Hen Harrier Day 2020

Hen Harrier Days celebrate a fantastic bird and highlight the illegal persecution that it faces. They are a family occasion, a show of solidarity with nature and a call to action. The Hen Harrier is a rare native bird and it would be much commoner if we could end wildlife crime.

Yet public awareness remains low, and Hen Harrier days are an important way of changing this. Sadly, the Hen Harrier is not the only victim of wildlife crime, and we humans also suffer from the abuse of the uplands, where burning and flooding and wholesale killing of so many animals seem to be the inevitable consequence of management for driven grouse – killing birds for fun.

Last year saw the largest ever Hen Harrier Day gathering. Over 1500 people enjoyed a family friendly day at Carsington Water, Derbyshire on 11 August with great speakers and lots else going on.  Starting in 2014, when ‘the sodden 570’ gathered (with Hurricane Bertha) in the Peak District’s Upper Derwent Valley, Hen Harrier Day events have been held at locations from Northern Ireland to London and from the south coast of England to the highlands of Scotland.

After last year’s single national event, 2020 will see a return to events organised the length and breadth of the UK, mostly on 8 and 9 August, the weekend before the start of the grouse-shooting season on the ‘Inglorious’ 12th. I’d love it if there were more events than ever, and an even greater diversity. Even in 2014, that first hurricane-blown year, there were three others:  in Lancashire, Northumberland and Dorset. Why not be dozens of events in 2020? Celebrity speakers, fun games for children, stalls with information, town squares, village greens and pubs, RSPB nature reserves. But why not also a little ramble on a moor, a folk gig, kite-flying, you name it. As long as it’s legal, you decide!

If you’re up for running an event I’ll give you all the backing I can: on this blog and (at the centre) resources, experience and expertise and Wild Justice may be able to contribute a bit of dosh 9thanks to the amazing Henry Morris) if your own fundraising doesn’t quite stretch. Mind you, a fair few events in 2018 didn’t actually cost anything in real money –  the scale of your event, like much else, is up to you.

To help, for 2020 and beyond, we are creating a new support organization. This will offer central support for those planning events, building on the experience of those who have run events before. We’ll aim to offer national level marketing, PR and so on, help with finding guest speakers, and a new website that puts you on the map – helping folk find their nearest event. If you have relevant experience or expertise and would like to join this national level team, please contact Alan Cranston at [email protected] because Alan has done all the work so far!

There will be more news in the coming weeks, and the new website,  but in the meanwhile if you are planning a Hen Harrier Day event for 2020 or would like to know more about running one, please contact me or Alan Cranston (email as above) and we’ll do our best to help. (If you’ve run an event in the past, we’ll be in touch anyway.) The more events the merrier, and the more we’ll get the message across. Let’s start the new decade with the best and largest ever smorgasbord of Hen Harrier Days.

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