Hen Harrier, Hilma. Photo: Steve Downing.
Hen Harrier, Octavia. Photo: Steve Downing
Hen Harrier, Heulwen. Photo: Guy Anderson.
Three more young Hen Harriers have disappeared – all in areas of driven grouse shooting. See the RSPB Skydancer blog for details.
Rory Stewart’s Hen Harrier Inaction Plan is working very, very badly – just as many of us said it would. What would have been the role of brood meddling in keeping these birds safe? None at all. In his new job as Prisons Minister Mr Stewart has said he’ll resign if he doesn’t reduce prison violence in a year – he and his successor, Therese Coffey, would both be heading for the back benches if judged on the success of their plan to save the Hen Harrier.
Elsewhere, Public Health England have been heavily criticised for their link-up with a charity which takes much of its funding from the drink industry. It’s not in the interests of the drink industry to get us all to drink less, but it is in their interests to engage with government and look as though they care and have some ideas. Does that ring any bells? The failing Hen Harrier Inaction Plan is a grouse industry plan to which government has signed up. Well, in fact, just as it seems with the drink industry, the grouse shooting industry is putting resources into those elements of the plan which they know won’t work and not putting any money into those elements of the plan that would make the biggest difference.
Therese Coffey is said by Defra insiders to have no interest in wildlife conservation whatsoever, and she has carried out her ministerial duties in such a way that it is difficult to argue with that assessment.
Defra, and its sidekick Natural England, have been completely captured by their mates in the grouse shooting industry and that shows when it comes to implementing EU law on burning of blanket bogs, striking unlawful agreements with grouse shooting estates (and here), failing to protect Lesser Black-backed Gulls in an SPA designated for them, keeping secret their own data on Hen Harrier movements and fates for years, pathetic departmental responses to public petitions calling for action (Chrissie Harper’s vicarious liability petition, 2012; John Armitage’s licensing petition, 2014; my three ban driven grouse shooting petitions (2014, 2015 and 2016; Gavin Gamble’s ‘ban’ petition 2017; and Ed Hutchings’s licensing petition, 2018) and failure to protect nesting Hen Harriers when they are aware of their nesting attempts on grouse moors.
And grouse shooting’s days are severely numbered. An industry out of control in so many ways. But Government is there to control anti-social and illegal behaviour. This government is failing very badly and grouse shooting is having its last spasms.
I think I’ll probably be wearing a Hen Harrier T-shirt on Chris Packham’s Walk for Wildlife on 22 September.
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This government is not only supposed to control anti-social and illegal behaviour. From their actions it can be said that they are encouraging it. It has been said before but it’s worth repeating. Grouse moors which do not let harriers nest and are complicit in their vanishing without trace are committing organised crime. NE and the present government by their actions and inactions are supporters of organised crime.
Wear your Hen Harrier T shirt with pride. I can’t be there, but I support the aims of the Walk for Wildlife, and those who can attend.
‘NE and the present government by their actions and inactions are supporters of organised crime.’
Absolutely.
Hiding the HH satellite data for so long has undoubtedly led to the killing of Sky and Hope in Bowland. Why? Because 2 other HHs were killed in exactly the same spot and in exactly the same circumstances 4 years earlier.
I have complained to NE and know i wil just get greenwashed bollocks.
I have an update on my comments.
NE has replied (very quickly) and say ‘In all cases, in England and the IoM, when one of Natural England’s satellite tagged Hen Harriers stops transmitting the Police are notified straight away and a thorough search of the area is made’
That is very interesting but opens up new questions including what the police have done regarding these 4 ‘missing’ birds. I also wrote to them but if it is ongoing i doubt i will get a reply. In other words another black hole of information
Strange that the NE Hen Harrier satellite tagged data-sheet mentions nothing suspicious about birds failing. Why do they downplay the criminal aspect?
In the data-sheet it states
‘Missing Fate Unknown includes:
(i) radio-tagged birds that left the study area. The vast majority of Missing Fate Unknown’s are radio-tagged birds, this is not surprising given the mobility of Hen Harriers and our relatively small study area.
(ii) radio-tagged and satellite tagged birds that were recorded after the battery ran out or transmissions had stopped.
(iii) satellite tagged bird that died in such a position as to render the transmitter hard to locate and recover. The satellite transmitters depend on light to recharge, and operate on a 10hr on 48 hr off duty cycle. Therefore, when a bird dies there is only a small chance that it would happen whilst the transmitter is transmitting with enough charge to enable transmission of coordinates and a signal to enable retrieval. If the bird dies in the off cycle of the transmitter then it could have travelled many kms to its final resting place from the last transmitted coordinates. If this final resting place is in long vegetation, and/or the bird is lying on its back with little or no light available the solar panel it will never transmit again and the bird would fall into the Missing Fate Unknown category. ‘
This walk on the 22nd has to be a big one, it has to be big enough for the media not to ignore, it has to send an unequivocal message to the government that we will no longer tolerate the rich killing our wildlife for fun.
It has to have you there.
Whatever your ‘thing’ is, you need to be there to stand up for it.
This is for bees, plants, birds, amphibians, mammals, crustaceans, fish, trees, meadows.
It’s all your wildlife, it’s your heritage, your children’s future.
Big business cares not a jot other than for profits.
The landed gentry wish to protect their ‘rights’ to kill our wildlife.
Chemical companies care nothing for our insects or for our future.
And the government has always, and will always be on their side because we have never shown them how much we care. We need to show them now.
Chris Packham is putting his future on the line by standing up against these destroying bullies.
Please come and support him, ask your MPs and SMPs to come and support him and let your designated wildlife charity know that you expect them to support him.
Please.
…and we’ll be wearing ours too!
What we need is a code of conduct for civil servants.
Oh wait we already have one
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/civil-service-code/the-civil-service-code
“This” government? So your article is basically driven by political bias because you make absolutely no mention of any previous governments failures in this area. Some of us are old enough to remember plenty of issues with previous governments – Labour and Tory. No point in ue continuing to try and get involved or help if it’s just a front for anti Tory propaganda.
Harvey – thank you for your first comment here. Vote Labour and we’ll see how I do after they have been in charge for 8 years, shall we?
If you can’t see a difference between Blair’s lot and the present party you must have been in the Amazon for the last few years.
The other fallacy is that you can’t criticise something in part if you agree with the whole. Labour on Brexit is a good example.
I don’t know how many times i have been slammed on this blog and RPUK for criticising the RSPB (and they will get it again if they don’t award Ruth). The RSPB is fantastic on the whole. It doesn’t mean they are perfect and can’t be criticised.
Mark is extremely critical of the RSPB but what shines through is his care.
Having said that not sure there is anything good can be said about the nasty party. If there is it must be an accident.
Harvey, the issue may require political action but should not be seen as party political. All parties rightly claim to be against wildlife crime. This government, by its actions and inactions make absolutely clear that they are not shall I say, interested in addressing in a serious manner the issues arising from today’s news. The policies they do have in place allow for the crimes which may be represented by the news to continue unabated. That, I would say, is deliberate.
So we have quite predictably already lost some of this years young harriers, these three and presumably an equal proportion of those that were untagged. What is as unutterably scandalous as the crimes themselves is the lack of immediate comment then action from the government ministers at DEFRA, the dept itself or its minion NE, then of course there is the Hawk and Owl trust and Jemima Parry-Jones of ICPB. We all surely think the inadequate and discredited DEFRA plan is dead they must all be wilfully blind and deaf to not think the same. We will also no doubt get the plaintiff bleating excuses from the grouse botherer organisations or nothing at all. Time for change is long gone, driven grouse shooting has no credibility left if it ever had any. The pastime/ hobby perversion should be banned forthwith and we should all be doing our best to work towards that.
Sorry I am travelling to Shetland on 22nd!
Our hen harriers should not become a party-political issue, they are far too important. I have no more confidence in a Corbyn led government making a difference on our grouse moors than the current administration. We need our Royal Family to walk away from grouse shooting and its attendant wildlife persecution instead of trying to appear conservation friendly in other ways. Also, perhaps, but highly unlikely, the RSPB might consider dropping the ‘R’ from its title, hence sending a strong message!
Sandra – things become a party political issue if the parties differ in their aims or approaches. the current government is hopeless, and has been for over 8 years on this subject. If labour said something strong and sensible on the subject then there would be clear water between those two parties.
I haven’t noticed the Labour Party taking a strong position on these issues, Mark. Yes, maybe a few individual MPs but with Corbyn at the helm I fear that your ‘clear water’ may be wishful thinking. We need to build a consensus across political divides to stand any chance of success. It would, of course, help if all our conservation organisations could make ‘common cause’ in their approach to raptor persecution.
Sandra – we don’t need to build a consensus, and on this subject we clearly won’t. We need to persuade the government to act – that probably won’t be this one.
Sandra you just need to compare the parties at Mark’s debate. OK the Labour turn out was not fantastic and the partt as a whole isn’t giving the issue high enough priority but the debate was still split 100% along part lines and the Labour speakers were pretty good. One or two were excellent.
This is exactly why I couldn’t glean any positivity from the few more than usual successful hen harrier fledgings this year. Their untimely demise over driven grouse moors was always inevitable. I too will be wearing a hen harrier T shirt on the 22nd. See you there.
It isn’t the civil service, Prasad, its the politicians – they set the tone and its been pretty grim under the conservatives, HH just the tip of the iceberg.
The flip side is that the more conservative supporters exploit the protection they are enjoying the easier it will be to get a total ban to the top of the agenda of a Government of a different colour. No doubt the Countryside Alliance, Your forgot the birds etc think they are being very clever – they’ll certainly be pleasing their staunch supporters – but actually this is the time, with political protection, they should have been making the changes to put their house in order. Instead they are doing a fantastic job alienating the middle ground that is their only hope for a future.
True but obeying orders is no excuse. Technically politician aren’t civil servants but they are public servants and should be held to equally high standards.
I agree that overconfidence by the CA lot will backfire. They show their true colours and everyone can see them for what they are.
I would like to think the new tenants on the Snake are pretty pissed.
Hosting a successful Hen Harrier nest in their first season, then “Octavia” goes off grid so quickly,
and close to home.
It is a pity that this grouse season has been so poor, it would have been good for the moors that held
productive pairs of Harriers, to have had something to show for their forward thinking.
Maybe there should be successive HH Days where Octavia met its end throughout next years shooting season.
“Propaganda”
Italian, from modern Latin congregatio de propaganda fide ‘congregation for propagation of the faith’
So, by strict definition, propaganda can’t be “anti” anything, regardless of how many times supporters of this corrupt government misuse the word.