If ever there was an example demonstrating the high level of persecution faced by Hen Harriers on UK grouse moors, the lack of consequences for the offenders, and the lack of justice for the victims, the short life of a Hen Harrier called ‘Susie’ illustrates it all.
Susie hatched in Cumbria in 2020 and was satellite-tagged by Natural England on 21 July 2020. She first bred in Bowland in 2021, and the following year she moved up to a grouse moor near Whernside in the Yorkshire Dales National Park where she produced four chicks.
The Whernside nest was being monitored (nest camera) by Natural England as part of the ludicrous Hen Harrier Brood Meddling Trial. On 20 June 2022, NE researchers noticed that Susie’s satellite tag was unexpectedly and abruptly shown tracking approximately 35km away from her nest. An adult female should be attentive and close to her nest during this period. Her sudden exit from the nest area was worrying.
The following day, Natural England field staff visited the nest and made the grim discovery of three dead Hen Harrier chicks.
Reviewing the nest camera footage, they saw that after dark, at 9.54pm on 15 June 2022, the camera showed the nest site appeared normal with Susie settled in the nest with her chicks. However, at 9.59pm a sudden irregular ‘whiteout’ of the camera occurred, blinding the camera.
The camera used was movement-activated, and it was not triggered again until the following morning when footage captured apparently dead chicks in the nest and Susie attempting to feed them.
She could be seen removing her dead chicks from the nest. Three of these were found just outside the nest, and it is not known where she deposited the fourth.
Post-mortem examinations of the three chicks were subsequently conducted and showed that each suffered with multiple fractured bones including the humerus in one chick, both femurs in the second chick, and in the third chick, the humerus and a crushed skull. The fractures were complete and showed a considerable trauma had taken place for each chick.
It’s quite clear that ‘someone’ had visited the nest, disabled the camera, and stamped the chicks to death.
Six months later (!), in December 2022, North Yorkshire Police laid out the evidence and issued an appeal for information (see here).
Representatives from the grouse shooting industry responded by trying to manipulate the narrative of this brutal and sadistic crime (see here) and of course, nobody came forward with any information that could identify the person / people responsible.
The following year, in 2023, the story featured in a three-episode podcast by The Guardian, called ‘Killing the Skydancer’ (here, here and here). Meanwhile, Susie bred successfully (unknown location) and fledged five chicks. It was to be her last breeding season.
In April 2024, Natural England published its latest update on the fate of its satellite-tagged Hen Harriers. It did so quietly, without any publicity whatsoever. Susie’s entry on that spreadsheet read,
‘Last known transmission 12 February 2024, Northumberland. Found dead. Site confidential. Recovered, awaiting post mortem’.
Nothing more was heard about Susie’s fate until a year later, in another spreadsheet update in April 2025. Susie’s entry now read:
‘Ongoing police investigation, final transmission location temporarily withheld at police request‘.
Again, there was no publicity about Susie, or about any of the other Natural England-tagged Hen Harriers that had either ‘vanished’ or had been found dead in suspicious circumstances.
Over one and a half year’s after Susie was found dead, the details have finally emerged, and once again Natural England has slipped them out quietly, without fanfare or commentary, in its October 2025 spreadsheet update. Susie’s entry now reads:
‘Found dead 12 February 2024, Northumberland, Grid reference NY759585. Confirmed dead, had been victim of shooting. When found dead remains would not allow determination of whether the bird died as a result of being shot. Bird died between 25 November 2023 and 12 February 2024‘.
Susie’s corpse was found on a grouse moor in the North Pennines National Landscape (a so-called protected landscape, formerly known as the North Pennines Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, AONB), and the grid reference places her on what I believe to be the Whitfield Estate:
Susie had been shot at some point, but where, and when, is not known.
There is no suggestion that she was shot and killed on the Whitfield Estate – she could have been shot many months earlier and survived for a while before succumbing to her injuries. Without seeing the post mortem and x-ray results (which have not been published), it’s impossible to know whether her gunshot injuries caused any broken bones that could have impeded her ability to fly any distance.
That Susie was the victim of at least two separate persecution incidents (that we know about) during her three-and-a-half-year life, illustrates the severity of threat this species still faces in the UK. This should come as no surprise to anybody who has been following this blog for any length of time, nor to those who may have read the RSPB’s damning 2025 report, Hen Harriers in the Firing Line.
These appalling crimes continue because hardly anyone is ever brought to justice. There is rarely any consequence for the offenders, which gives them the green light to carry on.
There has been a change in tactics by the raptor killers in recent years, as we saw in the RSPB’s covert footage in Oct 2024 where three individuals were caught plotting, and then apparently shooting, a Hen Harrier on a grouse moor in Grassington in the Yorkshire Dales National Park. They specifically targeted the Hen Harrier that was not carrying a ‘box’ (a satellite tag) because they thought that by doing so their crime would be undetected. A gamekeeper is standing trial in January 2026 for his alleged involvement – he denies it – it will be up to the court to decide whether he was involved or not.
That case is a very uncommon prosecution, reliant on evidence provided by the RSPB’s excellent Investigations Team.
There won’t be a prosecution for the shooting of Hen Harrier Susie because there’s no evidence (that I’m aware of) that links an identified individual to that crime. Just as there was no prosecution of the person(s) responsible for stamping her chicks to death in their nest in 2022.
We all get it – finding sufficient evidence to prosecute those responsible for committing crimes in remote landscapes is incredibly difficult, but the investigating authorities could, and should, be doing much more to publicise these offences to raise awareness and help the general public spot suspicious activity.
The police’s appeal for information about the chick-stamping crime in the Yorkshire Dales National Park came six months after the event – that’s pathetic.
I haven’t seen ANY police appeal or press release about the shooting of Susie or the discovery of her corpse in Northumberland in February 2024. Not a single word.
Where is the publicity from the National Wildlife Crime Unit-led Hen Harrier Taskforce? The specialist group set up explicitly to tackle the ongoing illegal killing of Hen Harriers. Not a single word.
Where is the publicity from the police-led Raptor Persecution Priority Delivery Group (RPPDG), one of whose functions is apparently ‘awareness raising‘ and ‘raising the profile [of illegal raptor persecution] via media exposure‘? Not a single word.
Natural England has remained tight-lipped, as it always does, claiming that it requires the go-ahead from the police to issue any media. Why? Sure, in the early stages of a police investigation keeping quiet is often necessary to avoid alerting the perpetrator who may take the opportunity to remove/hide evidence before the police turn up. But 18+ months of silence, about a crime that relates to a publicly-funded project, and then to quietly slip out the information buried deep inside a spreadsheet?
Honestly, this needn’t be so bloody difficult.
Raptor Persecution UK 