One week ago I was sharing a holiday with my friends from Munich when I received the sad news that another 5 Hen Harriers had joined the ‘disappeared’.
The 5 were reported dead or inexplicably missing on land used for grouse shooting. I can’t pretend that I was surprised by the news but it was nonetheless a distressing beginning to the 2023 breeding season. That these birds met their fate inside the Yorkshire Dales National Park must have been a bitter blow to the Park Authority staff who work tirelessly to end raptor persecution within the Park boundary.
It also flies in the face of an attempt by the Park Authority to address the ongoing issue of raptor persecution by engaging with the shooting industry in an attempt to find a solution to the problem. Unfortunately, their process is following the flawed partnership model that was trialed unsuccessfully in the Peak District. That longstanding partnership collapsed recently because insufficient progress had been made in preventing raptor persecution. Taking into account that the Yorkshire Dales partnership mirrors that employed in the Peak District it is probably only a matter of time before it too collapses in failure for the same reasons.
If the news that 5 birds had been killed or joined the ‘disappeared’ wasn’t bad enough, then recent announcement by the RSPB and Natural England in a joint press statement that a total of 20 had suffered the same fate in the previous 12 months is devastating.
Four of these individuals, Pegasus, Sullis, Sia, and Lagartha had been monitored, ringed, and tagged by NERF members in partnership with the RSPB. Two additional males were also being monitored by NERF members in South Yorkshire during the breeding season when they inexplicably disappeared. Having invested so much time and effort into protecting these birds from egg-laying to fledging it is impossible not to take their killing/disappearance personally.
How ironic that 12 of the 20 birds killed or missing were monitored and tagged by Natural England, in conjunction with their ludicrous Hen Harrier Brood Management scheme in which Hen Harrier eggs/chicks are removed from grouse moors to be reared in captivity before being released in the uplands. Where research shows that they will likely be killed. Representatives of the shooting industry claimed that Brood Management would provide a ‘safety net’ allowing the grouse moors to continue to function profitably and lead to the end of Hen Harrier persecution. Foolishly NE accepted the proposal which is effectively the equivalent of buying a ‘pig in a poke’. Natural England’s own research published by Murgatroyd et al proves that to be the case, and this latest data reinforces the conclusion reached as a result of that research. Despite the overwhelming evidence that Hen Harriers are killed ad-infinitum on land managed for grouse shooting both the industry representatives and Natural England ridiculously continue to claim that the Hen Harrier Recovery Project is on course to achieve success.
The most disturbing information to emerge in the latest press release is that a Natural England tagged bird named ‘Free’ was killed brutally by a person or persons unknown on a rocky slope above Outhgill on the Cumbria / Yorkshire border.
Following the recovery of the body by highly trained Natural England fieldworkers, the post-mortem revealed that his leg, fitted with a uniquely numbered BTO ring, and head had been torn off whilst he was still alive. This is truly shocking but not unique; the Hen Harrier named Asta was also brutally killed by having her wings torn off to remove her satellite tag before being refitted to a crow. In another incident inside the Yorkshire Dales National Park, 4 chicks were stamped to death in their nest.
These despicable actions should not only be of concern to raptor conservationists they should also ring alarm bells across the whole of civilised society. There is a huge amount of published evidence to show that there is a link between people who commit animal cruelty and those who commit violence toward human beings, in all of its grotesque forms including domestic abuse, child abuse, and rape. See here:
Animal abuse & the link to family violence – advice for practitioners
Animal Abuse and Human Abuse: Partners in Crime
The Link Between Animal Cruelty and Human Violence
In all probability, the 4 chicks, Free and Asta, were all killed by individuals who have access to a variety of firearms, held legally and licenced by the local Police. This is a frightening thought that rarely, if ever, gets mentioned in official press releases about raptor persecution issued by the authorities.
According to data published on the Raptor Persecution UK website to data 92 Hen Harriers have either been killed or inexplicably disappeared since Natural England introduced Brood Management in 2018. It is worth re-emphasising that these are only the ones we know about; the true number is likely to be 2 or 3 times higher than that. Unfortunately, rather than holding their collective managerial hands up and admitting that the Brood Management scheme has failed to end persecution as was suggested by the Moorland Association et al NE’s plan for the future of Hen Harriers in England is to ‘keep calm and carry on’ in the vain hope that it will end well eventually, how naïve.
National England, the Government’s Statutory Nature Conservation Organisation, appears to be incapable of accepting that their supposed partnership with the shooting industry is a partnership in name only. The number of dead or ‘disappeared’ Hen Harriers doesn’t lie; the so-called partners are lobbyists seeking to protect the interests of their industry, whilst simultaneously having no control over the behaviour of the people that they represent. Consequently, they are rendered incapable of delivering what they promised in return for the ‘safety net’. As Robert Burns put it so eloquently in his poem written in 1791 nothing good will come when some of the people that you are trying to deal with in good faith are ‘such a parcel of rogues in a nation’.
In response to the publication of the details of these latest atrocities Natural England insists that more action needs to be taken by “the Police, businesses, landowners and game management interests”. What Natural England don’t say in their response is how the Police, whose numbers have been decimated by the Government, are going to find the resources to take more action than they do already. Neither do they inform us which businesses need to do more or what they need to do to deliver more Hen Harriers in England. Additionally, as the result of the data published by Murgatroyd et al, referred to above, we and they, already know that the problem, not the solution, is to be found with land owners and game management interests, therefore, working with those so-called partners is a proven non-starter.
Despite the publication of this latest catalogue of killing, for their part Natural England appears to be determined to just cross their fingers and carry on carrying on with the old formula. It would appear that the senior managers missed out on the Management 101 course; otherwise, they would know that – if you always do what you always did, you always get what you always got. Therefore nothing changes and nothing improves.
Rather than continuing with the failed Brood Management scheme, the money, public money, which they propose to continue wasting on the discredited scheme, should be ploughed into providing more human resources to bolster the efforts of the hard-working fieldworkers who also feel the loss of Hen Harriers deeply. They also need to seek changes to the access restrictions imposed on professional conservationists under the Countryside and Rights of Way Act. It is ludicrous that the people who have a statutory duty to protect Hen Harriers, have to seek permission to access land to fulfill their responsibilities, from the very same people who are determined to kill Hen Harriers. At some point the Government, perhaps not the current Government, will have to introduce a system of licensing and meaningful penalties for breaches of the licence. It will happen, and needs to happen sooner rather than later if the carnage is to be stopped.
If there is no change of direction by Natural England there will be no change in improvement of the Hen Harrier population. Persecution will continue endlessly, and we will continue to read tragic accounts of Hen Harriers being persecuted on the grouse moors of Northern England. What a sad reflection on humanity and our ability to protect our natural environment and the creatures we share it with.
NERF
8 May 2023
Northern England Raptor Forum 