FIRECREST TOURS : Guided Birdwatching & Wildlife Days

The Scottish grouse shooting industry’s propaganda arm, the Gift of Grouse, will be holding a Parliamentary reception at Holyrood tomorrow, hosted by Kates Forbes MSP (SNP, Skye, Lochaber & Badenoch), to celebrate red grouse as a ‘healthy & sustainable’ food: Oh dear. ‘Healthy and sustainable’? Haven’t we been here before? Ah yes, so we have, […] Read in full at Raptor Persecution UK http://ift.tt/2nuQYNa

The fall-out from the failed Peak District Bird of Prey Initiative continues. Following last week’s news about how the Moorland Association had blocked an official press statement about the extent of raptor persecution in the Dark Peak region of the Peak District National Park (here), how the RSPB had terminated its involvement with the failed […] Read in full at Raptor Persecution UK http://ift.tt/2nlnQsI

Following the announcement on 24 November 2017 that the Scottish Government’s Grouse Moor Management Review Group had been formed (see here), a couple of Parliamentary questions have recently been lodged about how this group will function: S5W-14019: Colin Smyth (Scottish Labour, South Scotland) Date lodged: 23/1/2018 To ask the Scottish Government, further to its announcement on […] Read in full at Raptor Persecution UK http://ift.tt/2EqSXKC

Last summer, in a joint project with Chris Packham, we satellite-tagged a shedload of golden eagles in Scotland (for background project information please see here). We haven’t blogged much about these eagles yet because they are still hanging out in their natal territories and we need to keep these locations confidential. As soon as the […] Read in full at Raptor Persecution UK http://ift.tt/2rTG8pI

Following last week’s news that the RSPB has terminated its involvement with the failed Peak District Bird of Prey Initiative (here), one of the local raptor study groups has now issued a statement on where it stands. The Peak District Raptor Monitoring Group, which has played a central role in raptor monitoring and providing breeding […] Read in full at Raptor Persecution UK http://ift.tt/2rOKvC9

The Moorland Association’s plan to block publicity about the failed Peak District Bird of Prey Initiative has spectacularly backfired. Journalists have picked up on the news that the RSPB has terminated its involvement with the project and yesterday evening the failed Initiative, and more importantly, the reasons behind its failure, featured prominently on several BBC […] Read in full at Raptor Persecution UK http://ift.tt/2DES1Bj

We’ve blogged quite a bit this week about illegal raptor persecution in the Peak District National Park, and specifically about how the Moorland Association blocked the publication of an official press statement about illegal persecution (here), how gamekeepers and the Moorland Assocation have seemingly tried to derail a partnership aimed at restoring raptor populations in […] Read in full at Raptor Persecution UK http://ift.tt/2DAdyuM

Earlier this week we blogged about how the Moorland Assocation had blocked the publication of an official press statement on the failed Peak District Bird of Prey Initiative (here) and then shortly afterwards how the RSPB had terminated its involvement with this project (here). We said at the time that it wasn’t just the Moorland […] Read in full at Raptor Persecution UK http://ift.tt/2rD3JdP

Following this morning’s blog about how the Moorland Association blocked an official press release about the on-going killing of raptors in the Dark Peak area of the Peak District National Park (see here), the RSPB has just announced that it has terminated all involvement with the failed Bird of Prey Inititative (BoPI). The RSPB says […] Read in full at Raptor Persecution UK http://ift.tt/2rvFTk9

Regular blog readers will be familiar with the Peak District Bird of Prey Initiative (BoPI). This so-called partnership was established in 2011 and was originally a five-year project which aimed to restore declining populations of some raptor species in the Dark Peak region of the Peak District National Park. BoPI partners included the Moorland Association, The […] Read in full at Raptor Persecution UK http://ift.tt/2BmyxiO

In late November 2017, we blogged about a series of reports we’d received about how grouse moor owners wanted licences from Natural England to kill Marsh harriers. It had been claimed that Amanda Anderson (Director, Moorland Association) had raised the issue at a meeting of the Raptor Persecution Priority Delivery Group (RPPDG) meeting on 9 […] Read in full at Raptor Persecution UK http://ift.tt/2BfRcfT

Following the announcement earlier this week that Natural England has licensed the highly controversial brood meddling trial for hen harriers (see here), the Northern England Raptor Forum (NERF) has issued a damning statement in response. Quoting from the statement (which we encourage you to read in full on the NERF website, here), NERF’s main reasons […] Read in full at Raptor Persecution UK http://ift.tt/2BdbrLz

Thanks to the blog reader who sent us these cuttings from Tuesday’s edition of the Derry Post – front page news, no less: In this latest case, the local council is having to make arrangements to remove the corpses (at the taxpayers’ expense, of course). This dumping of shot pheasants is becoming quite a regular […] Read in full at Raptor Persecution UK http://ift.tt/2reFKBA

Press article from today’s Oxford Mail: A police investigation has been launched after five red kites, a raven and a buzzard were discovered dead in a village in Oxfordshire. The birds were discovered by a family on Sunday, September 17, near the village of Pyrton, on the edge of the Chilterns, who reported them to […] Read in full at Raptor Persecution UK http://ift.tt/2rcXEVy

Natural England has finally given the green light to the highly controversial hen harrier brood meddling scheme and has issued a licence for the five-year trial to begin this year. As many of you already know, brood meddling is one of six action points in DEFRA’s ludicrous Hen Harrier Action Plan, designed to rescue the […] Read in full at Raptor Persecution UK http://ift.tt/2D9xyE9

The Scottish Parliament’s Environment Committee will take evidence on the Government’s 2016 annual wildlife crime report this morning. This can be watched live at 10.30am on Scottish Parliament TV here [click on Committee Room 1]. We’ll post a link to the archive video and the official transcript when it becomes available. The Committee will hear evidence […] Read in full at Raptor Persecution UK http://ift.tt/2D78tda

Press release from the campaign group Ban Bloodsports on Ilkley Moor, 15 January 2018: Bradford councillors vote to ban grouse shooting on Ilkley Moor Bradford Council’s Labour Group votes by overwhelming majority to not renew grouse shooting rights for Ilkley Moor, a move that has been strongly welcomed by wildlife campaigners. Bradford Councillors voted to […] Read in full at Raptor Persecution UK http://ift.tt/2mHkikb

In response to a Parliamentary question about the reintroduction of hen harriers to lowland England, a DEFRA Minister responded as follows: Sounds good, doesn’t it? Unfortunately, this response didn’t come from Dr Therese Coffey MP or Michael Gove MP. It came from Ben Bradshaw MP back in 2004, who at the time was the Under […] Read in full at Raptor Persecution UK http://ift.tt/2r3nAmt

One of the many criticisms about the proposed reintroduction of hen harriers to southern England is that if a population does manage to become established, the grouse-shooting industry will use it to divert attention from the on-going eradication of this species on intensively managed driven grouse moors. ‘Look, hen harriers are doing just fine in […] Read in full at Raptor Persecution UK http://ift.tt/2myug7o

We’ve been reading some reports of the 2017 grouse shooting season and it’s pretty clear that the industry is engaging in a public relations offensive to try and portray an image of huge success with significant support from local communities. For example, there’s this article in today’s edition of The Northern Echo, headlined ‘Grouse Moors […] Read in full at Raptor Persecution UK http://ift.tt/2ARE8NU

In April 2016 we published a video of an armed man crouching next to a decoy hen harrier on Ashop Moor, which is part of the National Trust’s Park Hall & Hope Woodlands Estate in the Peak District National Park. That video footage sparked outrage and significant public pressure was placed on the National Trust […] Read in full at Raptor Persecution UK http://ift.tt/2qQZTNX

Today we attended Preston Magistrates Court in anticipation of listening to a case hearing in relation to the prosecution of James Hartley, a gamekeeper from the Bleasdale Estate in Bowland who is accused of a number of offences in relation to the alleged killing of two peregrines in April 2016 (see first court report for […] Read in full at Raptor Persecution UK http://ift.tt/2qQ1rHZ

The GWCT is hosting another North of England Grouse Seminar on March 8th at The Morritt Hotel & Garage Spa, Greta Bridge, nr Barnard Castle in County Durham. Here’s the planned programme: What an exciting line-up! First some news about how intensive grouse moor management has caused the rapid spread of disease across moors in […] Read in full at Raptor Persecution UK http://ift.tt/2Ep9D3Z

Back in November 2017, Labour MP Kerry McCarthy tabled the following parliamentary question on wildlife crime reporting: A perfectly reasonable question, and probably an attempt by Kerry to drag the Westminster Government up to the standard of the Scottish Government, which, since the Wildlife and Natural Environment (Scotland) Act 2011, has had a statutory obligation to […] Read in full at Raptor Persecution UK http://ift.tt/2CXPnJF

The controversial Heads Up for Harriers project got another airing at the weekend, this time on BBC Radio Scotland’s Out of Doors programme. For those who missed it, you can listen to it on the BBC iPlayer HERE for the next 27 days (starts at 01.58, ends 07.39). For the sake of posterity, here’s the […] Read in full at Raptor Persecution UK http://ift.tt/2FdPbEs

Well this is fascinating. In December 2017, a pest control company and one of its directors was sentenced for the illegal storage of poisons, following an HSE investigation in to the alleged secondary poisoning of a tawny owl (by rodenticide). During the investigation, a number of poisons not authorised for use were found improperly stored […] Read in full at Raptor Persecution UK http://ift.tt/2CR9PJv

The ability for Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) to impose a General Licence (GL) restriction order on land where there is evidence of raptor persecution taking place came in to force on 1 January 2014. This measure, based on a civil burden of proof, was introduced by then Environment Minister Paul Wheelhouse in response to the […] Read in full at Raptor Persecution UK http://ift.tt/2EKMvOd

A couple of years ago we wrote a blog about the use of medicated grit to dose red grouse with a parasitic wormer drug called Flubendazole. There is a statutory requirement to remove veterinary drug residues from food destined for human consumption no later than 28 days before the food is available for sale. We’d […] Read in full at Raptor Persecution UK http://ift.tt/2CkUOCW