And our fourth example of illegal persecution is a Welsh one. It is the case described by the Raptor Persecution Scotland blog here and here and then as follows (an extract) on the RSPB Investigations blog. It’s another eye-opening account of what is going on, and this time it is in a Welsh National Park of all places.
This is taken from Guy Shorrock’s account on the RSPB Investigations blog:
‘In August 2013, I had been working with a colleague on an unrelated raptor persecution enquiry in Shropshire. We decided to make an evening visit to the area in Powys and as we reached a field, where we had found a poison bait and the dead kite the previous year, we saw a fairly fresh vehicle track through the rushes and grass. Within a few metres of this track was a fairly fresh looking corpse of a pheasant with the breast muscle exposed and a number of dead insects.
This was about 25 metres from where the red kite had been found the year before. It clearly looked like another poison bait had been placed in the same field, this item was documented and collected. We waited for two individuals to leave a nearby pheasant release pen and then searched an adjacent field, finding a further suspicious pheasant carcase which was also collected.
We returned about a week later, to find additional vehicle tracks in the first field and sure enough the suspected poisoned bait we had removed appeared to have been replaced by another. We collected this and as there was activity at the nearby pheasant release pen we left the area as it was getting dark. Over the next few days we recovered another possible pheasant bait and sadly the corpse of a red kite a short distance away inside woodland adjacent to the field. Toxicology tests later confirmed the kite had indeed been poisoned by bendiocarb and there were traces of this pesticide on the four pheasant carcases we had collected.
During this period we also undertook some surveillance and recorded an individual visiting the field on a few occasions in what looked like very suspicious circumstances.
We took our new evidence to the Dyfed Powys Police and were pleased with how seriously they took the matter. Following a planning meeting, in early October a multi-agency operation led by Dyfed Powys Police and assisted by Welsh Government and RSPB visited the Estate. Search warrants were executed at two addresses and an extensive field search was undertaken around the areas we had found pheasant carcases and dead birds, plus the vicinity of other pheasant release pens. At one address, in a dustbin at the rear of the premises, a plastic bag was found with what appeared to be vacuum cleaner contents and a pair of protective gloves. Subsequent analysis confirmed the presence of a small trace of bendiocarb. So it seemed somebody had been doing some interesting cleaning! Bendiocarb is also found in some domestic insecticides so it was not possible to establish where these traces had originated.
However, it was the extensive field search that really came up with the most shocking discoveries. Inside some vehicle tyres stacked by a pheasant pen a number plastic feed bags were found which contained a number of raptor carcases. In total, these held the corpses of seven buzzards and three red kites. Toxicology tests found material in the gizzards of eight of these birds (seven buzzards and one red kite) which tested positive for bendiocarb. From the remaining two red kites, which were more decomposed, a surface wash of the carcases also found traces of bendiocarb. The circumstances strongly indicated that these poisoned birds had been collected and placed into plastic feed bags ready for disposal.
A search of the remaining land found a red kite, a common buzzard, two ravens and a pheasant carcase all of which tested positive for bendiocarb. In light of recent concerns about the case, it may have been helpful for the police to have put out a short media release on the day of the raid just to provide a brief outline of what had been found and that enquiries were continuing, but ultimately that is an operational decision for the police.
So during 2013 from within a small area of the Welsh countryside, in addition to the four poison baits in 2012, we had recovered the following which had tested positive for bendiocarb: –
· Two ravens
· Five red kites
· Eight common buzzards
· Five poisoned pheasant carcases used as baits’
Yes and if you type in Brecon Beacons National Park + Pheasant Shoot into your search engine you come up with a …. [Note from Mark: thank you Anand but I am going to be very careful here on this subject which is why I have deleted the rest of your comment. What you wrote is perfectly reasonable though].
It is beyond understanding why the location of these crimes is not published. As things stand we can all google “pheasant shoot + Brecon Beacons” and find high profile names. Clearly, though, there is not just one pheasant shoot in the BB so when we join the dots for ourselves we may or may not come up with the right answer.
If the locations were publicly divulged that would not mean that the owner/operator of the shoot was necessarily guilty of the crime but it would certainly place them under an uncomfortable spotlight and, if not guilty, they would perhaps take a closer interest in what people working on their estate were doing in their name. It would also mean that owners and operators of other estates in the area where no crime has taken place would no longer find themselves under an invidious cloud of suspicion.
If a different type of crime had taken place on the land – a murder say – the location would be published so why is this different? It is not the same thing to say that a crime took pace on X’s land as to say that X committed that crime. If the facts are clear and supportable with admissible evidence I don’t see how the RSPB could be sued for revealing where the dead birds and poisoned baits were found.
Talk about ‘six degrees of separation’, Jonathan, I put ‘pheasant shoot brecon beacons’ in to Google and had reached Prince Harry in three clicks! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glanusk_Park . I should say that I’ve no idea which estate was involved but I really can’t wait to hear it revealed.
Is it just me that feels like the battle is with more than just the people doing the killing, or the landowners?
It would be hard to find a more convincing example of why we urgently need vicarious liability introduced throughout the whole of the UK and of how, under the current regime, these criminals feel so utterly confident that they are completely above and beyond the law.
Trouble is John, vicarious liability would have to extend not only to the land owner but to the magistrates, judges and to the government ministers that, knowingly, allow this persecution to continue.
Until there is a way to inform the public of what is going on under their noses, this will ever be so.
Killing a hen harrier is a terrible thing – so is killing a child – however in both cases guilt must be proved to a criminal standard in order to obtain a conviction. That can be regrettable but it is also essential in a civilised society.
Aiding and abetting a crime is a criminal offence however it must be proved like any other crime.
The concept of vicarious criminal liability is an attempt to get round the need for such proof.
Vicarious civil liability is a completely different matter as civil cases are generally decided on a balance of probabilities.
Estates where wildlife is illegally persecuted by employees should be held civilly liable for such persecution with punitive compensation applied. Moreover large areas of land which fail to maintain adequate bio diversity – including that of apex predators should also face civil consequences – both the removal of subsidies but also in more extreme cases punitive compensation – on the line of the polluter pays principle.
Wild life crime is very hard to prove. The solution to that is not to reduce the standard of proof required for a criminal offence – it is rather to look at other ways to hit businesses that thrive on the back of it where it hurts – in their pockets – whilst still continuing to prosecute where a prosecution is viable.
If persecuting hen harriers made grouse moors commercially unviable – any persecution carried out by the employees/owners or guests of grouse estates would stop quite simply because if it didn’t stop then those businesses would cease to exist.
To my mind it is a nonsense to say that nature has no economic value – the problem is that not enough economic value is attributed to it. The higher the immediate cost of destroying our natural heritage is the less it will happen.
Sorry Giles but you are utterly wrong about vicarious liability as you still have to prove a case. witness the Scottish cases that are currently running. I do agree about hitting them in the pocket. Cross compliance used wisely would mean that estates with a record of persecution events like Glenogil or in the cases I mentioned in that blog Swinton could should have lost all their agricultural money in the years these events occurred and in a more regulated world their licence to kill or sell game.