hen harrier – Page 17 – Raptor Persecution UK

Scottish gamekeepers’ petition calling for independent monitoring of raptor satellite tags is ‘fact-free nonsense’

One of the petitions under consideration tomorrow by the Scottish Parliament’s Environment, Climate Change & Land Reform (ECCLR) Committee is PE01750 – Independent monitoring of satellite tags fitted to raptors – submitted by Alex Hogg on behalf of the Scottish Gamekeepers Association (SGA).

I’ve written about this petition before (here), back in late 2019 when it was first lodged, as did Ian Thomson, Head of Investigations at RSPB Scotland (here). It’s useful background reading for those with more than a passing interest.

As a brief summary, satellite-tagged raptors have caused the grouse-shooting industry all sorts of pain in recent years, because scientists have been able to use the analysis of extensive tag data to expose the scale of previously-hidden raptor persecution on or close to some driven grouse moors, even when the raptor-killing criminals thought they’d done a good clean-up job by destroying and removing the raptor corpse and the tag. Although sometimes the clean-up job wasn’t done so well, as evidenced last year by the discovery of a golden eagle’s satellite tag, its harness cut, wrapped in lead sheeting (to block the signal) and dumped in a river (see here and here).

Two significant scientific reviews based on tag analysis have identified illegal persecution hotspots for golden eagles (here) and hen harriers (here) in the UK. And indeed, the whole Werritty Review in to whether grouse moors should be licensed was triggered in 2017 by research that demonstrated almost one third of tagged golden eagles had ‘vanished’ in suspicious geographic clusters that were also areas being managed for driven grouse shooting and at a rate 25 times higher than anywhere else in the world.

Raptor persecution crimes in the UK continue to attract huge media attention because it’s hard to believe that people are still poisoning eagles in Scotland in the 21st century. As a result of this ongoing publicity, the game-shooting industry has spent considerable time and effort trying to undermine the satellite-tagging of raptors, either by launching disgusting personal & abusive attacks and by making outrageous defamatory claims targeted against named individuals involved in the projects, or by blaming disappearances on imaginary windfarms, faulty sat tags fitted to turtles in India & ‘bird activists‘ trying to smear gamekeepers, or by claiming that those involved have perverted the course of justice by fabricating evidence, or by claiming that raptor satellite-tagging should be banned because it’s ‘cruel’ and the tag data serve no purpose other than to try and entrap gamekeepers. There have also been two laughable attempts to discredit the authoritative golden eagle satellite tag review (here and here), thankfully dismissed by the Scottish Government. The grouse shooting industry knows how incriminating these sat tag data are and so is trying to do everything in its power to corrode public and political confidence in (a) the tag data and (b) the justification for fitting sat tags to raptors, hence this latest petition from the SGA.

What hasn’t previously been made public, but can be now as the papers have been published on the ECCLR Committee’s website, is a formal response to the SGA’s petition by the Golden Eagle Satellite Tag Group (GESTG), a research group established in Scotland by scientists as a forum for data exchange, tagging coordination and general cooperation.

The GESTG’s response takes apart the SGA’s petition pretty much line by line and eviscerates it. You almost feel sorry for the SGA, who up until last Thursday wouldn’t have known that this response even existed. It is a masterclass, and you have to admire the restraint behind the summary dismissal of the petition as ‘fact-free nonsense’.

There’s some other paperwork of interest, too. A letter to the ECCLR Committee from Ian Thomson (Feb 2020) and a letter from me (Feb 2021), pointing out to the Committee that despite the SGA’s misinformed rants and smears, raptor satellite-taggers in Scotland were told recently by NatureScot (formerly SNH) that neither NatureScot nor Police Scotland had any substantive concerns about the way we operate and communicate with the licensing and police authorities.

You can download the documents here:

pe01750-sga-independent-monitoring-raptor-satellite-tags Download

pe01750_gestg_response-letter-feb2020 Download

pe01750_rspbscotland_response-letter-feb-2020 Download

pe01750_drruthtingay_response-letter-feb-2021 Download

The ECCLR Committee’s virtual meeting starts tomorrow at 9am. The meeting papers can be viewed here and the meeting can be watched live here.

Transcripts from the meeting will be posted here when available and I’ll be blogging about the Committee’s decision on this petition and a number of others of interest.

UPDATE 1st July 2022: Scottish Parliament sees sense and closes SGA’s petition seeking ‘Independent monitoring of satellite tags fitted to raptors’ (here).

Police confirm banned poison Carbofuran found on Leadhills Estate, again

Police Scotland have confirmed the discovery of the banned poison Carbofuran on Leadhills Estate, a grouse-shooting estate in South Lanarkshire that has been at the centre of police wildlife crime investigations at least 70 times since the early 2000s.

The highly dangerous poison, which even in tiny amounts can kill humans and animals, was discovered in July 2020. Police Scotland have told the Daily Record:

“We are aware of this incident and did investigate.

Forensics identified the substance as carbofuran, an illegal pesticide the use of which has been banned since 1991.

It is extremely concerning that this substance was found in a location which is accessible to the public. Anyone with further information about this incident should contact Police Scotland on 101.”

According to the Daily Record, ‘further enquiries were stopped after officers found no evidence to link the poison to any person or persons’.

There isn’t any explanation provided for why the public weren’t alerted to this discovery sooner.

As regular blog readers will know, Leadhills Estate is currently serving a three-year General Licence restriction, imposed in November 2019 following ‘clear evidence from Police Scotland that wildlife crimes had been committed on this estate’ (see here, here, and here). We know via FoI that one of the contributing factors to the decision to pull the GL was the discovery of the banned pesticide Carbosulfan in May 2019 (see here).

[Chris Packham holds a dead hen harrier whose leg was caught in an illegally-set trap on Leadhills Estate in May 2019. Photo by Ruth Tingay]

Since the General Licence restriction was imposed in late 2019, further alleged offences have been reported at Leadhills and are the subject of ongoing police investigations (see here) including the alleged shooting of a(nother) short-eared owl by a masked gunman on a quad bike as witnessed by a local resident and his eight year old son (see here).

And now the discovery of another batch of banned poison.

According to NatureScot’s Framework for GL Restrictions, ‘Individual restrictions will apply for a period of 3 years, but may be extended if evidence of further offences is obtained during this period’.

Let’s see whether NatureScot sees fit to extend the General Licence restriction at Leadhills Estate.

On-going hen harrier persecution raised in House of Lords

I’d wager that the subject of the illegal killing of hen harriers on driven grouse moors has been discussed many times in the House of Lords, probably on the terrace bar and probably accompanied by some hearty back-slapping, sniggering and cheering.

[Photo by Ruth Tingay]

Fortunately, the hen harrier does have some friends in high places, not least long-time supporter and Life Peer Natalie Bennett (Green party), who tabled the following written question on 21st January 2021 after learning that yet another satellite-tagged hen harrier had ‘vanished’ in suspicious circumstances (see here).

From Hansard: UIN HL12411, Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle –

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to prevent the killing of satellite-tagged hen harriers.

Answered 4th February 2021 by Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park, The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs –

All wild birds are protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, which provides a powerful framework for the conservation of wild birds, their eggs, nests and habitats. The Government is committed to ensuring the protection afforded to wild birds of prey is effectively enforced. There are strong penalties for offenders, including imprisonment.

We are also committed to securing the long-term future of the hen harrier as a breeding bird in England. The Hen Harrier Action Plan sets out what will be done to increase hen harrier populations in England and includes measures to stop illegal persecution. The long-term plan was published in January 2016 and we believe that it remains the best way to safeguard the hen harrier in England. A copy of the plan is attached.

Raptor persecution is one of six national wildlife crime priorities. Each wildlife crime priority has a delivery group to consider what action should be taken and develop a plan to prevent crime, gather intelligence on offences and enforce against it. The Raptor Persecution Priority Delivery Group focuses on the golden eagle, goshawk, hen harrier, peregrine and white-tailed eagle. The National Wildlife Crime Unit, which is part funded by Defra, monitors and gathers intelligence on illegal activities affecting birds of prey and provides assistance to police forces when required.

So, five years on from the launch of DEFRA’s heavily criticised Hen Harrier Action Plan, which would be better re-named the Hen Harrier Persecution Plan, and with an embarrassing amount of evidence to demonstrate that the illegal killing of hen harriers is still rampant, this response from Zac Goldsmith is pathetically lame.

The evidence that hen harrier persecution continues relentlessly includes the devastating results of a peer-reviewed scientific study, based on Natural England’s own data and published in a high-ranking journal, demonstrating that at least 72% of satellite-tagged hen harriers are presumed illegally killed on grouse moors (see here).

There’s also the rather inconvenient tally of 51 hen harriers confirmed illegally killed or reported ‘missing’ in suspicious circumstances since 2018, when grouse moor owners pretended they’d be more tolerant of the species (here) and then the admission just a few days ago from Natural England’s Chair that “continuing illegal persecution [of hen harriers] is preventing the recovery we need to see” (here).

This issue is one of the most pressing wildlife conservation issues in the UK, and yet DEFRA has nothing more to offer than, ‘We believe the Hen Harrier Action Plan remains the best way to safeguard the hen harrier in England‘.

For how many more years is DEFRA going to hide behind it’s obviously-failing action plan? It’s been five years, and counting.

Here’s a more realistic view of the Hen Harrier Action Plan, from blog reader Dr Gerard Hobley.

Enough said.

Hen harriers: “Continuing illegal persecution is preventing the recovery we need to see”, says Natural England chief

There was a brief, useful but ultimately frustrating exchange of views on Twitter at the weekend between Tony Juniper (Chair of Natural England) and a number of conservationists.

The subject was the ongoing illegal killing of hen harriers on grouse moors. Like this one (pictured), who died in 2019 after his leg was almost severed in an illegally set trap that had been placed next to his nest on a Scottish grouse moor (see here). [Photo by Ruth Tingay]

The exchange started with an RPUK tweet about the ever-increasing list of illegally killed/’missing’ hen harriers, now numbering 51 since 2018. Tony Juniper had been tagged in the tweet, along with others, with a sarcastic question about how the ludicrous Hen Harrier Action Plan was working out.

Tony responded and the discussion went like this:

There were contributions from others in and around this core thread but I’m not including them here because although they made excellent points, they’re not fundamental to the discussion.

It was good to see Tony Juniper state, in very clear and unambiguous terms, that continuing illegal persecution is still preventing the recovery of the hen harrier. We all knew that, of course, but it’s important that the Chair of Natural England says it, and says it publicly.

I would also argue (and indeed did, in the above twitter exchange), that Tony Juniper and Natural England should be making these statements much more prominently to reach a far wider audience. In fact, with equal prominence to that which DEFRA and Natural England gave to the press-released announcement of the 2020 breeding season being ‘a wonderful result’, a rather deluded statement published jointly with their ‘partners’ the GWCT and the Moorland Association (see here). Deluded because since when has 5% been judged to be a success(?!) and also pointless if you’re not going to go on to discuss the extremely poor survival rates of those chicks once they’ve fledged the nest, as discussed in the Murgatroyd et al paper in 2019 (here).

To be fair, Juniper did say in that press release that “Too many birds still go missing in unexplained circumstances and I urge anyone who is still engaged in the persecution of these magnificent creatures to cease at once” but it wasn’t the headline news. Fair enough if there was to be another prominent press release with the headline focusing on the continued losses, but that press release has never appeared.

Instead, what we’re getting is blatant propaganda from the Moorland Association, who put this press release out on Monday, via PR agency Media House and it was picked up and published in a number of papers in Yorkshire:

I don’t intend to pick this apart line by line because I think I’d lose the will to live but suffice to say this ‘survey’ is contrived and unscientific and thus meaningless but of course newspaper editors either don’t know that or don’t care, and the Moorland Association is banking on newspaper readers not knowing or caring either. All the Moorland Association wants to do is to try and negate the publicity that the ‘51 dead/missing hen harriers‘ story has been getting.

Unfortunately for the Moorland Association, the criminals within the grouse shooting industry just can’t stop killing hen harriers, or other raptors, not even for a few years while the insane brood meddling trial runs its course, and no matter how desperate the PR they churn out, ultimately the continued killing will be the industry’s downfall, just as we’re beginning to see in Scotland.

51 hen harriers confirmed illegally killed or ‘missing’ since 2018

For anyone who still wants to pretend that the grouse shooting industry isn’t responsible for the systematic extermination of hen harriers on grouse moors across the UK, here’s the latest catalogue of crime that suggests otherwise.

[This male hen harrier died in 2019 after his leg was almost severed in an illegally set trap that had been placed next to his nest on a Scottish grouse moor (see here). Photo by Ruth Tingay]

Ten days ago this list totalled 48 hen harriers, all either confirmed to have been illegally killed or to have ‘disappeared’, most of them on or next to driven grouse moors.

“They disappear in the same way political dissidents in authoritarian dictatorships have disappeared” (Stephen Barlow, 22 January 2021).

Today the list has been updated to include some others whose reported disappearances in 2020 have been confirmed, including Bronwyn (here) and Rosie (here), bringing the current running total to 51 hen harriers.

This disgraceful catalogue will continue to grow – I know of at least one more on-going police investigation which has yet to be publicised and I suspect there’s one other, although I’m still waiting for clarification on that one.

I’ve been compiling this list only since 2018 because that is the year that the grouse shooting industry ‘leaders’ would have us believe that the criminal persecution of hen harriers had stopped and that these birds were being welcomed back on to the UK’s grouse moors (see here).

This assertion was made shortly before the publication of a devastating new scientific paper that demonstrated that 72% of satellite-tagged hen harriers were confirmed or considered likely to have been illegally killed, and this was ten times more likely to occur over areas of land managed for grouse shooting relative to other land uses (see here).

2018 was also the year that Natural England issued itself with a licence to begin a hen harrier brood meddling trial on grouse moors in northern England. For new blog readers, hen harrier brood meddling is a conservation sham sanctioned by DEFRA as part of its ludicrous ‘Hen Harrier Action Plan‘ and carried out by Natural England (NE), in cahoots with the very industry responsible for the species’ catastrophic decline in England. For more background see here.

Brood meddling has been described as a sort of ‘gentleman’s agreement’ by commentator Stephen Welch:

“I don’t get it, I thought the idea of that scheme was some kind of trade off – a gentleman’s agreement that the birds would be left in peace if they were moved from grouse moors at a certain density. It seems that one party is not keeping their side of the bargain“.

With 51 hen harriers gone since 2018, I think it’s fair to say that the grouse shooting industry is simply taking the piss. Meanwhile, Natural England pretends that ‘partnership working’ is the way to go.

‘Partnership working’ appears to include authorising the removal of hen harrier chicks from a grouse moor already under investigation by the police for suspected raptor persecution (here) and accepting a £10K bung from representatives of the grouse shooting industry that prevents Natural England from criticising them (see here).

[Cartoon by Gill Lewis]

So here’s the latest gruesome list:

February 2018: Hen harrier Saorsa ‘disappeared’ in the Angus Glens in Scotland (here). The Scottish Gamekeepers Association later published wholly inaccurate information claiming the bird had been re-sighted. The RSPB dismissed this as “completely false” (here).

5 February 2018: Hen harrier Marc ‘disappeared’ on a grouse moor in Durham (here)

9 February 2018: Hen harrier Aalin ‘disappeared’ on a grouse moor in Wales (here)

March 2018: Hen harrier Blue ‘disappeared’ in the Lake District National Park (here)

March 2018: Hen harrier Finn ‘disappeared’ near Moffat in Scotland (here)

18 April 2018: Hen harrier Lia ‘disappeared’ in Wales and her corpse was retrieved in a field in May 2018. Cause of death was unconfirmed but police treating death as suspicious (here)

8 August 2018: Hen harrier Hilma ‘disappeared’ on a grouse moor in Northumberland (here).

16 August 2018: Hen harrier Athena ‘disappeared’ on a grouse moor in Scotland (here)

26 August 2018: Hen Harrier Octavia ‘disappeared’ on a grouse moor in the Peak District National Park (here)

29 August 2018: Hen harrier Margot ‘disappeared’ on a grouse moor in Scotland (here)

29 August 2018: Hen Harrier Heulwen ‘disappeared’ on a grouse moor in Wales (here)

3 September 2018: Hen harrier Stelmaria ‘disappeared’ on a grouse moor in Scotland (here)

24 September 2018: Hen harrier Heather ‘disappeared’ on a grouse moor in Scotland (here)

2 October 2018: Hen harrier Mabel ‘disappeared’ on a grouse moor on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales National Park (here)

3 October 2018: Hen Harrier Thor ‘disappeared’ next to a grouse moor in Bowland, Lanacashire (here)

23 October 2018: Hen harrier Tom ‘disappeared’ in South Wales (here)

26 October 2018: Hen harrier Arthur ‘disappeared’ on a grouse moor in the North York Moors National Park (here)

1 November 2018: Hen harrier Barney ‘disappeared’ on Bodmin Moor (here)

10 November 2018: Hen harrier Rannoch ‘disappeared’ on a grouse moor in Scotland (here). Her corpse was found nearby in May 2019 – she’d been killed in an illegally-set spring trap (here).

14 November 2018: Hen harrier River ‘disappeared’ on a grouse moor in the Nidderdale AONB (here). Her corpse was found nearby in April 2019 – she’d been illegally shot (here).

16 January 2019: Hen harrier Vulcan ‘disappeared’ in Wiltshire close to Natural England’s proposed reintroduction site (here)

7 February 2019: Hen harrier Skylar ‘disappeared’ next to a grouse moor in South Lanarkshire (here)

22 April 2019: Hen harrier Marci ‘disappeared’ on a grouse moor in the Cairngorms National Park (here)

26 April 2019: Hen harrier Rain ‘disappeared’ on a grouse moor in Nairnshire (here)

11 May 2019: An untagged male hen harrier was caught in an illegally-set trap next to his nest on a grouse moor in South Lanarkshire. He didn’t survive (here)

7 June 2019: An untagged hen harrier was found dead on a grouse moor in Scotland. A post mortem stated the bird had died as a result of ‘penetrating trauma’ injuries and that this bird had previously been shot (here)

5 September 2019: Wildland Hen Harrier 1 ‘disappeared’ on a grouse moor nr Dalnaspidal on the edge of the Cairngorms National Park (here)

11 September 2019: Hen harrier Romario ‘disappeared’ on a grouse moor in the Cairngorms National Park (here)

14 September 2019: Hen harrier (Brood meddled in 2019, #183704) ‘disappeared’ in North Pennines (here)

23 September 2019: Hen harrier (Brood meddled in 2019, #55149) ‘disappeared’ in North Pennines (here)

24 September 2019: Wildland Hen Harrier 2 ‘disappeared’ on a grouse moor at Invercauld in the Cairngorms National Park (here)

24 September 2019: Hen harrier Bronwyn ‘disappeared’ near a grouse moor in North Wales (here)

10 October 2019: Hen harrier Ada ‘disappeared’ on a grouse moor in the North Pennines AONB (here)

12 October 2019: Hen harrier Thistle ‘disappeared’ on a grouse moor in Sutherland (here)

18 October 2019: Member of the public reports the witnessed shooting of an untagged male hen harrier on White Syke Hill in North Yorkshire (here)

November 2019: Hen harrier Mary found illegally poisoned on a pheasant shoot in Ireland (here)

January 2020: Members of the public report the witnessed shooting of a male hen harrier on Threshfield Moor in the Yorkshire Dales National Park (here)

23 March 2020: Hen harrier Rosie ‘disappeared’ at an undisclosed roost site in Northumberland (here)

1 April 2020: Hen harrier (Brood meddled in 2019, #183703) ‘disappeared’ in unnamed location, tag intermittent (here)

5 April 2020: Hen harrier Hoolie ‘disappeared’ on a grouse moor in the Cairngorms National Park (here)

8 April 2020: Hen harrier Marlin ‘disappeared’ on a grouse moor in the Cairngorms National Park (here)

19 May 2020: Hen harrier Fingal ‘disappeared’ on a grouse moor in the Lowther Hills, Scotland (here)

21 May 2020: Hen harrier (Brood meddled in 2019, #183701) ‘disappeared’ on a grouse moor in Cumbria shortly after returning from wintering in France (here)

27 May 2020: Hen harrier Silver ‘disappeared’ on a grouse moor on Leadhills Estate, Scotland (here)

9 July 2020: Unnamed female hen harrier (#201118) ‘disappeared’ from an undisclosed site in Northumberland (here).

25 July 2020: Hen harrier Harriet ‘disappeared’ on a grouse moor in the Yorkshire Dales National Park (here)

14 August 2020: Hen harrier Solo ‘disappeared’ in confidential nest area in Lancashire (here)

7 September 2020: Hen harrier Dryad ‘disappeared’ on a grouse moor in the Yorkshire Dales National Park (here)

16 September 2020: Hen harrier Fortune ‘disappeared’ from an undisclosed roost site in Northumberland (here)

19 September 2020: Hen harrier Harold ‘disappeared’ on a grouse moor in the Yorkshire Dales National Park (here)

20 September 2020: Hen harrier (Brood meddled in 2020, #55152) ‘disappeared’ next to a grouse moor in North Yorkshire (here)

To be continued……..

Anybody still wondering why the grouse shooting industry wants conservationists to stop fitting satellite tags?

Satellite-tagged hen harrier Rosie ‘disappears’ at roost site in Northumberland

Nine days ago I blogged about the suspicious disappearance of a satellite-tagged hen harrier called ‘Fortune’ who had vanished from an undisclosed roost site in Northumberland in September 2020 (see here).

Well guess what? Another one has gone, also from an undisclosed roost site in Northumberland.

This one was called ‘Rosie’, who was tagged (#57278) at a nest site (Northumberland 1) in July 2019 and the tag’s last known fix was 23 March 2020, also in Northumberland. Natural England has this marked in its database as ‘Missing fate unknown. At roost (site confidential)‘.

[Hen harrier Rosie when she was being tagged. Photo by Natural England]

Some of you may remember Rosie. She was previously reported as ‘missing’ in October 2019 (here) but then was reported to be alive and well later in the month (see here and here) and just wearing one of those Lotek tags whose limited functionality has proven to be problematic for tracking hen harriers (e.g. see here). I think it’s reasonable to assume that, ten months on and as there still hasn’t been a signal from her tag, then this is likely to be more than a tag reliability issue this time.

To be fair to Natural England, Rosie’s suspicious disappearance in March 2020 was not concealed – it was included in Natural England’s September 2020 tagged birds update but I didn’t spot it until now. Although perhaps if Natural England had bothered to publicise her suspicious disappearance at the time….

So, along with missing tagged hen harrier Fortune, that’s two gone at an undisclosed roost site in Northumberland this year. Whether that’s the same roost site only Natural England knows. Why can’t the roost sites be numbered, like the nest sites are, to disguise the actual location for security reasons but at least indicate positional proximity?

BASC’s £10K bung to Natural England to help fund winter roost monitoring doesn’t seem to be working very well, does it?

Rosie will now be added to the list of confirmed illegally killed/missing suspected killed hen harriers in the UK since 2018 – the running total is currently 50 but there’s more to come….standby.

Confirmation that hen harrier brood meddling estate was under police investigation

Cast your minds back to September 2020, when the RSPB claimed that a Natural England fieldworker had filmed a gunman, with an eagle owl, close to a hen harrier nest site in Cumbria (see here).

The RSPB, quite fairly, considered that the tethering of an eagle owl and the positioning of an armed man nearby was evidence that the eagle owl was being used as a decoy to attract in raptors (perhaps hen harriers) which could then be shot at close range. It’s an increasingly familiar sight on some grouse moors (e.g. see here), despite the use of a tethered live decoy being illegal (but let’s face it, the grouse shooting industry isn’t exactly feted for its adherence to the law).

A police investigation in Cumbria ensued, but allegations were later made that a Natural England staff member had unintentionally frustrated the criminal investigation by contravening legal protocol and phoning up the suspected gunman and asking whether he was the person who’d been seen, with the owl decoy, near to the hen harrier nest the previous day (see here). The investigation came to an abrupt halt but Natural England denied that its staff member’s actions had any bearing on this decision (see here). We’ll never know for sure because Natural England can’t be trusted to be upfront about anything relating to the hen harrier and its precarious conservation status (e.g. see here for the latest example of why Natural England shouldn’t be trusted).

The other interesting aspect about this case was the suggestion that this estate was actively involved with Natural England’s insane hen harrier brood meddling trial last year. The suggestion was made in the RSPB blog although certainty was lacking due to the secrecy surrounding the location of brood meddled nest sites.

For new blog readers, hen harrier brood meddling is a conservation sham sanctioned by DEFRA as part of its ludicrous ‘Hen Harrier Action Plan‘ and carried out by Natural England (NE), in cahoots with the very industry responsible for the species’ catastrophic decline in England. For more background see here.

[A more realistic view of DEFRA’s hen harrier action plan. Cartoon by Dr Gerard Hobley]

Thanks to one of our blog readers making a Freedom of Information request to Natural England, it can now be confirmed that yes, this [unnamed] grouse-shooting estate where a gunman was filmed crouching close to a tethered eagle owl, in the territory of a pair of breeding hen harriers, was also one of the estates where Natural England licensed the removal of hen harrier chicks for brood meddling last year.

Although it took Natural England a couple of goes to confirm this, first of all denying it and then having to send an email two weeks later to correct the information:

It leaves you brimming with confidence in Natural England’s competence, doesn’t it?

The biggest joke in all of this is that the brood meddling trial is supposed to test whether those people responsible for killing hen harriers illegally would stop killing hen harriers if the chicks were brood meddled (removed from the grouse moor in June at the critical grouse-rearing stage and then returned to the wild in August). It’s a sort of ‘gentleman’s agreement’, as I saw it described by one commentator the other day. The problem is, there doesn’t seem to be many ‘gentlemen’ involved, or at least not honourable ones.

The irony of permitting brood meddling to take place on an estate under police investigation for suspected raptor persecution is not lost on any of us.

Hen harrier Bronwyn ‘disappears’ in North Wales

Six days ago I updated the list of hen harriers that were confirmed to have been illegally killed or were ‘missing’, suspected killed, since 2018.

The running total had reached 48 hen harriers (see here).

Thanks to an eagle-eyed blog reader, it’s been pointed out that I’d missed one – a satellite-tagged hen harrier called Bronwyn who vanished in 2019 in an area in North Wales where two other tagged hen harriers have also ‘mysteriously disappeared’.

[Young hen harrier Bronwyn just prior to fledging in 2019. Photo by RSPB]

You can read about the strange circumstances of Bronwyn’s disappearance on this RSPB blog (here). Sorry, I’m not sure how I missed this one.

So that brings the running total of illegally killed/missing hen harriers to 49, but that’s not the end of it. There are more to add to that list.

An update will follow shortly.

Suspicious disappearance of hen harrier Harold features in Yorkshire Post

Many thanks to blog reader Grace Newton, who also happens to be a journalist writing for the Yorkshire Post, who has followed up by writing an article on Tuesday’s blog about hen harrier Harold, who disappeared in suspicious circumstances on a grouse moor in the Yorkshire Dales in September 2020.

The article includes some commentary from Natural England, who said that the grouse moor from where Harold vanished ‘was searched by police several times and nothing was found‘ and that ‘the investigation remains ongoing‘.

The article also suggests that the lame ‘appeal’ (here) put out by Natural England on twitter refers to Harold.

Where is the Natural England appeal about the brood meddled hen harrier #55152 that also vanished in North Yorkshire in September 2020, and hen harrier Fortune who vanished at an undisclosed location in Northumberland, also in September 2020?

The full article in the Yorkshire Post is available here

48 hen harriers confirmed illegally killed or ‘missing’ since 2018

In September 2020 I blogged that at least 45 hen harriers were ‘missing’ in suspicious circumstances or had been confirmed illegally killed since 2018 (see here).

Today the list is updated to 48 hen harriers, ‘missing’ or confirmed illegally killed since 2018, after the recent news (here, here and here) that three more satellite-tagged hen harriers have ‘disappeared’ since September 2020.

Here’s the blog that’ll be published every time this list is updated:

It’s getting to that time of year when the grouse shooting industry pumps out its patently misleading propaganda relating to hen harrier conservation in the UK. The aim is to hoodwink the public in to believing that the industry loves hen harriers and is doing all it can to protect and nurture the tiny remnant breeding population (but conveniently forgetting to mention that the breeding population is only in such dire straits because the grouse shooting industry has been ruthless in its maniacal intolerance of this supposedly protected species).

And the industry’s pursuit of the hen harrier is not simply ‘historical’ or indicative of past behaviour, as some would have us believe. It is on-going, it is current, and it is relentless.

[This male hen harrier died in 2019 after his leg was almost severed in an illegally set trap that had been placed next to his nest on a Scottish grouse moor (see here). Photo by Ruth Tingay]

To illustrate this fact, I intend to keep a running tally of all the hen harriers that I know (because most of these victims had been fitted with a satellite tag) to have either ‘disappeared’ in suspicious circumstances or have been confirmed as being illegally killed since 2018.

Why only since 2018 when we know that hen harriers have been a persecution target for years and years and years? Well, 2018 is the year that the grouse shooting industry ‘leaders’ would have us believe that the criminal persecution of hen harriers had stopped and that these birds were being welcomed back on to the UK’s grouse moors (see here).

I only started compiling this list of dead / missing hen harriers in June 2020 when I learned that all five of last year’s brood meddled hen harrier chicks were ‘missing’, presumed dead (see here). It has since been updated a few times as we found out about more satellite-tagged hen harriers that had vanished during lockdown in suspicious circumstances on grouse moors in the Cairnorms National Park (here), on a notorious grouse moor in South Lanarkshire (see here) and on a grouse moor believed to be involved with the brood meddling in the Yorkshire Dales National Park (here).

It’s now time to update the death list again, as I’ve learned of yet another three satellite-tagged hen harriers that have ‘disappeared’ in suspicious circumstances, only revealed after an FoI request to Natural England who seem reluctant to let the public know about these ongoing losses. I can’t think why. Some might think NE’s silence was connected to a financial agreement it made recently with representatives from the grouse shooting industry. That would be a preposterous suggestion – as ridiculous as Natural England removing hen harrier chicks from the moors at the behest of the grouse shooting industry and calling it conservation. It’d never happen, right?

That brings the gruesome tally to 48 hen harriers. I’m still waiting to hear whether three hen harriers, satellite-tagged by Natural England this year and have since vanished (here), are being treated as suspicious disappearances by the police and if so, they will be added to this list. I’m also aware of at least one ongoing police investigation that has yet to be publicised so that bird will also be added to this list if the circumstances dictate it’s appropriate.

Four eight.

Forty eight.

In the space of two years.

Nobody has been prosecuted for any of these cases. We have every expectation that this list will be updated again in the near future.

For now, here are the 48: