Tag: poisoning

Tagged harrier from Langholm mysteriously ‘disappears’

Earlier this month, Environment Minister Stewart Stevenson MSP visited the Langholm Moor Demonstration Project in the Borders. The Langholm Project is an expensive, ten-year project aimed at demonstrating that hen harriers can co-exist with driven grouse shooting. The project is run as a partnership between SNH, Buccleuch Estates, RSPB, GWCT and Natural England. As part of the project, young hen harriers are being fitted with satellite tags to monitor their dispersal movements away from the moor.

The Environment Minister’s visit to Langholm was well publicised with an SNH press release (see here). In this press release, the Minister is quoted as saying: “…it was fascinating to learn that harriers that have been tagged at Langholm are being satellite tracked as far afield as France and Spain”.

Yes, that is fascinating, but of even greater interest is what has happened to the harriers that stayed behind in the UK?

According to the most recent diary entry on the project’s website (October 2011 – see here) written by the Langholm Project’s head gamekeeper, Simon Lester, one of this year’s young harriers has ‘disappeared’ –

“There is good and bad news as far as our satellite-tagged hen harriers are concerned. The ever-intrepid McPedro is certainly heading to France, across the channel from Devon. The sad news is that the hen that hatched in the nest just behind our house — and that I fed for some 60 days — has disappeared in the Moorfoots, having survived well in a relatively small range. The last ‘fix’ (or GPS position transmitted by its satellite tag) was on a shooting estate that co-operated fully when Project staff and the police tried, unsuccessfully, to recover the missing bird. Unfortunately, this bird’s particular satellite tag does not have a ‘ground track’ facility, so it may well have ended up miles away from the last transmitted ‘fix’, as, contrary to popular belief, birds can travel a vast distance in between transmissions. This latest loss is very sad, not just for the Project and our hope that more hen harriers will return to breed here, but is not helpful in our quest to help resolve the on-going raptor/grouse-shooting debate, either“.

Now, this is a fairly one-sided commentary of what might have happened to this young harrier. What Lester failed to mention was that the sporting estate where the harrier’s last known GPS ‘fix’ came from was an estate in the Scottish Borders with a well-documented history of alleged raptor persecution. This particular estate has been the subject of two police raids in the last few years. Illegal pesticides, poisoned baits and poisoned and shot raptors have all reportedly been retrieved from this estate. Apparently, no prosecutions for alleged raptor persecution crime resulted from either raid.

Lester is quite right to point out that just because the last known GPS ‘fix’ of the harrier was on this estate, this doesn’t necessarily mean that the harrier died there. As he says, the harrier could have moved off the estate before the next satellite signal was due, and could have died elsewhere – although if that had happened, why wasn’t there another ‘fix’ from the new location? The transmitter doesn’t die when the bird dies. For all we know though, the bird may not even be dead. It’s possible that the satellite transmitter failed, by coincidence, when the bird was on this estate, and the harrier has since moved away and is alive and well in an unknown location. But there is another plausible explanation too, and one that Lester conveniently chose not to include in his report. That is, this harrier could have been killed illegally on this particular estate, and its body hidden/buried/burnt before the Langholm Project staff arrived to search for it. It’s worth pointing out here that the Langholm Project policy, when searching for missing birds, is to look at the bird’s last known GPS ‘fix’, identify the landowner, and ask for that landowner’s permission before the project staff go searching for the bird, thus giving advance warning of the search.

Why Lester chose not to include this alternative possible explanation in his report about the disappearance of the harrier is not clear. It would seem that the suspicion of foul play had been considered by the project team, given that a wildlife crime police officer accompanied the team to search for the missing bird on this estate. We will wait with interest for the Langholm Project’s formal 2011 annual report to see what information is provided about this particular disappearing harrier, and about all the other tagged harriers from 2010 and 2011. So far, very limited information has been made available about the fate of the six tagged harriers, with the exception of the famed ‘McPedro’, who wisely took off to Spain in his first summer, returned to the UK this spring, and then took off south again this autumn. Given the amount of public funding that is being ploughed into the Langholm Project, a bit more transparency about the fate of some of the other young harriers wouldn’t go amiss.

Langholm Moor Demonstration Project website here

Millden Estate no longer for sale

An article in today’s Telegraph reports that Millden Estate, where golden eagle ‘Alma’ was found poisoned in 2009, is no longer up for sale. The estate, owned by investment banker Richard Hanson, was reportedly put on the market earlier this year (see here and here). According to the Telegraph, Hanson has now changed his mind after more than 5,000 brace of grouse (10,000 birds) were shot there this season.

Police raided Millden Estate in 2009 after two-year old golden eagle ‘Alma’ was found poisoned on the moor. Nobody has ever been charged with killing her (see here).

According to the Telegraph, Millden Estate and the neighbouring properties ‘vehemently deny being involved in illegal persecution’. It’s interesting then, that a grouse moor that operates (we’re told) without illegally killing raptors, can produce a surplus of over 10,000 grouse to shoot. Surely that suggests that raptors are not having a ‘significant impact’ on gamebirds and therefore licences to kill raptors on grouse moors are not neccesary?

Telegraph article here

Things to do list #2

In the November 2011 edition of Birdwatch magazine, Mark Avery calls for our views about hen harriers and grouse moors. He says that if we send our views to the Birdwatch editor, they’ll be summarised and sent to a range of organisations including the Moorland Association, the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust, the RSPB and the Scottish Raptor Study Groups.

Is there any value in doing this? Do you think the anti-harrier brigade will pay any attention to our views? Why would they? It’s been illegal to kill harriers since 1954 – this hasn’t stopped anyone doing it, and has pushed harriers to the very brink of extinction as a breeding bird in England, and severely depleted their numbers in parts of Scotland, so why would the harrier killers stop now?

The alternative is to do nothing, giving the grouse-shooting fraternity the chance to use our silence as an indication that we simply don’t care. We can’t let that happen, can we?

In Avery’s Birdwatch article, he writes a small piece about the harrier problem, but given the limited page space he can’t explain the problem in detail. He then offers three possible options on how to deal with the harrier/grouse issue, and asks readers to comment on them, or alternatively, suggest other options. Avery’s three options are paraphrased here:

A: Just forget it. Conservationists are fighting a losing battle and should turn their attention to more important issues.

B: Keep up the fight and keep publicising illegal persecution because if we lose the harrier, other species will surely follow. Keep talking to the ‘good guys’ in shooting who also want to see an end to harrier persecution.

C: Forget about trying to work with grouse shooters – they’ve had their chance to put their house in order and have failed miserably. Instead, lobby for an outright ban on grouse shooting.

If you want to comment on the issue, email your views to: editorial@birdwatch.co.uk. You’ll need to write before the end of November.

If you want some detailed background reading on the issue, we recommend reading Avery’s earlier articles about the harrier-grouse problem that he’s written on his personal blog (see here), and some of our earlier blog posts on harriers (see here, here, here, here, here, and here).

To subscribe to Birdwatch magazine online, click here.

It’s oh so quiet

Is it just us, or is anyone else curious about the deafening silence of landowner and gamekeeper organisations following last week’s report about the discovery of poisoned bait on Glenlochy Estate (see here)?

For two organisations (Scottish Land and Estates and Scottish Gamekeepers Association) who have been making (welcome) press statements about their condemnation of criminal raptor persecution, and their desire to ‘stamp it out’ of their industry, it seems a bit of a missed opportunity. We wonder whether Glenlochy Estate is a member of the SLE? We wonder whether any Glenlochy Estate gamekeepers are members of the SGA? We don’t know, because neither group publishes their membership lists for public scrutiny. And to be fair, neither group is obliged to publish that information, but you’d think that in light of the recent discovery, which isn’t the first for this particular area (see here), these groups would want to grab every opportunity available to publicly distance themselves from what appears to be another incident of alleged wildlife crime on a Scottish sporting estate. Wouldn’t you?

three more dead red kites in Ireland suspected to have been poisoned

The Irish Times is reporting that three more dead red kites have been discovered near Lusk, North County Dublin. They are suspected to have been poisoned, although post-mortem results are not yet available.

The article does not say when these dead kites were discovered.

Read the article in the Irish Times here

Lessons in eagle ecology part 2

Hot off the press from the team who brought you Eagles Could Eat Children (see here), this month’s lesson is all about Why Eagles Don’t Nest on Grouse Moors.

Contrary to the endless scientific papers that show unequivocally that eagles (and lots of other raptor species) are absent from many upland grouse moor areas in the UK due to high levels of persecution, the Scottish Gamekeepers Association has today informed us of the real reason they’re absent:

“Many grouse moors do not have the isolated nesting habitat which is required by eagles so it should come as no surprise they don’t nest there“.

Strange then, that there are ‘many’ (see quote below) unoccupied eagle nesting territories in Scotland where eagles are known to have bred historically, and that these old nest sites just happen to be on land that is managed for red grouse shooting! Here’s a quote from the Golden Eagle Conservation Framework Report that was published by Scottish Natural Heritage in 2008 (available here) –

“The most serious failures to meet favourable conservation status tests were in Natural Heritage Zones in the central and eastern Highlands where less than half of all known territories were occupied. Based on the production of young golden eagles, the populations in these regions should be expanding markedly, but instead they continue to decline (there was a loss of 15 occupied territories between 1992 and 2003, and 86 vacant territories by 2003). This indicates, in the absence of any evidence for emigration, that survival of subadult and/or adult birds is low“.

It’s also strange that before the sentence about ‘many grouse moors do not have the isolated nesting habitat required by eagles’, the SGA tells us this: “A large portion of all eagles fledging takes place on grouse moors across Scotland“. Eh? How can that be, if the habitat ‘isn’t there’?

The SGA article continues with some name-calling (and this from the group who have recently complained to the Scottish Government about how they were being portrayed!) and then some partly-accurate but mostly inaccurate information about siblicide amongst eaglets, before getting in another dig at the Irish Golden Eagle Reintroduction Project (yawn). This all builds up to a grand finale where we’re told:

“If you were to read all the media reports you could be forgiven for thinking that raptors only breed safely on reserves. The truth is there are possibly 500’000 raptors in the UK and 350’000 of them will be breeding successfully on land used for game sport shooting of some kind. This fact is completely ignored by those attempting to take the moral high ground“.

Hmm, I’d be really interested to see the data that this “fact” is based upon. Especially in light of the recently published scientific paper (see here) that shows, again unequivocally, that peregrines nesting on grouse moors in northern England are 50% less successful than peregrines that breed on non-grouse moor habitat.

Interestingly, the SGA article makes no comment about the poisoned buzzard and poisoned bait that was found on Glenlochy Estate and was reported in the media two days ago (see here). The SGA wouldn’t be trying to deflect attention from yet another disgusting and illegal poisoning incident, would they?

SGA article here

Poisoned buzzard found near poisoned bait on Glenlochy Moor

Northern Constabulary has today issued a warning to dog walkers in the Strathspey area after a distressed buzzard was found near a poisoned bait on Glenlochy Moor. The buzzard and grouse bait were found in late September in the Haughs area above Cromdale, and the bait was sent for toxicology testing. The results showed that it had been laced with the banned pesticide Aldicarb. The buzzard apparently recovered and was later released.

This is not the first time poisoned baits and birds have been discovered in this area, which is well known for its driven red grouse moors. Some previous incidents include (but are not limited to) the discovery of a poisoned buzzard and a red kite in 2005 – they had been killed by the banned pesticide Carbofuran. No charges were brought (see here). In 2008, a high-profile police raid was carried out on Glenlochy Moor after the discovery of poisoned buzzards and red kites, and poisoned baits (see here). No charges were brought. In May this year, a poisoned buzzard was discovered in the nearby area – it had been killed by Carbofuran and Aldicarb (see here). We are not aware of any charges being brought. And now this latest incident in September 2011. Hmmm. Anyone else seeing a pattern?

Northern Constabulary are to be congratulated for (a) releasing a press release to warn the general public in the area of the dangers of these lethal pesticides and (b) naming the estate where the poison was found. This is a great improvement on some of their recent responses to alleged persecution incidents in their region. However, an earlier press release would have been better, even if they just suspected that poison was present – rather than waiting for six weeks before the test results came back. West Yorkshire police managed to do it earlier this year (see here) – it should be standard practice for all police forces, unless of course they intend to launch an imminent police raid and don’t want to alert the suspects. Nevertheless, we still do applaud this action by Northern Constabulary and welcome their increased interest in illegal raptor persecution in their area. Well done.

Northern Constabulary press release here

BBC News article here

Poisoning by numbers

Last week the RSPB published its annual UK-wide report on raptor persecution (Birdcrime 2010, see here). We said we’d comment on the report once we’d had a chance to read it. Others chose to comment on the day of its release, or to be more accurate, their commentary was probably written prior to the release and was probably based on the content of the RSPB’s press release, rather than on the actual report’s content (see here).

Birdcrime 2010 held few surprises for many of us. The report carried details of raptor persecution incidents (confirmed, probable and possible) that had been reported throughout 2010, so by not publishing the report until November 2011, many of the items could be considered ‘old news’ (or at least those incidents that had been previously reported in the media – as usual, there were several incidents recorded in this report that were not made public at the time they occurred). That’s not to say the report has no value – it is an immensely important document because it is still the only publication to collate these national statistics in one place. It would just be more useful if it could be published at the beginning of the following year to which the report relates, rather than at the end of the following year, but limited RSPB staff resources may prevent this.

One advantage of publishing the report so late is that information can be provided on the outcome of criminal proceedings for those persecution incidents that actually made it to court. For example, the report provides some previously unpublished information about the trial of gamekeeper Glenn Brown, who was found guilty in June 2011 of operating an illegal trap to take birds of prey (amongst other crimes) on Howden Moor in the Peak District in April and May 2010 (see here, here and here). According to Birdcrime 2010, Judge Caroline Goulbourn “ruled that she viewed the attack on the integrity of the RSPB investigations staff by Bertie Woodcock QC on behalf of Knights Solicitors as an aggravating factor in the case. In addition, she criticised Brown’s employer, Geoff Eyre, who leases Howden Moor from the National Trust, for being evasive and reluctant to answer questions” [Birdcrime 2010, p.17].

Incidentally, there is further detail about this case that has been written in the RSPB’s newsletter, Legal Eagle 65. On page 2 the following has been written: “During the ten day trial, the prosecution relied on expert evidence including Prof Ian Newton, Dr Mick Marquiss, Stewart Scull, Dr Alisdair Wood and Guda van der Burght. The defence case, led by Bertie Woodcock QC, centred on the fact that Brown was not using the trap and the entire investigation was a set up with RSPB officers acting in bad faith throughout”. It’s good to see that Judge Goulbourn ruled against this, although what will happen at Brown’s impending appeal remains to be seen. Legal Eagle 65 reports that this appeal “is expected to take place in 2012”.

In addition to the case studies of earlier persecution incidents, Birdcrime 2010 reports that annual poisoning figures were down from 2009 (128 reported poisoning incidents in 2010, compared to 153 in 2009). It also reports that the 2010 figure is below the average for the last five years (2005-2009 average of 150 incidents). Unsurprisingly, it is this aspect that has been picked up on by the game-shooting lobby (e.g. see here). There has also been much made in the media this year about the ‘low’ poisoning figures for 2011 (e.g. see here) – although the published figures only relate to the first half of 2011; figures from June 2011 onwards are not yet available. So is this a sign of progress, as many of the game-shooting lobby would have us believe, or is it indicative of something else? For example, the lower figures could well be an indication that the gamekeepers have finally seen the light and have decreased their poisoning efforts. On the other hand, it could be an indication that gamekeepers are either (a) getting better at hiding their crimes, (b) switching to other persecution methods such as shooting, which is less likely to be detected, or (c) reporting efforts by the authorities have fallen. At this point I don’t think that either ‘side’ can claim a ‘victory’ in the on-going war of words. It is far too early to tell. For example, if you look at the graph that was published in the RSPB’s earlier report, The Illegal Killing of Birds of Prey in Scotland in 2010 (see here), then this reported decline in poisoning incidents can be seen in much clearer context. The graph I’m referring to appears on page 11 of that report and shows the number of confirmed poisoning incidents in Scotland from 1989-2010. The graph has been recreated for this post – see below (thanks to the contributor who sent it!).

If you look closely at the graph, you will see a great deal of variation between years in the number of confirmed poisoning incidents. Of particular interest are the years 1994 and 1995 – in these two years, confirmed poisoning incidents dropped to a low of 15 from a previous high of 35+. However, if you then look at the following three years, the number of confirmed incidents steadily rose until they reached 35+ again. In 1999, the figure dropped again to 15, and from then until 2010, that figure has steadily risen and fallen, although never reaching the low of 15 again. So what does that tell us? I’m fairly sure that in the years 1994 and 1995, the game shooting lobby would have declared a ‘victory’ as the figures had dropped so much, and would have shouted from the hilltops that they’d changed their ways.  I’m also fairly sure that in the following three years when the figures rose again, the conservationists would have declared a ‘victory’ and pronounced that their claims of widespread persecution had been vindicated. Either way, it is clear that neither ‘side’ can draw conclusions just based on an annual figure; for a trend to be detected, we need to see long-term figures.

But do these figures actually provide the full picture? If you read the recent paper on historical persecution at Atholl Estate (see here), then it’s pretty obvious that the ‘official’ persecution figures are meaningless, in the sense that they don’t tell the whole story. And from a conservation perspective, the figures, whether accurate or not, are not really that important. To steal a line from the recent paper on peregrine persecution on grouse moors (see here), “….it is the population level impact that is important, rather than the number of confirmed persecution cases”. We now have peer-reviewed scientific studies that have shown how persecution on grouse moors is having a population level impact on several vulnerable species (golden eagle, hen harrier, red kite and now peregrine). We have yet to see any peer-reviewed scientific studies that can counter these findings and show that these species are NOT impacted by persecution on grouse moors at a population scale. Why do you think that is, and more to the point, what are our politicians going to do about the published findings, apart from telling us that the Scottish government’s support for grouse shooting “goes beyond words“? (see here). Let’s hope that support doesn’t go beyond action as well.

New study shows extent of peregrine persecution on grouse moors

A new study has just been published in the international scientific journal Biological Conservation. Following hot on the heels of earlier studies that have demonstrated how illegal persecution on UK upland grouse moors is affecting the conservation status of golden eagles, hen harriers, red kites and goshawks, the latest study shows the damage that this disgusting practice is having on a population of peregrines in northern England.

You need to be a subscriber to the journal Biological Conservation to access the full paper (or alternatively you can buy it [see link at foot of this post] or you can google the paper’s lead author, Dr Arjun Amar, to see if he’ll send you a free PDF for your own private use), but here is the published abstract:

Wildlife crime can be difficult to quantify, and its true impact on populations can be underestimated if rates are under-recorded. The illegal killing of birds of prey is an important form of wildlife crime, which in the UK, is often associated with land managed for the recreational shooting of red grouse Lagopus lagopus scoticus. In the UK, increases in peregrine falcons Falco peregrinus following recovery from organo-chlorine pesticides have not been uniform, with slow growth and localised declines in some areas, including those managed for red grouse shooting. In this study, we combined 1081 peregrine nest histories across northern England between 1980 and 2006 with a remotely sensed map of grouse moor management, to test whether breeding performance was lower in areas with active management for grouse shooting. Productivity of pairs on grouse moors was 50% lower than pairs breeding on non-grouse moor habitat. However, clutch size and brood size of successful nests did not differ between habitat types, suggesting that food constraints were unlikely to explain this difference. Population models suggested source-sink dynamics, with populations on grouse moors unable to sustain themselves without immigration. Population data confirmed that growth rates were indeed lower on grouse moors than on non-grouse moor sites. Analysis of wildlife crime data confirmed that persecution of the species was more frequent on grouse moors than in other habitat types. This population will be more secure, and better able to function as a barometer of environmental health and climate change, if illegal persecution of the species ceases on areas of land managed for grouse shooting.

Even more evidence then, yet again, that illegal persecution in the UK is so serious that it is having population-level impacts on several raptor species. I think we can be fairly sure that the game-shooting lobby will try to dismiss these latest findings, especially as the lead author was an RSPB scientist and his co-authors were members of the Northern England Raptor Forum. We await their response(s) with interest.

Full citation:

Amar et al. (2011). Linking nest histories, remotely sensed land use data and wildlife crime records to explore the impact of grouse moor management on peregrine falcon populations. Biological Conservation.

Link to on-line abstract here

RSPB press release on British Birds website here

Shadow Environment Minister speaks out against illegal poisoning

The Shadow Environment Minister, Elaine Murray MSP, has spoken out against illegal poisoning following the report yesterday that a poisoned red kite and raven had been discovered in her constituency.

The following statement has appeared today on her website:

Dumfriesshire MSP Elaine Murray has hit out at the “shocking cruelty” of the poisoning of a red kite and raven in the hills near Durisdeer in Dumfries and Galloway.

The local MSP is warning of the impact on tourism in the area, as visitors to the Galloway Red Kite Trail have spent at least £21M in the region since 2004, with more than £2.6M spent by people who came specifically to see the kites.

Dumfriesshire MSP and Shadow Environment Minister Elaine Murray, who was involved in releasing some of the red kites in Dumfries and Galloway for the RSPB, said:

“This is an act of shocking cruelty that puts the very recovery of the red kite in Dumfries and Galloway at risk. Instances of poisoning like this are a double whammy because not only do they do potentially irreparable damage to our natural environment, but so much of our region’s tourism industry depends on wildlife that illegal killing of birds could have massive knock on consequences on our economy.

“This is a huge blow after the great news earlier this year that red kites have been bred in Nithsdale for the first time in 180 years. People come here to see the magnificent birds of prey in our countryside and it is selfish and barbaric to use illegal poisons to target them. The Police and RSPB Scotland have my full support in tracking down those responsible and I would urge anyone with information that could help to come forward”.

Elaine Murray MSP is no stranger to the fight against illegal raptor persecution, having played an important role during the debates on the WANE bill last year. She was also reported to have made several visits to raptor breeding sites earlier this year in the company of members from the local raptor study group.

Elaine Murray website here