Search Results for: hen harrier

Hen Harrier Day 2020

Posted on August 1, 2020 by Charlie

Chris Packham and Megan McCubbin will be hosting 2020’s Hen Harrier Day – which this year has moved online after uncertainties about whether previously booked hosting locations would be available (or even whether lockdown would have ended). Launched with several concurrent events (including the famously rainswept event in the Upper Derwent Valley in the Peak District organised by Dr Mark Avery), Hen Harrier Day began in 2014 to raise awareness of the persecution these spectacular bird faced on grouse moors. Deliberately held on the weekend closest to the start of the ‘Inglorious 12th’, Hen Harrier Day has always aimed to help put an end to wildlife crime and the wider abuse of the uplands associated with shooting birds for ‘sport’.

Hen Harrier Day Wales 2020

Posted on July 18, 2020July 22, 2020 by Charlie

Today (July 18 2020) sees the first Hen Harrier Day ever hosted in Wales. Which does seem strange given that uber-Welsh conservationist and broadcaster Iolo Williams has been a vocal and passionate supporter of Hen Harrier Day since the first HHD in the Peak District on 10 August 2014, but that makes it all the more welcome as the once-small protest movement against the persecution of birds of prey on grouse moors continues to gather pace. Today’s event is also the first to be held online, as organisers have had to bow the realities of the Covid-19 pandemic and bring the Day inside. There will still be a great cast of speakers though – and the line-up is exactly who you’d want to hear from if you want to learn the truth about raptor persecution, wildlife crime, and the driven grouse shooting industry.

Two more Hen Harriers ‘disappear’ on grouse moors

Posted on June 26, 2020June 27, 2020 by Charlie

Just as they did in December last year RSPB Scotland has had to post a press-release talking about the ‘disappearance’ of two satellite-tagged Hen Harriers on grouse moors, this time in the Cairngorms National Park. Once again the birds ‘disappeared’ (legalese for ‘almost certainly killed but we just can’t prove it yet’) during lockdown (a period where the public stayed indoors but which gamekeepers seem to have reacted to by going on a wildlife crime spree). Here’s a stat to chew over: 72% of tagged Hen Harriers were confirmed or considered likely to have been illegally killed, and this was ten times more likely to occur over areas of land managed for grouse shooting relative to other land uses.

Dead Hen Harriers | 33 and counting

Posted on June 8, 2020June 8, 2020 by Charlie

Raptor Persecution UK, the globally important blog covering crimes against birds of prey has covered the disappearance “in suspicious circumstances” of yet another two Hen Harriers on grouse moors in the Cairngorms National Park – this time two (of three) young birds satellite-tagged by Wildland, “a collection of estates in the Cairngorms and Sutherland, bought by the Polvsen family and being managed with an impressive vision for conservation”. Danish billionaires, the Polvsens are now Scotland’s largest private landowners and have pledged to “restore the Highlands for generations to come” – that includes iconic wildlife, but given the numbers of Hen Harriers killed on grouse moors they’ll have their work cut out…

Justice for Hen Harriers | Crowdfund appeal

Posted on February 3, 2020February 4, 2020 by Charlie

Mark Avery, Feb 2020: “Back in 2018 nearly 1000 people supported a legal challenge I brought against Natural England’s decision to license a highly controversial scheme that involved the chicks of the rare and threatened Hen Harrier being taken away from grouse moors in the uplands of England so as to make life easier for grouse shooting. Yes, it’s a daft idea, no Hen Harrier would vote for it and my lawyers and I considered it to be illegal.”

Hen Harrier poisoned by pheasant shoot

Posted on January 31, 2020May 21, 2020 by Charlie

Oh, the irony. In the week, writes Charlie Moores, that shooting launched its new green vision to persuade us all that it cares desperately about wildlife by declaring – nearly seventy years after laws came into force protecting them – a ‘zero tolerance’ to the illegal killing of birds of prey, look what turns up next to a pheasant shoot: yet another dead Hen Harrier.

RSPB Scotland | Another Hen Harrier shot

Posted on December 9, 2019December 10, 2019 by Charlie

RSPB Scotland have just put out a press-release entitled, “Hen harrier found dead while two others disappear in suspicious circumstances”. Another devastating day for Cathleen Thomas and her team, for the future of Hen Harriers in the UK, and hopefully a deathblow to the out of control industrialised grouse shooting industry and its lobbyists.

Podcast: Dr Cathleen Thomas | RSPB Hen Harrier LIFE Report

Posted on December 5, 2019July 18, 2020 by Charlie

Charlie Moores talks with RSPB’s Dr Cathleen Thomas to discuss the findings of the newly-released Hen Harrier Life Project report. They cover satellite tags, what working on the project has been like, and whether the project had intentionally set out to uncover the scale of persecution that Hen Harriers face on shooting estates.

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