northern England. In the Southern England eagle project, at least 2 birds have been killed by poison.
A comment from Steve Downing Chairman Northern England Raptor Forum:
“We proudly, and rightly, identify ourselves as a nation of nature lovers. Every year tens of thousands of tourists, both domestic and foreign, visit the historic and beautiful countryside throughout the North of England to enjoy the scenery and stunning birds of prey that it supports. Collectively they spend £millions supporting our rural communities. What the visitors don’t see is the underbelly of criminality in the countryside where the barbaric practice of deliberately poisoning raptors persists today, as highlighted by the bodies found in Nidderdale, North Yorkshire and around Glapwell in Derbyshire. Thanks to Ed, a spotlight is being shone on this shocking pernicious activity raising public awareness of the danger presented by these lethal poisons, both to themselves and local birds of prey.”
Bob Elliot CEO of Wild Justice said:
“Illegal wildlife poisoning hasn’t faded into history; it’s still being carried out in the shadows with very little oversight. These findings show that wildlife species are still being killed with impunity, and the public is being kept in the dark about the scale of it. Without transparency, enforcement and the political will to confront those responsible, this criminal abuse of our countryside will continue unchecked.”
ENDS
The report can be read / downloaded here:
A 57-year old man appeared at Worcester Magistrates’ Court on 11 November 2025 accused of 21 offences relating to the keeping and trading of wild Peregrines, alleged to have taken place between 2018 and 2022.
Ross Loader, of California Lane, Welland, Malvern is accused of 11 counts of having in his possession or control live wild birds (Peregrines) and eight charges of keeping / possessing / controlling unregistered Schedule 4 birds (Peregrines) contrary to the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981.
It is further alleged that Loader sold a Peregrine and also knowingly or recklessly made a false declaration, namely claiming the Peregrines were captive bred birds, in order to obtain a certificate.
Loader has not entered a plea to any of the 21 charges. He is expected to do so at the next court appearance on 9 December 2025.
Court details from Worcester News.
NB: Comments are turned off as criminal proceedings are live.
Raptor Persecution UK 