FIRECREST TOURS : Guided Birdwatching & Wildlife Days

As regular blog readers will know, we have an interest in the use of propane gas guns on grouse moors in the English and Scottish uplands. For those who don’t know, propane gas guns are routinely used for scaring birds (e.g. pigeons, geese) from agricultural crops – they are set up to deliver an intermittent […] Read in full at Raptor Persecution UK http://ift.tt/1r060da

Police Scotland is investigating the suspicious disappearance of two female peregrines from active nests in Dumfries & Galloway. Both nest sites, at Dalveen on the Queensberry Estate (part of the Buccleuch Estates), were being monitored by experts from the Dumfries & Galloway Raptor Study Group. Eggs had been laid at both sites and the breeding females […] Read in full at Raptor Persecution UK http://ift.tt/1TRZDmE

It’s been over a month since the National Trust said they were launching an investigation in to what they described as a “suspicious incident” where an armed man was filmed sitting next to a decoy hen harrier on a National Trust-owned grouse moor in the Peak District National Park. How’s that investigation going? Given that […] Read in full at Raptor Persecution UK http://ift.tt/1WtDpLq

A couple of weeks ago, Scottish Greens MSP Mark Ruskell lodged the following parliamentary question: Question S5W-00044, Mark Ruskell (Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Green Party); Lodged: 09/05/2016: To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on the culling of mountain hares on estates practising driven grouse shooting. Cabinet Secretary for the Environment, Roseanna […] Read in full at Raptor Persecution UK http://ift.tt/1U2AzXm

A Scottish gamekeeper has been fined for abandoning a loaded weapon that was found by two hill walkers. Shaun Wilson, 29, had left his weapon ‘on the hillside above the village of Kippen’ , Stirlingshire, on 6 August 2016. He was fined £675 under the Firearms Act (see BBC news article here). That description, ‘on […] Read in full at Raptor Persecution UK http://ift.tt/20JM7U7

Last month we blogged about a series of Parliamentary questions relating to wildlife crime that had been lodged by recently elected Scottish Greens MSP Mark Ruskell (see here). One of those questions was about giving extended powers to the SSPCA: Question S5W-00030 (Lodged 12/5/2016) To ask the Scottish Government when it will announce its decision regarding […] Read in full at Raptor Persecution UK http://ift.tt/22qblZ5

Last month we blogged about a pending judicial review of SNH’s decision to apply a three-year General Licence restriction order on Raeshaw Estate in the Scottish Borders for alleged raptor persecution crimes (see here). We noted that SNH had temporarily suspended the GL restriction order until the judicial review hearing on 20th May. Last week, […] Read in full at Raptor Persecution UK http://ift.tt/1sc56f3