Tag: poisoning

Dorset Police refuse FoI request for correspondence between them & Chris Loder MP on poisoned eagle

Last month, Dorset Police did the unthinkable and prematurely closed their investigation into the poisoning of a white-tailed eagle that was found dead on an undisclosed shooting estate in North Dorset in January 2022 (see here).

This was an astonishing decision for a number of reasons (e.g. see here), not least because prior to this incident, Dorset Police’s Rural & Wildlife Crime Team enjoyed a good reputation for it’s proactive stance in the investigation of raptor persecution crimes, and indeed the team had been preparing to conduct a multi-agency search of the estate where this dead eagle had been found, until the head honchos at Dorset Police decided to pull the plug.

It’s even more surprising when you learn what other police investigations into alleged wildlife crime have taken place on that unnamed estate – more on that soon.

Dorset Police’s decision to close the investigation came soon after an extraordinary outburst from local MP Chris Loder, who had argued on Twitter that Dorset ‘wasn’t the place for eagles’ and that Dorset Police should be focusing their resources on other types of criminality (see here) and not on suspected wildlife crime. And it wasn’t an off-the-cuff remark made in haste; he continued his tirade for sometime afterwards (e.g. see here). A quick look at Chris Loder’s Register of Interests on the Parliamentary website showed that his local Conservative party had received large donations from at least one shooting estate in North Dorset.

Unsurprisingly, there was widespread suspicion that Dorset Police’s decision to close the poisoned eagle investigation had been influenced by undue political interference so I submitted two Freedom of Information requests to find out if there was any evidence to support that suspicion. One FoI request was submitted to Dorset Police and the other to the Dorset Police & Crime Commissioner.

Dorset Police have since attempted to fob me off with this idiotic response:

Obviously, I have requested a review of Dorset Police’s Refusal Notice. I don’t accept the likelihood that an MP might have written to any one of 2,500 Dorset Police employees about this poisoned eagle. That would include those employed as call handlers, personal safety trainers, crime analysts, enquiry officers, IT consultants, project managers, administrations staff, mechanics, accountants, lawyers, to name just a few.

It’s common sense that an MP interested in the investigation of a poisoned eagle would be more likely to have corresponded with senior officers responsible for the supervision of the Force’s Rural & Wildlife Crime Team, and that probably means a handful of officers, let’s say ten, max (and that’s being generous). So Dorset Police can probably strike 2,490 people from their search, leaving ten people to spend two minutes searching their inboxes, amounting to 20 minutes of total search time, well within the statutory 18 hours of search time permitted for a Freedom of Information request.

I’ve also pointed out to Dorset Police’s Freedom of Information Officer that MPs are not classed as public authorities under the Freedom of Information Act so advising me to submit an FoI to Chris Loder MP was non-sensical, although surely an FoI Officer would already know this?!

I’ll blog about the outcome of my review request in due course.

As mentioned above, I’d originally submitted two FoI requests. My second one was an identical request for information about correspondence between Chris Loder MP and the Dorset Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC), Conservative David Sidwick.

Initially I received an automated response from the PCC office confirming receipt of my request. Then it all went quiet. I have since emailed two further times to highlight that their response is overdue (they’re allowed 20 working days). Yesterday I finally had a response, apologising for the delay and saying:

“The response is just being pulled together and we will come back to you asap“.

I’ll blog about that response when it finally arrives.

UPDATE 21st April 2022: Chris Packham submits FoI requests to Dorset Police and the Crime Commissioner about poisoned eagle (here)

UPDATE 26th April 2022: The office of the Dorset Police & Crime Commissioner: incompetent or something more sinister? (here)

UPDATE 29th April 2022: Email correspondence between Chris Loder MP and Dorset Police & Crime Commissioner re: poisoned eagle (here)

UPDATE 25th May 2022: Dorset Police and the Dorset Police & Crime Commissioner in breach of Freedom of Information Act by failing to respond to Chris Packham’s request for info on poisoned eagle (here)

UPDATE 26th May 2022: Further breach of Freedom of Information Act by Dorset Police re: poisoned eagle (here)

13% increase in recorded wildlife crime incidents in Scotland – new Government report

The Scottish Government has published its latest annual wildlife crime report, covering the period April 2019-March 2020, which reveals an increase of 13% in recorded wildlife crime incidents.

Raptor persecution offences increased during this period, with shooting and poisoning being the joint highest recorded crime type. Obviously, these figures only represent offences that have been discovered; there will be many more that went undiscovered, as acknowledged by the report’s foreword written by Environment Minister Mairi McAllen.

Here are a few excerpts from the Minister:

‘After a drop in recorded wildlife crime incidents of over 60% between the 2014-15 report and 2018-19, it is frustrating to see an increase of 13% in recorded wildlife crime incidents in 2019-20. Wildlife crime is not only abhorrent, it is also completely at odds with our work to address the biodiversity crisis, which is supported by so many people and organisations across Scotland.

While it is reassuring that incidents of wildlife crime have not returned to previous higher levels, we remain aware that recorded wildlife crime does not provide the full picture. This is an area where the victims are unable to speak for themselves and we know that many wildlife crimes are not witnessed and not reported. This has been especially true in the area of raptor persecution where tagged birds have disappeared in unexplained circumstances and where expected numbers of some species are not present in certain areas.

The Scottish Government has always been clear that wildlife crime is unacceptable, and we have brought forward a number of measures to tackle the issue over the years. These measures have included a poisons amnesty, vicarious liability, restrictions on general licences and most recently, significant increases in penalties for wildlife crimes. I am sure many of you reading this share my frustration that despite these measures there are some who continue to take a selfish, cruel and callous approach to our wildlife.

It is disappointing to see a rise in raptor persecution offences from the previous year. We have committed to taking forward the recommendations made by the Grouse Moor Management Group as a matter of urgency, to tackle this type of offence. We will bring forward legislation during this parliamentary term with the aim of putting in place a meaningful, effective and workable sanctions through a licensing system to deter and punish those who deliberately commit crimes in our uplands, without placing unworkable and disproportionate burdens on the majority who work within the law‘.

Yada, yada, yada. The Scottish Government’s idea of what constitutes ‘a matter of urgency’ is very different to mine. The Werritty report on grouse moor management, on which the Government made it’s decision to implement a licencing scheme for grouse shooting in Scotland, was submitted in November 2019. Here we are in April 2022 and nothing has happened except repeated statements from Ministers, now over a period of years, about it being a ‘matter of urgency’.

It’s obvious that raptor persecution isn’t going to stop without further statutory intervention, and depending on what that looks like and how it’s implemented and enforced, it probably still won’t stop without a ban on certain types of gamebird shooting. The longer the Scottish Government procrastinates, the longer these crimes will persist.

Pick a date and get on with it.

You can read/download the Scottish Government’s 2020 annual report on wildlife crime here:

wildlife-crime-scotland-2020-annual-reportDownload

Invercauld Estate in Cairngorms loses appeal against General Licence restriction imposed for wildlife crime

Invercauld Estate in the Cairngorms National Park has lost its appeal against a General Licence restriction that was imposed on the estate in February 2022 (see here) after Police Scotland provided the licensing authority (NatureScot) with evidence of wildlife crime against birds of prey on the estate, notably the discovery of a ‘deliberately poisoned’ golden eagle lying next to a poisoned hare bait in March 2021 (see here).

[Photo of the poisoned eagle & hare bait found on a grouse moor on Invercauld Estate in the Cairngorms National Park. Photo by RSPB Scotland]

Regular blog readers will know that the three-year General Licence restriction on the Gairnshiel & Micras part of Invercauld Estate took effect on 9th February 2022, prohibiting the use of General Licences 01, 02 and 03 on the estate until 9th February 2025 (see here).

The estate submitted a formal appeal against NatureScot’s restriction decision on 25th February 2022 and the official ‘restriction notice’ was removed from NatureScot’s website. I looked today and the notice has been reinstated, which I take to mean that the estate’s appeal has failed, in the same way that Lochan Estate’s recent appeal against restriction also failed (see here).

Here is the map from Naturescot showing the area of restriction on the Gairnshiel & Micras area of the estate:

If you’re at all familiar with Invercauld Estate you’ll recognise that this restriction area is only a small part of what is a massive grouse-shooting estate in the Cairngorms National Park (data from Andy Wightman’s excellent Who Owns Scotland website) rather than the restriction being applied across the entire estate, as seems to have been the case with other sanctioned estates:

I was curious about why the General Licence restriction was, well, restricted for want of a better term, to just the small area of Garnshiels and Micras, so I asked the licensing team at NatureScot about that decision.

The response from NatureScot was prompt (thank you!) and went like this:

‘…The decision was made on the basis that the evidence of crime provided [by Police Scotland] related to this one beat, rather than across the whole estate; and that the separate beats on this estate are managed independently of each other. Hence, the ultimate decision was to restrict to the beats where the evidence of crime occurred‘.

As many of you already know, the three-year General Licence restriction is barely worth the paper it’s written on because the estate can simply apply for ‘Individual licences’ (instead of relying on the General Licences) to continue its activities as before, albeit with the minor inconvenience of having to have a bit of a paper trail. This has been a major criticism of the General Licence restriction process ever since it began in 2014. This, combined with the shooting industry’s apparent reluctance to shun any estates where restrictions have been imposed for wildlife crime, means that the General Licence restriction is an utterly ineffective sanction (e.g. see here).

We were even provided with first-hand evidence of its ineffectiveness when further evidence of suspected wildlife crime was detected on two estates that were already serving a General Licence restriction for wildlife crime! Raeshaw Estate in the Scottish Borders had its Individual licences revoked (here) and Leadhills Estate was given a three-year extension to its original three-year General Licence restriction (here), a decision which it subsequently appealed and lost (here).

You may remember that in February, Scottish Greens MSP Mark Ruskell asked Parliamentary questions about this absurd so-called sanction (see here); more on that shortly.

Buzzard & red kite suspected poisoned on North Dorset estate

Well this saga gets more interesting by the day.

I’ve written about the poisoned white-tailed eagle found dead on an as-yet undisclosed shooting estate in North Dorset and Dorset Police’s decision to close the investigation prematurely (see here, here, here, here and here).

I’ve also written about the suspected poisoning of another white-tailed eagle on another as-yet undisclosed shooting estate in North Dorset and a subsequent multi-agency raid in which items of interest have been submitted for toxicology assessment (see here).

Now there’s this – the suspected poisoning of a buzzard and a red kite on an as-yet undisclosed shooting estate in North Dorset, as revealed on Twitter this afternoon by Ian Denton:

More to follow……

Another eagle suspected poisoned on a Dorset shooting estate

The story of the week has been the confirmed poisoning of a white-tailed eagle found dead on a shooting estate in Dorset in January, and Dorset Police’s astonishing decision to close the investigation even though toxicology results had proved that poisoning was the cause of death (see here,  here, here, here and here).

There’s still much more to come out about this story and I’ve spoken to a few journalists in the last few days who are making some headway. Let’s see what they produce in the coming days.

Meanwhile, in the course of these conversations I’ve learned that another white-tailed eagle is suspected to have been poisoned on a shooting estate in Dorset.

I’ve deliberately used the word ‘suspected’ in this case because unlike the first eagle, poisoning hasn’t been confirmed and the eagle hasn’t died.

This second case is not on the same shooting estate where the dead (confirmed poisoned) eagle was found, but it is on another game-shooting estate and it is nearby.

I understand that initially, this second eagle’s satellite tag data indicated that the eagle’s movements were unusual and this was a cause for concern given the eagle’s location and proximity to the area where the poisoned eagle had been found dead. A multi-agency team made a site visit to look for this second eagle and they found it, still alive but displaying some of the characteristic physical traits of a raptor that has ingested a large amount of an anticoagulant rodenticide (e.g. lethargic, head-drooping).

While on site searching for the sick eagle, a number of undisclosed items were apparently discovered which sparked a multi-agency raid on the estate a short while later and I understand that as a result of that search, multiple toxicology results are now pending from the lab.

The second eagle appears to have since made a recovery and has recently moved away from the estate, although long-term health issues may still be an issue. Time will tell.

It’s important to emphasise that at this stage poisoning (rodenticide or another substance) has not been confirmed but it is suspected.

What’s interesting about this second investigation is that the police considered there was sufficient evidence to conduct a multi-agency search, even though toxicology results were still pending. This is in direct contrast to the police’s response to the first case where toxicology results from the dead eagle had confirmed that poisoning was the cause of death and that the high concentration of rodenticide in the eagle’s liver (7 x the lethal dose) was clearly indicative of suspicious activity, and yet Dorset Police decided not to progress that investigation.

This is quite hard to fathom, although I suspect that this multi-agency search on the other estate took place in early March under the direction of the diligent and highly-competent wildlife crime officer, Claire Dinsdale. The ridiculous decision not to progress the first investigation (into the circumstances of the dead, confirmed-poisoned eagle) appears to have been made later in March after Claire Dinsdale had apparently been signed off on indefinite sick leave.

I look forward to the publication of the latest toxicology reports, which should be available by now, surely, and full disclosure from Dorset Police about the status of this second investigation, as well as an explanation about why the first investigation was closed prematurely, especially when Dorset Police would have known about this second case of suspected poisoning on an estate in close proximity to where the dead poisoned eagle had been found.

Poisoned eagle in Dorset had 7 x lethal dose rodenticide in its liver

Further to the news that Dorset Police has announced it has prematurely closed its investigation into the poisoned white-tailed eagle that was found dead on a shooting estate in January 2022 (see here,  here, here and here), the post mortem results have now been revealed.

According to a blog written by the Roy Dennis Wildlife Foundation (the group managing the eagle reintroduction project on the Isle of Wight):

‘Post mortem and toxicology testing through the Wildlife Incident Investigation Scheme has subsequently identified brodifacoum poisoning as the cause of death. Brodifacoum is a highly toxic anticoagulant rodenticide that causes internal haemorrhaging. The bird’s liver contained approximately seven times the amount of brodifacoum required to kill a bird like a White-tailed Eagle. The satellite data indicates that the eagle, which was otherwise healthy, deteriorated and died over a period of several days‘.

SEVEN times the lethal dose?

Good grief. It’s no wonder the award-winning Dorset Police wildlife crime officer Claire Dinsdale was planning to undertake a multi-agency search of the estate. It was the obvious next move.

Given these post-mortem results I’d like to know how Dorset Police can justify its decision to shelve the search and close the investigation. I’d also like to know if that decision had anything to do with Claire going on indefinite sick leave.

Up until now I’ve refrained from using the word ‘corrupt’ to describe Dorset Police’s decision and have instead suggested ‘undue political interference’. I’m afraid that corruption is looking more and more likely.

There’s much more to come on this story….

Question to be tabled in House of Lords about Dorset Police’s decision to close eagle poisoning investigation

Further to the news that Dorset Police has announced it has prematurely closed its investigation into the poisoned white-tailed eagle that was found dead on a shooting estate in January 2022 (see here,  here and here), a question is to be tabled in the House of Lords.

Life Peer Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (known to many of us as the former Green Party leader Natalie Bennett) responded to Dorset Police’s decision with shock when she posted this on Twitter earlier today:

Natalie consistently speaks out on wildlife crime and particularly on raptor persecution. Let’s see if any of her fellow peers, and especially those working at DEFRA (Richard Benyon & Zac Goldsmith) can muster any interest in what looks increasingly like dodgy dealings in Dorset.

RSPB ‘completely baffled’ by Dorset Police decision to prematurely end poisoned eagle investigation

Further to the news that Dorset Police has announced it has closed its investigation into the poisoned white-tailed eagle that was found on a shooting estate in January 2022 (see here and here), the RSPB has released a statement:

This story is a long way from over….

UPDATE 16.40hrs: Question to be tabled in House of Lords about Dorset Police’s decision to close eagle poisoning investigation (here)

Dorset Police does the unthinkable & confirms no further investigation into poisoned white-tailed eagle

Further to this morning’s post when I wrote about the rumours circulating that Dorset Police was about to announce it was closing its investigation into the circumstances surrounding the death of a white-tailed eagle found poisoned on a game-shooting estate in January this year (see here), well they’ve only gone and done it.

A few minutes ago Dorset Police’s main Twitter account published the following statement:

For all the reasons I wrote about this morning, this is not only an astonishing move by the police but also of very high concern.

As the police statement says, at this stage it’s not possible to know whether the elevated amount of rodenticide (Brodifacoum) found in the eagle’s corpse was the result of a deliberate act (a crime) or due to accidental secondary poisoning, but surely the whole point of a police investigation is to, er, investigate the circumstances further to try and determine what happened?

And even more importantly than that, there is serious concern that whatever that eagle had eaten may still be out in the open, risking the lives of other wildlife, not least the other satellite-tagged white-tailed eagles known to frequent this area.

I am deeply suspicious of Dorset Police’s motivations for closing this investigation. Again, as discussed this morning there are too many ‘coincidences’ for me not to be incredulous about this and Dorset Police now has some questions to answer.

Who took the decision to close this investigation?

On what basis was that decision made?

Was the decision unduly influenced by political interference?

Why isn’t Dorset Police searching for evidence of poisoned baits?

How does Dorset Police justify the potential risk to other white-tailed eagles in the area?

Why has the word ‘wildlife’ been removed from Dorset Police’s Rural Wildlife crime team?

Who took the decision to remove it?

On what basis was that decision made?

Was the decision unduly influenced by political interference?

If you’d like to ask these questions, and/or any others, please email Dorset Police on: 101@dorset.pnn.police.uk Please quote reference # 55220015571.

UPDATE 15.05hrs: RSPB ‘completely baffled’ by Dorset Police decision to prematurely end poisoned eagle investigation (here)

UPDATE 16.40hrs: Question to be tabled in House of Lords about Dorset Police’s decision to close eagle poisoning investigation (here)

UPDATE 30th March 2022: Poisoned eagle in Dorset had 7 x lethal dose rodenticide in its liver (here)

UPDATE 1st April 2022: Another eagle suspected poisoned on a Dorset shooting estate (here)

UPDATE 14th April 2022: Dorset Police refuse FoI request for correspondence between them and Chris Loder MP on poisoned eagle (here)

UPDATE 20th April 2022: Unconvincing statement from Dorset Police on closure of investigation into poisoned eagle (here)

UPDATE 21st April 2022: Chris Packham submits FoI requests to Dorset Police and the Crime Commissioner about poisoned eagle (here)

UPDATE 22nd April 2022: More questions asked about Dorset Police’s mishandling of the poisoned eagle investigation (here)

UPDATE 26th April 2022: The office of the Dorset Police & Crime Commissioner: incompetent or something more sinister? (here)

UPDATE 27th April 2022: Dorset Police Chief Constable and the Police & Crime Commissioner on a futile damage limitation exercise (here)

UPDATE 29th April 2022: Another dead buzzard in Dorset – Police warn public of suspected poisoned baits (here)

UPDATE 29th April 2022: Email correspondence between Chris Loder MP and Dorset Police & Crime Commissioner re: poisoned eagle (here)

UPDATE 16th May 2022: Poisoned eagles in south of England feature in The Telegraph (here)

UPDATE 19th May 2022: Wildlife Crime Working Group seeks explanation from Dorset Police about failure to investigate poisoned eagle incident (here)

UPDATE 25th May 2022: Dorset Police and the Dorset Police & Crime Commissioner in breach of Freedom of Information Act by failing to respond to Chris Packham’s request for info on poisoned eagle (here)

UPDATE 26th May 2022: Further breach of Freedom of Information Act by Dorset Police re: poisoned eagle (here)

UPDATE 30th May 2022: Your opportunity to question Dorset Police Chief Constable on poisoned eagle case 7 breaches of FoI law (here)

UPDATE 31st May 2022: Premature closure of poisoned eagle investigation was ‘proportionate’ claims Dorset Chief Constable (here)

UPDATE 31st May 2022: Dorset Police’s generic FoI response on poisoned eagle investigation is inaccurate and unsatisfactory (here)

UPDATE 8th June 2022: Poisoned eagle investigation: “You and I need to get our ducks in the row on this one”, Dorset PCC tells Chris Loder MP (here)

UPDATE 11th June 2022: BBC’s Countryfile to feature #EagleGate (here)

UPDATE 14th June 2022: Watch Dorset’s poisoned eagle fiasco on BBC’s Countryfile (here)

UPDATE 19th June 2022: Dorset Police continues its damage limitation exercise re: its botched investigation into the poisoned eagle (here)

UPDATE 3rd January 2023: More info revealed on Dorset Police’s relationship with local MP & the botched investigation into the poisoned white-tailed eagle (here)

Serious concerns about Dorset Police’s rumoured response to poisoned white-tailed eagle

Dorset has become a bit of a raptor persecution hotspot in recent years following the discovery of a shot buzzard (here), the suspicious deaths of two barn owls and several more buzzards (here), the disturbance of nesting peregrines (here), the suspected poisoning of a number of buzzards and an owl in two separate locations (here) and the poisoning of a red kite, which led to a multi-agency raid where banned poisons and several more dead raptors were discovered (here).

Fortunately, Dorset Police has one of the best-equipped and most experienced wildlife & rural crime teams in the country, or at least it did have.

In January this year, the corpse of a white-tailed eagle was found dead on an unnamed shooting estate in Dorset (here). When the story broke in February it made national news (e.g. here, here, here), not least because this eagle was from the inaugural reintroduction project on the Isle of Wight and it was one of two dead eagles that had been found in suspicious circumstances in recent months (another is believed to have been found dead in Sussex in October 2021).

[The dead white-tailed eagle found in Dorset in Jan 2022. Photo by Dorset Police]

Dorset Police’s wildlife crime team led a multi-agency search to find this satellite-tagged eagle and they were pro-active in quickly releasing a public statement, even though toxicology results were still awaited, to reflect their understandable concern for the safety of three other satellite-tagged eagles known to be in the county at that time:

This level of proactivity stood in stark contrast to Sussex Police, who still haven’t managed to make any statement about the eagle that was found in suspicious circumstances on a shooting estate in that county in October 2021.

However, the high profile dead eagle in Dorset led to some unwarranted criticism of the police wildlife crime team by local MP Chris Loder, who argued, extraordinarily, that Dorset ‘wasn’t the place for eagles’ and the police should be focusing their resources on other types of criminality (see here) and not on suspected wildlife crime. And it wasn’t an off-the-cuff remark made in haste; he continued his tirade for sometime afterwards (e.g. see here).

I don’t know whether it was a coincidence but by early March the Twitter account belonging to Dorset Police’s Rural Wildlife & Heritage Crime Team had a name change. The words ‘wildlife’ and ‘heritage’ were completely removed from the name:

Here’s the pre-March Twitter account name:

And here’s the post-March Twitter account name:

That seems a bit strange. What prompted this change?

A further ‘coincidence’ is that the former Rural Wildlife & Heritage Crime team leader has been on indefinite leave since early March.

Hmm.

And there’s another ‘coincidence’. In late February Dorset Police’s wildlife crime team was making arrangements with partners to conduct a multi-agency search of the estate where the dead white-tailed eagle had been found. By early March those plans had been shelved. Why was that?

Yesterday rumours were circulating amongst conservationists that the toxicology results from the dead eagle found in Dorset had revealed the cause of death was rodenticide poisoning. Apparently this wasn’t the low-level background trace amount that is often found in raptor post-mortems; I understand the amount found inside this eagle was many, many times higher than the lethal dose.

Rumours were also circulating that Dorset Police is planning to release a public statement to announce the discontinuation of the investigation into the death of this white-tailed eagle. That would be astonishing.

In my view, if this is what Dorset Police intends to do, it is of very, very serious concern. Rodenticides are known to have been used recently in a number of suspected raptor persecution incidents (e.g. see here and here) and I’m told that the use of ‘higher than normal doses’ may be a new tactic employed by those who want rid of raptors but don’t want the risk of being caught using banned substances.

The legal use of the most commonly-used rodenticide, Brodifacoum, has been relaxed recently, allowing pest controllers to use it outside buildings. It’s so toxic to wildlife that government advisors actually trained pest controllers how to use it legally. The misuse of this rodenticide is a crime.

Now, in the case of this poisoned white-tailed eagle in Dorset, there might be a perfectly legitimate explanation for why it had ingested such a high dose of rodenticide; it may well have been the result of a terrible but accidental secondary poisoning. But equally plausible is the possibility that it ate deliberately-laid out baits containing doses many times higher than the lethal dose, placed with the intention of targeting raptors (a crime).

But how can this be assessed if Dorset Police is discontinuing its investigation?

And more importantly, what if the substances that killed that eagle are still on the ground? We know that other satellite-tagged eagles are in the area, now at serious risk.

It seems there’s something very odd going on here.

I’ve also recently received an FoI response from Dorset Police about its correspondence with the anti-eagle MP, Chris Loder. I’ll blog more about that in due course.

UPDATE 13.21hrs: Dorset Police does the unthinkable & confirms no further investigation into poisoned white-tailed eagle (here)

UPDATE 15.05hrs: RSPB ‘completely baffled’ by Dorset Police decision to prematurely end poisoned eagle investigation (here)

UPDATE 16.40hrs: Question to be tabled in House of Lords about Dorset Police’s decision to close eagle poisoning investigation (here)

UPDATE 30th March 2022: Poisoned eagle in Dorset had 7 x lethal dose rodenticide in its liver (here)

UPDATE 1st April 2022: Another eagle suspected poisoned on a Dorset shooting estate (here)

UPDATE 4th April 2022: Buzzard and red kite suspected poisoned on North Dorset Estate (here)

UPDATE 14th April 2022: Dorset Police refuse FoI request for correspondence between them & Chris Loder MP on poisoned eagle (here)

UPDATE 20th April 2022: Unconvincing statement from Dorset Police on closure of investigation into poisoned eagle (here)

UPDATE 20th April 2022: Tediously predictable response from Minister to Natalie Bennett’s House of Lords question on poisoned eagle (here)

UPDATE 21st April 2022: Chris Packham submits FoI requests to Dorset Police & the Crime Commissioner about poisoned eagle (here)

UPDATE 22nd April 2022: More questions asked about Dorset Police’s mishandling of the poisoned eagle investigation (here)

UPDATE 26th April 2022: The Office of the Dorset Police & Crime Commissioner: incompetent or something more sinister? (here)

UPDATE 27th April 2022: Dorset Police Chief Constable and the Police & Crime Commissioner on a futile damage limitation exercise (here)

UPDATE 29th April 2022: Another dead buzzard in Dorset – Police warn public of suspected poisoned baits (here)

UPDATE 29th April 2022: Email correspondence between Chris Loder MP and Dorset Police & Crime Commissioner re: poisoned eagle (here)

UPDATE 16th May 2022: Poisoned eagles in south of England feature in The Telegraph (here)

UPDATE 19th May 2022: Wildlife Crime Working Group seeks explanation from Dorset Police about failure to investigate poisoned eagle incident (here)