Search Results for: carbofuran

Conservatives – the party for animal welfare?

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Tens of thousands of words will be written in the coming weeks about the Queen’s Speech (QS, which of course is not written by the Queen but by a team of government advisors) and its ramifications for animals. All animals from wild, farmed, companion, and captive. Trapped and hunted. Imported and exported. And no matter who you vote for there were undeniably some very good elements to it. Is this a genuine step-change in how we treat animals? Some of the suggested measures should be easy enough to get through (the ‘primates as pets’ lobby can’t be very large and outside of a few restaurant owners who in their right mind would fight a ban on the import of shark fins or the sale of foie gras) but movement on snares (which shooting is almost addicted to), the badger cull, lead shot, and enforcing legislation on sentience will be far harder. If we keep the pressure up who can tell, but right now – despite some good words in their Action Plan – the jury is surely still out…

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Poisoned Golden Eagle WAS found on a grouse moor

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Of course it was, but how do we know for certain? Because thanks to Ian Thomson, a man who knows more about ‘sorting fact from fiction’ when it comes to raptor persecution than probably anyone else on the planet (the inevitable result of a career spent investigating the endless crimes committed by Scotland’s grouse estates), there is unequivocal clarification that the Golden Eagle found dead on the notorious Invercauld Estate in the so-called Cairngorms National Park in March was indeed found on a grouse moor – and not on tenanted farmland, which was how estate manager Angus McNicol appeared to be trying to spin the story a few days ago (to quote from newspapers covering the discovery, “The area where the bird was found is on a let farm in an area which is managed for sheep farming and is on the edge of an area of native woodland regeneration. It is not managed for driven grouse shooting”). Ian, who is directly involved in the investigation and would not risk his reputation and integrity by simply making things up (in stark contrast with the grouse shooting industry of course), left a comment on the Raptor Persecution UK blog which firmly contradicted Mr McNicol’s ‘assertion’.

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Scotland | Golden Eagle found poisoned on Invercauld Estate

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Police Scotland have launched an appeal for information (good luck with that, wildlife criminals make the mafia seem like blabbermouths) after a Golden Eagle was found dead on a shooting estate in a so-called ‘national park’ that – how can we put this without being sued – has long been linked with wildlife crime and raptor persecution: the Cairngorms. There are very few details but apparently the bird ‘contained pesticide’. To ordinary folk, a pesticide might seem an odd thing to find in a Golden Eagle, but these extremely toxic chemicals (most of which are banned) are routinely used to eradicate native wildlife. We’ve covered numerous examples on this website involving everything from Buzzards, Sparrowhawks, Peregrines, White-tailed Eagles, Red Kites, Hen Harriers, and of course Golden Eagles. Most occur on or near shooting estates.

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What do multi-agency searches for raptor poisoners tell us?

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According to a statement released by Durham Constabulary, on April 21st, Operation Sunbeam, which included members of the Barnard Castle Neighbourhood Policing Team, RSPB, Natural England and the National Wildlife Crime Unit, saw searches carried out at two properties in Teesdale. This follows an incident last year when two Buzzards were found dead in Teesdale woodland. Forensic tests indicated they were illegally poisoned with a banned pesticide. While it’s of course encouraging to see multi-agency efforts to tackle wildlife crime like this, it’s concerning that they seem to be becoming more regular. In January this year a joint agency investigation was set up to investigate the killing of a Buzzard. RPUK has pointed out there were three such raids in March this year alone: in Lincolnshire, Dorset, and Devon (the latter following the poisoning of yet another Buzzard). What does that tell us? That the efforts that are having to be put into tackling these crimes confirm just how serious and widespread the use of poisons to kill birds of prey really is.

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Another Peregrine poisoned on a Peak District grouse moor

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Another day, and the RSPB are having to write yet another press-release (posted below) describing yet another dead Peregrine found poisoned inside one of our so-called ‘national parks’ – the notorious ‘Dark Peak’ region of the Peak District National Park, a raptor persecution hotspot dominated by grouse farms and patrolled by gamekeepers. This particular Peregrine was found next to a baited Wood Pigeon by a fell runner nine months ago, and the toxicology results have only just been released. Not Carbofuran this time, but another favourite of the ‘professional poisoner’: bendiocarb, a constituent of the infamous ‘Nidderdale Cocktail’. Why the delay in letting the public know about highly potent illegal poisons being used in an open area with public access is not currently known. Let’s hope it’s a Covid-related issue and not ‘shielding’ of a more sinister type…If you would like to help stop this in the future, please learn to Recognise incidents of wildlife crime, learn how to Record them properly, and always Report them: even if nothing seems to be done immediately, it does help establish a pattern and help to ensure that the ‘professionals’ know we’re out there watching them.

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(To the surprise of no-one) banned poison found on Leadhills Estate

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To the surprise of almost no-one a large quantity of banned poison has been found on the Leadhills Estate, a South Lanarkshire shooting estate notorious for wildlife crime (though no doubt somewhere in the offices of the SGA they’ll be considering saying it was a plant). The poison was discovered by a League Against Cruel Sports investigator carrying out general field research in July last year on ‘Deadhills’ as it’s been dubbed (and anyone who’s visited this depressingly silent slab of grouse moor and wondered where the hell all the wildlife was, will understand why). Police Scotland has confirmed the poison was – again to the surprise of no-one – the ‘professional’s’ weapon of choice against birds of prey, a banned substance hazardous to humans and wildlife alike which is illegal to keep or use in the UK: Carbofuran. As we and countless others have pointed out, just a few grains of carbofuran sprinkled on to a rabbit corpse makes for an illegal but cheap and highly toxic bait.

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Suffolk | Police investigate illegal poisoning of a buzzard

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A report emerged yesterday of a joint agency investigation by Suffolk Police, Natural England, and the RSPB Investigations Team into yet another killing of a Buzzard. There are few details at the moment (with no mention on the Suffolk Constabulary website), but a tweet from Suffolk Rural & Wildlife Policing said that several guns had been seized along with the ‘professional’s’ weapon of choice against birds of prey – pesticides (a few grains of Carbofuran sprinkled on to a rabbit corpse makes for an illegal but cheap and highly toxic bait). Suffolk, a county stuffed with shooting estates, has form when it comes to killing Buzzards. In February 2018 two buzzard corpses were reported to Suffolk Constabulary in an incident described by naturalists as “appalling and abhorrent.” The bodies were found in woodland known as Little Carr, “on the edge of a shooting estate” on the banks of the River Dove, near Hoxne.

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Poisoned kite first to fledge in Strathspey since 1880

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Police Scotland has confirmed that a Red Kite found dead in the Ruthven area near Moy, Tomatinin in October, had been poisoned with a banned pesticide. So another day, another raptor poisoned with a banned pesticide. Which pesticide isn’t identified but it will be one of the eight listed on the Possession of Pesticides (Scotland) Order 2005, many of which are well-known to be favoured by certain employees of the shooting ‘community’ for their toxicity: Aldicarb, Alphachloralose, Aluminium phosphide, Bendiocarb, Carbofuran, Mevinphos, Sodium cyanide and Strychnine. Several of these chemicals are the base ingredients of the infamous ‘Nidderdale Cocktail’ which poisoned two spaniels in North Yorkshire in April this year. Inevitably this poisoning has led to a discussion about the licencing of grouse moors. Would a poisoning incident like this have taken place if an estate’s licence to sell Red Grouse to shooters was potentially be at risk? It’s difficult to realistically see what difference licencing would make in cases like this…

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