How low will they go? Under the boot
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.
A barbaric crime
How low will they go?
Killing defenceless chicks in the nest.
Species:
Hen Harrier
Method:
Death by stamping
Date:
June 15th 2022
Location:
Whernside, Yorkshire Dales National Park
Repercussions:
None (no prosecution).
The crime:
Those determined illegally to kill birds of prey are getting increasingly brazen. Now it seems even a visible and overt nest camera doesn’t deter their crimes.
In May 2022, a pair of Hen Harriers were tending to a brood of four young chicks, each between 8 and 12 days old, on a grouse moor near Whernside in the Yorkshire Dales National Park. This nest was being monitored by Natural England fieldworkers, who’d set up a movement-activated camera to capture the birds’ progress and activity. The female was known as ‘Susie’, and could be tracked thanks to the satellite tag she was fitted with back in 2020.
By June 20th, when the chicks were bigger and more mature, the fieldworkers noticed Susie’s tracking data seemed a bit strange; she was recorded a significant distance from the nest, unusual behaviour for a female bird with an active nest. Sensing something was wrong, the fieldworkers visited the nest site, and made the grim discovery of three dead Hen Harrier chicks in the nest. The fourth was nowhere to be found.
The chicks didn’t appear to have been attacked by a predator, and so the workers reported the suspicious circumstances to the police, and retrieved the footage from their nest camera. Scrolling back through the footage, all four chicks were alive and healthy on the day of June 15th – each of them taking food from their parents and appearing to be fit and well fed. After dark, just before 10pm, the camera was suddenly obscured, appearing to ‘white out’ to the point nothing could be seen.
The camera’s motion-sensor wasn’t triggered again until the following morning, when the footage revealed a distressing scene. The adult female was standing on the edge of her nest, slowly removing the lifeless bodies of her four dead chicks from the nest cup..
The bodies of three chicks were retrieved by the fieldworkers and sent away for post-mortem. The results showed each chick had suffered multiple fractured bones. The first chick had two fractured femurs, the second a fractured humerus and the third both a fractured humerus and a crushed skull. The injuries of all three birds indicated a significant trauma had taken place.
Whilst it can’t be known for certain, it’s thought the ‘whiteout’ of the nest camera could have been caused by a bright lamp, torch or other object being placed in front of the lens. North Yorkshire Police believed that the chicks’ injuries – were unlikely to have been caused by predators such as Stoats, and instead were the result of human activity. Were these chicks stamped on? Being deliberately and sadistically crushed under a boot?
An appeal for information was only issued by the police in December 2022, six months after the incident took place. Once again, no perpetrators of this crime – one of the most brutal and depraved examples of raptor persecution – have been brought to justice.
Our view:
Perpetrators of raptor persecution are so bold and determined, they will commit their crimes even in the presence of cameras. Natural England have worked in partnership with grouse moor operators on a joint – albeit shambolic – Hen Harrier brood meddling scheme. The fact those working on grouse moors simply don’t care about Hen Harriers, or apparent efforts to protect them, is laid bare in the chilling footage captured of this crime.
Further case studies:
More detail on this harrowing case can be read here, and others involving Hen Harriers can be found here. The science shows that incidents like this one add up to a population level landscape-scale impact on Hen Harrier population levels – click 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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