The RSPB has this evening published an eyewitness account of the killing of an adult Hen Harrier in Bowland last October. Read it and weep!
I’ve known about this case for quite a while and I know the eyewitness as one of the many raptor enthusiasts in the Bowland area.
By chance, the area where the killing took place was close to where Henry Morris and friends started their run to join the dots of Hen Harrier persecution last July (see here and here).
The area of Bowland Knotts (red X above) is outside the Bowland Fells Special Protection Area (blue boundary) but inside the Forest of Bowland Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (red boundary). It’s also on the Yorkshire side of the county boundary and in the Skipton and Ripon constituency of Julian Smith MP.
Here is an extract from the account;
Then at 5.29pm, directly between me and him and in full view of my telescope, I saw a hen harrier flutter and fall. I can only describe it as ‘exploding.’ The bird raised its wings for a second showing its distinctive markings and I knew instantly that I was looking at an adult male hen harrier. I will never know of course, but I wonder to this day if it was the bird I witnessed skydancing in spring. My blood was boiling and my heart racing.
https://community.rspb.org.uk/ourwork/b/investigations/posts/eyewitness-describes-shooting-of-hen-harrier-bowland
It could have been you – or me. How would you have felt if you had seen what this witness saw? I’ve often wondered how I would feel if I witnessed such a thing.
That is about 1km (0.75-1.75km) from where NE Hen Harrier 73584 mysteriously stopped transmitting at SD714612 on 16 May 2009.
I am sure it is just another coincidence and nothing to do with the vicinity of the road and nothing to do with the murdering bastards on Bowland.
Just another coincidence to add to the 2 that disappeared within 3 days of each other up Roeburndale in 2010 and then Skye and Hope that were killed up Roeburndale 4 years later in 2014 again within 3 days of each other.
Just weird co-incidences that the police and NE didn’t notice.
Oh and Thor, right between Skye and Hope in 2018.
Bastards think they are untouchable.
And the bigger bastards their bosses.
If it was a detective novel, the hero might have started to notice a pattern emerging here…
If this were a detective novel, then the detective would already solemnly have taken off his badge and locked it, face down, in her desk drawer and stepped into the night to do what had to be done…
Dreadful, not helped by this area being split between two police forces, although I would personally favour NYP. Its not difficult to work out the land ownership here and where the five dead harriers Prasad writes of one on this same estate the others on a neighbouring estate that has shall we say an equally harrier unfriendly reputation. It stinks, but sadly there is a difference between knowing who may be responsible and getting enough to prosecute successfully. Some of the keepers in the area have worked there for many, many years and one wonders what may have died at their hands in that time. Very sad, very frustrating and a damned scandal.
Amanda could probably have seen it all from her kitchen window. At least not far away.
There is a wood in the way of most of the view of White Syke otherwise yes Amanda might have witnessed it. Its a bit close to home for the usual obfuscation and denial even for one as thick skinned as Amanda. Perhaps somebody should ask a few questions of her at the next RPPDG meeting.
what have the police said…?
That red cross is where a Golden Eagle, that me and Terry Pickford saw about twenty years ago
from the top of Gisburn forest, was last seen heading for.
Terry still has a tail feather we picked up.
Gisburn forest was a strange place, unusual Goshawk behaviour all through the spring,and never turned so much as an old nest up.
Still, doesn’t prove anything.
It’s the sheer arrogance of those illegally persecuting Hen Harriers and other raptors which gets me.
Even with the spotlight on them, they just carry on, because they are so absolutely confident that the establishment will protect them. It’s very difficult to think of any other issue of organized and persistent crime, when the authorities, or rather the government would play out this dishonest charade of what can we do.
A statue of a slave trader gets pulled down (it should have been removed years ago), and the government is up in arms, with the Justice Secretary tells magistrates to jail rioters within 24 hours of being arrested. Proving that the government is well able to crack down on crime, if it is politically expedient to them. We have seen this, where governments, especially Conservative governments have move rapidly to crack down on and criminalise behaviour.
With the persecution of raptors it isn’t even difficult to identify who the key suspects are. What is more they are vulnerable, because those engaging in this persecution rely on the use of firearms, which have to be licensed by the police.
If the police suspect a pub is being used for drug dealing etc, they don’t have to successfully prove and prosecute every case to close down the pub and have their licence removed. Yet oddly (not really) even though satellite tracking data, the discovery of dead raptors, poison baits, illegal traps, clearly indicate that there is persistent organized wildlife crime on specific estates, the authorities throw their hands up and say what can we do. Whilst making it deliberately hard to gather evidence, and throwing out cases on technicalities when there is photographic and video evidence of the culprits.
The problem is pretty self-evident. Driven grouse shooting is the chosen sport of the upper echelons of the British establishment and the super-wealthy. This is the whole problem, systemic corruption. What the most powerful and wealthy engage in, is protected.
This government is complicit in covering up and protecting those involved in orchestrated and organized wildlife crime. Ever since the 2008 Natural England report “A Future for the Hen Harrier in England”, which both concluded that the illegal persecution of Hen Harriers on grouse shooting moors was the primary reason for their decline and it was widespread across managed grouse moors i.e. not just a few bad apples like the shooting lobby absurdly claims, there can be no excuse for not clamping down on this. As time goes on the evidence for the scale of this illegal persecution has only become clearer, especially that revealed by satellite tracking data, which proves just how widespread this illegal persecution is.
The government knows exactly how to clamp down on persistent crime. Firm the law up, increase the punishments, provide proper resources and powers to the police. But oddly enough, when it comes to raptor persecution, they pretend they have no idea how to deal with this. This is a contrivance, pretence, a charade. The government remain determined to turn a blind eye, which is what make them complicit. It says that despite claims to the contrary that they are in fact trying to protect and facilitate the illegal persecution of raptors on managed shoots. To publicly pretend to disapprove of it, whilst ensuring it can go on unhindered.