BBC Wildlife Magazine has a good article about the Hen Harrier plan (welcomed by the RSPB) which will do nothing for the Hen Harrier. I am quoted as saying that neither the RSPB nor Natural England should have agreed a plan which does not have targets in it.
What is a plan without a target?
Apparently Adrian Jowitt (NE principal advisor), argues that targets are not the answer, because they are divisive. I assume that divisive means that the moorland owners wouldn’t sign up to them and that Defra wouldn’t either? Mustn’t upset Defra’s favourite stakeholders must we? And Defra won’t commit to anything that could be shown to fail.
We are living in the strange world where the statutory nature conservation advisor to government cannot bring itself to mention a number, however feeble, of Hen Harriers that would be a successful outcome for a plan to conserve the Hen Harrier. And Defra can’t mention a number, certainly not a number that would reflect the species returning to favourable conservation status in those areas designated partly because of their former Hen Harrier numbers. It’s almost as if Defra are in league with the criminals who are killing these fully protected birds isn’t it?
The furthest that Jowitt would go was to say “Natural England would like to see the SPAs in a favourable condition…For us, it’s about points on a graph – we should see those points moving up in the next few years. Hen harriers can breed quite quickly, but will the graph be steep enough? In the end, I want to see more hen harriers this year than last year.”
That could have been said in every year for the last 20 years.
Why did the RSPB welcome this non-plan? Well, they are obviously getting some stick on the subject because RSPB staff are very sensitive about this matter. The admirable Martin Harper returned to the subject recently on his blog with Further thoughts on the Hen Harrier Action Plan for England which seeks to suggest that the plan has targets for Hen Harriers (but it doesn’t). I know Martin well enough to know how keen he is on a good plan, and well enough to know that he knows this isn’t one.
It’s a very strange world where the statutory nature conservation agency cannot bring itself to have a target for a threatened and illegally persecuted species and where wildlife NGOs are bending over backwards to be nice to the most hopeless government department with responsibility for the environment that we have, I reckon, ever seen.
Awful of Natural England and confused of RSPB.
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I agree with you about the weak response of these organisations, but I am also afraid that any target set by DEFRA would be pitifully low and that would present us with a new problem.
If Defra, Natural England and the RSPB won’t give an indication of their view of a likely outcome for a successful Hen Harrier Plan then why don’t we suggest one for them. I would like to think that given a fair wind, good climate and people with guns not breaking the law then the following is quite achievable:-
Year Successful nests Chicks fledged
2018 25 75
2017 17 50
2016 10 30
This is no more than an educated guess. Am I being unduly optimistic or ridiculously pessimistic – I would like to know?
Please let me know how you think a successful plan should be measured if not by numbers on the ground (or in the air).
regards
Mike
Kevin – the recovery plan for the spoon-billed sandpiper (supported by no less than eight conservation organisations) has no available targets.
No one is suggesting: WWT, Birds Russia, Moscow Zoo, RSPB, BTO, BirdLife International, ArcCona and the Spoon-billed Sandpiper Task Force – have a duff plan.
http://www.saving-spoon-billed-sandpiper.com
Andrew – no, but we are suggesting that you and Defra do!
Comparing apples and pears again, Andrew. There is a big difference between the rescue operation for a globally threatened species in its early stages, which can be described as experimental, and a proper conservation plan for Hen Harrier, which sets a minimum population level within the clearly defined and relatively small part of the world that is the UK.
At least this shows that there was never any alternative to an outright ban on driven grouse shooting and hopefully more and more people will realise that with yet another plan/committee/strategy that only acts as a diversion from the real change that would make a difference. About time it was grouse shooting fanatics that are inconvenienced not people paying extra to have their water supply cleaned or getting their homes flooded, or those with a genuine love for wildlife and conservation who instead of seeing rich ecosystems get burnt over ‘moorland’ peddled as a natural habitat – especially galling to think of what kids are missing out on. I hope another petition to get this lunacy banned is in the pipeline please!
I have been around long enough to realise there will never be any meaningful negotiation or consolidation over the hen harrier fiasco with a majority of grouse moor owners or their gamekeepers. The government could do more but because of their support from the game shooting lobby are unable or unwilling to do so.
If anyone is in any doubts consider the disappearance of peregrines and hen harriers from almost all of northern England’s moorlands where red grouse are shot. Although the RSPB have had a presence in the Forest of Bowland for over two decades, and at Geltsdale in the northern Pennines for many years, they have been unable to prevent the ongoing killing of protected raptors or the destruction of their nests and content at either of these important moorland locations.
Since 2010 seventeen active peregrine nests in the Forest of Bowland have been abandoned, of which the society have chosen to say very little, except in a statement they made in the Lancashire Life Magazine claiming these losses were the result of a lack of prey and climate change. This claim is totally absurd of course when one consideres peregrines territories surrounding the boundary of the Forest of Bowland continue to produce good broods of fledged young year after year, and in the main without protection.
In 2014 two fledged satellite tagged Bowland hen harrier chicks (Skye and Hope) quickly disappeared along with their tags presumed to have been shot on two separate adjoining grouse moors just 3 miles from their natal territories. Last year there was much worse to come when we endured the disappearance of 5 male hen harriers from grouse moors in northern England, resulting in nests being abandoned and as many as twenty five eggs being destroyed after going cold. Of the 7 hen harrier breeding attempts made last year on estates in Bowland owned by United Utilities only a single nest was successful producing one fledged chick.
The position of DEFRA and Natural England is perhaps understandable as they are playing a political game, bending over backwards to appease shooting estate owners together with gamekeepers rather than making any concerted effort to conserve protected birds of prey on moorland where red grouse are shot. The RSPB’s stance on on grouse shooting is more complicated and difficult to comprehend but does little to help improve the conservation of moorland raptors as the society claims to have no view on game shooting one way or the other. I wonder if the RSPB have a similar view on other activities which rely on criminal activity to prosper?
Respect to you Terry – for the depth of your knowledge and your restraint in how you’ve expressed it.
The main problem with the ‘non plane’ is that it’s not DEFRA, Moorland Ass, CA, NE etc that are pulling the trigger, setting the traps and laying the poisons that kill the birds. They are representing a group of people that have no interest in seeing the Hen Harrier breeding in sustainable numbers on Grouse moors. I’m sure there are a few that do but not the majority. This is an obvious delaying tactic that could drag out over the next 10 years as they allow a few birds to breed and say ‘aren’t we brilliant’. So, they can sit around a table and appear to be the voice of landowners & gamekeepers, but where it counts, on the Grouse Moors, it will be business as usual. Unless the RSPB, Wildlife Trusts & others wake up and support the ban we will soon be saying goodbye to the Hen Harrier in England and these NGO’s will have to live with the knowledge that they didn’t do enough!
If you want to know how they are killing these birds the other evening I squeaked up an owl from over 300 yards to 15 yards. Fortunately I was not carrying a gun as these members of the public do!!
You highlight a question that is rife throughout nature conservation, not just for hen harriers: how much wildlife is enough? I am on record as someone who doesn’t think there are quite enough woodpigeons in the world (just because I like them), let alone hen harriers, but so long as conservation remains more impressed by change rather than absolute numbers we will struggle to get decent numerical targets that other industries understand. Even if all bird populations remained stable from now on, the sheer numbers, and therefore the human experience of that abundance, that we have lost over recent generations is shocking. And even if Defra published a pathetically low target number for hen harrier, it would have given something tangible to latch on to, to widen the debate, and, eventually, to revise upwards.
Reading this article makes me feel like there will never come a day when the wildlife protection organisations take a proper stance on the illegal persecution of of our natural heritage. Seems to me they’re all frightened stiff of upsetting the upper echelons of society. I’m just glad that Mr Avery is brave, and knowledgable enough to fight the cause of Hen Harriers and other persecuted wildlife. Hip hip for Mark Avery!
Would you not be better off trying to halt the decline in farm birds?
Andy – would you not be better off … Oh never mind.
You seem to ‘forget’ that a lot of organisations are doing good work on conserving farmland birds especially the RSPB. But of course if farmers are more interested in treating their hedgerows like clipped suburban hedges with close mown grass at the base not indicative of a great interest in conservation is it? I’ve met farmers who are genuine naturalists, but I’ve also lived and worked on a farm and know that a hell of a lot aren’t, knew one old farmer who automatically killed any snake on sight and couldn’t tell hemlock from cow parsley – he made me look like David Bellamy. Farmland birds in decline well the solution might just be more real effort rather than bullshit about being ‘conservationists’ from certain ‘real country folk’. Incidentally on one of your charming videos doing the standard anti RSPB diatribe you accused them of mismanaging Mar Lodge Estate, a terrible criticism indeed since Mar Lodge is actually owned by the National Trust for Scotland! Oh poor, poor Andy!
The conservation bodies are not single-issue organisations and are working on the issue of farmland birds, as well as a range of other important environmental issues.
However, if your criminal associates stopped killing birds of prey then the RSPB, Wildlife Trusts, National Trust etc. could stop wasting energy trying to stop that criminality and focus more on other things.
Unfortunately, as you and your kind continue to condone, or carry out, the criminal actions rather than acting to stop them, the conservation bodies have to invest time and energy doing what you should be doing: ensuring your psychopathic fun is kept within the law, so we can all ignore you.
Well said Mark. The lack of targets compounds the stupidity of incorporating brood management as a tool for containing (increasing!) HH numbers at this moment in time. We all know the RSPB is in a difficult position. Maybe it just has to be that there is a credible player sitting round the table trying to influence the discussion with the other parties. With RSPB earnestly trying to achieve something tangible from the inside track, the rest of us on the outside can continue to tell DEFRA that this is one of poorest pieces of conservation planning we’ve ever seen.
Do we all know that “the RSPB is in a difficult position”? Why should they be? If it’s because of the terms of the Royal Charter, they can do something about that. Otherwise, it’s high time they took a far stronger stance on bird conservation and protection, including the condemnation of those aspects of shooting that involve criminality, as well as educating an appreciation of birds and an understanding of their ecology, to help turn people away from all the unnecessary ‘sport’ killing.
Personally, I place considerable blame upon RSPB for being so weak and conservative, in that sense making it easier for society as a whole to ignore the views of those who campaign to end the illegal slaughter of harriers and other birds of prey. How many more million members do they need, to give them the confidence to stand up and be counted?
Targets are bad. They can be set too low or too high. This leads to complacency or negativity respectively. They can also distort actions designed only to achieve the target rather than achieve wider benefits. Better to have target free measures, e.g. No. of Hen Harriers, with an objective to achieve a continual increase.
THAT DEFRA HEN HARRIER ACTION PLAN IN FULL:
1) MONITORING POPULATIONS: A key pillar of the Action Plan is to keep an accurate count of the Hen Harrier population. Working with the top scientists at CA and MA, Defra has concluded that the most effective method for keeping tabs on population size will be the ‘Catch-Per-Unit-Effort’ technique. A crack team of gamekeepers will toil night and day to ensure that we get plenty of data!
2) DIVERSIONARY TACTICS (surely ‘feeding’ – Ed.). Using the expertise of various former cricketers and friendly newspaper editors, we shall ensure that the public are fed a stream of misleading stories about why the Hen Harrier is in decline and how ‘townie’ conservationists are really to blame.
3) LAW ENFORCEMENT: No-one should be above the law and we are making it a top priority to ensure that this applies on the moorlands as much as anywhere else. Accordingly we have decided to cut funding to the nosy parkers at the National Wildlife Crime Unit and have opted for the more cost effective solution of self-regulation by the game management industry.
4) SOUTHERN REINTRODUCTION: It is inappropriate to allow such a rapacious predator to infest the heartland of a glorious industry that, Defra is reliably informed (and has no reason to question) by the top economists at the CA, contributes more to the economy than any other industry. We are therefore looking into the possibility of moving the Hen Harrier population to somewhere further south where they won’t be a problem. The currently preferred option for an introduction site is an artificial platform in the Bay of Biscay.
5) TARGET SETTING: We have been inaccurately accused of failing to apply quantified targets to the plan but nothing could be further from the truth! We have established unfeasibly high red grouse densities as the threshold for ‘economically viable’ driven grouse shooting. As these are far above what has been realised at Langholm we can declare that Hen Harriers are incompatible with grouse shooting and therefore, one way or another, must be removed from the moors.
6) BROOD MEDDLING: If we can’t shoot the b*ggars on our grouse moors we would like to remove their young to rear and shoot – sorry RELEASE elsewhere.
7) Er that’s it…
Won’t the definition of favourable condition (which Adrian Jowitt wants) within the management plans for the SPAs include a conservation objective that defines condition in terms of numbers of pairs and breeding success?
Taking the long view, theHH plan actually makes the end of DGS more likely: as George Osborne would tell you, mend the roof while the sun’s shining. Tactically, this is the time, with a very friendly Government for shooting to put its house in order, make some concessions and establish a position that might hold when the rain sets in. It is, of course, doing the exact opposite: we’fe strong, so stuff any criticism and be as rude about anyone who disagrees as you can. The wind always changes and in an increasingly urban society the long term trend is undoubtedly against sport shooting. And targets ? At leadt 30 pairs of successful HH by the next election in England.
Any chance, Mark, of a review of where things are at with PAW, who’s in, who’s out, last actions, dead in the water or ticking away. Is it moving forward? Surely RSPB have stuck in there but does that mean there’s actually anything resulting from their presence?