Raptor killing on grouse moors – Golden Eagles

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. Let’s start with Golden Eagles and then move on to Hen Harriers (click here) and Peregrines (click here).

Golden Eagles

Golden Eagles are magnificent birds. They are large, majestic and regarded in many countries as being symbols of power. They eat a wide variety of prey including Mountain Hares, Rabbits, Ptarmigan and some Red Grouse as well as sheep and deer carrion. 

In the UK they are found mostly in Scotland, where Golden Eagle is unofficially regarded as the national bird, although a population has been established through reintroduction in Co. Donegal and there are plans to reintroduce them to other parts of Britain and Ireland. 

Grouse moors

Golden Eagles are found throughout much of Highland Scotland although they are commoner on the west of the country than the east. This is odd because the eastern moors seem in many ways better suited to Golden Eagles with a better climate and higher densities of prey. But it is in the east where some of the most intensive grouse moors are to be found – from the eastern Cairngorms towards the North Sea coast.

A conservation framework for Golden Eagles 2008: this detailed analysis commissioned by the statutory agency Scottish Natural Heritage (now, NatureScot) concluded that human persecution was the most important constraint limiting Golden Eagle populations in seven of 14 regions of Scotland – click here for a long scientific report. The areas where Golden Eagles were closest to their expected population levels were in the west of Scotland and those where favourable conservation status was least likely to be achieved, and where persecution played a major role in this failure, were the areas of the east and south where driven grouse shooting is a major land use. This analysis was based on Scotland-wide monitoring of territories and their breeding success.

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.

Golden Eagles are at very low densities and have poor breeding success in areas of intensive grouse management. In other words, large parts of the natural range of Scotland’s national bird are underperforming because some people want to shoot Red Grouse as a leisure activity, and this hobby is underpinned by crimes against wildlife.

Landscape scale population impacts are not caused by a few bad apples – they are more likely to be a systemic assault on protected wildlife across many, many sites. The grouse shooting industry is out of control and the solution is to ban driven grouse shooting.

Please sign our petition to ban driven grouse shooting – click here.