Hen Harrier Day © Raptor Politics

Hen Harrier Day Peaceful Protest Sunday 7 August, 2016, Dunsop Bridge in the Forest of Bowland, Lancashire. Only 7 days to go, we need all the support we can muster next Sunday 7 August on the green at Dunsop Bridge in the heart of the Forest of Bowland. They have now killed all the nesting Hen Harriers and Peregrines in the Forest of Bowland, now the government’s wildlife advisor Natural England are helping to get rid of Buzzards as well. Make your voice heard or they will win. This year’s Hen Harrier Day, organised for a third consecutive year by the North West Raptor Group, will begin at 10.30 in the morning on the village green at Dunsop Bridge, near Clitheroe in the Forest of Bowland on SUNDAY 7 August. Due to popular demand this years event will culminate in the early afternoon (from 1pm) with a visit to nearby grouse butts where we will all enjoy a picnic in a wonderful scenic moorland venue. Please bring along your own packed lunch and something non alcoholic to drink for yourself or your group. Unfortunately there will be no views of wild Hen Harriers or Peregrines on this occasion, as both species have been persecuted in Bowland this year to extinction. 2016 is the first year since the second world war that both species have been absent from the Forest of Bowland in the same year. A British National Scandal which the media should take on board. This season, an RSPB spokesperson has admitted not one occupied Hen Harrier territory has been located in the Forest of Bowland so far this season. In addition for the first time in living memory, this year has witnessed all peregrines in the Forest of Bowland disappearing; between 18-20 missing. This is why our Forest of Bowland protest is so important this year; if we do not take a stand condemning the illegal persecution of  our Hen Harriers, it now seems inevitable the species will become extinct in England sooner rather than later. Please come and support us at Dunsop Bridge and help to send a strong and clear message to all grouse shooting estates that the public will no longer tolerate the illegal killing of this and other iconic raptors on moorland in the heart of England where they should be safe but clearly are not. The symbol of a hen harrier has endured a long and tragic association with the the Forest of Bowland. Of the 7 breeding attempts made last year by hen harriers in Bowland, only a single pair were productive fledging a single chick.  This season we are inviting people from all over the country to come and join us at Dunsop Bridge, near Cltheroe, Lancashire, providing invaluable support to this important annual event. Dunsop Bridge is regarded as the village located at the heart of Hen Harrier moorland where much of today’s persecution of this and other protected raptors is still taking place with impunity. Please be amongst the first people to register your intention to join members of the North West Raptor Group this year by emailing your support to the following address:  Bowland-HenHarrier-Demo@sky.co The Forest of Bowland, Lancashire. Classified as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Just in case there is anyone not aware of what happened to Hen Harriers in Lancashire’s Forest of Bowland last season this is a sad reminder of the reality. Of the 7 Hen Harrier breeding attempts recorded on the United Utilities Plc estate in 2015, only a single nesting pair were successful rearing one fledgling. 4 male Hen Harriers mysteriously disappeared after they had left their territories to forage for food to feed their mates they had left behind to incubate clutches of eggs contained within each nest left behind. As a consequence of the loss of the 4 male Harriers, 4 nests were deserted containing at least twenty eggs which had been allowed to chill. So this new killing strategy did not just eliminate 4 male Hen Harriers in Bowland, it resulted in the loss of up to a further potential twenty Hen Harriers from the eggs that were found abandoned in nests. One additional Hen Harrier nest established on moorland on the RSPB Geltsdale Nature Reserve in the northern Pennines was also abandoned last season after a fifth male Harrier also disappeared after failing to return with food to feed his mate. The female also disappeared after leaving her eggs to forage for food to feed herself. Raptor Politics will be publishing additional details in a second Hen Harrier notification nearer the time to this event, please book mark the 7 August in your diary. Please can everyone retweet and pass on our invitation to anyone you think may wish to support this important event. Jessica holding a captive bred Eagle Owl at last year’s event. Jessica brought the owl to identify with the ongoing persecution of eagle owls in the Forest of Bowland

The Real Price of Grouse © Raptor Persecution UK

The real price of grouse: episode 2 By RaptorPersecutionUK.
 In the run up to the Inglorious 12th (the opening of the grouse-shooting season on 12 August), you’ll be able to watch a series of videos hosted by Chris Packham about the #NotSoGlorious damaging management practices associated with the driven grouse shooting industry. Episode one (an introduction to driven grouse shooting) can be watched here. Here’s episode 2: Over 63,000 people have joined Chris and signed the e-petition to ban driven grouse shooting. You can too. We need 100,000 signatures to trigger a Westminster debate. Please join us and sign HERE Thank you!

You can’t have both-you have to choose© Mark Avery

Mark ♦ June 23, 2016 ♦ 6 Comments

Photo: Gordon Yates

Let’s just stick with Hen Harriers for a while – I’ll come back to wider environmental issues next week.
And as far as Hen Harriers and driven grouse shooting go – you can’t have both, you have to choose.
Ever since the results of the first Langholm study (see Chapter 3 of Inglorious and here) it has been clear that it would be very difficult to have protected birds of prey and driven grouse shooting. Driven grouse shooting depends on unnaturally very high densities of Red Grouse and to get those massive densities you have to declare war on any predators that might eat Red Grouse adults, their eggs or their chicks.  A whole range of predators will eat Red Grouse and many of them can be killed legally which is why gamekeepers spend so much of their time setting snares and traps to kill Red Foxes, Stoats, Carrion (or Hooded) Crows etc.  But many birds of prey will eat Red Grouse too – and they are protected by law.  The Langholm study showed that when Peregrine Falcons and Hen Harriers were protected at Langholm Moor then their numbers increased (showing that their numbers had been kept low by some means in the preceding years) then they would eat enough Red Grouse to make driven grouse shooting unprofitable.
Ever since then we have all been looking for some sort of compromise, because we British love a compromise, but we haven’t found one.  So, you have to choose – do you want driven grouse shooting (in which case you have to cull raptors) or do you want wildlife law upheld (in which case it’s bye-bye intensive grouse shooting)?
Driven grouse shooting is just a hobby – that’s all it is. So it’s not a difficult choice for me – I want the law upheld and birds of prey to be protected. I don’t want shot or poisoned Red Kites to be found in the Yorkshire Dales every few weeks, I don’t want Peregrines to be persecuted so intensively that the impacts are clear enough for scientists to write papers documenting it, and I do want Hen Harriers to return to our National Parks.  I don’t care if the hobby of driven grouse shooting has to disappear – it’s underpinned by wildlife crime so it has no place in our uplands.
We have made no progress at all through talking to the grouse industry for decades – things are worse now, and in the first year of the hopeless Defra’s hapless Hen Harrier Inaction Plan, than at almost any time for 50 years. The choice is not between ‘Nasty intensive grouse shooting and no Hen Harriers’ and ‘Nice intensive grouse shooting and lots of Hen Harriers’ because Langholm showed that intensive grouse shooting and lots of Hen Harriers are incompatible.  You have to choose.
And the clearest possible evidence that we certainly aren’t going to get both, is that there are practically no Hen Harriers nesting on driven grouse moors across the UK. A mere handful or few hands full in the best of years.  The grouse shooting industry has operated a ‘no-compromise’ policy for years, and the Defra Hen Harrier Inaction Plan has not changed that at all this year – thus we have only a tiny handful of Hen Harriers attempting to nest in England in 2016.
Let’s just compare England and Wales. In Wales there are lots of hills and the scientists tell us that there is enough habitat for c250 pairs of Hen Harrier. England has lots of hills too, and the scientists tell us that there is enough habitat for c330 pairs of Hen Harrier.  Welsh hills have very little grouse shooting – practically none. But in England there is lots of grouse shooting – about 140 grouse moors.  In the last Hen Harrier survey there were 57 pairs of Hen Harrier in Wales and the population was increasing. In England in recent years there have been 2-12 pairs of Hen Harriers and the population is bumping along the bottom.  Both countries have lower Hen Harrier populations than they should because the level of persecution overall drags the whole population down, but Wales, where grouse shooting is practically absent, has an increasing Hen Harrier population whereas England, with many many grouse moors has a tiny Hen Harrier population and it’s not increasing at all.
The grouse industry isn’t going to go quietly, and they know their industry is doomed in the long run. They are just milking our uplands for as much money as possible until the end comes.  And the only way to bring that end about quickly is to ask parliament to ban driven grouse shooting. The more people sign this e-petition the greater the pressure will be – and in the end that pressure will force change.
It’s not all about Hen Harriers – read Inglorious to see that – but one selfish industry is responsible for wiping out hundreds of pairs of a protected bird – deliberately, systematically and illegally and that is a disgrace. The fact that much of this wildlife crime occurs in our National Parks is an utter disgrace.
So, please come along to the Yorkshire Dales National Park on Saturday to express your disgust at the fact that the Yorkshire Dales National Park is a massive crime scene, and please sign this e-petition to ban driven grouse shooting.

Photo: Gordon Yates

Roeburn River in sun

Bowland Hen Harriers © Mark Avery

Land Art Sculpture

Richard Schilling's Sculpture of Grasses

Hen Harriers © Mark Avery

Hen Harriers and our e-petition

Our e-petition to ban driven grouse shooting is doing very well so I thought I'd give you an update.

The reasons for banning driven grouse shooting are far wider and deeper than just the Hen Harrier issue - but the illegal killing of Hen Harriers by grouse moor interests is a very important part of the problem, and it's one about which I feel very strongly.

On Monday, we expect the RSPB to make a mid-season statement on the Hen Harrier breeding season. There may not be very much to say for the English uplands.  Remember, there should be, according to the science and a statutory sector report, about 330 pairs of Hen Harriers nesting in England.  In recent years there have been 12, 4 and 2 pairs - let's see how many there are reported in 2016.

This is a Hen Harrier survey year and so in time we will get an update on the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland populations too. And this year is the first year of the rather meaningless Defra Hen Harrier Recovery Plan as well - let's see how much difference that is making!

In that regard it's extremely embarrassing for grouse shooters that this week the news has emerged of a man being videoed setting three poletraps on a grouse moor in the Yorkshire Dales National Park.  These traps have been illegal for decades and yet, in a place where a Hen Harrier had recently been seen, these cruel and

indiscriminate traps were in use in plain view. How blatant is that?

Whilst the identity of the criminal setting the traps has not been disclosed the estate on which this offence took place is said to be owned by the van Cutsem family, close friends of the Royal Family.

It is very difficult to catch people committing wildlife crimes - they often occur in remote places where few people live and even fewer police visit. This case must not just be the tip of the iceberg, but the tip of the tip of the iceberg.

Grouse shooting is not only an unsustainable land use but it is also the source of a great deal of wildlife crime and much of it takes place in National Parks which were set up to protect natural beauty, not to allow it to be destroyed for financial gain.  There is no sign that the grouse shooting industry is changing its ways - they appear completely intransigent.

To protect our wildlife and to rescue our National Parks from being a laughing stock, we need to raise our voices to get decision makers across the UK to remove the source of so much wildlife crime and to ban driven grouse shooting.

And that's where the e-petition comes in. So far, we are nowhere near half way and we already have over 39,000 signatures. We might get to the magic 100,000 signatures by 20 September and trigger a debate in the Westminster parliament which could be a turning point in how the uplands are managed and protected.

I guess you have already signed the e-petition if you agree with it so I won't ask you to do that. Instead I'll ask you for your support in two other ways.

First, please forward this email to any friends, colleagues or relatives who you think might sign it. Please help spread the word through your contacts. Thank you.

Second, if you can spare a few pounds, say the price of a pint of beer, to help promote this cause through the production of literature and the promotion of social media then please consider donating. Thank you again - every pound will help spread the word.

Many thanks, and here, to end, is another amazing Hen Harrier (both images thanks to Gordon Yates)

Mark