In response to an RSPB press release the small North Glenbuchat Estate has issued the following statement through Media House International (a leading public relations consultancy providing a range of communication services combined with issues, crisis management and public affairs):
And here is the link to the video.
[registration_form]
Think it just could be this estate is innocent and as the keeper has some film that may prove the estate’s innocence and seems helpful to the RSPB everyone should for now keep a open verdict.
We desperately need any friendly estate’s to give help against BOP persecution.
We simply cannot afford to risk turning a friendly? one against BOP.
Are you being sarcastic?
See RPUK for their track record and Andy Wightman’s expose of the tax haven.
Follow the RPUK links to another criminal conviction not mentioned by the RSPB perhaps because an eagle wasn’t directly involved.
In 2006 Hector McNeil, the head gamekeeper of North Glenbuchat Estate (for 30 years) was found guilty of three offences: killing protected wild birds, possession of birds’ eggs and possession of a banned pesticide.
Incredibly McNeil was only fined £350 for killing a Common Gull and a Raven, £400 for possession of 118 Common Gull eggs and £100 for possession of a banned pesticide.
Is this really a ‘friendly’ and ‘innocent estate’.
Quite right Dennis.
And badger culling works, Brexit will be fantastic for the environment and that President Trump is a lovely chap. It’s my round isn’t it? Same again? Hiccup!
Blimey. Whatever it is you’re drinking, its powerful stuff. 🙂
I reckon it must the same thing they use to put the rose tint on Dennis’ spectacles.
Random surprise your language not full of effing
Ernest,you are master of trying to prove things I have never said.
Must be because you are boozed up.
Point out any of those three things I have said.
Shut up or stop lying
Oh dear.
I can’t work out if you are deliberately obtuse or just incredibly literal? Do you call the police every time you hear of somebody throwing a baby out with the bathwater?
Ernest,so you cannot find anything about where I asked you to prove the three points you previously allege.
Just being your usual evasive self when you make allegations you cannot back up.
Absolutely pathetic to make false allegations.Stick to the facts.
What happened to innocent until proven guilty seeing if it is true it is a new keeper.
One statistic from a supposedly sound source.
It is thought that 75% of young birds die
Suppose this source means a natural death wastage
what about the transmitter, Den?
Coop,well that seems a funny thing to say in my opinion.What good as any transmitter on any BOP done so far.Why not at least first study this film the keeper has,that seems the first obvious thing to do.
As much as every bird lover would like to catch the persecuters it almost always fails for proof and so in almost all cases they are only suspects.
Everyone seems convinced this keeper is guilty.Sorry if that annoys everyone but until that film is studied and evidence is found that it is not the bird in question I believe the verdict remains open.
One point about all these type of things I find disappointing is how the clique system amongst conservationists works.That is no matter the facts or belief whatever we think we must back each other in all conservation matters.
It seems you’ve missed my point, Den. If the bird has died of natural causes, the tag would continue to transmit, enabling recovery.
Dennis, I have some sympathy for your point, given the film they have produced. It’s worth asking ourselves what evidence would convince us of a negative. If someone else independent identifies the eagle alive and well later on we don’t want to have lost the moral high ground.
That said, in any realm of life, if you’ve been caught in the wrong several times, its very hard to then credibly defend yourself when you’re finally accused of something you haven’t done. Everyone assuming the worst of you is the price you pay for repeatedly having behaved at your worst in the past.
So my sympathy for the estate is decidedly limited too. Especially as it seems to have taken them an awfully long time to replace the the previous keeper who did have so much criminality going on under his watch. “Couldn’t have happened to a nicer estate” springs to mind.
JBC,think I am almost in total agreement.Problem is I find it difficult to think that intelligent people think if the estate is guilty there will be evidence.Any bird shot is not going to be on that estate unless they are incredibly stupid.
Tags just seem to give people the chance to almost prove that most of them fail,a nice get out surely while providing a enhanced target.
No crime is likely to be proven even if it has been committed unless police saw someone shoot it.
They obviously didn’t so as usual innocent until a policeman sees the shooting.
Next to impossible.
Indeed, but most of the tags don’t fail. They’re remarkably reliable – unless someone interfers with them.
I think it’s also useful to make a distinction beftween the need to prove a specific crime beyond all reasonable doubt in order to convict individuals in a court of law, and the reasonable analysis of a pattern in the data which is more akin to a civil court’s “on the balance of probabilities” test.
The pattern is clear – raptors keep disappearing over grouse moors, and specifically over this one. They disappear over grouse moors compared to other habitat types far more than would be expected by chance. Where tagged birds disappear the tag ceases to transmit in a manner which is highly suspicious in and of itself, plus the overall reliablity of tags is very high anyway.
So if yet another tagged bird disappears over a grouse moor, one with a record of criminality to boot, it is reasonable to conclude that foul play by someone conected to the estate was very likely to have been responsible even if you can’t point the finger at a specific individual. If you like, convicting an individual requires evidence beyond reasonable doubt; but the civil “offence” of destoying our collective our heritage for private gain requires only that, on the balance of probabilities, we’re blaming the correct interest group.
So while I would be cautious about blaming “Keeper Mr X” I’m quite comfortable with pointing the finger at the Estate.
Is that the sound of the gun being loaded just as the video clip ends?
Another sad and sickening waste of our beautiful wildlife
To me it does sound like a gun but I think it is actually just the gamekeeper scuffling around to turn the camera off.
Louis..thanks for your thought, I thought that too. I do a lot of amateur wildlife videos, if that was me taking it, I wouldn’t have stopped right at the point it was turning to come right towards me? Maybe the battery just ‘failed’ ? The cynic within me would think there was a part of the clip edited that nobody else should see? Guess we will never know.
Mike H .. I think it is the usual tactic to discredit the excellent functionality of these tags this explains in more detail how reliable they are https://raptorpersecutionscotland.wordpress.com/2016/09/23/satellite-tag-reliability-compelling-evidence-from-montagus-harrier-study/
p.s. Glad to see the dislike function actually works, I was beginning to feel left out of that club!
Hmm that’s what I thought too!
I don’t understand the reference to the hen harrier tags. Are they suggesting the tags are just unreliable? It seems strange that the same tags prove to be very reliable abroad, when some distance from grouse moors. As for keeping an open verdict, I think to deny any serious suspicion is to ignore the very real motivations that estates have to kill raptors. These estates exist in order to make money out of killing birds and to suggest they are ‘friendly’ in any way is to ignore their primary purpose.
Ah, guilty till proven innocent!…… doesn’t sound like a gun being closed at end of the clip to me.
I don’t know if the technology is exactly the same but the tags used in the BTO’s cuckoo project are able to survive long distance travel through a range of climates, while in the UK ones attached to raptors have a suspiciously high failure rate.
PR b——t to get them off the hook. This estate has an appalling track record both proven and with a previous history of disappeared eagles (see RPUK). It is long past time that legal retribution arrived at the door of all such estates. Be interesting to see if SNH withdraw their use of the general licence.
I see Media House International also represents the Moorland Association, Scottish Land & Estates and The Gift of Grouse – a veritable roll call of nature conservation stalwarts.
One would think that when presenting legal evidence, like ” look, there is your missing eagle”, one would provide evidence of when the filming occoured. Like a daily newspaper put into view, or a comment about current affairs.
The only thing that this video is any use for is proving how badly our uplands are maintained.
It’s an international disgrace.
Thank you Dr Avery for all you do to help publicise this aborant attitude to our ever decreasing wildlife heritage.
One eagle poisoned there, another 5 suddenly disappeared there, iis obvious what’s going on. The trouble is we don’t know how many untagged eagles have disappeared there. If the eagle in the video WAS taken the day after the sat tagged one suddenly disappeared, then there’s every likely hood it will experiance the same fate.
The wind currents, peculiar to the area,could explain these coincidences by concentrating wounded birds over a specific estate, where they later succumb.
I have heard of this happening in the past.