 In March 2011, the RSPB issued a media release claiming that illegal persecution was killing Britain's hen harrier population. The release, which it also sent with a covering note to all Ministers and MPs, stated that 'every year hen harriers are targeted on grouse moors across the UK and it is clear that this onslaught is having a significant impact on our population. We believe that gamekeepers are killing them illegally - under pressure from their land-owning masters.' However, according to the RSPB's own figures, there has only been one recorded incident of hen harrier persecution in the past seven years; an incident that was dismissed by the Crown Prosecution Service when a thorough police investigation found no bodies, or forensic or ballistic evidence to show that any crime had been committed. It is therefore difficult to understand how the decline in hen harriers over the same period can be attributed to illegal persecution by keepers.
Further contradictory evidence can be found in a 2009 study, where Natural England and the RSPB found that illegal persecution played no part in the breeding failures of the hen harrier. The low figure of only six successful nesting pairs was entirely due to natural causes.
More of the RSPB's own evidence shows that hen harriers cannot be forced to settle or breed at its own flagship reserve at Geltsdale. Here, no hen harriers have bred successfully since 2006. The RSPB's failure at Geltsdale is attributed to natural circumstances, something that the charity claims cannot apply on grouse moors, it instead being attributed to illegal activity by keepers pressurised by their employers.
Furthermore, the RSPB seem to have been rather selective with its findings, as it does not attribute the halving of the hen harrier population on the Isle of Man to illegal persecution. This decline could be for any number of well documented reasons: predation by foxes or other birds of prey, food supply, weather, or unintentional disturbance. The RSPB has claimed that the reasons for this decline on the Isle of Man are unclear, no doubt because grouse shooting does not take place on the Island’s moors .
The RSPB states that its findings are reinforced by the Hen Harrier Framework. However, this review used data collected prior to 2004 which is out of date, and contains scientific flaws which undermine its conclusions. It was heavily criticised by a wide range of rural organisations, including the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust.
Unsubstantiated allegations of a law breaking "onslaught" made against landowners and gamekeepers in the absence of the factual evidence to support such claims are unacceptable. The Countryside Alliance therefore wrote to all Ministers and MPs countering the RSPB’s allegations, clearly stating the facts as they are known. It also responded robustly to any adverse coverage in the media as a result of the RSPB’s release,
The latest claims, made at the end of 2011, concerning the possible extinction of hen harriers in England, which the RSPB believes could happen as a result of one wet spring or a fire at the wrong time of year, have also been countered in the media by the Countryside Alliance, As the RSPB knows only too well, the term extinction is defined by the death of the very last of a kind, and its use to describe the future of the hen harrier in England is therefore nothing short of absurd; as is its claim that there are only 4 breeding pairs left in England.
In addition to Britain, the hen harrier occurs in a multitude of countries across the northern hemisphere, including North America, Europe and Asia. It has an extremely large population which is currently thought to be 167,000 breeding females, with no significant decline in that population globally. Internationally it is classified as a species of “Least Conservation Concern”, and with 663 pairs in the UK, the hen harrier is more numerous than 7 out of the 15 species of birds of prey in this country. Although only 4 pairs may have bred successfully in England in 2011, many hen harriers can be observed moving around the country throughout the year. The issue, therefore, is that of poor breeding success, not extinction; the possible reasons for which are numerous, as already explained.
The RSPB’s dogged determination to ignore these other possible reasons for the hen harrier’s poor breeding success makes the value of its project ‘Skydancers 2011 -2015’, for which it managed to secure a grant of £317,000 from the Heritage Lottery Fund in April 2011, extremely dubious. This is particularly the case given that the purpose of the four year project is to help secure the future of the hen harrier as a breeding bird in England – work that is already being carried out by Government and conservation bodies.
One of the RSPB’s aims for the project is to work with local communities to raise awaremess of hen harriers, their importance as a part of our natural heritage, and the value they bring to those communities. However of equal importance is the need to fully explain the serious impact that hen harriers can have on other species of threatened birds, and the resultant consequences that they can have on the fragile economies of our remote upland communities, and those that live in them; critical issueds that the RSPB failed to mention in its project summary. This impact on other species and livlihoods can be no better highlighted than at Langholm moor, where predation by hen harriers limited grouse productivity to such an extent that grouse shooting was no longer possible on what had been a previously viable grouse moor. With no income being generated from shooting, the traditional moorland management could no longer be financed, and gamekeepering had to stop. Local employment and businesses all suffered as a result, as did numbers of golden plover, curlew, red grouse, and skylark; all of which were two to three times lower in number than when the moor had been managed for grouse shooting. Lapwings were virtually lost once keepering stopped.
The RSPB has said that in carrying out its Skydancers project, it will work with land owners, land managers and people employed in game rearing businesses to demonstrate that these rural businesses and hen harriers can co-exist in the uplands. That is quite an assumption. Not only does it seem to have forgotten its continual attacks on those very same people, but it also appears to have overlooked two other important pieces of work in which it is actively involved. Along with Natural England, Scottish Natural Heritage, the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust, and Buccleuch Estates, the RSPB is a partner in the on-going Langholm Moor Demonstration Project, the aim of which is to demonstrate an effective means of resolving the raptor-grouse moor controversy. It is also a member, along with other key stakeholders, in the on-going Environment Council facilitated Hen Harrier Dialogue Working Group, which provides an opportunity for Government and other stakeholders to engage in finding sustainable solutions to improve hen harrier population growth alongside the needs of grouse moor managers.
All these points regarding the project were made in a News Release from the Countryside Alliance, and the Heritage Lottery Fund’s decision to make this grant of public funds to the RSPB was the subject of a question raised in the House of Commons. Given the RSPB’s declared gross income of some £122 million in 2009/ 2010, it is difficult to believe that there are not many other smaller charities that could have put such a substantial grant to much better use.
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