Tag: shooting

8 more satellite-tagged hen harriers vanish – Natural England ‘forgets’ to mention them in latest press release

On Saturday, Natural England published a press release providing details about this year’s hen harrier breeding season, including the latest results of its so-called ‘scientific trial’ of hen harrier brood management, which many of us refer to as brood meddling – a conservation sham sanctioned by DEFRA as part of its ludicrous ‘Hen Harrier Action Plan‘ and carried out by Natural England, in cahoots with grouse moor owners, the very industry responsible for the species’ catastrophic decline in England (more info here and here).

Hen Harrier photo by Andreas Gullberg

As we’ve come to expect from Natural England, they spun a positive story about an increase in hen harrier breeding success this year (36 successful nests, up from 34 last year) and proclaimed ‘there are now more Hen Harriers nesting in England than at any point since they were lost as a breeding species around 200 years ago‘. That’s true, but given that England has sufficient habitat to host an estimated 330 breeding pairs, the breeding population is currently at an estimated 10.9% of what it could/should be, thanks to the illegal killing of this species on land managed for grouse shooting.

The press release does acknowledge that hen harrier persecution remains an ongoing issue on many driven grouse moors, and includes a link to the important 2019 scientific paper by Murgatroyd et al showing the extent of these crimes, but doesn’t include reference to the more recent paper by Ewing et al (2023) which shows hen harrier annual survival rates are appallingly low, especially among birds under one year old (males: 14%; females: 30%), with illegal killing accounting for the deaths of 27-41% of birds under one year, and 75% of mortality in birds aged between one and two years. 

It’s fairly pointless to celebrate improved breeding success without balancing that against poor survival rates. But this is a game Natural England plays routinely, giving very high prominence to breeding success without providing the same amount of publicity about persecution levels (e.g. see this conversation from 2021).

I’ve written before (here) how I think Natural England is utterly compromised on reporting about hen harriers, largely because Natural England has entered into a written contract with one of the shooting organisations whereby NE receives £75,000 over a period of three years (until 2024) in return for not making “any derogatory remarks” about the shooting organisation in relation to hen harriers (see here).

At the end of Natural England’s latest press release/blog, it says this:

‘As this blog goes to press the Police are actively investigating the deliberate killing of two brood-managed hen harriers, though we have been asked to give no further details at this time. These incidents hit our staff on the ground hard and can only detract from the efforts we and the partners we are working with to restore these special birds to our uplands‘.

What is doesn’t say, is that eight more satellite-tagged hen harriers have ‘vanished’ since NE’s last update in May 2023, and in total this year, of the 20 ‘missing’/illegally killed hen harriers, nine of them are brood meddled birds.

There’s quite a discrepancy between two and eight birds! Why have those eight most recent birds not been included in the press release? The data are provided in Natural England’s latest spreadsheet on the fate of tagged birds (here) but NE has deliberately chosen not to highlight them in its publicity drive. Why is that?

Is it because to do so would mean Natural England has to talk about the fact that since its brood meddling trial began in 2018, at least 109 hen harriers have gone ‘missing’/been illegally killed, most of them on or close to driven grouse moors?

The details (from the NE spreadsheet) of the latest eight ‘missing’ birds are provided below. I will add them to the rolling list of (now 109) missing/killed birds later today, but not until I’ve blogged about yet more ‘missing’ birds that the RSPB has just reported, which takes the total above 109 birds.

Here are the eight birds that have gone since the last update from NE in May 2023 – note, there hasn’t been a single press release/appeal for information from either NE or any of the police forces involved in these investigations:

Tag #203004, male, brood meddled in 2020 (name: R1-M2-20). Last known fix 12 June 2023 on a grouse moor in Co. Durham (grid ref: NY976322).

Tag #55144, female, brood meddled in 2020 (name: R2-F2-20). Last known fix 29 July 2023 at a confidential site in the North Pennines. Notes from the NE spreadsheet: “Dead. Recovered – awaiting PM results. Final transmission location temporarily withheld at police request“.

Tag #213922, male, brood meddled in 2021 (name: R2-M1-21). Last known fix 11 June 2023 at a confidential site in the Yorkshire Dales National Park. Notes from the NE spreadsheet: “Final transmission location temporarily withheld at police request“.

Tag #213932, male, brood meddled in 2022 (name: R2-M3-22). Last known fix 31 May 2023 in Northumberland (grid ref: NY765687).

Tag #201124a, female, (name: ‘Rubi’), tagged 27 June 2023 in Co. Durham. Last known fix 6 July 2023 on a grouse moor in Co. Durham (grid ref: NY911151).

Tag #55154a, female, brood meddled in 2023 (name: R1-F1-23). Last known fix 23 July 2023 on a grouse moor in Co. Durham (close to where ‘Rubi’ vanished), grid ref: NY910126.

Tag #55155a, female, brood meddled in 2023 (name: R1-F2-23). Last known fix 24 August 2023 at a confidential site in Northumberland. Notes from the NE spreadsheet: “Final transmission location temporarily withheld at police request“.

Tag #201118a, female, brood meddled in 2023 (name: R3-F1-23). Last known fix 11 August 2023 in Co. Durham (grid ref: NZ072136).

Man in court accused of shooting & killing a goshawk at pheasant-rearing farm

A court hearing was adjourned this week in the case of a man accused of shooting and killing a goshawk at his pheasant-rearing farm in Wales.

Photo: Mike Warburton

Thomas Edward Jones, 38, is alleged to have shot and killed a goshawk at Pentre Farm in northern Powys in July 2022 where tens of thousands of pheasants are reportedly reared for the game shooting industry.

Appearing at Welshpool Magistrates Court on Tuesday 5th September, Jones confirmed his name, age and address but did not enter a plea.

The case will continue on 19th September 2023.

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

UPDATE 21 September 2023: Trial date set for man charged with killing goshawk at pheasant-rearing farm (here)

UPDATE 23 November 2023: New trial date for man accused of shooting & killing goshawk at pheasant-rearing farm (here)

UPDATE 7 December 2023: Trial discontinued for man accused of killing goshawk at pheasant-rearing farm in Wales (here)

42 badgers killed on or next to Scottish grouse moors between 2018-2022

42 badgers have been found killed (baited, mauled, snared, shot, trapped, dug) on or next to grouse shooting estates between 2018-2022, according to the charity Scottish Badgers.

This figure, considered to be an under-estimate relying on accidental discoveries, was revealed in correspondence to the Rural Affairs & Islands Committee, written by the charity to correct information that had previously been given to the Committee by a representative of BASC (British Association for Shooting & Conservation) during an evidence session on the Wildlife Management & Muirburn (Scotland) Bill in June 2023.

Badger. Photo: Chris Packham

During the third evidence session on 21st June 2023, Rural Affairs Committee member Rachael Hamilton MSP asked the witnesses whether there was evidence linking grouse moor ‘operators’ with the illegal persecution of badgers.

Dr Marnie Lovejoy, Head of Environmental Law Research at BASC told the Committee, “Badgers do not tend to live on grouse moors…They are simply not there“.

The Scottish Badgers charity wasn’t represented at the oral evidence session so it has now written to the Committee to provide expert evidence on this issue.

In its letter addressing the claim made by BASC, Scottish Badgers wrote:

“On the contrary, there is documented evidence that relentless criminal persecution of badgers on grouse moors takes place linked to estate employees and is carried out by the same persons who kill raptors“.

The letter goes on to provide examples, including the recent cases of the sadist gamekeeper employed by Millden Estate in the Angus Glens (currently sanctioned after evidence of raptor persecution) who was jailed for his role in a badger-baiting gang (here), and the gamekeeper employed by Longformacus Estate in the Scottish Borders who was convicted for multiple wildlife crime offences, including the illegal killing of badgers and raptors (here).

You can read the letter from Scottish Badgers to the Rural Affairs & Islands Committee here:

wildlife-bill-scottish-badgers-follow-up-1-july-2023-1Download

Buzzard found with shotgun injuries in East Sussex

A buzzard was found with shotgun injuries in a field off Birch Grove Road near Chelwood Gate in East Sussex on 23rd July 2023, according to an article on the SussexWorld website.

It was collected by the East Sussex Wildlife Rescue and Ambulance Service (WRAS) and an x-ray revealed two shotgun pellets, one causing a wing fracture and the other one lodged in the buzzard’s leg.

Buzzard x-ray. Image via East Sussex Wildlife Rescue & Ambulance Service

Vets were able to remove both pellets and after a month of expert care and rehabilitation, the buzzard has been released back into the wild.

It’s not clear to me whether the shooting of this buzzard was reported to the police. There’s an odd quote in the article from the founder and operations director of East Sussex WRAS, Trevor Weeks, who apparently said this:

“Shooting and injuring any wild animal or bird is generally an offence unless they are dispatched swiftly after injury. We regularly see wildlife coming into our centre after being shot and not killed out right – swans, badgers, foxes, gulls and many more”.

Whilst Trevor’s work, and that of his colleagues at East Sussex WRAS, is fantastic and greatly appreciated, his knowledge about wildlife crime appears to be sorely lacking. That he seems to be unaware that it’s an offence to shoot a buzzard (and any other protected species), whether it dies swiftly or not after being hit, is just staggering. I’m hoping he’s just been misquoted.

If he hasn’t, then hopefully the RSPB’s investigations team will be able to offer some training (similar to this) to help this valuable rescue team to recognise the signs of a wildlife crime and submit appropriate reports to the police.

More trouble brewing for hen harriers from grouse moor owners’ lobby group, the Moorland Association

I’ve been passed some very worrying correspondence, sent to Moorland Association members in early August by Moorland Association Director Amanda Anderson, which signals that there may be more trouble brewing for hen harriers beyond the trouble already caused to them by brood meddling.

Male hen harrier. Photo: Pete Morris (RSPB Images)

It appears that the Moorland Association, the grouse moor owners’ lobby group, isn’t content with just brood meddling (removing entire broods of hen harrier chicks from grouse moors, keeping them in captivity hundreds of miles away and then releasing them again several weeks later back in the uplands, supposedly to reduce the number of red grouse that the parent hen harriers might take to feed their young because the grouse moor owners want to be able to shoot the grouse for fun/profit instead).

The Moorland Association is now turning its attention to the alleged ‘disturbance’ caused to driven grouse shoots by hen harriers (and other raptors) flying around during a grouse shoot ‘drive’ which causes the grouse to scatter instead of being forced (‘driven’) by the beating line towards the waiting guns in the grouse butts.

Here’s what Amanda Anderson sent to Moorland Association members just before the opening of the grouse-shooting season this year:

Listening to feedback from the moors last year, early packing up as well as difficulties controlling the grouse were noted. We are therefore encouraging reporting of disturbance in the line from Hen Harriers (and other birds of prey) to inform the Hen Harrier Recovery Plan. A simple to use form will be circulated next week and GWCT will do the analysis.  It is our intention to capture the extent of this disturbance and subsequent economic loss. Please look out for this form and do fill it in for each drive on every day that you are affected.  The Hen Harrier brood management scheme is to help find a mechanism for co-existence with hen harriers. If the conflict has shifted from predation of grouse chicks to harvesting grouse, we need to measure it and present the evidence.

It’s not clear from this what sort of ‘remedy’ the Moorland Association might be looking for when they’ve ‘presented the evidence’ to DEFRA and/or Natural England (‘evidence’ collected by the grouse shooters and analysed by the GWCT – hmm, that’ll be convincing then!). Amanda’s message mentions “subsequent economic loss” so it may be that they’re gearing up to ask for financial compensation for the perceived economic loss from their over-stocked grouse moors.

Or maybe they’re conspiring to ask for licences to remove those troublesome hen harriers (and other raptors). It wouldn’t surprise me – that is after all what’s going on with the hen harrier brood meddling trial, and there was previously discussion from the Moorland Association about lethal control in relation to Marsh harriers on grouse moors, although Amanda denied the discussion ever took place (see here) but meeting notes later revealed that some others in the room did recall the discussion taking place (see here).

Whatever it is they’re planning, they can expect a strong response from those of us who think, apart from anything else, that if a business can’t operate without damaging protected species then it’s not a viable/sustainable business, and in the case of driven grouse shooting the business certainly shouldn’t be receiving tax payers’ money as compensation whilst the illegal killing continues – that’d be like robbing the public with both hands instead of just one.

The irony of this latest revelation is of course linked to the hen harrier brood meddling sham. Brood meddling results in a (temporary) increase of hen harriers, which surprise, surprise, the grouse moor owners don’t want because they disrupt their grouse shooting drives (now admitted by Amanda).

This is presumably why, since brood meddling began in 2018, at least 101 hen harriers have been killed/gone missing, mostly on driven grouse moors (see here).

Biggest threat to UK goshawks is gamekeepers, not Chris Packham!

It’s become apparent today that a journalist is sniffing around for a story about Chris Packham in what looks like the latest attempt to discredit his reputation and integrity.

Apparently ‘someone’ has made a complaint to the BBC, the BTO, and Hampshire Constabulary accusing Chris of being a ‘wildlife criminal’ because he sniffed some goshawks chicks whilst they were waiting to be ringed in the New Forest in June for a feature on the BBC’s The One Show.

That ‘someone’ has even bragged on social media about making the complaint:

That ‘someone’, or more likely one of the game shooting organisations, has tipped off a journalist in the hope of trying to make mischief for Chris in the mainstream papers.

It’s so obviously just the latest in a long-running malicious smear campaign against Chris.

If there was a genuine concern for goshawk welfare from the game-shooting sector then I think we’d have heard a bit more from them when actual crimes against goshawks have been uncovered and publicised, e.g. the trapping and beating to death of a goshawk by a gamekeeper on a pheasant shoot in Scotland (here), the shooting of a goshawk by a gamekeeper on a pheasant shoot in Norfolk (here), the disturbance of a goshawk nest in the Peak District National Park (here), the disturbance of a goshawk nest in Scotland (here), the disturbance of another goshawk nest in Scotland by masked gunmen (here), the shooting of a goshawk in the Forest of Dean (here), the trapping of a goshawk by a masked man on a pheasant shoot in Norfolk (here), the killing of a goshawk caught in a gamekeeper’s trap in the Scottish Borders (here), the shooting of a goshawk in a raptor persecution hotspot in Scotland (here), the shooting of a goshawk in Staffordshire (here), the shooting of a goshawk on a sporting estate in the Cairngorms National Park (here), the felling of an active goshawk nest in Gloucestershire (here), the setting of an illegal trap by a gamekeeper next to a goshawk nest on a sporting estate in Scotland (here), the shooting and dumping of five young goshawks in Suffolk (here), the trapping of a goshawk on a grouse shooting estate in the North York Moors National Park (here), etc etc.

It’s not difficult to predict the headline: ‘Chris Packham under police investigation’, a bit like the headlines we saw a couple of years ago when the Scottish Gamekeepers Association told Hampshire Constabulary that they had ‘evidence’ that Chris wrote a death threat letter to himself…only it turned out that their ‘evidence’ was wholly unreliable (here) and the allegation was so far off the mark it was dismissed by Hampshire Constabulary (here) and condemned by a judge in a recent and related libel trial (here).

The latest (non) ‘story’ / smear campaign hasn’t emerged in the press yet but it may appear in the next day or so.

Meanwhile, Chris has responded this afternoon – well worth a watch:

UPDATE 27th August 2023: ‘Any bad publicity is good’ – Chris Packham haters celebrate as Sunday telegraph publishes pathetic ‘bird sniffing’ accusation (here)

UPDATE 29th August 2023: ‘No case to answer’ – Hampshire Police close ridiculous ‘Chris Packham sniffed a goshawk’ investigation (here)

BASC & Countryside Alliance accused of attempting to limit proposed new gun legislation after fatal shootings in Plymouth & Skye

There was an interesting article in The Guardian last week where the ‘UK gun lobby’ (BASC and Countryside Alliance) are accused of attempting to ‘skew’ a Government consultation on the tightening of gun legislation after fatal shootings in Plymouth and on the Isle of Skye.

The article can be read here.

The Westminster Government launched an eight week consultation in late June to ask for the public’s views on a number of recommendations made to the Home Office after licensed shotgun owner Jake Davison went on the rampage in Plymouth and shot and killed five people in 2021, and after licensed shotgun owner Finlay MacDonald, allegedly shot and killed one and attempted to murder others on the Isle of Skye in 2022. His trial begins next year.

The recommendations on which the Home Office is consulting all seem to be fair and proportionate, e.g. that the person applying for a shotgun certificate should provide two referees instead of one, and that at least one of the referees should be of certain standing in the community (e.g. of a professional background).

However, BASC has argued that the recommendations are ‘harmful proposals’ and has urged its members and supporters to respond to the consultation to challenge the proposals.

According to the Guardian article, ‘Peter Squires, a professor of criminology and public policy at the University of Brighton, said: “It is not unlike the way the NRA [National Rifle Association] operates in the USA, with a narrow and single-minded approach to swamping the ballots.

“Virtually every independent-minded expert agrees on what needs to be done and then the Home Office conducts one of these farcical consultations and allows the self-interested single-issue shooting lobby to school its members through the process of rejecting the proposals.

“The farce is complete when the Home Office takes the results of this skewed survey and cites public opposition to the necessary reforms as a reason for inaction.”’

The article continues: Luke Pollard, the MP for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport, said: “The gun lobby are arguing for no changes to Britain’s broken gun laws, meaning they are deliberately failing to learn the lessons from the Plymouth shooting.

“We need ordinary people who want changes to gun laws to make a stand and send in their views to the Home Office consultation. If we don’t learn the lessons of the tragedy in Keyham, we will be doomed to repeat them.”

Given how many wildlife crimes, and especially crimes against birds of prey, are committed by licensed shotgun holders, I think readers of this blog might have a view on whether licensing laws need to be tightened.

The public consultation closes on Wednesday 23 August 2023. If you’d like to contribute to the public consultation you can do that here.

Detailed background reading is available here.

“Every way you look at this industry…its existence is an absurdity” – Rod Liddle on grouse shooting

Journalist Rod Liddle has taken another swipe at grouse shooting with the following article in The Sunday Times yesterday:

It’s not the first time – last year his criticism of grouse shooting prompted furious responses from the Countryside Alliance and GWCT, although BASC bizarrely used it as an opportunity to hurl abuse at Megan McCubbin (you can read their full-on attack here).

Liddle doesn’t appear to be a fan of the Countryside Alliance in general, writing an article for the Guardian in 2002 about the London march to save fox hunting, which ultimately led to his resignation from the BBC after a backlash accusing him of not being impartial (see here and here).

Hmm, given this trophy scalp perhaps it explains why the nasty brigade keeps urging the BBC to sack Chris Packham. ‘If they got rid of Liddle, why not Packham?’, is what they’ll be telling themselves.

Here’s the text of Liddle’s latest piece published in The Sunday Times yesterday:

RED KITES ARE GLORIOUS. MURDERING THEM IN AID OF A SHOOT-‘EM-UP FOR SPIVS IS GROTESQUE

Rod Liddle

A red kite was found hanging from a tree a couple of hundred yards from where I live in the north Pennine. Its death was at first a mystery and I wondered if, hideously depressed by the government’s failure to lower taxes or get a grip of the migrant issue, it had killed itself. Kites are notoriously right wing. But the bird’s carcass was sent off to a lab and all became very clear. The creature had been poisoned with carbofuran and bendiocarb – two illegal pesticides still used, surreptitiously, by gamekeepers. It had also been shot. So they had tried to kill this rather lovely bird at least twice – to protect those flapping, panicking idiots the red grouse.

That it was gamekeepers to blame is beyond reasonable doubt. I live in an area notorious for their swift dispatch of pretty much all living creatures. The 2021 edition of the RSPB’s Birdcrime report revealed that 71 per cent of all raptor persecution incidents related to land managed for the shooting of game birds, and every one of those prosecuted were gamekeepers. Kites – and buzzards – have been found dead here before this, with the same toxic substances inside them.

It was the so-called Glorious Twelfth last weekend, and the guns were blazing. Grouse moors make up 7 per cent of our land and provide a magnificent total of 1,500 full-time jobs. The claim that local communities benefit indirectly is a myth: the City boys arrive, they are lodged on the estates, they get driven out to the ranges, they fire away and they go home. In Scotland is is estimated that the gamekeepers kill 250,000 animals to allow people to kill 300,000 grouse.

Every way you look at this industry – from the point of view of economics, morality, the environment, biodiversity, land use – its existence is an absurdity. I asked one gamekeeper up here what proportion of supposed “vermin” he intended to kill. He replied: “The aim is for 100 per cent, but some slip through the net”.

These vermin include all our magnificent birds of prey (including kites, which feed mainly on carrion), mountain hares (which carry a tick dangerous to the bloody grouse), foxes, badgers, stoats, weasels and pine martens (in Scotland – they’ve already made them extinct in England). You walk up onto the moor tops – potentially our most beautiful scenery – and find yourself in a depopulated and scorched, treeless moonscape, the very antithesis of nature. All we have is million upon million of rabbits, hopping about in the blackened heather as if they were in a post-nuclear-holocaust Teletubbies set.

The game lobby will insist that they are protecting wildlife and point to the curlew, a hooting wraith from the wetlands, as a case in point. They cling to the curlew as a spider clings to the side of a bath as the water rises beneath it. Sure, there are curlew on the moor tops, for part of the year, and the occasional golden plover, lapwing and meadow pipit. But precious little else, in this vast and – when the heather’s not on fire – majestic scenery.

They will also tell you that they are protecting a historic way of life and topography. Well, not that historic: we’ve had intensively driven grouse moors for about 150 years, so it’s as traditionally British as football hooliganism. It is true that, as the lobby claims, the scenery is unique to Britain – no other country would put up with it. The burning of the heather – which enables new shoots to grow for the delectation of the grouse – is awful for the environment and climate change.

All this happens because a handful of people want to shoot birds that fly as if they’ve just eaten a full English breakfast after a heavy night on the piss. Talk about hitting a barn door with a banjo.

I have no objection to people shooting game birds for food. In many ways it is vastly preferable to the rest of the meat industry. Nor do I have much animus against the rich folks who own the land, whether they be the Arab rich folks who own the moors to my north or the rich hedge fund monkeys who own the moors to my west. I don’t even have a vast loathing for the City boys who provide the income. My complaint isn’t motivate by class hatred or envy.

Indeed, I would argue that we should increase subsidies to the landowners, provided that they rewild their estates. Wildlife tourism is far, far more popular – and remunerative – than grouse shooting: last year five times as many people visited one single RSPB reserve (Slimbridge in Gloucestershire) as took part in all the country’s grouse shoots. That’s just one, smallish reserve.

Imagine the benefit to the villages and towns if our upland areas had a true diversity of wildlife, rather than being managed deliberately to exclude the very creatures people want to see. But the wealth and political heft of the landowners, as well as their own lack of imagination, means we are left with the barren, charred expanse of grouseland.

ENDS

Durham Police appeal for information after sparrowhawk shot dead in public woodland

A sparrowhawk has been found shot and killed in a public woodland in Darlington, prompting a police appeal for information.

Members of the Friends of Geneva Wood first spotted dead pigeons a few weeks ago and further incidents have seen several more pigeons shot and now a sparrowhawk.

Sparrowhawk. Photo: Ben Hall, RSPB Images.

Durham Police and civic enforcement officers from Darlington Borough Council’s community safety team have issued a joint appeal urging anyone who uses the wood to be alert and to get in touch if they have any information that can identify those responsible.

Sergeant James Woodcock, of Darlington Neighbourhood Policing team, said: “There is legislation in place that protects various wild bird species. We will be working with the council and other relevant agencies, including the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) and local wildlife conservation organisations to ensure legal action is taken where necessary.

We would ask anyone in the Geneva Wood area to be alert and to report any incidents to us or the council’s civic enforcement officers.”

Councillor Amanda Riley added: “Our civic enforcement officers are working closely with local police and will be carrying out extra patrols in the area, but we will also need the support of local residents if we’re to identify those responsible.

Shooting and killing wild birds in a public woodland such as this is not only illegal, but also poses a danger to others who may be in the area and anti-social behaviour of this kind will not be tolerated.”

Anyone with information is asked to contact Durham Police on 101 or the community safety team on 01325 406999.

Moorland Association Chair claims: “Clearly any illegal [hen harrier] persecution is not happening”

Just how stupid/arrogant do you have to be to go on record saying, “Clearly, any illegal [hen harrier] persecution is not happening“, when it so demonstrably is?!

This is what Mark Cunliffe-Lister, Chair of the grouse moor owners’ lobby group, the Moorland Association, told BBC Radio 4’s Farming Today programme this morning.

It’s an astonishing claim to make when the evidence to refute such a claim is so readily available, and even more so on the day when we learned that at least 101 hen harriers have now gone ‘missing’ / been illegally killed since 2018 (see here).

Although Cunliffe-Lister does have a history of ‘forgetting’ to mention things when it comes to hen harrier persecution (see here). Oh, and he also forgot to mention this morning the poisoned red kite that was discovered on his estate (Swinton) in 2021 – the one that North Yorkshire Police refused to investigate (see here).

When Cunliffe-Lister was called out on his claim by the interviewer Caz Graham, he had the brass neck to argue that there “do seem to be isolated incidents“. Does he think that 101 missing/killed hen harriers are ‘isolated incidents’?? Oh, and some of those 101 include brood meddled hen harriers.

Also interviewed on this morning’s programme was John Holmes, Director of Strategy at Natural England and who oversees the hen harrier brood meddling sham. Holmes was questioned at length about Wild Justice’s criticisms of the hen harrier brood meddling sham, including the unimpressive scientific approach to the trial. Holmes argued that Natural England was being advised by an independent panel of ornithologists and statisticians. What he didn’t say, as Mark Avery pointed out on Twitter, is that the identities of those ornithologists and statisticians is being kept a secret, as is their scientific advice.

Holmes also argued that Natural England has ‘expert social scientists’ to examine whether brood meddling has changed the opinion of grouse moor owners and managers towards hen harriers. NE don’t need ‘expert social scientists’ to find an answer, the illegal persecution statistics tell us all we need to know.

The interview is available on BBC iPlayer for the next 29 days (here, starts at 4.59 mins) but I’ve produced a transcript for posterity:

Presenter Caz Graham: Hen harriers are beautiful birds that live in the uplands across the UK but their numbers are precariously low, particularly in England.

These low numbers are blamed on predation and on persecution by gamekeepers who illegally target birds of prey because they feed on grouse eggs and chicks. Most hen harrier nests in England are on land managed as grouse moor.

To try and rebuild the population a Government-led Hen Harrier Recovery Plan began in 2016. One element of it is a trial of what’s called ‘brood management’, where eggs and chicks are taken from hen harrier nests, raised in captivity and re-released later back in to the wild so their parents take fewer grouse chicks to feed them.

The Moorland Association, one of several partners in the brood management trial say that this year has been a real success with 24 chicks released. The population of hen harriers in England is now at the highest it’s been for 100 years, they say.

The wildlife campaign group Wild Justice welcomes the increase in hen harrier numbers but is critical of brood management. I put some of their points to Mark Cunliffe-Lister, the Chair of the Moorland Association who first gave me his response to these latest figures.

Chair of Moorland Association Mark Cunliffe-Lister: It’s been a fantastic success, we’ve shown that as a dedicated team we can take the chicks from the nest, we can breed them in captivity, we can re-release them on another site and they can live a perfectly good wild life going forwards.

Caz Graham: How have the birds that have been reared this way in previous years fared? Presumably they’re all tagged, they’re all tracked, you know how they’re doing?

Mark Cunliffe-Lister: Yep, no, absolutely. So, I mean like everything in the wild, they look around for different territories, they move about. I think one of the interesting things has been when we release them is they’re not necessarily, quite a lot of hen harriers will come back to exactly where they were born and bred, these ones will look around for other territories so that’s been very successful as they’ve taken on different territories and gone to different areas.

Caz Graham: Have they bred themselves?

Mark Cunliffe-Lister: Yes, they’ve bred themselves as well so they’ve shown breeding technique,sadly some of them have died but that’s the same in the wild, you have mortality going on in the wild.

Caz Graham: Wild Justice is very critical of brood management, in fact they call it brood meddling rather than management and they published a report last week saying it is a waste of money. They argue that that money could be spent in other conservation areas and that there isn’t really robust scientific evidence to prove that it’s doing any good.

Mark Cunliffe Lister: The figures speak for themselves in terms of how successful it’s been, so going from hardly any hen harriers now to having hundreds of hen harrier chicks that have been bred through the scheme and through the wild, so in terms of Wild Justice, clearly they’re anti-grouse shooting and that’s their agenda and that’s fine, but as a conservation programme I’d say it’s been an incredible success and very happy to sit down and go through the numbers and compare that with other schemes and we can see, can compare that.

Caz Graham: How would you respond to their claim that really this is just a delaying tactic to put off more stringent and effective measures against those gamekeepers who break the law by either shooting or poisoning birds of prey?

Mark Cunliffe-Lister: Yeah, well it’s clearly not about that and clearly it’s dealing with any conflict there so we’re seeing birds every day flying around grouse moors, with keepers, we’re seeing them on, by tag data, we’re seeing them in the air so clearly any illegal killing is not happening. They would like to say it is but you can see that for your own eyes that it isn’t happening.

Caz Graham: Oh well there is evidence that illegal killing happens, we do report on cases where gamekeepers have been convicted, even, for shooting or for poisoning birds of prey.

Mark Cunliffe-Lister: Yeah, there, sadly do seem to be isolated incidents.

Caz Graham: And where do you see brood management going in the future because some would say it’s not a very sustainable kind of way forward is it?

Mark Cunliffe-Lister: Oh I’d say it’s very sustainable. As I say, we’re clear that there is a conflict between hen harriers and grouse, we’re not hiding away from that and this allows it to be managed, so it’s a job that people came together, decided what the best way forward was, brood management was the way they thought would work best, we put that in to practice, we’ve shown it does work and yeah, I’d say it’s very sustainable moving forwards.

Caz Graham: Mark Cunliffe-Lister from the Moorland Association. We asked Wild Justice to come on this morning’s programme but without seeing more extensive data from Natural England, they declined. Well, Natural England, the Government’s advisor on nature is also a partner in the brood management trial project. John Holmes, a strategy director for Natural England oversees it.

Natural England Strategy Director John Holmes: The purpose of the brood management trial is to test the significance of the availability of brood management to moorland managers in achieving that increase.

Caz Graham: And Natural England lead the monitoring for this project. The Moorland Association tell us that they have reared and released 24 chicks this year, does that figure tally with what you have?

John Holmes: That’s absolutely right, we work alongside them in that work and that’s spot on.

Caz Graham: Can you explain to us who funds this project and how much it’s cost so far?

John Holmes: Part of it is funded by the industry itself through the Moorland Association so actually all the practical work to do brood management is funded by them, release aviaries, buying tags for monitoring and things. Natural England we estimate has spent around £800,000 since the trial started but that will be on things like staff to undertake sound assessment of the science that underlines the licences to allow it to happen and alongside that some work on persecution and investigations.

Caz Graham: £800,000, that sounds like an awful lot really.

John Holmes: Well I would say that sounds good value for recovering of a species that’s been completely extinct. Years and years of way more money than that being spent on investigation but no successful prosecutions whatsoever. We know that illegal persecution goes on and we’re continuing to investigate it. We certainly know that it would cost hundred of thousands for protection of a single nest by the police year round so actually in terms of the increase we’ve got that’s really good value for money.

Caz Graham: Isn’t just cracking down on the criminal element who persecute raptors, birds of prey, isn’t that really where the focus should be?

John Holmes: The simple answer is it hasn’t worked, you know, enforcement was tried and it still goes on, you know, we absolutely back enforcement and work with the police to try and find those criminals but it simply didn’t work. The other thing is to say cracking down on criminals assumes that everybody who manages a moor, or owns a moor, is a criminal and the simple fact is that if landowners and gamekeepers come to us and say, ‘Look, we want to have hen harriers, we want to look after hen harriers’, we’re gonna work with them because the results are clear.

Caz Graham: A point that Wild Justice might well make though is that you’re dealing with a criminal act by perhaps just removing the temptation rather than arresting the perpetrators, you know it’s a bit like ignoring car thieves in an area but paying for a few cars to be stuck in a garage.

John Holmes: I think a better analogy would be to assume that if you’re having your car stolen you’re assuming everyone you meet near your car is gonna steal it and that’s simply not the case.

Caz Graham: I want to put to you another questions as well about Wild Justice’s claims. They say they’re really unimpressed by the standard of scientific enquiry that’s evident in Natural England’s brood management study. How would you respond to that?

John Holmes: Well we’ve got an independent panel that advises us on that science, made up of ornithological and statistical experts, it is a trial, things aren’t always perfect in both the planning and execution, you have to react to real situations on the ground. One of the things we’re trying to measure is how the availability of brood management has influenced people’s opinions of hen harriers and may have resulted in less persecution. That’s really hard to do, it’s not easy to figure out what questions you ask but we’ve got expert social scientists who know how to ask those sorts of questions and we’re still part way through the trial.

Caz Graham: I mean the trial’s been going on for five years, it’s had an extra two years added to it, I mean, gosh, is it still a trial, can you still call it a trial at that length?

John Holmes: It’s still a trial because we don’t actually know the answer to the significance of brood management in achieving the outcome that we’ve got so far.

Caz Graham: So how many years can the trial go on? When will you be able to say whether it does work?

John Holmes: Well it’ll go on until we get a scientifically robust answer. We’re hoping that these next two years will significantly increase our information and lead to some better answers and where we might take hen harrier management in the future.

ENDS