Following on from yesterday’s news about the discovery of a dead hen harrier (suspected shot) on a grouse moor within the Cairngorms National Park (see here), Grant Moir, CEO of the Cairngorms National Park Authority has issued a statement (see here).
We’ve reproduced it here:
“It appears likely from the post-mortem carried out by SRUC that a tagged hen harrier has been shot in the National Park. It is a disgrace that there are still people who think shooting a hen harrier is acceptable in the 21st century.
Millions of people visit this incredible Park every year with 12 per cent of visitors coming here for wildlife watching earning millions for the local economy. 43 per cent of people in the Park are employed in tourism and every illegal raptor crime adversely affects this area and Scotland’s reputation. The National Park Authority will work with all our partners to try and ensure that raptor crime is a thing of the past and that populations and ranges recover in the Park.”
END
Good on the CNPA for issuing a statement (that’s more than the Environment Minister seems to have done), and this statement is marginally better than the one it issued nine days ago in response to questions about mountain hare massacres taking place on grouse moors within the National Park (see here), but once again it mostly just reads as empty rhetoric.
Pay attention to that last line: “The National Park Authority will work with all our partners to try and ensure that raptor crime is a thing of the past and that populations and ranges recover in the Park“. It’s all very well saying they’ll ‘work with partners’, but how, exactly, will that translate in to action?
The CNPA has talked a lot about partnership working and action, especially to address the issue of illegal raptor persecution on grouse moors within the Park, which it recognises as “threatening to undermine the reputation of the National Park as a high quality wildlife tourism destination” (see here).
For example, in 2013, a new, five-year ‘action plan’ was launched which aimed to ‘restore the full community of raptor species’ and one of the action points was for the SGA and SLE ‘to trial innovative techniques to increase raptor populations’ (see here). How’s that going? Anyone seen an increase in raptor populations? No, of course not. What we’ve actually seen is a long-term decrease of some raptors on grouse moors within the Park: the local hen harrier population has crashed (see here) as has the local peregrine population (see here) and there is no indication that these declines are about to be reversed.
Last year the CNPA hosted a high-level meeting with the Environment Minister and landowners, in which it was stated in a post-meeting CNPA press statement, “Among the topics discussed was raptor persecution and conservation, with a recognition of the progress made in recent years…” (see here).
What progress is that, then?
The last line of the CNPA’s latest statement in response to the death of hen harrier ‘Lad’ could translate as follows: ‘We’re not happy about this, it casts us in a bad light, we wish it would stop but we’re hopeless and helpless to bring about change’.
We’re not. Please sign the e-petition to ban driven grouse shooting HERE.
Photo of hen harrier ‘Lad’ by Dave Pullan
On 21st April 2016, a new red kite nest was discovered in woodland near Alwoodley Lane in the Eccup area of Leeds, West Yorkshire. Hanging in a tree next to the nest was the corpse of a dead kite.
Raptor Persecution UK 