Tag Archive: Raptor Persecution

  1. How low will they go? Caught in the act

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    A Short-eared Owl. Image: Pixabay

    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.

    Caught in the act

    How low will they go?

    Brazenly committing crime in the open, without considering they could be caught.

    Species:

    Short-eared Owl

    Method:

    Shooting and hiding bodies.

    Date:

    April 2017.

    Location:

    Whernside Estate, Yorkshire Dales National Park

    Repercussions:

    Gamekeeper convicted and fined £1,210.

    The crime:

    The illegal killing of raptors often takes place away from public view. Driven grouse moors are, by their very nature, remote, large areas and so the chances of a member of the public witnessing a wildlife crime there are quite slim.

    The chances of three RSPB Investigators witnessing one are even slimmer. However, in April 2017 on the Whernside Estate in the Yorkshire Dales National Park,, a team from the RSPB was visiting the moor when, by chance, they witnessed the illegal killing of two Short-eared Owls.

    From a distance the group watched a man first shoot one owl, before stamping on its body on the ground and then stuffing the corpse into a dry-stone wall to hide it. Shortly afterwards, another Short-eared Owl flew by and it, too, was shot. This bird was stamped on and the man appeared to tread the owl’s corpse in to the peat, presumably to hide the evidence of his crime.

    Despite the horror of the scene in front of them, the quick-thinking witnesses acted efficiently, filming the incident to get evidence and calling the police to alert them of a crime in progress.

    The man caught on camera was employed as a gamekeeper on the estate. In a dramatic moment captured on video, as he walked off the moor to reach his parked vehicle the gamekeeper encountered one of the RSPB’s team hidden behind a nearby wall. After being confronted about the shooting of the two owls, the gamekeeper turned on his heels and , took off running across the moor, being pursued by an RSPB investigator. Luckily, the police responded quickly to the RSPB’s call and arrived a short while later to handcuff and arrest the gamekeeper before he could leave the moor

    During a search, police also discovered that this gamekeeper was in possession of a ‘calling device’, preloaded with the calls of several birds of prey, presumably to be used as a means of attracting birds in close for potential shooting/killing opportunities.

    Following a frustratingly drawn-out court case, the gamekeeper eventually pleaded guilty. In one way this was a good outcome – successful convictions for the illegal killing of raptors are infuriatingly rare – but the sentence in this case did not reflect the seriousness of the crimes – the gamekeeper received a pathetic fine of £1,210.

    Police retrieving the corpse of the second short-eared owl that had been shot then stamped in to the ground. Photo by Guy Shorrock.
    Our view:

    Even when undisputable evidence of a wildlife crime secures a conviction, the repercussions for those guilty of illegal raptor persecution are usually insignificant. Criminals within the driven grouse shooting industry are learning time and time again that they will likely get away with their crimes, and even when they don’t, the punishments they face are not severe enough to act as a deterrent to others.

    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 65,000 people have signed our government petition calling for a ban so far. Help us reach 100,000 and secure a parliamentary debate:

    Sign the petition to ban driven grouse shooting
    1. Add your name to our petition – click the button above.
    2. Send this blog to friends and family – click the WhatsApp icon below.
    3. Share this blog on social media, on BlueSky , Facebook or Twitter – click their icons below.

  2. How low will they go? An unfair advantage

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    Criminals are now suspected to be using thermal imaging equipment to be finding birds of prey. Image: Shutterstock

    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.

    An unfair advantage

    How low will they go?

    Using military grade equipment to find and kill birds of prey.

    Species:

    Likely multiple

    Date:

    Ongoing

    Location:

    Multiple

    The crime:

    The fight against raptor persecution is ever evolving – those tasked with detecting these crimes are using more and more advanced technology to monitor and record the illegal killing of birds of prey. But that technological advancement is not one sided; the driven grouse shooting industry is stepping up its tactics, too.

    It’s been suspected in multiple cases that criminals illegally targeting birds of prey are doing so with the aid of military-grade equipment; using tools and technology to help them detect and kill raptors on and near driven grouse moors.

    Tag data from birds of prey show that many persecution incidents take place under the cover of darkness. In theory it should be very difficult to find a bird of prey at night – when they’re likely to be roosting quietly under the cover of vegetation and darkness. But the data don’t lie. Investigators and the police believe criminals are using high-tech equipment such as thermal imaging binoculars, drones and scopes to locate roosting birds when they’re at their most vulnerable.

    In one small area in the Highlands dominated by land managed for driven grouse shooting, eight satellite-tagged Golden Eagles disappeared in under a five-year period. Three of these eagles ‘disappeared’ from the same individual tree – an ideal Golden Eagle roost and a spot from which they could easily be shot under the cover of darkness, if someone used a thermal imager to find them.

    It’s now obvious that some incidences of raptor persecution could only have occurred with the help of this sort of expensive, high-grade equipment. Criminals already have an unfair advantage over wild birds, but what chance have they got when they’re up against such advanced technology?

    Our view:

    Rather than moving away from the dark ages of raptor persecution, the driven grouse shooting industry is not only digging its heels in, but modernising the ways in which these crimes are carried out and to lessen the chances of detection.

    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 65,000 people have signed our government petition calling for a ban so far. Help us reach 100,000 and secure a parliamentary debate:

    Sign the petition to ban driven grouse shooting
    1. Add your name to our petition – click the button above.
    2. Send this blog to friends and family – click the WhatsApp icon below.
    3. Share this blog on social media, on BlueSky , Facebook or Twitter – click their icons below.

  3. How low will they go? A red herring

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    Asta’s satellite tag was attached to a Carrion Crow

    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 red herring

    How low will they go?

    Attempting to deceive raptor workers to hide crimes.

    Species:

    Hen Harriers

    Method:

    Cause of death unknown. Deceptive tactics deployed to cover up a crime

    Date:

    March 2021

    Location:

    County Durham, North Pennines

    Repercussions:

    None (no prosecutions).

    The crime:

    Asta was a young female Hen Harrier. She hatched in a Northumberland nest monitored by Natural England in 2020 and prior to fledging was fitted with a satellite tag to track her dispersal movements.

    By the end of Asta’s first winter she had seemingly settled in County Durham, spending several months on an area of moorland dominated by management for driven grouse shooting. She stayed in this area until the end of March 2021, when one day her satellite tag abruptly stopped transmitting.

    When a Hen Harrier’s satellite tag transmissions suddenly stop, with no prior warning of a technical malfunction, it usually indicates the harrier it was fitted to has come to harm at the hands of a gamekeeper. In the vast majority of these cases, once a tag has stopped transmitting, it doesn’t come back on again and the Hen Harrier is never seen again. In Asta’s case however, something more unusual happened.

    The team monitoring the tag data were surprised when, in early April, Asta’s tag came back online. This could’ve been interpreted as a good sign – perhaps Asta was alive and well, and a fault with the tag itself was to blame for it going offline. But when the team looked more closely at Asta’s tag data, they could see something wasn’t quite right.

    Firstly, Asta had apparently moved – her tag was now transmitting from a location 29 km away from its last signal in March, quite a distance from where she’d previously settled.

    Secondly, the new location for the tag didn’t marry up with typical Hen Harrier behaviour; it appeared Asta had moved away from her species’ preferred upland habitat (over 400m above sea level), and had dropped to a lower altitude of around 103m.

    The Natural England ecologist monitoring this tag’s data was rightly suspicious of these unsual movements and so a search to find Asta was launched. Later in April fieldworkers finally caught up with the tag – but shockingly it was no longer attached to the Hen Harrier. Instead the team found the body of a dead Carrion Crow, to which Asta’s tag had been attached.

    This was no accident – the crow hadn’t become entangled in an old, discarded tag – the tag had been deliberately refitted onto the corvid after it had been removed from Asta. The police concluded that it was “only human intervention that could have fitted it [the tag] in the manner it was securely attached [to the crow]”.

    But that’s not the worst part. Two satellite tag experts concluded that because the tag’s harness was fully intact, the only way it could have been removed from Asta was if her wings were broken or removed.

    The tag had been forcibly taken off her body before being refitted to the crow, in what we can only assume was a sick attempt to hide a crime, and confuse those working to track and protect Hen Harriers around driven grouse moors. We don’t know for sure what happened to Asta, but we can conclude that she met a grizzly end at the hands of somebody particularly callous and calculating.

    Our view:

    Despite attempts to make birds of prey safer and trackable using satellite tags, criminals will still target and illegally kill these birds. Not only that, but those responsible will resort to sickening tactics like the case we’ve seen here, seemingly taunting the people working to protect raptors. The driven grouse shooting industry has revealed its lack of respect for wildlife and the people working for wildlife conservation.

    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 65,000 people have signed our government petition calling for a ban so far. Help us reach 100,000 and secure a parliamentary debate:

    Sign the petition to ban driven grouse shooting
    1. Add your name to our petition – click the button above.
    2. Send this blog to friends and family – click the WhatsApp icon below.
    3. Share this blog on social media, on BlueSky , Facebook or Twitter – click their icons below.

  4. How low will they go? A toxic environment

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    A dead Golden Eagle (not one of the birds from this case)

    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 toxic environment

    How low will they go?

    Using dangerous amounts of illegal poisons

    Species:

    Golden Eagle and Sparrowhawk

    Method:

    Poisoning

    Date:

    May 2010

    Location:

    Skibo Castle Estate, Sutherland

    Repercussions:

    Sporting Manager convicted of possession of Carbofuran. No prosecutions for poisonings of raptors.

    The crime:

    We’ve looked at a case of poisoning already in this series – involving a poisoned Red Kite that was also shot – but this shocking incident demonstrates the scale on which these dangerous substances have been used to kill birds of prey.

    In Spring 2010 a group of walkers on the Skibo Castle Estate discovered a dead Golden Eagle; its body slumped and hanging from a Larch tree. You can imagine this wasn’t a nice thing to see, and luckily the group were aware and suspicious enough to report the scene to the police. What they didn’t realise, however, was that this wasn’t a standalone incident. Only three days earlier another dead Golden Eagle had been discovered a couple of miles down the road.

    One dead eagle is suspicious, but two were enough for the police quickly to get a warrant to search Skibo Castle Estate. This search yielded yet another dead Golden Eagle. Near its body the police also found a Red Grouse carcass that had been staked into the ground, as well as another dead bird of prey – this time a Sparrowhawk.

    The grouse carcass was tested for poison and results revealed traces of Carbofuran – an insecticide that had been banned for nearly a decade at the time of the incident, and has been used as an illegal poison for birds of prey many times previously.

    When two of the eagles and the Sparrowhawk were tested, they were also found to have ingested Carbofuran. The third Golden Eagle had been poisoned too, this time testing positive for Aldicarb, another banned insecticide.

    When searching the premises of the estate, police came across a locked storeroom, to which only the sporting manager for the estate had access. Inside they found a sack containing 10.5kg of Carbofuran; the largest ever seizure of Carbofuran in the UK. It was later calculated that the sack contained enough Carbofuran to kill every bird of prey in Scotland six times over – which indicates the level of harm possible even if only relatively small amounts were used locally. It’s no wonder the police were dealing with four dead raptors within the boundaries of just one estate.

    Dean Barr, the sporting manager, was convicted of possession of the Carbofuran and was fined £3,300. Nobody was charged with poisoning the three Golden Eagles and the Sparrowhawk because there was insufficient evidence to identify the person(s) who had laid the poisoned baits.

    A dead Sparrowhawk. was found alongside 3 dead Golden Eagles. Bird pictured is not the same bird found dead on this estate. Photo: Shutterstock
    Our view:

    The remote locations where driven grouse shooting takes place means those working on the estates are mostly out of view of the public. These cases of illegal poisoning were detected, purely by chance passers-by, but how many others go unnoticed? How many more kilograms of illegal poisons are being used on driven grouse moors, with the hope of killing more birds of prey? This is an industry creating a toxic environment, with a long and filthy track record of poisoning. It’s time it came to an end.

    Further case studies:

    Lacing baits with poison is a favourite method of gamekeepers when it comes to illegally killing raptors. Read more about more cases of poisoning here, and cases specifically involving the banned substance Carbofuran here. Persecution has population level impacts on Golden Eagles – read more 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:

    Sign the petition to ban driven grouse shooting
    1. Add your name to our petition – click the button above.
    2. Send this blog to friends and family – click the WhatsApp icon below.
    3. Share this blog on social media, on BlueSky , Facebook or Twitter – click their icons below.

  5. How low will they go? A barbaric crime

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    A Peregrine Falcon in the nest with young chicks – Photo: Shutterstock

    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.

    Under the boot

    How low will they go?

    Scaling rocky ledges to eradicate birds in their nests.

    Species:

    Peregrine Falcon

    Method:

    Shooting, spring traps

    Date:

    April 2016

    Location:

    Bleasdale Estate, Bowland, Lancashire

    Repercussions:

    Prosecution of a gamekeeper but case collapsed in court.

    The incident:

    In Lancashire in 2016 a pair of Peregrine Falcons chose a rocky ledge to use as their nest scrape. This ledge happened to be on the Bleasdale Estate; where previous Peregrine breeding attempts had failed in unexplained circumstances. . The RSPB installed a covert camera pointing onto the nest ledge , allowing them to monitor the Peregrines’ breeding attempt without disturbing the birds.

    On the 13th of April 2016 this camera captured a shocking and brazen crime taking place. The female Peregrine had laid a clutch of eggs, and she was seen incubating them in the nest scrape. Just before sundown she suddenly left the nest scrape in a flurry and moments later the sound of gunshots were heard on the recording. The female Peregrine was not seen again.

    , A few minutes later the camera captured footage of an unidentified man dressed in camouflage clambering up to the nest ledge where he appeared to be hammering something into the rock substrate around the Peregrine’s nest scrape before leaving the scene.

    The following morning, footage showed the male Peregrine returning to his nest scrape. After a few moments moving around the scrape, he was filmed stepping on something that snapped violently, and afterwards he appeared to be stuck in place whilst flapping in distress.

    The male Peregrine was trapped all day, probably suffering appalling pain and unable to escape what was later found to be an illegally-set spring trap. A while after being caught by the leg in the jaws of the trap, and still thrashing around to try and free himself, he was filmed triggering a second illegally-set trap.

    The Peregrine remained trapped on the nest ledge for ten hours until later that evening, under cover of darkness, an unidentified person appeared at the nest ledge with a torch. The person grabbed the Peregrine and shoved him inside a bag before leaving the site. The Peregrine was never seen again.

    Video evidence provided by the RSPB was sufficient for the Police to obtain a search warrant for the house occupied by the Bleasdale Estate gamekeeper. During that search they recovered a knife and a hammer that both later tested positive for Peregrine Falcon DNA.

    The gamekeeper was charged and he pleaded not guilty so the case,, based partly on the video evidence provided by the RSPB, went to court. Frustratingly,, after a series of court hearings the case eventually collapsed in 2018 on the basis of a series of legal technicalities, including the court’s ruling that the video evidence was inadmissible.

    Our view:

    Even when a raptor persecution crime is recorded on camera, it doesn’t mean justice will be served. There is an inconsistent approach by the courts to whether covert video evidence is deemed admissible or not and clear guidelines need to be issued about its use because too many cases have failed on supposed technicalities. Meanwhile, raptor persecution continues because offenders deem the risk of (a) being caught, and (b) being successfully convicted to be low. It’s gone on long enough – it’s time driven grouse shooting was banned.

    Further case studies:

    You can watch the footage obtained by the RSPB of this crime on their YouTube channel. More on this crime, and how it fared in the courts, can be found here. More examples of raptor persecution with spring traps can be found 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:

    Sign the petition to ban driven grouse shooting
    1. Add your name to our petition – click the button above.
    2. Send this blog to friends and family – click the WhatsApp icon below.
    3. Share this blog on social media, on BlueSky , Facebook or Twitter – click their icons below.

  6. How low will they go? Under the boot

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    A nest of four young Hen Harrier chicks (not the same nest described below). Photo: Keith Offord

    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:

    Sign the petition to ban driven grouse shooting
    1. Add your name to our petition – click the button above.
    2. Send this blog to friends and family – click the WhatsApp icon below.
    3. Share this blog on social media, on BlueSky , Facebook or Twitter – click their icons below.

  7. How low will they go? A double whammy

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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.

    A Double Whammy

    How low will they go?

    Estates will employ multiple methods of persecution, attacking from all angles.

    Species:

    Red Kite

    Method:

    Shooting and Poisoning

    Date:

    October 2022

    Location:

    Stanhope Burn, North Pennines National Landscape

    Repercussions:

    None (no prosecution).

    The incident:

    When somebody finds a dead or injured bird of prey, it can be tricky to determine exactly what happened to it. Perhaps the bird died of natural causes, disease, starvation, or injuries from a fight with another of its own kind, or was killed by a predator. Whilst this is often the case, we would always encourage a good degree of scepticism – it helps to wonder in these situations if anything illegal might have occurred.

    In autumn 2022, a Red Kite was found by a member of the public, hanging lifelessly in a tree, next to an area of moorland managed for driven grouse shooting in the North Pennines National Landscape. This area is dominated by driven grouse moors and is a notorious raptor persecution hotspot. The person who found the bird was luckily somewhat suspicious of the scene, and so the kite was reported to the authorities and subsequently sent away for a post-mortem to determine if its death was suspicious.

    When a dead bird of prey is collected, initial tests usually include an x-ray; the best tool to determine if any bullets or shot remain within the bird’s body. In the case of this Red Kite, the x-ray highlighted several lead pellets, showing that the bird had been shot with a shotgun. Yet this wasn’t considered to be the cause of death of the bird.

    Further tests, including those for toxicology, showed the kite tested positive for two highly toxic insecticides; Carbofuran and Bendiocarb. Both of these substances are restricted; Carbofuran has been banned since 2001, and the use of Bendiocarb has been illegal in Scotland since 2005, but is controlled elsewhere in the UK.

    Both of these substances were present in the kite’s body at high enough concentrations to kill the bird, with poisoning being determined as the official cause of death. So, whilst it had been shot at some point, this was thought to be historical and something that the unfortunate Red Kite had managed to survive.

    The illegally poisoned Red Kite being collected by an investigator. Photo: RSPB
    Our view:

    The driven grouse shooting industry is so determined to kill raptors that birds have multiple encounters with criminality. This poor Red Kite was shot – and survived – only to die later from feeding from a poisoned bait. . Our birds of prey are being attacked from all angles.

    Further case studies:

    See further examples of Red Kites being illegally killed here. There are also plenty of examples of birds of prey being poisoned, specifically with Carbofuran and Bendiocarb.

    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 60,000 people have signed our government petition calling for a ban so far. Help us reach 100,000 and secure a parliamentary debate:

    Sign the petition to ban driven grouse shooting
    1. Add your name to our petition – click the button above.
    2. Send this blog to friends and family – click the WhatsApp icon below.
    3. Share this blog on social media, on BlueSky , Facebook or Twitter – click their icons below.

  8. How low will they go? An ambush

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    Male Hen Harrier. Photo: Keith Offord

    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.

    An Ambush

    How low will they go?

    Using barbaric and inhumane tools to ambush raptors in their place of safety.

    Species:

    Hen Harrier

    Method:

    Spring Traps

    Date:

    11th May 2019

    Location:

    Leadhills Estate, South Lanarkshire

    Repercussions:

    No prosecution; General Licence restriction imposed on estate by NatureScot

    The incident:

    In early May 2019, fieldworkers from the Scottish Raptor Study Group were walking across Leadhills, a driven grouse shooting estate in South Lanarkshire. The group were there carrying out routine monitoring including visiting a Hen Harrier nest to check on its progress. Leadhills Estate has been at the centre of multiple police investigations over a 20-year period and two gamekeepers were previously convicted for committing wildlife crimes.

    When the fieldworkers approached the nest, they realised something was very wrong. Next to the nest, a male Hen Harrier lay distressed and injured, his leg grasped tightly in the jaws of a metal spring trap.

    Spring traps are designed to snap shut upon a target animal when the animal places its weight on a tread plate and triggers the mechanism. It’s illegal to use one in the UK out in the open; they should only be used in enclosed tunnels (artificial or natural) in order to prevent non-target species being trapped in them (and since this incident in 2019 further restrictions to their use now apply). This was set in the open, right next to the Hen Harrier’s nest, and thus was illegal.

    Taking photos of the immediate scene for evidential purposes, the raptor workers called the Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and rushed the injured bird to a specialist vet, who tried his best to reconstruct the shattered and almost-severed leg. Sadly it became clear that the injury was too significant and the decision was made to euthanise the Hen Harrier. The vet later compared the force of the trap on the bird’s leg to a human’s leg being run over by a tractor, indicating just how powerful the illegal trap was.

    Perhaps the worst part of this story is that when the fieldworkers inspected the scene more closely, a second illegally-set spring trap was discovered, positioned under some moss next to two Hen Harrier eggs inside the nest. The female of the pair was nowhere to be seen and the two eggs didn’t survive.

    A search of Leadhills Estate took place but there was insufficient evidence to identify who had set the traps. However, NatureScot imposed a three-year General Licence restriction on the estate for this, and other alleged wildlife crime offences reported on the estate by Police Scotland.

    Chris Packham and vet Romain Pizzi, inspecting the injured Hen Harrier after being released from the spring trap. Sadly he couldn’t be saved. Photo: Ruth Tingay
    Our view:

    Persecutors often use tools which cause prolonged suffering for birds – they just don’t care. Placing traps in such calculated locations, where the chance of catching their target is so high, shows a concerning lack of empathy and humanity. This is just a single example but the science shows that illegal killing is frequent enough to have a population level impact on Hen Harriers and that impact comes from areas rich in grouse moors.

    Further case studies:

    Cruel and inhumane spring traps are a well-known tool of the driven grouse industry, whether they’re used legally, or illegally to kill birds of prey.

    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 60,000 people have signed our government petition calling for a ban so far. Help us reach 100,000 and secure a parliamentary debate:

    Sign the petition to ban driven grouse shooting
    1. Add your name to our petition – click the button above.
    2. Send this blog to friends and family – click the WhatsApp icon below.
    3. Share this blog on social media, on BlueSky , Facebook or Twitter – click their icons below.

  9. How low will they go? Nowhere is safe

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    White-tailed Eagle. Photo: Nick Edge, Shutterstock

    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.

    Nowhere is Safe

    How low will they go?

    Going directly to the source and destroying raptors’ refuges.

    Species:

    Golden Eagle and White-tailed Eagle

    Method:

    Nest Destruction

    Date:

    2013 and 2015

    Location:

    Angus Glens and Perthshire

    Repercussions:

    NONE (No prosecutions; no General Licence restrictions).

    The crimes:

    It’s well known that many cases of illegal raptor killing happen on or near driven grouse moors. In many cases, a bird of prey was hunting or prospecting over a moorland when it encountered the barrel of a shotgun. Those that are lucky enough to avoid being shot, trapped or poisoned might make it back to the refuge of their nests. But what if their nests aren’t places of safety either?

    As well as raising their guns to the skies, people bent on illegally killing raptors have been known to go directly to the source; deliberately targeting the nests of birds of prey in order to prevent a nesting attempt or destroy an active one.

    Two such cases were observed on driven grouse moors in 2013 and 2015, affecting both species of UK eagles.

    The first target, in 2013, was the nest of a pair of White-tailed Eagles. This year the Invermark Estate in the Angus Glens saw the first breeding attempt of this species in east Scotland for over a century. The pair – two young birds being monitored by the RSPB – had been gradually building up a nest over the autumn and winter of 2012. Everything was looking positive; those following the progress of the birds were hopeful for a successful breeding attempt the following spring.

    That was until January came around, when workers discovered the eagle’s chosen nesting tree had been felled with what appeared to be a chainsaw. This was a brazen criminal act; to destroy an active nest in this way is illegal. It’s a case that felt particularly shameless and arrogant; something different to methods of raptor persecution like poisoning and trapping, where the evidence is easier to hide. The felling of a large tree, that hosted White-tailed Eagles and was being actively monitored, couldn’t possibly have gone unnoticed.

    To this date, nobody has been held accountable for this wildlife crime because the police couldn’t identify the person who’d felled the nest tree. And when a crime this brazen goes unpunished, what hope is there for other cases, where it can be harder to prove someone’s intention?

    Golden Eagles are just as vulnerable to persecution as White-tailed Eagles. As well as using trees, they often build their nests on crags or ledges on hillsides. When nests are built at a lower level, they become more vulnerable to sneakier acts of destruction; ones that allow the guilty person a degree of plausible deniability.

    In 2015, on the Glen Turret Estate in Perthshire, an established hill-side Golden Eagle nest was reduced to ashes following a fire. Gazing out across the hillside, a blackened patch of vegetation now marked the spot where the eagles had previously nested.

    When something like this happens, gamekeepers can quite easily play the accident card; blaming an out-of-control muirburn that unfortunately spread in the direction of an eagle’s nest. It’s not known whether the burning of this particular nest site was deliberate or accidental.

    Golden Eagle. Photo: Shutterstock
    Our view:

    Whether it’s something as bold and brazen as felling a nest tree, not caring who knows about it, or using more underhand tactics that allow room for reasonable doubt – it goes to show that when it comes to grouse moors, even a raptor’s place of refuge isn’t safe from persecution. 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:

    Other cases of persecution involving White-tailed Eagles can be found here, and Golden Eagles here. Other examples of muirburn being used to cause ‘disturbance’ to breeding Golden Eagles are evidenced in this 2021 paper.

    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 60,000 people have signed our government petition calling for a ban so far. Help us reach 100,000 and secure a parliamentary debate:

    Sign the petition to ban driven grouse shooting
    1. Add your name to our petition – click the button above.
    2. Send this blog to friends and family – click the WhatsApp icon below.
    3. Share this blog on social media, on BlueSky , Facebook or Twitter – click their icons below.

  10. How low will they go? Faking it; death by decoy

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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.

    Faking it; death by decoy

    How low will they go?

    How low will they go? Killers will get crafty, making bespoke tools to help them commit their crimes.

    Species:

    Hen Harrier

    Method:

    Using decoys to draw in birds to within close shooting range.

    Date:

    24th February 2016

    Location:

    Peak District National Park

    Repercussions:

    No prosecution; Land owner (National Trust) terminated its grouse shooting lease with the sporting tenant four years before it was due to expire.

    The incident:

    The problem with many cases of raptor persecution is that they’re very difficult to prove. These crimes often take place in remote areas of moorland; large estates that are unlikely to see heavy footfall from the public. It can be hard to predict where and when incidences of persecution take place when you’re dealing with such vast landscapes. But then, there’s always a chance that you might stumble across something unexpectedly.

    That’s what happened to two birdwatchers in February of 2016. The pair were walking in the Peak District, hoping to catch a glimpse of a Hen Harrier that had recently been reported on the National Trust’s Hope Woodlands and Park Hall Estate where a tenancy agreement was in place to allow grouse shooting. . During their walk, one of the birdwatchers spotted a distant bird, approximately 1km away, perched upon a post in the middle of the moorland. Looking through their binoculars they could make out some silvery-grey plumage with black wing tips, and were temporarily convinced they had spotted a male Hen Harrier. That was until one of them noticed the armed man close by.

    Only a handful of metres from the Hen Harrier, a man dressed in camouflage, and holding a shot gun, was lying in wait in the heather. Looking more closely, it became obvious to the birdwatchers that the bird they’d spotted wasn’t real – it was, in fact, a fake Hen Harrier.

    Scrabbling to capture evidence of the scene in front of them, they filmed the man and fake bird through their telescopes. Only moments after they stopped recording, the man got up, grabbed the fake harrier, and hurriedly walked away from the pair, before getting into a nearby Land Rover and driving away. The birdwatchers thought it was quite obvious that the gunman knew he’d been spotted.

    Whilst using decoy (fake) birds to lure in some birds isn’t illegal – it would be illegal to do so in order to kill birds of prey, including Hen Harriers. Decoy birds are readily available to buy, resembling a range of species including falcons, owls and corvids. But decoy Hen Harriers aren’t readily available, suggesting the one the birdwatchers observed was custom-made.

    Knowing this, it’s quite reasonable to assume this fake bird was being used specifically to try and lure in a Hen Harrier. Male Hen Harriers are rather territorial, and in spying an ‘intruder’ on his patch, a male might be tempted to fly in and see off the imposter. If this had happened, the bird would have been an easy shooting target for the gunman lying in wait in the heather.

    It was very lucky that day that the two birdwatchers not only witnessed – but captured – evidence of such suspicious behaviour. Luck was also on the side of any Hen Harriers present in the area, who avoided an interaction with an armed man at close quarters – at least this time.

    Our view:

    Raptor persecution is not just a crime of opportunity. Not content with relying upon chance encounters with raptors, criminals within the driven grouse shooting industry will actively attempt to draw these birds in so they can be illegally killed.

    Imagine smirks of satisfaction as someone paints the finishing touches on a model Hen Harrier, knowing it will be used to help them kill the real thing. That this happens inside a National Park is even more disgraceful.

    Further case studies:

    More examples of the industry using decoys in various ways to kill birds of prey can be found here, and more cases involving Hen Harriers can be found here.  This is just a single example but the science shows that illegal killing is frequent enough to have a population level impact on hen Harriers and that impact comes from areas rich in grouse moors, such as National Parks like the Yorkshire Dales, the North York Moors, the Peak District and the Cairngorms National Park.

    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:

    Sign the petition to ban driven grouse shooting
    1. Add your name to our petition – cick the button above.
    2. Send this blog to friends and family. Click the WhatsApp icon below.
    3. Share this blog on social media, on BlueSky , Facebook or Twitter – click their icons below.

  11. How low will they go? The indiscriminate persecutors

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    Merlin. Photo: Scott M Ward, Shutterstock

    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.

    The Merlin nest, with broken eggs and feathers. Photo: SSPCA
    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.

    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:

    Sign the petition to ban driven grouse shooting
    1. Add your name to our petition – cick the button above.
    2. Send this blog to friends and family. Click the WhatsApp icon below.
    3. Share this blog on social media, on BlueSky , Facebook or Twitter – click their icons below.

  12. How low will they go? Shooting a sleeping beauty

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    Golden Eagle. Photo: Ian Duffield, Shutterstock

    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.

    Merrick the Golden Eagle – photo from the South Scotland Golden Eagle Project
    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:

    Sign the petition to ban driven grouse shooting
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