Tag: peregrine

Poisoned buzzard & ravens – appeal for info comes three months later

A news item posted today on the RSPB website reveals that a buzzard and two ravens were found dead in Monmouthshire in July. Tests reveal they had been poisoned by the banned pesticide Carbofuran. Two dead pigeons were also found which had been laced with an un-named pesticide and the news report suggests these were put out as illegal poisoned bait. Last year, two dead peregrines, poisoned with Carbofuran, were found at the same site (see here).

The article reports that Gwent Police, the Welsh Government and the RSPB are appealing for information. The RSPB is reported to be offering a £1,000 reward for information leading to a conviction.

Three months after the incident? What’s the point? Why is it that media reports about wildlife crime, and particularly illegal raptor persecution incidents, are now consistently delayed for several months? What other areas of crime are reported this way? If my house was burgled in July and I waited for three months before I reported it to the police, what do you think the chances would be of catching the burglar? About the same as catching the raptor poisoners, I reckon.

Talking of delayed reports…why is it that the 2011 SASA poisoning report, which is supposed to be updated every quarter, has not been updated since March 2011? Are we to believe that raptors are no longer systematically poisoned in Scotland because none have been handed in for analysis for the last seven months? If anyone feels like doing a Freedom of Information Request, this would seem to be a good place to start (FoI on SASA website here).

News story about the poisoned buzzard & ravens on RSPB website here

Two peregrines confirmed poisoned in Cornwall

Devon & Cornwall Police, along with the RSPB, have just announced that two peregrines that were found dead on 21 July this year had been poisoned by the banned pesticide Carbofuran. The RSPB is offering a reward of £1000 for information leading to a conviction.

The two birds, a male and female, were discovered by a member of the public, having been seen alive a few hours earlier hunting along their cliffside nest in St. Just. Cornwall Police Wildlife Crime Officer, P.C. Jack Tarr said: “That these magnificent birds should be killed in this way is truly shocking. This was a pair I’d regularly enjoyed watching hunting off the coast at St. Just and I know they were popular with many other people who walked the cliffs there. We need to find out who did this and bring them to justice“.

Full story on RSPB website here

Article on BBC News here

Article in This is Devon here

Peregrine poisoning incidents not made public until 15 months later

An article published in the Scotsman last week reports on two peregrine poisoning incidents that took place in April and May 2010, that have only just been made public.

The birds were found dead at a quarry in the West Lothian town of Kirknewton, and both had been poisoned by the banned pesticide Aldicarb. The head of one of the peregrines had been severed and removed – possibly as a trophy.

The two incidents only came to light after the publication last week of the government’s 2010 poisoning report. Lothian & Borders police have not identified any suspects. Perhaps if they’d publicised the incidents at the time they occurred they may have got some leads.

Full story in the Scotsman here

Scotland’s shame: 2010 poisoning figures published

Today the Scottish government has published its latest report on animal poisoning in Scotland. The figures relate to recorded incidents in 2010 and demonstrate a sharp rise in the number of wildlife poisonings, including the widespread illegal poisoning of raptors. The report shows that 69% of all ‘abuse’ cases involved the poisoning of birds of prey, covering a wide area including Borders, Dumfries & Galloway, Highland, Lothian, Strathclyde and Tayside. The illegal pesticide Carbofuran was detected in half of these incidents. The raptors that tested positive for poisons included 40 buzzards, 4 golden eagles, 1 sea eagle, 1 kestrel, 5 barn owls, 2 tawny owls, 2 peregrines, 21 red kites and 11 sparrowhawks.

Unsurprisingly, some are trying to play down the appalling statistics. The Scottish Land and Estates Chairman, Luke Borwick, is reported to have said that the organisation is working hard to reduce such incidents “…and there is evidence these joint efforts are beginning to pay off“. He was referring to what he called a “significant decrease” (in illegal raptor poisonings) in the first half of 2011. The Environment Minister Stewart Stevenson also made the same comment. Unfortunately, we are not able to make the assessment for ourselves because the published government figures for 2011 only cover the period January to March 2011. However, the figures for this three-month period tell a very different story to the one that Luke and Stewart are pushing: they include 3 buzzards, 1 golden eagle, 1 red kite and 2 peregrines all illegally poisoned in the first three months of 2011 (see here for earlier report). Hmmm.

There are other reactions from various bodies, including the RSPB, the Police and the Scottish Environment Minister – these can be read on the BBC website here and the Scottish government website here.

To read the depressing SASA government report with all the gory details, click here.

Welcome to the inglorious twelfth!

Today is the inglorious 12th, the start of the four-month grouse shooting season in the uplands of northern England and Scotland. Today, and for many days to come, ridiculously rich people will dress up in clownish outfits and head for the moors in the hope of shooting dead some birds. Many will pay an estimated average of £15,000 for the experience. I wonder how many of them will enjoy the sight of a hunting hen harrier or a golden eagle quartering across the moor? Very few, infact probably none of them because scientific evidence shows that hen harriers and golden eagles have been exterminated on most grouse moors in the UK, with just a few notable exceptions. Has anyone been convicted? One person was once convicted for killing a hen harrier, and that’s it. Nobody has ever been convicted for killing a golden eagle (someone was once taken to court a few years back but the case was dropped). Even though several dead eagles and the UK’s biggest stash of the poison they died from were all found on a sporting estate last year, still nobody has ever been convicted.

Four years ago today, this golden eagle (pictured) was found dead in Peebleshire. She was one half of the last breeding pair of golden eagles in the Borders. She had been poisoned by the banned pesticide Carbofuran and was found dead under her nest tree. Her death caused outrage and triggered the thematic inspection into the prevention, investigation and prosecution of wildlife crime in Scotland (read the resulting 2008 ‘Natural Justice’ report here). This report highlighted the problems that stand in the way of effective wildlife crime law enforcement in Scotland. Four years later, many of the same problems still exist. Nobody has been charged with the illegal killing of that female golden eagle in Peebleshire and according to a report by the Wildlife Incident Investigation Scheme, the case is now closed.

Since the year she was killed (2007), how many other protected raptors have suffered the same fate? The following have all been confirmed poisoned in Scotland over the last four years – the vast majority of them were found dead on grouse moors:

8 golden eagles, 3 sea eagles, 63 buzzards, 25 red kites and 8 peregrines.

These numbers do not account for birds that were trapped, shot, or had their heads smashed in with a shinty stick while their broken legs were pinned in an illegal spring trap. Nor do they account for the ‘missing’ birds – including over 2,000 hen harriers.

Today, the grouse-shooting industry will have filled the media with stories about how ‘great’ grouse moors are for conservation, how ‘great’ grouse shooting is for the economy, how ‘great’ grouse-shooting is for biodiversity. Fortunately, the general public are becoming wise to the propaganda.

Update on last week’s police raid

Further to the blog post on 19 July 2011, the name of the Highland sporting estate that was raided last week has been reported as Farr and Kyllachy Estate, near Inverness. The police raid was in connection with alleged wildlife crime incidents that include a poisoned sea eagle and a poisoned golden eagle, believed to have been discovered in June 2010, and four dead red kites.

Allegations of wildlife crime in this area date back several decades, including the previously reported discovery of poison bait, hen harrier nest destruction, poisoned eagles, poisoned red kites and attempted trapping of goshawks and peregrines. All of these allegations can be found by anybody interested in doing an internet search, although no allegation has ever been proven in the Scottish courts.

No charges have been reported in relation to last week’s police raid. On this basis, blog commentators are reminded that anyone connected with Farr and Kyllachy Estate must be presumed innocent.

According to a 2005 report in The Times, Farr Estate is expected to receive profit of up to £11 million from revenue generated by recently erected wind turbines (see here).

Last year, The Press & Journal ran an article (here) about tick management on the estate, including an interview with the Laird, Philip Mackenzie. The article claimed that tick control had led to a 20-fold increase in the number of brace shot (red grouse) in the previous six years. It also stated the Estate was expecting 2010 to produce the best grouse bags since 1938, leading to 15 days of let driven grouse shooting, at a tidy charge of £10,000 + per day.

Last year Farr Estate donated driven and walked-up grouse shooting days to the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust’s (GWCT) 2010 Grand Scottish Draw (see here).

Latest SASA figures reveal widespread poisoning incidents in early 2011

The latest figures detailing illegal animal poisoning incidents in the first quarter of 2011 have just been released by Science and Advice for Scottish Agriculture (SASA) on behalf of the Scottish Government.

The figures cover the period January to March 2011, and show that criminal raptor poisoning incidents were detected in each of the three months. They include 3 buzzards, 1 golden eagle, 1 red kite and 2 peregrines.  Poisoning incidents were widespread, taking place across Scotland, including in the Borders, Strathclyde, Tayside, Grampian and the Highlands. The illegal poisons used included Carbofuran, Chloralose and Strychnine. So much for the game-shooting industry’s self-regulation. I guess 2011 will not be the year they ‘stamp out’ illegal raptor persecution.

Not for the first time, two of the five recorded incidents were apparently unpublicised in the media: 1 x buzzard poisoned with Carbofuran in the Borders in January 2011, and 1 x red kite poisoned with Chloralose in the Highland region in February 2011.

SASA poisoning figures for period Jan – Mar 2011 available here

Peregrine falcon found with shotgun injuries in Grampian has to be destroyed

Grampian Police are appealing for information after a shot peregrine had to be destroyed. The badly injured falcon was discovered in woodlands at the Pass of Ballater in the Cairngorms National Park on 27 April by a dog walker. Tests showed the bird had been wounded by a shotgun, with the pellets causing a serious fracture to its right leg.

Force Wildlife Crime Officer Dave MacKinnon says ” I am appealing for anyone, particularly in the upper Deeside area, who may have information as to who is responsible for shooting this protected bird.  It is an absolute disgrace that anyone thinks they have justification for shooting a rare and specially protected bird.

There are a few known peregrine nest sites in the Ballater area.  These birds like to nest on cliffs hence the reason for them choosing to trying to live and breed in upper Deeside.  

This latest incident of raptor persecution in Grampian clearly indicates that some people are still prepared to break the law risking a custodial sentence, the reputation of their employers, their livelihoods and their right to possess firearms.”

This statement hints that the finger of suspicion might be pointing at someone who works in the shooting industry, perhaps on a shooting estate. The Pass of Ballatar runs through land owned by Invercauld Estate, according to a well-known geographical resource. However, this bird wasn’t neccessarily shot at the Pass of Ballater, it was just found injured there. It could have been shot somewhere else nearby – there are several other well-known shooting estates in this area close to Ballatar whose employees have also previously been convicted of wildlife crime.

Anyone with information should call Grampian Police on 0845 600 5700.

BBC news story here

More details here

West Yorkshire police warn of suspected poisoning activities near peregrine site

A police special constable and wildlife officer in Calderdale, West Yorkshire, is putting Scottish police forces to shame. Special Constable Phil Sanderson, also a retired police officer, has appealed to the public for help in what he believes is a potential poisoning threat to peregrines in his area. Compare Phil’s actions below with those of Tayside Police last week after their raid on an [un-named] Perthshire sporting estate.

A chicken carcass, believed to have been tainted with poison, was discovered in the Ryburn Valley in Calderdale, West Yorkshire, close to a peregrine nesting site. The carcass has been sent to the lab for analysis. Even though West Yorks Police are waiting for confirmation of the poisoning, they were sufficiently concerned, both for the welfare of the peregrines and for humans and domestic pets in the area, to put out a public appeal for information. They released the name of the valley where the suspect bait had been found, and they advised the public on what sort of thing to be suspicious of and what to do about it if they do see something suspicious.

Special Constable Phil Sanderson could teach Tayside Police a thing or two. Well done mate.

News story here: http://www.halifaxcourier.co.uk/news/local/find_the_poison_maniac_1_3279512

Reward offered to catch Motherwell peregrine poisoner

Two concerned members of the public have offered a £1,000 reward for information leading to a prosecution in the Motherwell peregrine poisoning incident that took place in February.

Two peregrines were killed after being poisoned with the highly toxic (and illegal) chemical strychnine, and their bodies were discovered just yards from a primary school in Motherwell. See blog post 16 March 2011 for details.

The Scottish SPCA, leading the investigation, have been unable to trace the person responsible, and it is hoped the reward will now act as an incentive for someone to come forward with new information.

SSPCA press release: http://www.scottishspca.org/news/588_reward-for-falcon-poisonings

Thanks to the contributor in France who sent us this link.