How low will they go? The indiscriminate persecutors
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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.
The indiscriminate persecutors
How low will they go?
Criminals will even target species that pose little-to-no threat to their quarry, simply because it is a bird of prey.
Species:
Merlin
Method:
Suspected shooting
Date:
June 2017
Location:
Pentland Hills, southern Scotland
Repercussions:
NONE. (No prosecutions; No General Licence restriction).
The incident:
It’s well known that many operators and employees of driven grouse moors have an ingrained dislike of birds of prey, with illegal killing of raptors documented on grouse-shooting estates across the UK. That being said – some raptors are more hated than others, and generally we expect to see some species suffer less when it comes to persecution.
One of these is the Merlin, our smallest bird of prey in the UK. Merlins are compact and speedy birds of prey, found in the uplands in spring and summer. Smaller than wind-hovering Kestrels, they zoom around moorland after small prey such as moths and birds like Meadow Pipits and medium-sized song birds like Skylarks. It’s much less likely that Merlins will attempt to predate Red Grouse, with adult grouse weighing twice as much as these lightweight falcons. For this reason, they’re not often the victims of direct persecution (although sometime they’re inadvertently killed in traps set for other species), with gamekeepers preferring to target grouse-eating species like Hen Harriers and Peregrine Falcons.
Sadly, a case from 2017 shows that even Merlins aren’t immune from illegal killing. This particular nest, located in a tree close to a grouse moor in the Pentland Hills, was being regularly monitored by members of a local Raptor Study Group. By June 2017 it was known that the pair were incubating four eggs, which were expected to hatch imminently.
The fieldworkers were disappointed when, on their next visit to the site, they saw none of the signs of activity you’d expect from an active Merlin nest. When they climbed up to the nest to investigate, all four eggs were found smashed, congealed with tufts of feathers from an adult bird. Further searching revealed fresh damage to the tree around the nest; splintered wounds were found on branches and pieces of bark were retrieved from the nest along with the eggs and feathers.
After reporting the incident to the Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SSPCA) and the police, the SSPCA came up with an idea. With the permission of the landowner, they removed the nest and a few of the supporting branches from around the nest tree and took them to be X-rayed. The scans that resulted painted a vivid and damning picture; the wood of the tree was completely riddled with lead shotgun pellets.
Once again, it’s almost certain that a criminal act was committed. The wounds in the bark of the tree were fresh and the bark chips were mixed amongst the broken eggs, indicating that the lead shot wasn’t from a previous shooting incident. Frustratingly, this is another case without the evidence of a bird’s body; it’s quite possible the incubating Merlin was scavenged by corvids after her death.
Our view:
This shocking case – uncovered by some clever investigation work from the SSPCA – reiterates that no birds of prey are safe from persecution. Birds of prey living on or near driven grouse moors are at risk of being illegally killed, even if they’re our smallest species and pose no threat to the profits of the grouse-shooting industry.
Further case studies:
See more cases involving the shooting of raptors here, and more incidents involving Merlins 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.
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