How low will they go? A barbaric crime
The grouse shooting industry doesn’t like to talk about raptor (bird of prey) killing because it’s wildlife crime. It’s not good for an industry which supplies an expensive leisure activity to be underpinned by criminal activity. There are many reasons for wanting change (we’d say a ban) of driven grouse shooting and criminality is one of them.
Incidents of the illegal persecution of raptors on driven grouse moors are well documented and ongoing. They’re also woefully under-punished, with prosecutions few and far between, largely due to the difficulty of securing sufficient evidence and/or witnesses in remote locations. The cases that do make it through the courts are often stacked in favour of the defendant, who is represented by expensive senior lawyers (paid for by the grouse-shooting estate) up against the poorly-funded and under-resourced public prosecuting authority (CPS in England & Wales, COPFS in Scotland). Where a conviction is secured against these odds, strong sentencing options are available but are rarely applied consistently and often these cases result in the equivalent of a slap on the wrist for the offender, providing little deterrent for other would be raptor killers.
Driven grouse shooting is an industry with a problem. It seems many overseeing and working within the industry have a fixation; an urge that they can’t seem to fight, to eradicate raptors. This urge appears to be driving the perpetrators of raptor persecution to carry out shocking crimes against wildlife, as well as engage in acts of deception to cover up their crimes.
And so, in a series of blogs we will be asking the question – ‘How low will they go?’ Looking at case studies from a range of locations, affecting many species of raptors, we’ll look at the lengths that criminals will go to, either to kill birds of prey, or to hide the fact that they’ve done so.
Under the boot
How low will they go?
Scaling rocky ledges to eradicate birds in their nests.
Species:
Peregrine Falcon
Method:
Shooting, spring traps
Date:
April 2016
Location:
Bleasdale Estate, Bowland, Lancashire
Repercussions:
Prosecution of a gamekeeper but case collapsed in court.
The incident:
In Lancashire in 2016 a pair of Peregrine Falcons chose a rocky ledge to use as their nest scrape. This ledge happened to be on the Bleasdale Estate; where previous Peregrine breeding attempts had failed in unexplained circumstances. . The RSPB installed a covert camera pointing onto the nest ledge , allowing them to monitor the Peregrines’ breeding attempt without disturbing the birds.
On the 13th of April 2016 this camera captured a shocking and brazen crime taking place. The female Peregrine had laid a clutch of eggs, and she was seen incubating them in the nest scrape. Just before sundown she suddenly left the nest scrape in a flurry and moments later the sound of gunshots were heard on the recording. The female Peregrine was not seen again.
, A few minutes later the camera captured footage of an unidentified man dressed in camouflage clambering up to the nest ledge where he appeared to be hammering something into the rock substrate around the Peregrine’s nest scrape before leaving the scene.
The following morning, footage showed the male Peregrine returning to his nest scrape. After a few moments moving around the scrape, he was filmed stepping on something that snapped violently, and afterwards he appeared to be stuck in place whilst flapping in distress.
The male Peregrine was trapped all day, probably suffering appalling pain and unable to escape what was later found to be an illegally-set spring trap. A while after being caught by the leg in the jaws of the trap, and still thrashing around to try and free himself, he was filmed triggering a second illegally-set trap.
The Peregrine remained trapped on the nest ledge for ten hours until later that evening, under cover of darkness, an unidentified person appeared at the nest ledge with a torch. The person grabbed the Peregrine and shoved him inside a bag before leaving the site. The Peregrine was never seen again.
Video evidence provided by the RSPB was sufficient for the Police to obtain a search warrant for the house occupied by the Bleasdale Estate gamekeeper. During that search they recovered a knife and a hammer that both later tested positive for Peregrine Falcon DNA.
The gamekeeper was charged and he pleaded not guilty so the case,, based partly on the video evidence provided by the RSPB, went to court. Frustratingly,, after a series of court hearings the case eventually collapsed in 2018 on the basis of a series of legal technicalities, including the court’s ruling that the video evidence was inadmissible.
Our view:
Even when a raptor persecution crime is recorded on camera, it doesn’t mean justice will be served. There is an inconsistent approach by the courts to whether covert video evidence is deemed admissible or not and clear guidelines need to be issued about its use because too many cases have failed on supposed technicalities. Meanwhile, raptor persecution continues because offenders deem the risk of (a) being caught, and (b) being successfully convicted to be low. It’s gone on long enough – it’s time driven grouse shooting was banned.
Further case studies:
You can watch the footage obtained by the RSPB of this crime on their YouTube channel. More on this crime, and how it fared in the courts, can be found here. More examples of raptor persecution with spring traps can be found here.
Help us put a stop to this.
When an industry is underpinned by criminality, something needs to change. Those operating driven grouse moors have had plenty of opportunity to do so – but birds of prey continue to be illegally killed.
This is why, along with many other reasons, we at Wild Justice believe driven grouse shooting should be banned.
Over 64,000 people have signed our government petition calling for a ban so far. Help us reach 100,000 and secure a parliamentary debate:
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