Tag: peregrine

Man fails to attend court to face charges of alleged peregrine egg theft in Derbyshire

Christopher Wheeldon, 34, of Lime Grove, Darley Dale, Matlock was due in court in Chesterfield today to face charges charges relating to the alleged theft of peregrine eggs and disturbance of a peregrine nest site in Bolsover in April 2023 (see here).

Peregrine photo by Ben Hall, RSPB Images

Wheeldon failed to attend court and a warrant is out for his arrest.

PLEASE NOTE: As this is a live court case comments won’t be accepted until criminal proceedings have concluded. Thanks for your understanding.

UPDATE 22nd November 2023: Case adjourned for Christopher Wheeldon accused of alleged peregrine egg theft in Derbyshire (here)

Police in Derbyshire charge man for alleged disturbance of Peregrine nest & theft of eggs

Derbyshire Constabulary posted the following statement on social media yesterday:

“A suspect from Matlock has been charged with taking eggs of a Schedule 1 wild bird and disturbing the nesting site of a Schedule 1 wild bird following an incident at a Peregrine falcon nesting site at Bolsover, Derbyshire in April 2023. The suspect will appear at North East Derbyshire and Dales Magistrates Court in October“.

Peregrine falcon. Photo: Ben Hall, RSPB Images

There is further commentary on Derbyshire Constabulary social media where the individual is named as Christopher Wheeldon of Lime Grove, Darley Dale, Matlock. The 34-year-old has apparently been released on bail and is due to appear at Chesterfield Justice Centre on 16th October 2023.

PLEASE NOTE: As this is a live court case comments won’t be accepted until criminal proceedings have concluded. Thanks for your understanding.

UPDATE 16th October 2023: Man fails to attend court to face charges of alleged peregrine egg theft in Derbyshire (here)

UPDATE 22nd November 2023: Case adjourned for Christopher Wheeldon accused of alleged peregrine egg theft in Derbyshire (here)

UPDATE 16 January 2024: Derbyshire ‘drug addict’ jailed for stealing peregrine eggs (here)

Stolen peregrine rehabbed and released back to the wild in Suffolk

Press release from Suffolk Constabulary (13th December 2022):

Helping peregrine back into the wild

A peregrine falcon that had been unlawfully taken from a nest and located by Suffolk Police has now been released back in the wild.

The protected bird of prey was looked after by wildlife expert Peter Merchant, who was contacted by officers of the Force’s Rural & Wildlife Team after it was found during a search of an address in Lowestoft in June this year.

Peter looked after the bird with minimal human contact and trained it to hunt, ensuring it was suitable for release. This has now been done in a secret location in the county.

Sgt Brian Calver, who leads the Rural & Wildlife Team, said: “It is illegal to take a bird from the wild. We suspect the birds from this nest were taken for financial gain and it is down to the vigilance of the public and by reporting this to us that this bird has been fortunate enough to be returned to the wild, where he should be. We would like to thank Peter for his help. His knowledge and experience were instrumental in ensuring the safe release of this wonderful bird.

“We would encourage the public to notify us of any suspected criminal activity regarding wildlife. Nature cannot speak up for itself and needs us to be their eyes and ears.”

Peter Merchant has four decades of experience of recovering and rehabilitating birds of prey under licence. Thanks to his skill and vigilance 25 peregrine falcons have been released back into the wild.

Peter said: “This latest situation came about because a person without licence retained a schedule 1 protected bird of prey. The early fledged youngster would, under normal circumstances, have been returned to its parental group but the period of delay before the bird was recovered meant this was not possible. This was why a considerable period of rehabilitation was needed.

“The bird was isolated from human contact in an exercise pen and fed on a controlled diet with prey items which closely simulate the ground-feeding birds it will eventually encounter. In early November it was transferred to a purpose-built release pen and I want to thank the local landowner and his wildlife associates for their care and dedication. We all then had the satisfaction of seeing the bird released into the wild.”

ENDS

Presumably this is the same peregrine that featured on this blog in June 2022 (here).

Great work by everyone involved in this rescue, recovery and release!

Raptor persecution crime fighters win national awards

I attended the UK Wildlife Crime Conference over the weekend, where law enforcers, statutory agencies and NGOs gather to hear the latest views, approaches, successes and challenges of combating wildlife crime in the UK. 

A feature of this annual event is the WWF-sponsored awards given to those whose work deserves national recognition.

This year, I was delighted to see two of those awards being won by teams whose work has focused on tackling the illegal persecution of birds of prey.

First up was Dr Eimear Rooney and Dr Marc Ruddock from the Northern Ireland Raptor Study Group, who won WWF Wildlife Crime Partner of the Year 2022:

To say their award was richly deserved is a massive understatement. I’ve watched them pour their hearts and souls into raptor conservation in Northern Ireland for many, many years and I can’t think of more deserving recipients.

Without their efforts, providing help, advice and training to an army of raptor monitoring volunteers, as well as doing their own fieldwork, as well as writing grant applications, as well as writing reports, as well as producing educational material, as well as fundraising, as well as hosting conferences, as well as political engagement, as well as engaging in multi-partner initiatives to tackle raptor persecution, often at the expense of spending time with their young families, and still managing to be the most upbeat and fun-loving people to be around, then raptors in Northern Ireland would be in a far more perilous state than they are currently.

I’m thrilled to see their efforts recognised at long last; well done Eimear & Marc!

The second team to win an award for its work tackling raptor persecution was a multi-agency team working on ‘Operation Tantallon’, which is a huge, ongoing investigation into the alleged theft and laundering of wild peregrines in Scotland and northern England.

This investigation team includes Police Scotland, Scottish SPCA, NWCU and SASA, with additional support from members of the Scottish Raptor Study Group. So far three people have been charged with offences, including a serving police officer (see here) and a part-time gamekeeper (here).

Members of Operation Tantallon received the Wildlife Crime Operation of the Year Award 2022 from Megan McCubbin (photo by Guy Shorrock):

The case is ongoing, the defendants are reportedly facing over 100 charges, and a wide range of investigative techniques have been deployed including surveillance, peregrine DNA analysis, searches under warrants, bankers warrants, cyber crime and the Proceeds of Crime Act.

The scale of this effort to bring a prosecution in a raptor persecution case is virtually unheard of in the UK and the ramifications, should the defendants be found guilty, will be huge. Further details of the case will be made available as the case progresses through the courts.

The dedication and determination of those involved in the multi-agency investigation has been outstanding and it’s good to see their hard work recognised. Well done, all!

UPDATE 16 December 2023: Part-time gamekeeper & son plead guilty to peregrine laundering charges; serving police officer cleared (here)

Entries invited for art auction – proceeds to help support peregrine nest protection in Derbyshire

Derbyshire Wildlife Trust is inviting entries for its annual art auction.

This year’s theme is Fight for Flight and the Trust is looking for contributions that celebrate UK bird species. Entries can be any type of artwork, from photography to drawing, as long as it fits on an A5 size card (i.e. postcard).

Entries close on 31st October 2022 and the auction site will be live online from 21st November – 21st December 2022.

[A contribution from last year’s auction – sorry, artist’s name not known]

In previous years the funds raised from the art auction have been used to support hen harrier protection in the region. This year, the funds raised will be used to support Derbyshire Wildlife Trust’s peregrine protection scheme.

As regular blog readers will know, peregrines are at high risk of persecution in Derbyshire, particularly in the Dark Peak area of the Peak District National Park. Peregrines have been found shot (e.g. here), poisoned (e.g. here) and eggs have been robbed from nests (e.g. here).

This year a team of 22 volunteers from Derbyshire Wildlife Trust have kept daily watch on vulnerable, high-risk peregrine breeding sites throughout the breeding season, resulting in successful fledging at many sites. The art auction funding will help DWT repeat this effort again in 2023.

Further details about how to enter/contribute your art work can be found on the DWT website here and the actual auction will be available online in November here.

Public consultation on the issue of ‘wild take’ of English raptors for falconry

Natural England has launched an eight-week public consultation as it reviews its position on the licensing of falconers permitting them to remove [unspecified] raptors from the wild for falconry/captive breeding programmes.

The call for evidence was announced last week (see here) and although the online notice is illustrated with a peregrine falcon, I’m somewhat alarmed to note from the accompanying text that this review does NOT appear to be restricted to the licensed removal of just peregrines from the wild, but could apply to any other raptor species Natural England considers to have ‘recovered’.

This is a controversial issue, of course, not least because of the history (and in some cases, ongoing) illegal persecution of some raptor species in the UK, and the ‘sport’ of falconry in this country being largely unregulated. For example, anybody can buy a captive bird of prey in the UK, without having to demonstrate any prior level of knowledge, let alone proficiency, in the bird’s care and welfare.

This is very different from falconry in the US, where falconers are required to undertake several years of supervised training and examination before they are considered appropriately qualified and are permitted to take raptors from the wild, usually for a temporary period with the bird being released back to the wild after being flown for a few seasons. Inspections of the bird’s housing is even a requirement of the licence.

That’s not to say that there aren’t some very good falconers in the UK – there are, for sure, and their expert skills are often deployed to help rehabilitate wild-injured raptors and release them back to the wild. It’s also true to say that falconry techniques have been central to the conservation of some raptor species (e.g. Mauritius kestrel, the peregrine in the US after the DDT crash, vulture species in India after the Diclofenac crash) but these arguments are not relevant to what is currently being proposed for the wild-take of peregrines and other raptors in the UK for ‘sport’, even though several UK falconers point to these arguments as apparent justification.

The last time Natural England issued licenses for the removal of young peregrines from the wild, for a purported captive-breeding programme in 2020, the news generated heated arguments both for and against the licences, as reported on Mark Avery’s blog (e.g. see here, here and here).

The situation was even more confused when it became apparent that the falconers involved were based in Scotland, that SNH had refused to issue licences for the removal of Scottish peregrines, but that Natural England had issued licenses for the removal of peregrines in England, to be then held in captivity in Scotland.

However, according to the latest news from Natural England, although licences were issued in 2020, ‘the licenses expired earlier this year with no chicks having been taken‘. NE doesn’t explain why.

For me, the justification for permanently removing raptors from the wild to satisfy a human’s ‘sporting’ need is not a convincing argument. There are plenty of captive-bred raptors available for those who wish to pursue this sport without the need to plunder wild populations that in some cases are still recovering from decades of persecution.

In the case of peregrines, this is even more of a concern when you realise that on previous licences, NE authorised the removal of chicks from nests in ‘all counties’ [in England], despite the well-documented evidence that peregrine populations in the uplands have suffered massive declines as a direct result of illegal persecution, particularly on land managed for driven grouse shooting (e.g. see here, here, here and here). Just because the species is currently ‘green-listed’ nationally, this status does not take into account the regional difficulties for this particular species.

Natural England makes a further argument that peregrines ‘need to be taken from the wild’ as opposed to considering the alternative of placing wild-disabled birds into the care of falconers because:

‘Wild peregrine falcons which have arrived in captivity due to injury are also not likely to be suitable as breeding from a bird from the wild is much more difficult than one reared by humans – they are simply not used to humans and are not as likely to breed successfully as a chick taken from the wild and reared by a human‘.

This is a surprising statement from Natural England, given that NE intends to do exactly this for its planned controversial release of hen harriers in southern England – using wild-disabled hen harriers from the continent for a captive breeding programme whereby the injured birds’ progeny will be released into the wild. I’d argue that NE’s position on peregrines is thoroughly hypocritical.

The public call for evidence is open to anybody and is available for 8 weeks. You can participate here.

UPDATE 7th March 2025: DEFRA endorses Natural England’s recommendations for a presumption AGAINST the issuing of licences for taking wild birds of prey for falconry (here)

Suffolk police remove peregrine from falconer for return to the wild

On Friday, Suffolk Police’s wildlife crime team posted a photo on Twitter of a young tethered peregrine wearing falconry jesses. The photo was accompanied by a statement about how a multi-agency team had executed a search warrant at an unknown address and removed the peregrine with the intention of releasing it back to the wild.

No information was provided about the circumstances of how the falconer came to be in possession of a wild peregrine or whether the falconer would face charges for unlawful possession.

After a bit of digging it turns out that the young peregrine had hatched at a monitored site and had crash-landed in to a lake post-fledging. It had been rescued and sent to a wildlife hospital for assessment and rehabilitation.

Somehow (it’s not clear to me how) two falconers became involved and one of them took the peregrine, perhaps also with the intention of rehabilitation before release, but perhaps not. The falconer had removed the plastic colour ring from the peregrine’s leg (why would you do that if you intended to release the peregrine?) although the metal BTO leg ring was still in place on the other leg (as you can see from the photo).

Somebody obviously had concerns about the falconer’s intentions because a tip-off led to the multi-agency search led by Suffolk Police and assisted by Norfolk Constabulary, RSPB Investigations and the National Wildlife Crime Unit. Search warrants aren’t usually granted without the police being able to show reasonable grounds to suspect a crime has been committed. The peregrine was seized, presumably to ensure it was returned to the wild.

Apparently the police dealt with the falconer by way of a community resolution order, probably because it would have been too difficult (virtually impossible) to prove criminal intent in this case.

Well done to the police and agencies involved in retrieving this peregrine and getting it back where it belongs.

UPDATE 14th December 2022: Stolen peregrine rehabbed and released back to the wild in Suffolk (here)

Derbyshire Police criticised as prosecution collapses against alleged peregrine egg thief in Peak District

The trial of a man accused of stealing peregrine eggs from a nest site in the Peak District National Park in Derbyshire has collapsed after elements of the police investigation were ruled unlawful.

This case relates to the alleged theft of peregrine eggs in 2020, where video footage filmed by the RSPB showed an individual climbing to a peregrine nest and removing the eggs (see here, here, here and here for previous blogs).

The trial began at Chesterfield Magistrates this week but collapsed yesterday as the defence lawyer challenged certain procedural aspects of the police’s investigation, namely the arrest and the subsequent search of the man’s property.

The judge considered the evidence and ruled in the defendant’s favour, i.e. that certain aspects of the police investigation were indeed unlawful. The defendant left court with a not guilty verdict.

I am awaiting the full details of this judgement before commenting on Derbyshire Police’s failure to follow police procedural rules but this does seem pretty basic stuff. And surely the lawyers from the Crown Prosecution Service should have picked up these errors before the case even reached court? Hopefully the court will publish the judgement so we can see the extent of the police’s apparent ineptitude in this case.

A BBC reporter, Simon Hare, tweeted this yesterday from the court:

This evening, the RSPB has published its video footage of a man stealing the eggs from the peregrine’s nest site.

It’s such a disappointing result. With excellent footage from the RSPB that will have taken a great deal of time and skill to procure, this is a case that should have been straightforward. It’s doubly frustrating because as you’ll all know, it’s so rare that good quality evidence is available in so many raptor persecution cases, so when it is available we all hope it will lead to justice being served.

Understanding what went wrong in this case will be important and lessons need to be learned, not least by Derbyshire Police’s Rural Crime Team.

Peregrine suffers appalling injuries after being being shot & trapped in Suffolk

This is grim.

Press statement from Suffolk Constabulary, 16th May 2022.

APPEAL FOLLOWS DEATH OF WILD PEREGRINE FALCON

A wild peregrine falcon found badly injured after being illegally trapped and shot has been put down.

The bird was discovered by a member of the public in a field in Cratfield on 15 March and taken to the Suffolk Owl Sanctuary at Stonham Barns. However, its injuries were too severe to save it. Both of its legs were badly broken and it was also found to have been shot. Police believe the bird was caught in an illegal trap and released alive but injured and officers would like to hear from anybody who could help find those responsible.

Sgt Brian Calver, head of Suffolk Police’s Rural Crime Unit, said:

“These iconic birds are not a common site in Suffolk and are vulnerable to human interference. Populations are improving slowly but persecution by humans remains one of the biggest threats to them. These are schedule one birds and the fastest animal on the planet. To trap any bird in such a way is cruel but to release an illegally trapped bird with broken legs is horrible. This bird would not have been able to feed and if not found by a member of the public would have suffered a slow and painful death. The traps we suspect to have caused these injuries are indiscriminate when used unlawfully. I appeal to anybody who has any knowledge of this to get in touch with Suffolk Police, quoting crime reference 37/18491/22“.

ENDS

Police officer, gamekeeper & son in court for peregrine theft case

Three people appeared in court last week charged with a number of offences in relation to alleged peregrine theft in the Scottish Borders.

Serving police officer WPC Suzanne Hall, 43, part-time gamekeeper Timothy Hall, 46, and their 21-year-old son, Lewis Hall, are accused of breaching The Control of Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) Enforcement Regulations and also face two charges under the Wildlife & Countryside Act 1981 by being in possession of protected birds and eggs of wild bird, in this case, peregrines.

Timothy Hall also faces further charges of two firearms certificate offences and a culpable and reckless conduct offence.

This case relates to a joint Scottish SPCA and Police Scotland raid on the family home at Lamberton Holdings in Berwick-upon-Tweed in May 2021 as part of an on-going investigation into allegations of serious organised crime (see here).

It is understood a search warrant was executed and officers seized a number of peregrine falcon chicks and eggs from the property.

All three defendants made no plea at this latest court hearing and the case was continued for further examination. They were granted bail by Sheriff Peter Paterson.

PLEASE NOTE: As this is a live case and charges have been laid, I won’t be accepting any comments on this article until legal proceedings have concluded. Many thanks for your understanding.

UPDATE 16 December 2023: Part-time gamekeeper & son plead guilty to peregrine laundering charges; serving police officer cleared (here)