Tag: red kite

SNH slow to enforce general licence restriction for poisoned red kite

It’s been four months since SNH set in place its procedures for restricting the use of General Licences on land where evidence of raptor crime is apparent.

Rolled out on 6th October 2014 (see here), this new measure was to be back-dated to incidents that have occurred since 1st January 2014. And there are plenty of those, some of which have reached the public domain and some of which have been deliberately kept quiet.

One of those which has been kept quiet is the illegal poisoning of a red kite which was found dead in central Scotland last July (seven months ago). It had died after ingesting the banned poison Carbofuran.

A couple of weeks ago we blogged about this particular case (see here) and we encouraged blog readers to email Andrew Bachell, SNH’s Director of Operations, to ask whether a General Licence restriction had been enforced. Here’s his response:

Dear XXXXX

Thank you for your e-mail. No restrictions have yet been implemented on a General Licence, including for this case.

We all find crimes such as these abhorrent and we, along with Scottish Ministers are fully committed to tackling wildlife crime. The restrictions on the use of General Licences are one tool we can use to help. In order to do so, we have been meeting regularly with the Police to review and discuss all evidence of bird-crimes that occurred in 2014 in line with our decision-making framework (see http://www.snh.gov.uk/docs/A1417398.pdf).

This document highlights that the decision to restrict the use of a General Licence will be based on evidence provided by Police Scotland and will be made on a case-by-case basis. In making a decision each piece of evidence will be assessed against criteria including:

– The strength of evidence that those activities had been carried out by owners or managers of that land

– The number or frequency of such instances

– The actual or potential conservation impact of those activities;

– The age of the evidence.

– Any history of previous, similar instances.

Whilst no restriction has yet been published, as soon as we were informed by Police Scotland about this case it has been under consideration by SNH against these criteria and we have been in close contact with the Police as the investigations continue. We will publish any restrictions on the website as and when they are implemented. In the meantime, I trust you can understand we cannot discuss individual cases, and particularly ones which are subject to ongoing police investigations such as this one.  

Yours sincerely

Andrew Bachell

Director of Operations

Scottish Natural Heritage

It’s a predictable response in that it doesn’t tell us very much other than the case is under consideration. What it doesn’t explain is the delayed enforcement action. When you consider that the decision whether or not to restrict the General Licence is based on a civil burden of proof rather than a criminal burden of proof (i.e. a conviction), it’s not clear why SNH is waiting to hear about the on-going police investigation. When you look at the other criteria that SNH is using to assess these cases, we believe the criteria for enforcement action have been met: This poisoned red kite is not the first case of raptor persecution in this area (although no known prior convictions but that shouldn’t matter because criminal burden of proof isn’t required); the conservation impact of poisoning a red kite is obvious; and the poisoned carcass (i.e. the evidence) was fresh enough for SASA to determine that the bird had been poisoned by Carbofuran.

So why the delay?

Perhaps we’re being unfair and SNH has already issued a restriction notice and it has been challenged/appealed by the landowner (as is his/her right under the terms of SNH’s restriction framework). Indeed, we’d be extremely surprised if any landowner didn’t challenge/appeal a restriction of this type, given the problems of using a civil burden of proof for enforcement measures.

This case will be an interesting one to watch. Let’s hope that whatever the outcome, SNH will demonstrate some transparency and explain the reasons for either the failed or successful enforcement.

Red kite photo by David Tomlinson

Red kite poisoned in Central Scotland – police decide not to publicise

Police Scotland has failed to publicise the illegal poisoning of a red kite which was found dead in central Scotland last July. That’s July 2014 – six months ago!

The only reason this crime has come to our attention is because it is included in the recently-updated quarterly reports by SASA – the Government agency whose job is to analyse carcasses for poisons.

This kite was killed by ingesting the banned pesticide Carbofuran. There are no other details, other than the carcass was recovered in central Scotland and the case is subject to an on-going police investigation.

Why didn’t Police Scotland issue a press statement? Sure, they might have chosen to delay it for a few weeks for operational purposes, e.g. if they were planning a raid on the premises then they wouldn’t want to alert the potential suspects in advance. But six months on and still silent? That’s pathetic.

It’s this kind of cover-up that plays directly into the hands of those who seek to diminish the extent of raptor persecution. If the public is unaware that these crimes are continuing, they’ll be more likely to believe the lies of certain organisations who keep saying that raptor persecution crimes are occurring with less frequency, and that landowners and gamekeepers have cleaned up their acts. If the public believes that, they are less likely to join in calls for greater enforcement/tougher penalties etc. If MSPs don’t hear about this issue from their constituents, they’ll be less likely to push forward any legislative changes. The end result? The raptor-killing will continue with impunity and the raptor-killing criminals will continue to escape justice.

Police Scotland’s silence does absolutely nothing to inspire public confidence in their ability and willingness to tackle wildlife crime. Perhaps they did investigate and perhaps they’ve charged someone who is now awaiting prosecution. Perhaps they did investigate but didn’t find any evidence to link the crime to an individual. Perhaps they did nothing and the file is gathering dust on someone’s desk. Whatever response they did or didn’t make, given the high level of public interest in these crimes and, in this case especially, the dangerously-high toxicity of the poison (fatal to humans), they should have publicised this incident months ago.

We are also interested in whether any General Licence restrictions have been imposed on the land where the kite was found poisoned. We don’t know whether this land is used for game-shooting but we’d make an educated guess that it is, especially given the type of poison involved – Carbofuran is still the gamekeepers’ ‘poison of choice’.

If you remember, SNH now has the power to restrict the use of General Licences, based on a civil burden of proof (i.e. so not reliant on a criminal conviction) ‘where there is evidence to suggest that a wild bird or birds have been either killed, injured or taken or where there has been an attempt to do so other than in accordance with a licence, or where General Licences are being misused‘ [this is a direct quote from the SNH 2015 General Licences].

This new measure was rolled out in October 2014 (see here) and can be back-dated to any offences that have occurred since 1st January 2014.

During the Scottish Parliament’s RACCE committee hearing on 29th October 2014 (see here), Detective Chief Superintendent Robbie Allan of Police Scotland talked about the implementation of this new measure:

“We have set up a structure whereby we will meet SNH on a monthly basis. At that meeting, Police Scotland will inform and notify SNH of any crimes that fit the proposed criteria. SNH will take that information and make an assessment based on it. The first meeting will take place in the first week of November [2014], and it will apply retrospectively to all offences since 1st January [2014].”

So, the first monthly meeting between Police Scotland & SNH was due to take place in early Nov 2014. That’s almost three months ago. This red kite was poisoned in July 2014. It is reasonable to expect, then, that this case has been assessed by SNH and they’ve made a decision whether or not to impose a General Licence restriction.

We just had a look on the SNH website, where it says: ‘Any decision to implement a restriction will be posted on this webpage‘ (see here). Surprise surprise, there isn’t any information about any General Licence restrictions that have been imposed. Does that mean they are not going to impose a restriction for the poisoning of this red kite? Or does it mean they haven’t yet got around to looking at it? Or something else?

Trying to get information from these enforcement bodies is like pulling teeth. Why is it so bloody difficult? Where’s all the ‘accountability’ that they’re so keen on telling us they have but the SSPCA doesn’t have?

Let’s go directly to the Director of Operations at SNH (who makes the ultimate decision on whether a restriction is imposed) and ask him what’s going on with this case and specifically, whether a General Licence restriction has been imposed and if not, why not? Emails to Andrew Bachell: Andrew.Bachell@snh.gov.uk

Red kite photograph by David Tomlinson

Police search notorious raptor poisoning blackspot

Drumbanagher NI police search Jan 2015Police in Northern Ireland last week joined forces with officers from the Northern Ireland Environment Agency and the Health & Safety Executive (NI) to conduct a search of premises in one of the region’s most notorious raptor- poisoning blackspots.

The search focused on premises in the Drumbanagher area of Co. Armagh following the discovery of a Carbofuran-poisoned buzzard last October. The Drumbanagher/Poyntzpass area is known for its commercial game-shooting interests.

A dead cat was found during the search and has been sent for analysis.

We’ve blogged about this location before. Here’s the list of known (to us) victims:

2006: 1 x poisoned buzzard (type of poison unknown).

2008: 4 x poisoned buzzards (Alphachloralose).

2009: 2 x poisoned red kites (Alphachloralose). One bird survived, the other one didn’t.

2011: 1 x dead buzzard found under a hedge. Too decomposed for analysis.

2011: 3 x dead buzzards, suspected poisoning, but carcasses removed before police attendance. 1 x poisoned magpie (Alphachloralose).

2012: Another poisoned buzzard (Alphachloralose), reportedly the ’36th dead buzzard’ found in this area.

2014: 1 x poisoned buzzard (Carbofuran).

Our previous blogs on this area here and here.

Article on last week’s police search from Farming Life here

The face of ‘modern landownership’ in Scotland

This is a belter. Surely inspired by the Gloria Gaynor classic, a Scottish estate owner has erected signs on his land telling the RSPB they’re ‘not welcome’.

Go on now go

Walk out the door

Just turn around now

‘Cause you’re not welcome anymore

John Mackenzie, who owns the massive Gairloch and Conon Estates, said he’d put up the signs because:

“It is years of frustration and anger boiling over. Landowners, farmers and gamekeepers have always been an easy target, blamed by the society [RSPB] for the poisoning and shooting of raptors“.

Er, wouldn’t that have something to do with the fact that the majority of those convicted for poisoning and shooting raptors are, erm, gamekeepers working on shooting estates?

He went on to say he was “irritated” to find out that the RSPB had been “driving around looking at things themselves“. How dare they!

Ironically, the Conon Estate is close to the area where 22 raptors were found dead last spring in what has been termed the Ross-shire Massacre – 16 of them confirmed illegally poisoned (still no information on the other six).

Poor old Laird MacKenzie. He knows he can’t stop the RSPB, or anyone else for that matter, accessing his land, but he thought he’d stick up his signs anyway. Bless.

We wonder how his actions fit in with the recently launched Landowners Charter? Prepared by Scottish Land & Estates and published last September, this charter ‘sets out a commitment to the principles and responsibilities of modern landownership in Scotland’. The ‘four pillars’ of this charter are for landowners to be open, inclusive, enabling and responsible.

Not rude, arrogant, intolerant and stupid, then?

Bring on the land reform.

Article in Daily Mail here

Article in Daily Telegraph here

Article on BBC news website here

Ross-shire Massacre: 9 months on

KeystoneCopsIt’s been nine months since 22 raptors (16 red kites + 6 buzzards) were illegally killed in a mass poisoning incident near Conon Bridge, Ross-shire.

Still no word from Police Scotland on the name of the ‘illegally held substance’ that was used to kill these birds.

Still no arrests.

Still no charges.

Still no prosecution.

Still no justice.

Police Scotland’s handling of this investigation continues to astound….

You may remember, back in October, some senior officers from Police Scotland gave evidence on this case to the Parliamentary Rural Affairs, Climate Change & Environment Committee (RACCE). The police were being questioned about their idiotic recent press release which had stated: “These birds were most likely not targeted deliberately but instead were the victims of pest control measures“.

We were particularly interested in what Assistant Chief Constable Malcolm Graham had to say to the RACCE about this press release:

“We put out information into the public domain that we thought was going to clarify what we thought our best assessment was, lay behind the intent of the acts that we’re investigating, and from everything that we have done, in combination with a number of other agencies who are active in this field AND WHO SUPPORTED THE PRESS RELEASE THAT WE PUT OUT [Emphasis by RPS], we wanted to say that it didn’t appear that the activity had sought to deliberately target the birds that had been killed“.

We were intrigued about who these “other agencies” were that had supposedly “supported the press release that we put out” because, to be blunt, we didn’t believe ACC Malcolm Graham’s claim.

So in October we encouraged blog readers to email ACC Graham to ask him for clarification on the identity of these “other agencies“. There was no response for six weeks. So last week we encouraged blog readers to consider writing to the Information Commissioner to put in a formal complaint about Police Scotland’s refusal to respond. That prompted the following letter from Police Scotland, sent on 11th December 2014:

Dear XXXXX XXXXX

ACC Graham has asked me to reply to your email on his behalf.

I can confirm that a number of organisations both governmental and non-governmental have assisted the police in this enquiry from the outset. Significantly, both the RSPB Investigations Team and the SSPCA Special Investigations Unit have been involved and offered professional opinions at various times based on their experience of the the killing of birds of prey and the use and impact of poisons.

When drafting the press release these considered opinions along with those given by others were taken in to consideration. The press release reflected the belief at this time that the birds of prey were not the intended target of the illegal poison. However, as stated in the press release the illegal killing of the 16 poisoned birds remains a crime and therefore subject to a criminal investigation.

Regards,

Sergeant Andrew Mavin

Scottish Wildlife Crime Coordinator

Specialist Crime Division

Police Scotland

Glasgow West End Police Office

609-611 Dumbarton Road

Glasgow

G11 6HY

An interesting response, eh? We already know that RSPB Scotland didn’t support the press release (see here), and neither did Environment Minister Paul Wheelhouse (see here). The SSPCA didn’t respond to our queries so we don’t know whether they supported the release or not but we could take an educated guess.

While we wouldn’t go as far as to suggest that Police Scotland gave misleading evidence to a Parliamentary Committee, we would suggest that their evidence (specifically, their claim that “other agencies who supported the press release that we put out“) deserves further scrutiny and we’ll be writing to the RACCE about this.

Meanwhile, we await with interest to see whether the new Cabinet Secretary for Justice, Michael Matheson, responds to MSP Dave Thompson’s request for a review of the police handling of this investigation.

Previous blogs on the Ross-shire Massacre here

Barn owl shot, red kite poisoned

Cheshire Consabulary logoCheshire Constabulary are appealing for information after a series of wildlife crimes, including the shooting of a barn owl, swan and heron, and the suspected poisoning of a red kite.

The crimes took place at Risley Moss Nature Reserve in Warrington, Cheshire, “in recent weeks”.

No further details available.

Article in the Warrington Guardian here.

Last night’s Landward programme: putting lipstick on a pig

Last night’s BBC 2 (Scotland) Landward programme was all about driven grouse shooting. The programme had been billed as follows:

‘Grouse shooting brings millions of pounds into the Scottish rural economy, yet it is controversial. Dougie Vipond and Sarah Mack go on a shoot to see the sport first-hand, while Euan McIlwriath investigates the impact of grouse moors on the environment’.

On that basis, we expected a well-balanced programme exploring the detail of those ‘controversies’ with input from both ‘sides’. What we got was a BBC whitewash with a quite astonishing level of presentational bias. Not what we expected from a team who are all-too-familiar with raptor persecution, especially after their programme a couple of years ago which produced the classic Alex Hogg quote lie: “Professional gamekeepers do not poison raptors“.

You only have to look at the line-up of interviewees on last night’s programme to see that something was amiss:

Robert Jamieson, owner of gunmakers James Crockhart & Son, Blairgowrie.

Andrew Farquharson, owner of Finzean Estate, Aberdeenshire.

Allan ‘Hedge’ Shand, head gamekeeper of Finzean Estate.

Charlie Thorburn, gungog trainer from Mordor Gundogs.

Robert Rattray, sporting letting agent from CKD Galbraith.

Robbie Kernahan from SNH’s licensing department.

Tim (Kim) Baynes, Moorland Group Director, Scottish Land & Estates.

How many of these individuals would you expect to provide a fully comprehensive commentary on the dirty realities of driven grouse shooting? It’s almost as if the programme had been written and directed by the SGA!

We heard about the history of driven grouse shooting, how it’s the ‘Sport of Kings’, how much a decent gun would cost, how it’s a key part of the Scottish rural economy, how good it is for supporting rural jobs and how it’s still considered a ‘prestigious field sport’. You’d expect as much from people with a vested interest in maintaining this filthy industry. But what about the other side of the story?

We did hear about habitat management on the Finzean Estate (from the estate owner and his head gamekeeper) and we were told that this is an award-winning estate because it won this year’s Golden Plover Award for Moorland Managagement. What wasn’t said was that this award was given by two industry organisations –  The Heather Trust and GWCT – two organisations who clearly don’t have a vested interest in promoting driven grouse shooting. Ahem.

But we didn’t hear anything about the environmental implications of driven grouse moor management, such as the effects of intensive heather burning, building tracks across the moorland, putting in car parks on the moors, installing grouse butts on the moors, the increased risk of flooding resulting from grouse moor management, the wholesale (legal) indiscriminate slaughter of hundreds of thousands of native creatures that could conceivably eat an egg or a grouse, including foxes, stoats, weasels, crows etc, nor the unregulated massacring of mountain hares for no good reason whatsoever (see here here and here). Why not?

And what about raptor persecution? Well, poisoning did get a brief mention, although there was no indication about the scale of illegal killing associated with driven grouse moors in Scotland (and northern England). Why not?

The head gamekeeper was asked what predators he had on the hill at Finzean, presumably in an attempt to show that this estate was predator-friendly. He mentioned foxes and hoodies, but ‘forgot’ to mention that they’re not tolerated and are routinely killed year-round, as they are on all driven grouse moors. He also mentioned a few raptor species, including merlin, ‘eagles’ and peregrine. Now that was interesting. Finzean does indeed have some raptor species, including a pair of red kites and golden eagles. But there’s having eagles and then there’s having eagles. The Finzean eagles aren’t doing very well. Their breeding attempts are routinely unsuccessful and there is a suspiciously regular turn-over of breeding birds at this site. Why is that? Golden eagles tend to be relatively sedentary once they’ve settled in a breeding territory, and only rarely do they move or change partner. The odd turn-over event is to be expected – if one of the pair dies (natural mortality) or if a nearby ‘superior’ breeding site becomes available – but these events are relatively rare and certainly couldn’t be described as a ‘regular’ behaviour, and yet territorial eagles are turning over with regularity at Finzean. Hmm.

And what about hen harriers? Why didn’t the presenter ask about those? We would have liked to have heard the head keeper’s comments on that. Finzean did used to have breeding hen harriers, but they’re not there any more and haven’t been for some time. Why not?

There was a short piece on the new restriction on General Licences that SNH may choose to use if they believe, on the balance of probabilities, that illegal raptor persecution has taken place. However, there was no mention of the ‘get-out clause‘ that would allow an estate to simply by-pass the imposed restriction and get an individual licence instead.

All in all then, a pretty god-awful, poorly-researched programme that failed to highlight the on-going environmental concerns associated with driven grouse shooting, and instead tried to portray it as something it really isn’t. You can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig.

As it’s the awards season, we might have to consider starting our own – the Lip-sticked Pig Awards for Grouse Moor Management. This programme would be a contender for best documentary of the year.

If you missed the programme, you can watch it in BBC iPlayer for the next 29 days here

Ross-shire Massacre: MSP calls for review of police investigation

As the Ross-shire Massacre fiasco rolls into its eighth month, one MSP is making a stand.

Dave Thompson MSP (SNP: Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch) has called on Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill to undertake a review in to the police handling of this investigation. Well done, that man!

The police investigation into one of the most high profile mass raptor poisoning crimes in decades has blundered along for far too long and is fully deserving of public scrutiny, as is the accompanying police media strategy. Rather than providing clear and timely information, their strategy has been to release a series of untimely, misleading and willfully ambiguous statements that have done anything but inform. Indeed, these statements have simply led to more and more outlandish speculation and a growing sense of frustration and anger. Given how keen Police Scotland are on “public accountability” (e.g. see here), they’ll no doubt welcome a review of their handling of this case.

Dave Thompson MSP is a member of the Scottish Parliament’s Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment (RACCE) Committee, who recently heard evidence from two senior Police Scotland representatives about the Ross-shire Massacre (see here). It seems he was as unimpressed with their answers as we were.

He said: “It would be useful if a full review of the investigation process was carried out. It would go a long way to allaying any fears the general public may have but also, in the interests of transparency, such a review would take away any lingering confusion about how these great birds of prey met their demise.

“This is why I have written to Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill to request that a review of the investigation process takes place and why I will be making sure the Lord Advocate is copied into any correspondence on the matter“.

Dave Thompson MSP formally opening the Tollie Red Kite feeding station in 2012, assisted by Alex Matheson (Brahan Estate) and George Campbell (RSPB Regional Director). [RSPB Scotland photo]

Dave Thompson MSP

 

Ross-shire Massacre: more on that Police Scotland press release

Brian Etheridge statementA week ago, Police Scotland issued a ludicrous press statement concerning the illegal poisoning of 22 raptors in Ross-shire. They said that they could CONFIRM that the birds “were most likely not targeted deliberately but instead were the victims of pest control measures“.

We’ve blogged quite a bit on that press statement already (see here, here, here, here). Our main issue with it is that the police appear to have ruled out intent (i.e. inferring the birds were accidental victims) before they’ve even identified a suspect. How could they possibly know what the intent was without first having a confession from the poisoner? We also take issue with them citing ’16’ victims instead of 22 victims. It may well be that they only have confirmed poisoning results from 16 of the 22, but to completely ignore the other six birds merely diminishes the scale of this crime.

We are not alone in this view. An article in the North Star quotes the RSPB’s Brian Etheridge (he’s the guy who has worked with the Black Isle red kite population for 19 years and was heavily involved in the discovery of the poisoned birds) as folllows:

“It’s a very stupid statement. That’s almost justifying the killing. It’s like saying that a drunk driver who kills somebody didn’t go out with the intention of killing anyone. He was just drunk and it was an accidental death“.

Last week, we invited blog readers to contact two of the partner agencies involved in this investigation (RSPB Scotland & SSPCA) to formally ask whether they agreed with the content of the Police Scotland statement. The SSPCA is yet to respond, but Ian Thomson, Head of Investigations at RSPB Scotland has issued the following statement:

“The use of poisoned bait, deliberately placed in the open countryside, is an indiscriminate and criminal act, whatever the intention of the perpetrator, and is aggravated in this case by the fact that an illegal chemical was used.

Whether these birds were killed deliberately or otherwise is irrelevant. Someone placed a fast-acting and very toxic poison out in the open, in an area well-known as being frequented by protected birds of prey, including a significant part of the north of Scotland red kite population. The resulting deaths were an entirely predictable result. It is very fortunate that the members of the local community who discovered poisoned birds did not become victims themselves.

The placing of poisoned bait, just a few miles from the popular Tollie red kite feeding station, was not only a reckless attack on local wildlife but also on the local tourist economy.

 I hope this provides clarification of our position”.

END.

Now, while Mr Thomson’s statement doesn’t really answer directly the question he was asked (and to be fair, we’d have been surprised if he had, given that the RSPB has to work in partnership with the police), it is nevertheless very revealing. He specifically mentions poisoned bait – something Police Scotland has so far failed to do, but more importantly, if you read between the lines, it’s pretty obvious that RSPB Scotland isn’t too happy about the Police Scotland statement: “Whether these birds were killed deliberately or otherwise is irrelevant” and “The resulting deaths were entirely predictable“. Indeed.

The Police Scotland statement came in for further scrutiny at the Scottish Government’s Rural Affairs Committee hearing on Wednesday. The session was all about wildlife crime and two senior police officers, as well as a rep from COPFS, gave evidence to what turned out to be an impressively well-informed Committee. We’ll be blogging more on what was said at that hearing in due course, but suffice to say it was extremely illuminating. The official transcript apparently won’t be available until Monday, but in the meantime we thoroughly recommend you watch the video of the hearing (available here).

Malcolm GrahamSo, what was said about the Police Scotland press statement during that hearing? Quite a lot! The discussion on this specific item lasted for 18 minutes (see video 01.20-01.30 and then 01.34-01.42) and those well-informed Committee members clearly expressed their concern about the Police Scotland statement.

The police officers (ACC Malcom Graham, pictured left, and DCS Robbie Allan) tried to defend their position – notably, they didn’t apologise for any of the confusion their statement had caused – but their defence wasn’t very impressive. They did state, clearly, that they hadn’t intended to infer the poisonings were accidental, and they did confirm a criminal investigation was on-going. That was good, but they couldn’t justify why they thought the birds “were most likely not targeted deliberately” and quite surprisingly, they claimed that their partner agencies had been in support of the press release! Here’s part of what Assistant Chief Constable Malcolm Graham had to say:

 “We put out information into the public domain that we thought was going to clarify what we thought our best assessment was, lay behind the intent of the acts that we’re investigating, and from everything that we have done, in combination with a number of other agencies who are active in this field AND WHO SUPPORTED THE PRESS RELEASE THAT WE PUT OUT [Emphasis by RPS], we wanted to say that it didn’t appear that the activity had sought to deliberately target the birds that had been killed“.

We find it very hard to believe, given the formal press statement issued by RSPB Scotland, that they were in any way supportive of the Police Scotland statement. So who were these “other agencies who are active in this field” who “supported the press release“? We’re very interested in this and perhaps Assistant Chief Constable Malcolm Graham would like to be given the opportunity to explain, given how keen on public accountability Police Scotland claim to be. Perhaps he wouldn’t like to explain, but we’ll never know unless we ask. Emails to: ACC.CrimeMCPP@scotland.pnn.police.uk

Disingenuous SGA uses flawed analysis to misrepresent raptor crime data

There’s a shockingly poorly-researched article in today’s Telegraph, penned by Scottish journalist, Auslan Cramb.

He claims that ‘Wind turbines have killed more birds of prey than persecution‘ this year. The basis of his flawed claim is his analysis of the latest SASA data, covering the period Jan-June 2014.

Cramb states that, “Four raptors were killed by turbines between January and June. Over the same period, two birds were confirmed to have been poisoned or shot“.

Dear God. Let’s just have a closer look at the SASA data, shall we?

March 2014: Dead peregrine found in Strathclyde – Carbofuran poisoning.

April 2014: Dead peregrine found nr Stirling – [shot on the nest].

April 2014: Dead buzzard found in Fife. Poisoned [“banned poison” not named by police].

June 2014: Dead hen harrier found in Muirkirk – [shot].

That’s four confirmed illegal killings in the report. Can’t Mr Cramb count? There’s also a further entry:

January 2014: Dead rook, rabbit bait & hare bait (Carbofuran) found in Strathclyde. Not a raptor, granted, but its misleading not to mention this incident especially as Carbofuran-laced baits are routinely used to kill raptors. This incident is no less serious than a poisoned raptor.

But what’s missing from the SASA report? According to our research, the following:

January 2014: 1 dead bird [species unidentified] & suspected poison bait, South Lanarkshire.

March 2014: 16 red kites poisoned in Ross-shire [“banned poison” not named by police].

March 2014: 6 buzzards poisoned in Ross-shire [“banned poison” not named by police].

April 2014: 1 dead buzzard, allegedly shot, bludgeoned and stamped on, Dumfries & Galloway. A criminal trial is underway.

That makes a total of 27 confirmed illegally-killed raptors between Jan-June 2014, plus one rook and one unidentified bird.

Now, it’s quite possible that Mr Cramb is unaware of some of those additional persecution incidents (although if he was a half-decent journalist he would have done some homework – information about all of those crimes can be found on this blog).

However, it is inconceivable that the 22 raptors poisoned in the Ross-shire Massacre in March this year escaped his attention. He’s a journalist – it’s his job to keep abreast of the news.

Sure, the 22 poisoned raptors are not listed in the SASA report because mysteriously, SASA has chosen to exclude them, probably at the request of Police Scotland – we blogged about this exclusion here and the ramifications of their secrecy just keep coming, as evidenced here), but it’s very poor journalism for him to have excluded them from his analysis on windfarm deaths vs persecution deaths.

Cramb’s poor research skills are one thing. However, his flawed analysis appears to have been readily accepted by the Scottish Gamekeepers’ Association, and used by them to misrepresent the truth about raptor persecution stats. In the article, Cramb says this of the SGA:

‘A spokesman for the SGA said the report revealed the truth behind the “prejudice” aimed at landowners and farmers which painted the shooting industry as “guilty until proven innocent“.

‘He added: “It is important the public can understand for themselves the true picture regarding wildlife crime.

“After the appalling finger-pointing at the shooting and farming industries following Conon Bridge this year by the highly politicised conservation movement, we will be interested to see if those groups now call for the same licensing measures against the government-backed wind farm industry”‘.

So, the SGA have accepted Cramb’s analysis even though they are fully aware that the 22 illegally-poisoned raptors at Conon Bridge are not included in his results. They can’t deny knowledge of the Ross-shire Massacre because the SGA spokesman even mentioned it in his quote!

We would argue that the SGA is being disingenuous, readily accepting Cramb’s flawed analysis because it suits their agenda to keep denying the extent of raptor persecution crimes in Scotland. That’s outrageous. Why is this organisation still allowed to sit on the PAW Scotland Raptor Group, whose objective is to raise awareness of raptor persecution, not to deny it? They’re a disgrace.

Telegraph article here

UPDATE 3rd November 2014: RSPB Scotland has also blogged about this here