Raptor killing on grouse moors – Hen Harriers

The grouse shooting industry doesn’t like to talk about raptor 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.
We will talk a lot over the next few weeks, while our petition to ban driven grouse shooting is running – click here – about the many different reasons for wanting driven grouse shooting banned – see our blog for a list – but let’s start with raptor killing. Many raptor species have been recorded as being persecuted on grouse moors and they include Goshawk, Sparrowhawk, Hen Harrier, Marsh Harrier, Buzzard, Red Kite, Peregrine, Golden Eagle, White-tailed Eagle and even Short-eared Owls. This post is about Hen Harriers but see also Golden Eagles (click here) and Peregrines (click here).
Hen Harriers

Female Hen Harriers are larger than males and young males start life with a brown plumage but acquire the grey plumage over a period of a few years. These differences in size and plumage between the sexes meant that the two sexes were long thought to be different species. The rare UK breeding species the Montagu’s Harrier, the Northern Harrier of North America and the Pallid Harrier of Asia and eastern Europe all exhibit this same difference in size and plumage between the sexes. Most Hen Harriers leave the moors in winter to feed on the coasts and some leave the UK and winter in France, Spain or Portugal.
Hen Harriers nest on the ground. The female incubates the eggs and guards the chicks at the nest while her grey mate hunts for voles, small birds and, yes, sometimes Red Grouse chicks, to feed to the female and their own chicks. The female’s brown plumage means that she is camouflaged at the nest amongst the heather or in rushes. Early in the season, the male performs an aerial display to mark out a territory and attract a mate (or sometimes mates) which consists of a rollercoaster flight of swoops and cartwheels above the nesting areas which is so spectacular that it is known as skydancing.
This a bird loved by birdwatchers – the sight of a grey male hunting over a saltmarsh or rough grass field makes a day’s birdwatching but the same bird is loathed by many gamekeepers who regard them as vermin and sometimes call them ‘rats with wings’ which is clearly not a term of endearment. A study at Langholm Moor in the 1990s established that Hen Harriers certainly do eat lots of Red Grouse chicks, and some adult Red Grouse, and that this can make intensive grouse shooting impossible because of the scale of losses to raptors (not just Hen Harriers). But the Hen Harrier has been a protected species for more than 70 years and so we say that continued illegal killing of this bird is totally unacceptable under any circumstances, but turning a blind eye to crime to allow shooting of Red Grouse as a leisure activity is totally unacceptable.
Grouse moors
Nobody seriously denies that Hen Harriers are killed by grouse shooting interests – and that this is a crime. This isn’t just because dead Hen Harriers are found that have been shot but because hardly any Hen Harriers are now found nesting successfully on grouse moors. There is a range of studies, going back many years, that demonstrates the scale of criminal activity on grouse moors. Here is a quick look at a few of them:
- almost an experiment: let’s first look back a long way, to the period just before and after the Second World War – a time before Hen Harriers had full protection in law. During and after the war years, when the nation had other things to do than shoot Red Grouse and kill Hen Harriers, Hen Harrier numbers made a comeback which, at the time, was universally recognised as an effect of the diminution of Hen Harrier ‘control’ by gamekeepers. If a similar ‘experiment’ could be mounted these days we predict the very same impact.
- Etheridge, Summers and Green 1997: an analysis of Hen Harrier nesting success, causes of nest failure and survival of individuals on and off grouse moors from data collected by raptor workers in Scotland between 1988 and 1995 demonstrated that nesting success was lower on grouse moors compared with non-grouse moors or forestry plantations. Human interference with nests was noted on half of grouse moors and led to nest failure in at least 30% of nests on grouse moors but affected very few nests away from those managed for grouse shooting. Female and male survival, estimated from wing-tagged birds, was lower on grouse moors than other land management classes. Grouse moors look like good habitat for Hen Harriers but that means that harriers are sucked in to these areas and killed and the grouse moors act as population ‘sinks’, not only supporting few Hen Harriers themselves but also acting as a serious drain on the overall population. For details – click here.
- Green and Etheridge 1999: an analysis of Hen Harrier nesting success – click here – from data collected by raptor workers demonstrated that, in each of five regions of Scotland, Hen Harrier nesting success was much lower on land managed for grouse shooting than on nearby land which was not a grouse moor.
- A conservation framework for Hen Harriers in the UK 2011: this study – click here – commissioned by the statutory agencies across the UK showed that Hen Harrier numbers are much lower than expected overall. Models of land suitability suggested that the UK population of Hen Harriers could be as high as 2500+ pairs but is actually around 5-600 pairs. In other words, we are missing about 2000 potential pairs of Hen Harriers across the UK. England has the habitat for c330 pairs but at the time of this study the English population was well below 50 pairs. Persecution of Hen Harriers on grouse moors in eastern and south Scotland was a major reason for the lower than expected Scottish population. The report stated that ‘England is unlikely to achieve this [favourable conservation status] unless illegal persecution is considerably reduced.’.
- Murgatroyd, Redpath, Murphy, Douglas, Saunders and Amar 2019: this study analysed satellite-tag data from Hen Harriers collected during a Natural England study. This technology allows chicks in the nest to be fitted with transmitters that send signals of their location after they fledge and through several years of life to satellites from which the data can be downloaded and analysed. The study is sophisticated and the analysis complex but cutting edge – click here for the original paper and click here for a more layperson-friendly explanation. The study’s title accurately summarises the results; Patterns of satellite tagged hen harrier disappearances suggest widespread illegal killing on British grouse moors where ‘suggest’ is the scientifically overcautious word for ‘show’. Using data from 58 satellite-tracked Hen Harriers, the study showed high rates of unexpected tag failure and low first year survival. The likelihood of harriers dying or disappearing increased as their use of grouse moors increased. Hen Harriers that spent lots of time on grouse moors faced a much greater risk of death/disappearance than those which avoided grouse moors. Only because these birds were tracked every day and their movements known and the timing of death or tag silence could be related to where the bird was, could this level of analysis be done.
- Ewing, Thomas, Butcher, Denman, Douglas, Anderson, Anderson, Bray, Downing, Dugan, Etheridge, Hayward, Howie, Roos, Thomas, Weston, Smart and Wilson 2023: this RSPB study is similar to that above but has a much larger sample size and takes the story on further by confirming previous findings – click here. Its title, Illegal killing associated with gamebird management accounts for up to three-quarters of annual mortality in Hen Harriers Circus cyaneus, summarises the results well. The paper’s summary ends with the sentence ‘Governments have failed to reduce illegal killing of Hen Harriers and other raptors in Britain and our results emphasise that further legislative reform is needed to tackle this enduring criminality.‘.
If it weren’t for the dedicated work of scores of raptor workers, braving cold weather, heated discussions at times with gamekeepers and long slogs across the hills to collect the data, the causes of these impacts would be invisible. We salute their dedication and their long-term efforts which have made it possible for scientists to demonstrate the scale of wildlife crime with such high quality population data.

These studies form a damning indictment of an industry – the grouse shooting industry. Remember, this activity is part of the leisure industry – nobody has to shoot grouse, they do it for pleasure. The hobby of driven grouse shooting is underpinned by criminality. And no, this isn’t just a few bad apples, it’s an industry which is out of control and the solution is to ban driven grouse shooting.
Please sign our petition to ban driven grouse shooting – click here.