It would appear so. However, it’s not the French who are the target of this legendary insult. The target of the two fingered salute, by sections of the self-proclaimed ‘custodians of the countryside’, is the ludicrous and failing Brood Management element of the Natural England [NE] Hen Harrier Recovery Project, which in theory is supported by the Moorland Association et al.
Hen Harriers primary prey source consists of voles and Meadows Pipits. However they can and do kill a small number of Red Grouse chicks during the breeding season, although the impact is greatly exaggerated by the grouse shooting industry.
The Brood Management Scheme is supposed to be the cunning plan that involves the removal of Hen Harrier chicks or eggs from their nests on grouse moors in the northern uplands before being raised in captivity in the south of England and returned at a later date to the northern uplands. It is the plan that the shooting industry have lobbied for, for years; During that time, they proclaimed that it would ‘build trust’ and give grouse moor owners ‘a safety net’ by limiting the number of Hen Harriers breeding on any given estate to one breeding pair per 314 square kilometres. The Government agreed to trial the scheme in 2018, however it didn’t commence until 2019.
Natural England have squandered hundreds of thousands of pounds of tax-payers money, your money, watching the number of Hen Harriers (including satellite tagged Brood Managed birds), killed or going missing on or adjacent to grouse moors continue to increase. It is as if Major General James Brudenell, the 7th Earl of Cardigan, famed for leading the ill-fated charge of the Light Brigade, has been resurrected to lead the project
It is true that the number of chicks fledging each year is increasing and that is very welcome. However, it is important to remember that:
- Natural England’s own research revealed that 72% of tagged Hen Harriers were likely to be located on grouse moors during the last 7 days of tracking, prior to the date of death or disappearance than during other weeks.
[Murgatroyd_et_al-2019-Nature_Communications.pdf], and,
Hen Harrier satellite tag data examined by the RSPB revealed that:
- Annual survival was low, especially among first-year birds (males: 14 %; females: 30 %), with illegal killing accounting for 27–43 % and 75 % of mortality in first-year and sub-adult (1-2 years) harriers respectively
- illegal killing is the main cause of death for older birds, accounting for up 75% of deaths each year in birds between one and two years old
- it is also a major cause of death in birds under one year. Additionally, mortality due to illegal killing was higher in areas managed for Red Grouse shooting, highlighting the role that persecution plays in limiting Hen Harrier populations on some grouse moors in the UK
- illegal killing is likely attributable to grouse moor management because a 10 % increase in grouse moor use resulted in a 43 % increase in mortality risk
[ewing-et-al-2023-illegal-killing-hh-grouse-moors-biol-consv.pdf]
It is clear from these two papers, both written by eminent scientists, that if the killing continues at c75% then as the number of fledglings increase so the number of birds illegally killed will also increase in parallel. This is exactly what we have seen in the latest update published by Natural England at the end of December 2023.
The complete dataset can be viewed at: [https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/hen-harriers-tracking-programme-update].
Table 1 –Hen Harriers that are known to have been killed or are missing since the introduction of the Brood Management Scheme.
N.B.
- it is not possible to know the true extent or the actual total number of birds killed or missing. However, with 485 chicks fledging since the beginning of the Brood Management Scheme, following the illegal killing rate of c75%, [Ewing et al] the total could actually be 3 times higher than shown in the table above
- we only know that the 27 birds listed are killed /missing because they were being tracked by the satellite tags at the time
- in 2023 9 birds were satellite tagged as part of the Brood Management Scheme and at the end of December 2023, 5 were reported ‘missing fate unknown’
Natural England commented that “Unfortunately, this latest update shows that a high proportion of last summer’s nestlings have been lost”. Is it really only ‘unfortunate’ that 55.5% have been ‘lost’ in the first 6 months of their lives? It is more than unfortunate. These are the Hen Harriers that should have the highest level of protection and yet the scheme that is supposedly going to afford them that protection has failed miserably. At the present time one of the missing’ birds is currently being investigated by the Police. Whether or not the investigation will lead to a prosecution only time will tell.
Table2 – The total number of birds satellite tagged by Nature England as part of the Brood Management Scheme
N.B.
- the data in the table above, 2018 to 2022, has been obtained from a Natural England blog. The 2023 data has been taken from the latest satellite tag data published by Natural England
- 1 chick appears to have died prior to release in 2020
- 1 chick was released without a tag in 2021
- 1 chick was released without a tag in 2022
- the 2023 published Brood Management satellite tagged birds data indicates that the 4 brood sizes consisted of 2, 4, 1 and 2 chicks respectively, giving an overall average of 2.5 chicks per brood. However, if the brood of 4 is discounted then the average brood size falls to 1.6 per nest for the other 3. By comparison on the United Utilities Estate in the Forest of Bowland, where no brood Management took place during 2023 the average brood size was 4.5 per nest. This data obviously raises the question – were additional chicks from the small broods taken into captivity and released without being satellite tagged?
If no additional chicks were taken into captivity then without knowing the number of chicks in the adjacent nest and whether or not the male was polygamous it is not possible to understand what triggered the implementation of the Brood Management Scheme at 3 of the 4 2023 nests. Would nearby broods of 2 really have had a significant, detrimental impact on the financial viability of a grouse moor? To suggest that the brood of 1 would have had any impact what-so-ever would be ludicrous. Perhaps the estate owners, 1 in each of County Durham, Cumbria and the Yorkshire Dales, believed that the pesky parents would be responsible for the total destruction of their grouse stocks. Perhaps they demanded that the scheme be implemented just because they could? We, the general public, may never know, despite the fact that we are paying for it at a time of a well-documented nature depletion crisis. The money could be better spent truly improving the state of nature in England, rather than pampering to the wishes of the shooting industry whilst some of their members continue to kill Hen Harriers at will.
We know from other data published by Natural England that they have satellite tagged 41 birds in total as part of the Scheme [see Table 2 above] and that some of the broods taken into the Scheme in 2023 were very small. But; is that the whole story?
It would appear not because we also know from Natural England’s data that 27 of those 41 birds that were satellite tagged as part of the Brood Management Scheme have been killed or are ‘missing fate unknown’ so far. That is a staggering 65.8% – and remember, this is the scheme that is supposed to protect them from illegal persecution. But is that the whole story? Apparently not.
We know from blogs published by the Moorland Association [MA], a partner in the scheme, that 58 chicks have been taken in captivity.
On the 17 August 2023 the Moorland Association, published a blog in which they stated:
“A pioneering trial set up to help rebuild the population of the endangered Hen Harrier in England has reared and released 24 chicks this year, almost double last year’s record high of 13” and “The trial has seen 58 chicks take to the wing in total”.
On 16 September 2023 the Moorland Association published a blog in which they repeated the claim saying:
“The Brood Management trial is one of the elements that has made the most difference for the Hen Harrier, and has added a total of 58 chicks to the wild population to date, some of which have gone on to breed in the wild themselves”.
On 21 November 2023 the Moorland Association published another blog in which they again repeated the statement saying:
“Since the first broods were managed in 2019, 58 chicks have been taken, safely reared and released back into the wild population”.
We now know, thanks to these statements made by the MA that 17 chicks have been taken into captivity under the Brood Management Scheme and later released without being tagged. In addition to the 1 that wasn’t released in 2020.
However; despite what the Moorland Association claimed in their blog on 17 August 2023 in which they stated:
“The survival rate of brood-managed birds since 2019 has been higher than in the wild”.
The truth is that no one has a clue where the cohort of 17 Brood Managed birds that have not been fitted with a satellite tag are. Nor does anyone have a clue as to whether they are dead or alive and if they are dead no one has a clue where they died or were killed!
What we do know is that 2023 was the worst year on record for the total number of Hen Harriers that were reported missing or killed. It was also the worst year on record for the number of Brood Managed birds reported missing or killed.
We can only hope, probably in vain, that at some point in the near future NE will acknowledge what the rest of us have known for years; i.e. that representatives of the shooting industry on this and other national committees are lobbyists furthering their own interests with no ability to control persecution of Hen Harriers and deliver what they promised.
Of course it is not just NE it is the entire Brood Management Partnership, which consists of representatives from the grouse shooting industry, that is effectively being told by the criminals from within the industry to ‘shove the Brood Management Scheme where the sun don’t shine’.
There are grouse moor managers who will never accept these birds on their estates and they will continue to kill Hen Harriers, including Brood Managed birds, across vast swathes of the northern uplands.
Hen Harrier Brood Management was supposed to protect birds within the scheme and all other non-Brood Managed Hen Harriers from persecution on grouse moors. Looking at the data it is clear that the trial has been an unmitigated failure and should be abandoned without further delay. What a shambles!
It is within the gift of Natural England to call time on the Brood Management Scheme and that can be found in their own original document, The Hen Harrier Brood Management Trial Project Plan contains a section entitled ‘Exit strategy’. And one of the conditions refers to:
Higher than expected mortality of birds post release.
- Time of Decision: Dependent on number of birds fledging and number of deaths to reach a conclusion.
The data already collected suggests that this threshold has passed, or does the known number of ‘missing or killed’ birds have to exceed the outrageous level of 65.8%. If it does have to exceed that number, please tell the public by how much? We have a right to know.
We should also remember that there is an ethical aspect to Brood Management which must be at the heart of all decision making. The accurate locations of Brood Managed nests and release sites are, understandably, kept confidential therefore the accurate distance from nest site to rearing site and then to the release site cannot be accurately assessed. However, we do know that the chicks are taken into captivity in the North of England, reared in Gloucestershire before being released back in the North of England. If we assume an average round trip of 400 miles taking up to an average of 8 hours with the birds housed in some form of pet carrier and they are then illegally killed once they are returned to the grouse moors; what is the point? Why do they have to suffer the potential stress of the two long distance journeys before being held in release pens, deprived of the hunting training provided to parent reared chicks, before being persecuted anyway? If it wasn’t thought to be unethical when the scheme was first proposed after 2023 there can be no doubt that it is now.
It is clear that Brood Management has had no impact in reducing the number of birds that have been / continue to be persecuted whatsoever. Indeed in 2023 the problem was the highest ever recorded. Natural England it is time to do the right thing and put an end to this ludicrous Scheme. You know that you are going to have to do so at some point in the near future and sooner rather than later is preferential. However you should retain your field staff who are doing an excellent job on the behalf of Hen Harriers on the ground.
NERF
9 February 2024
Northern England Raptor Forum 