Tag: poisoning

Poisoned golden eagle at Glen Orchy – two years on…

Two years ago today, this dead golden eagle was discovered by hill walkers in Glen Orchy, Argyll. Government tests later showed it had been poisoned by the illegal pesticide Carbofuran. This poisoning incident made the national press (e.g. here).

Several days later, a multi-agency search was conducted in and around Glen Orchy. The police-led operation included the Oban Community Policing Team, specialist wildlife crime officers from three police forces (Strathclyde, Lothian & Borders and Central), experts from the National Wildlife Crime Unit, pesticide experts from the Scottish Government and representatives from the RSPB and Scottish SPCA. The police said afterwards that they were following a positive line of inquiry.

Meanwhile, during the police search two handguns were found in gamekeeper Tom McKellar’s loft. Eighteen months later in December 2010, McKellar was convicted at the High Court in Glasgow for having prohibited weapons. However, he avoided the usual mandatory five year custodial sentence and instead received 300 hours community service. Story here

So what happened to that ‘positive line of inquiry’ in the eagle poisoning investigation? Good question.

Bird boycott

Here is a letter that was published in today’s edition of The Scotsman:

“I recently had another holiday in Scotland – my third visit this year – principally to do bird and wildlife watching.

Like many others I have always wanted to go bird watching in Malta and Cyprus, but have boycotted these islands on principal because of their hunting and persecution of birds.

On each visit to Scotland I learn of more illegal poisoning and persecution of raptors – including a major tourist attraction, the iconic golden eagle.

I am beginning to think that my patronage of your tourist industry is somewhat hypocritical in view of my stance on the European countries I mentioned.

It appears that wildlife crime detection is grossly underfunded and that penalties are woefully inadequate.

What good is a fine of a few thousand pounds to a gamekeeper whose multi-millionaire lord and master will pay the fine anyway?

I think a universal boycott by wildlide enthusiasts would be damaging to the economies of Scotland, and I implore the Scottish Government to make a concerted effort to stamp out these crimes.”

P. Bateson, Halifax.

The Scotsman letter here

‘Unfair to accuse gamekeepers of wildlife crime’, says gamekeeper Alex

In an article published in The Courier on 30 May 2011, Ian Thomson, an investigator for the RSPB, expressed his concern about the high number of wild birds illegally killed in Tayside. 14 incidents were recorded there between March 2010 and March 2011.  In the same article, it is reported that PC Bryan Prestwood, a wildlife crime officer based in Angus, ‘believes the biggest problem is with gamekeepers and land managers’. Full article here

In an angry response published on 6 June 2011, Alex Hogg suggested it was ‘unfair to accuse gamekeepers of wildlife crime’. His letter here

I think people will make up their own minds Alex, based on the factual evidence and government statistics. You’ve even said yourself, on many occasions, that if gamekeepers were to be given licences to kill protected raptors then illegal raptor poisoning would stop. This notion was also repeated last week by David Hendry of Cardney Estate in his BBC 2 Landward interview. Quite a strange prophecy from a ‘profession’ that claims not to be involved with wildlife crime, don’t you think?

For those still in any doubt whether some gamekeepers are involved in willdife crime, and specifically raptor persecution, here’s a link to a piece we wrote on the issue last year, including some revealing statistics provided by the RSPB. Here’s a link to another piece we wrote last year, with the most recently-published RSPB statistics. These show clearly that 85% of people who were convicted of illegally killing birds of prey between 2003-2008 were gamekeepers!

Young red kite poisoned in Cumbria

Cumbria Police are investigating the posioning of a red kite – the third kite to be killed in the region since a re-introduction project began last August.

The first dead kite from the project was shot dead in Dentdale in September 2010. The second dead kite had been killed by a shotgun wound in the Grizedale area, found under its roost tree on April 20 2011. The latest reported dead kite was discovered in January 2011 near Esthwaite Water, Hawkshead. Toxicology results have now confirmed this bird had been poisoned.

News story here

“Professional gamekeepers do not poison raptors” says Alex Hogg

Episode 11 of the BBC 2 Scotland ‘Landward’ programme went out on Friday 27 May and included a segment on the new vicarious liability regulation in the Wildlife and Natural Environment (Scotland) Act 2011. The programme is available here for a limited period.

The segment opened with Duncan Orr-Ewing, Head of Species at RSPB Scotland, who told the interviewer, “Bird of prey poisoning is particularly associated with driven grouse moors in the upland of Scotland, in the central and eastern highlands, parts of Perthshire and also down in the southern uplands”.

The interviewer, Dougie Vipond, asked: “So who is doing this? Who is killing the birds?”

Orr-Ewing: “Well, it is estate employees, gamekeepers who are usually involved, but they are only employees, they are acting under the direct instructions so ultimately it is the landowners that are responsible for this”.

A short section followed with a brief interview with Liz Plath, listed as a rural law specialist and a partner at Thorntons Law LLP. Basically she explained in simple terms how vicarious liability brings the landowner or the employer into the frame in cases of raptor poisoning.

Next up was Alex Hogg, chairman of the SGA, whose opening line was: “Professional gamekeepers do not poison raptors”. Funny that, because if you bother to look back at the statistics on raptor poisoning for the ten-year period that Hogg has been in post, you’ll see that raptor poisoning incidents have been recorded on many estates, and yes, ‘professional’ gamekeepers have been convicted.

He then contradicted himself (and not for the first time) by saying: “It’s only a small minority that are still at it. A rogue few if you like”.  Lest we forget, here is the official government map showing confirmed raptor poisoning incidents between 2006-2010. Widespread, I’m sure you’ll agree, and the trend is pointing upwards.

He continued: “And we’ve tried our hardest over the past, I’ve now been in this job for ten years, to impress on everybody that it’s absolutely illegal to poison raptors”. Peer pressure from Hogg and co., while welcome, has been ineffective. It can’t help the situation when he and others from his industry continue to claim that raptors are having a significantly negative effect on game birds, songbirds, waders and lambs. Is there any scientific evidence for this? No, not a shred.

Next up came David Hendry, listed as the proprietor of Cardney Estate, near Dunkeld in Perthshire. Now this was an interesting interview. The piece opened with an introduction to Hendry, and video footage of a diving osprey on his estate. We were told that this estate ‘is home to many endangered birds of prey’. Unfortunately, Hendry was not asked how many and what species of raptors made their home there. The osprey was implied, but of course the osprey only eats fish, not exotic red-legged partridge (also known as French partridge) or pheasant, which are reared and released in large numbers for sport shooting on this estate, according to this shooting directory.

Vipond talked about the belief that the only way to stop poisoning is to introduce a licensing system which would allow landowners to control [kill] raptors. Hendry agreed, and suggested “it should become the gamekeeper’s job for instance to look after the rare raptors like harriers, your merlins, bring on your red kites, but they should also be allowed to reduce buzzards and sparrowhawks to numbers that are sustainable, because what we have today is not sustainable”.

Ok, so this is the first time we’ve officially heard that sparrowhawks are also the landowners’ intended target for licensed killing. Until now, the list has ‘just’ included buzzards and ravens. So what happens if they get the go ahead to kill these species? Will we see goshawks added to the next list? They’re just an over-sized sparrowhawk after all, so why not? And golden eagles? They’re just over-sized buzzards, so why not? Where will it stop?

It’s also very interesting that he thinks the current number of buzzards and sparrowhawks is ‘unsustainable’. According to this shooting website, Cardney Estate offers shooting days where between 200-400 exotic birds (partridge/pheasant) can be shot. That’s 200-400 birds per shooting day, depending on the time in the season. In September 2010, a record 677 birds were shot on one day according to one participant! Sounds to me like this sporting estate is doing very nicely thank you, without the need to kill off any indigenous protected raptors, whatever species they may be.

We then went back to Orr-Ewing, who was asked for his opinion about the need to ‘manage’ [kill] protected raptors. “These birds of prey are rightly protected because they’re vulnerable. We have a history of killing birds of prey in Scotland, many species are just recovering from that situation, there’s no other country in Europe that [legally] kills birds of prey”.

His first three points are accurate, but his last statement is not. In 2008 the provincial government of Lower Austria issued a decree allowing hunters to shoot 1,000 buzzards and 250 goshawks over the following five years. It previously allowed the killing of Montagu’s harriers until the EC stepped in to halt it. The decree allowing the legal persecution of buzzards and goshawks resulted in an international public outcry – the same can be expected if the licensed killing of raptors for the benefit of the game bird-shooting industry is permitted in Scotland.

And of course, it’s not just poison that is used to illegally kill raptors. Unfortunately our government does not produce annual statistics on the other incidences of raptor persecution that take place every single year. Thankfully, the RSPB does. Their annual reports (one covering bird persecution in the UK as a whole, and the other covering incidents in Scotland) are a welcome insight into the extent of the problem. Their 2010 annual reports are due for publication in the very near future. Their efforts to compile and publish these reports are worthy of the public’s gratitude because without them, we would only have Alex Hogg and co’s word about the extent of illegal raptor killing on Scotland’s sporting estates.

More on the Moy case

According to an article published in The Scotsman (view here), a post mortem carried out on the dead red kite discovered in the vehicle used by gamekeeper James Rolfe on Moy Estate last June, revealed it had broken legs and had died as a result of a blow to the head. Rolfe was convicted for being in possession of the dead kite. Why weren’t charges brought against anyone for the unlawful killing of this bird?

In the same article, it is reported that over a five-week period, the remains of a further two dead red kites, six illegal baited spring traps, a trapped hen harrier, and a poison bait laced with a banned agricultural pesticide (poison) were also recovered from the estate. No arrests or charges have been made in connection with these incidents.

Why not?

In an article in Birdwatch Magazine, further gruesome details are revealed about the discovery of a severed red kite leg and wing tags belonging to a red kite that was being followed by satellite tracking, all hidden in holes covered by moss. The article also reports that four golden eagle leg rings were discovered in Rolfe’s possession. No arrests or charges have been made in connection with these incidents.

Why not?

You may wish to ask the following people:

Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service: pn_copfs@scotland.gsi.gov.uk

Northern Constabulary Force Wildlife Crime Co-ordinator, Chief Inspector Matthew Reiss: matthew.reiss@northern.pnn.police.uk

Environment Minister for Scotland, Stewart Stevenson MSP: msp@stewartstevenson.net

Moy Estate results

Today at Inverness Sheriff Court, gamekeeper James Roderick Rolfe, 20, was convicted of being in possession of a dead red kite which was found in his vehicle during a police raid on the Moy Estate in June last year. Rolfe said he had found the kite caught in a trap set for stoats. It had not been poisoned. Rolfe was fined £1,500 for possession of the dead bird.

The images here show the dead kite in the back of his vehicle. No explanation has been given to account for the obvious injury this bird suffered to its head area. According to the Inverness Courier, Rolfe claimed the bird was already dead when he found it.

Another gamekeeper working on Moy Estate was accused of being in possession of 56 gull eggs. The court accepted his plea of not guilty.

Northern Constabulary press statement

Inverness Courier news report

Skibo Estate results

Dean Barr, a gamekeeper (and reported elsewhere as being the sporting manager) on the Skibo Castle Estate, has been convicted of having enough illegal poison “to wipe out the entire Scottish golden eagle and red kite populations several times over”. Barr, 44, of East Lodge, Clashmore, Dornoch, admitted possessing 10kg of the banned pesticide Carbofuran. He admitted carrying the poison from his previous job as head gamekeeper on the Raeshaw Estate to Skibo Castle Estate in 2008, because he had ‘not known how to safely dispose of it’.

The Carbofuran haul was discovered in a locked store on the Skibo Castle Estate, for which Barr had the keys. According to the Northern Times and Northern Constabulary, the poison was discovered within premises operated and solely accessed by Barr on Skibo Estate land.

Today he was fined £3,300 “to mark the court’s disapproval”. This was apparently reduced from a £5,000 fine for his early plea.

Despite this conviction, the Crown accepted he had ‘no part’ in the deaths of two poisoned golden eagles and a sparrowhawk (killed with Carbofuran) found on the estate in May 2010 (along with a dead buzzard and a third poisoned golden eagle killed by Aldicarb).

Barr’s defence lawyer said Barr was well regarded personally and professionally by his current and previous employers. “If it was thought that he was involved in the use of this material, they would not be so supportive”.

This is not the last we will write on this case.

The Scotsman news story

BBC news story

STV news story

Vicarious liability for raptor poisoning featured on forthcoming tv programme

The issue of vicarious liability for raptor poisoning incidents will feature in a forthcoming episode of ‘Landward’. It includes an interview with SGA chairman Alex Hogg, who will probably discuss his on-going (but so far thwarted) campaign to legalise raptor killing.

The 30 minute programme airs on Friday 27 May 2011 at 7 pm on BBC 2 Scotland. Also available on Channel 990 for Sky viewers, and BBC iPlayer shortly after transmission.

“Landowner Liability: In Scotland, poisoning raptors is a criminal offence punishable with a fine and a jail sentence, yet the slaughter continues. Arguments over birds of prey have raged for decades, but are now coming to a head with the inclusion of vicarious liability for landowners in the Wildlife and Natural Environment (Scotland) Bill, recently introduced by the Scottish Parliament. This means that landowners will be held legally responsible for birds poisoned on their land. Dougie Vipond investigates how this new clause will affect land management in Scotland“.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b011lg7s

Review of ‘Fair Game?’ documentary – our “ugly secret”

The BBC 2 Scotland documentary, ‘Fair Game? Scotland’s Sporting Estates’ was aired last night and opened with the BBC reporter visiting the Leadhills Estate with an undercover investigator from OneKind. This investigator was the guy who watched gamekeeper Lewis Whitham staking out a rabbit laced with Carbofuran in April 2009, leading to a conviction in 2010 (see blog post 17 Nov 2010). The BBC reporter, David Miller, was shown what was alleged to be an illegal ‘snapper trap’, and in forestry a few feet away he was shown the rotting carcasses of foxes and other animals, piled up at a ‘stink pit’ – used as a lure to draw in predators who are then snared as they approach the area. Also in the forest, he was shown the decomposing bodies of two raptors that someone had apparently tried to conceal under pine needles. Miller was visibly disturbed by what he’d witnessed in one small corner of one sporting estate, calling it ‘our ugly secret’ – not quite the public ‘conservation’ image that the shooting industry likes its estates to portray. The OneKind investigator has written an excellent account of his time out on the hill with Miller: http://www.onekind.org/resources/blog_article/fair_game

The discovery of the dead raptors and the apparently illegal snapper trap led to a later police search, in which a third raptor corpse was discovered, in addition to more raptor skulls. The trap was removed, and Leadhills Sporting Ltd denied all responsibility for the dead birds. Fountains Forestry, the owners of the private forest on the shooting estate, also denied any knowledge of the bodies and said the snares found were illegal as they had not given permission for anyone to set snares on that ground. Later in the programme, we learned about the weight of evidence of alleged criminal activity on Leadhills Estate. Since 2003, the RSPB has recorded 46 incidents where the government, police and/or other agencies have confirmed that poisoned baits have been set or birds have been illegally killed, just on Leadhills Estate. We were told that the current management at Leadhills Estate took over in 2008 and they say they ‘deplore wildlife crime’. However, the RSPB has since recorded 10 incidents since 2008, although none since 2009 – following the conviction of gamekeeper Lewis Whitham.

There followed a series of interviews with various people, including Dave Dick, the former head of RSPB Scotland Investigations (and a regular contributor to this site – thank you Dave), who talked about the hundreds of raptor persecution incidents he had seen first-hand over the last 20-30 years. We also heard from Mark Oddy from Buccleuch Estates who spoke briefly about the old glory days of grouse-killing at Langholm, and then we went to the RSPB’s Abernethy Reserve where Duncan Orr-Ewing showed Miller that it is possible for grouse-shooting and raptors to co-exist. Orr-Ewing also discussed the RSPB’s persecution figures and how these clearly show the effect of persecution on some raptor species. Government scientists have predicted that there should be 500 pairs of hen harriers on the UK’s grouse moors – there are actually only five. You don’t need to be Carol Vorderman to work out the missing numbers.

Next up was gamekeeper Peter Fraser from Invercauld Estate, who is also the SGA’s new vice chairman (see blog post 26 Nov 2010). There followed a fascinating conversation between Miller and Fraser, when Miller pointed out that 3 poisoned buzzards [and a poisoned raven] had been discovered on Invercauld Estate in 2003 [our sources suggest it was 2005] for which no-one was ever prosecuted:

Fraser: “All keepers know and understand that if they do that [poison a raptor] and they’re caught, you automatically lose your job”. NOT TRUE, Mr Fraser, as anyone who has read the contents of this blog site can attest.

Miller: “There are scientists who argue clearly that birds of prey in Scotland are being killed, shot, poisoned on our hills. Does that happen on this estate or neighbouring estates?”

Fraser: “Well, as I’ve said on this estate, if anyone does that we’re finished, and I can honestly say no. Never”.

Miller: “So, how do you explain the dead birds which routinely turn up in the Scottish countryside?”

Fraser: “I wish I could answer you that. Erm, in every walk of life there are some that lets the profession down and unfortunately we’re no different to everybody else. And it has been known that these birds have been planted on various areas so it’s a ticklish subject to deal with and to be quite honest, but er, I would like to think that poisoning has been greatly reduced over the years”. NOT TRUE, Mr Fraser – read the government statistics!

Miller: “Just to be clear, when poisoned or shot birds of prey are found on a gamekeeper’s land, clearly the stakes are very very high. Are you suggesting that those birds may have been deliberately placed there by a third party?”

Fraser: “Well, I haven’t got that evidence on me but erm I’m quite sure that has happened, quite sure that has happened”.

So there you have it. Peter Fraser, vice chairman of the SGA, admits that he has no evidence to support the claim that poisoned raptors have been ‘planted’ on sporting estates. It’s a shame Miller didn’t mention the poisoned buzzard found here in 1992, nor the 1997 conviction of an Invercauld Estate gamekeeper for the illegal use of a spring trap (see blog post 4 March 2010). Also a great pity that Fraser wasn’t asked how many breeding pairs of golden eagles and hen harriers are present on Invercauld Estate.

We then heard from Mike Yardley, a journalist and shooter, who stood smugly bragging about the ’20 safaris’ and other trips he has taken in Africa, North America and throughout Europe to shoot animals – and we were even treated to viewing some of his home videos of these trips. He probably met every expectation that the general public has of a typical shooter. It was hilarious. Not all shooters are of his ilk, of course, but the programme failed to get this across.

We heard from Robbie Kernahan from SNH who admitted that the evidence of illegal raptor persecution ‘should not be ignored’. We also heard from the laird at Alvie Estate, Jamie Williamson, who didn’t really discuss the issue of raptor persecution at all, and then we heard from an apparently very cagey Simon Lester, head gamekeeper at Langholm Estate who was obviously trying to pick his words carefully and not put his foot in it. Unfortunately he didn’t have anything substantial to offer in the comments that he did make. There was also an interlude at Mar Lodge Estate, although this was mainly about deer management and not really raptor persecution.

Miller went on to provide some interesting details about the performance of the procurator fiscals at the Crown Office. The BBC had asked them about the number of gamekeepers they had taken to court. Amazingly, they said they had only started recording their performance on wildlife crime early last year! Why? Since then, they’ve had one successful prosecution – Lewis Whitham from Leadhills Estate. There is ‘a handful’ of cases in the system – presumably these include the current cases concerning Skibo Castle Estate, Moy Estate and Inverinate Estate. We await these results with great interest to assess whether the extent of the charges brought are an accurate reflection of the evidence uncovered.

The finale came with an interview with Doug McAdam, CEO of SRPBA. Another apparently cagey performance that included what some might perceive as a blatant lie. Miller asked McAdam whether he thought the game industry was being unfairly targeted:

McAdam: “I think that there is a feeling out there amongst landowners and estates that there are people who would seek at every opportunity to damage the reputation of landowners and estates. If we look at the statistics, 28 cases of confirmed bird of prey poisoning incidents in Scotland in 2010 – it’s small, it’s in the tens, and it is a decreasing number”.

Actually, Doug, if you care to look at the official poisoning statistics that your organisation helped to analyse, you’ll see that the number of poisoned raptors discovered in 2010 was GREATER than the number discovered in 2009. Do you think that if you say it enough times (i.e. that the poisoning figures are declining) that somehow we’ll all forget the official statistics and believe your version? I don’t think so.

Miller also asked him: “Your very well informed members must know where those [poisoning] cases are taking place, surely?”

McAdam: “Er, I don’t, I don’t think that’s necessarily the case, no”.

So, our ignorant landowners are now pushing for licences to kill protected raptors as a method of reducing illegal persecution incidents, but they ‘don’t neccessarily’ know where these incidents are taking place. Brilliant.

For those of us hoping for some words of wisdom from SGA chairman Alex Hogg, sorry, he wasn’t included. I wonder why?

The programme is available for one week on the BBC iPlayer: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0116lfs/Fair_Game_Scotlands_Sporting_Estates/

Here is the SRPBA response to the programme: FairGameSRPBAresponse May 2011