How low will they go? Shooting a sleeping beauty
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.
Shooting a sleeping beauty
How low will they go?
Raptors will be attacked even in moments of peaceful vulnerability, being killed in their sleep.
Species:
Golden Eagle
Method:
Suspected shooting
Date:
12 October 2023
Location:
Moorfoot Hills, Scottish Borders
Repercussions:
NONE. (No prosecutions; No General Licence restriction).
The crime:
Meet Merrick. Merrick was a young female Golden Eagle, fitted with a satellite tag by the South Scotland Golden Eagle Project. In autumn of 2023, she disappeared.
Merrick hatched on a shooting estate in the Angus Glens in 2022 and had been translocated to southern Scotland later that year as part of efforts to re-establish Golden Eagles across their former range.
In the week or so preceding her disappearance, Merrick had spent her time soaring over the Moorfoot Hills just south of Edinburgh. Over an eight-day period, her satellite tag worked normally, regularly transmitting coordinates of her location to the project team that was monitoring her movements.
That was until the 12th of October. Merrick’s tag had last transmitted from a stand of trees, close to the edge of a grouse moor, where she’d settled to roost in a tall Sitka Spruce. , Overnight, her tag suddenly stopped transmitting. Merrick had disappeared.
At first glance, with no body recovered and no witnesses to a crime, it might’ve been argued that Merrick’s disappearance was natural; perhaps she’d been predated, or her tag had simply broken. But investigations carried out after her disappearance found evidence that led Police Scotland strongly to suspect foul play.
First, the data from Merrick’s satellite tag indicated ‘no malfunction’ before it stopped transmitting which strongly suggests human interference caused it to stop transmitting, rather than a technical fault.
Second, an act of predation was extremely unlikely. Golden Eagles are apex predators and are unlikely to be attacked or injured by other wildlife when roosting high up in a tree.
Finally, there was physical evidence to suggest a crime had been committed. Only a matter of hours after Merrick’s tag stopped, Eagle Officer John Wright from the South Scotland Golden Eagle Project and wildlife crime officers from Police Scotland visited the roosting tree and inspected the site for signs of suspicious activity. At the base of the tree where Merrick had slept, they found several eagle feathers as well as trails and pools of blood, and flattened areas of vegetation.
A forensic examination of the site led the team to conclude that Merrick was coldly shot as she slept, causing her to fall from the tree and bleed considerably on the ground. It was believed the shooter removed her body from the scene and destroyed the satellite tag, causing it to stop transmitting.
Merrick’s final roosting spot was in an area where multiple bird of prey persecution crimes have occurred over the last 20 years, including shooting, trapping and poisoning incidents, resulting in a number of police raids and investigations but zero prosecutions. Merrick disappeared metres from the boundary of Raeshaw Estate, a prominent grouse-shooting estate that has previously had a three-year General Licence restriction imposed based on ‘evidence provided by Police Scotland of wildlife crime against birds’ and a further revocation of an Individual Licence after NatureScot found ‘multiple instances of breaches of [licence] conditions’.
As far as we’re aware, the police investigation into the suspected shooting of Golden Eagle Merrick has not resulted in sufficient evidence to charge anyone in the area with any alleged offences.
Our view:
Shooting is a common method used by criminals to illegally kill birds of prey, but there’s something particularly cold-blooded and callous about shooting a young eagle whilst she is sleeping, vulnerable and unaware.
Like many cases of raptor persecution, there wasn’t enough evidence to be able to link this horrible crime with a particular individual. Even though Police Scotland believe that a crime was committed, nobody will be held to account.
This is just a single example but the science shows that illegal killing is frequent enough to have a population level impact on Golden Eagles and that impact comes from areas rich in grouse moors.
Further case studies:
There are plenty of examples of birds of prey being shot (click here), and a long list of other cases involving Golden Eagles being persecuted (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 54,000 people have signed our government petition calling for a band so far. Help us reach 100,000 and secure a parliamentary debate:
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