RSPB: 'Relief' brood meddling ends, but still pushing licencing
Licencing grouse shooting estates is not the answer to all the problems they cause.
The RSPB - the nation’s largest and most influential bird charity of course - has released a statement on the news that Natural England has decided not to approve a new licence for ‘brood meddling’, a conservation sham sanctioned by Defra (the government department which sanctioned the iniquities of the equally sham ‘badger cull’). Brood meddling was a sop to landowners and involved removing Hen Harrier chicks from moorland operating as a grouse shoot and releasing them at a site in southern England.
That licence is widely understood to have been requested by the landowners’ shooting lobby group Moorland Association, a former partner of the RSPB in the now-shuttered brood meddling scheme.
The RSPB have never supported brood meddling. The society challenged the scheme’s lawfulness in 2018 and 2019, a challenge dismissed by the High Court in 2021. That would explain why, according to the latest statement, the RSPB is:
“Relieved to learn that Natural England has decided not to approve a licence for brood management for 2025, following their detailed assessment of a specific licence application. This follows Natural England’s recent announcement of the conclusion of the seven-year Hen Harrier Brood Management Trial, with the key results released so far reinforcing the RSPB’s view that brood management should have no place in the future of Hen Harrier conservation.”
“Fundamentally, brood management is about forcing Hen Harriers to fit in with driven grouse shooting, instead of driven grouse shooting adapting to support the recovery of Hen Harriers. It also often involves the removal of harrier nests from within Special Protection Areas (SPAs) that have been purposely designated for their protection.”
Raptor persecution
Hen Harriers, once relatively widespread but now more or less confined as breeding birds to moorland, have full legal protection but are now the UK’s most persecuted bird of prey. The RSPB goes on to say that it remains “steadfast in our view that the only way to see meaningful Hen Harrier recovery is the ending of illegal persecution”.
The organisation points out that illegal persecution is “highest in areas managed for grouse shoots”, and that “illegal killing accounted for the deaths of 27-41% of birds under one year of age, and 75% of Hen Harriers aged between one and two years of age.”
Staments like these have long moved past being supposition. All brood meddled harrier chicks (along with others that are part of conservation schemes) are fitted with lightweight GPS satellite tags that plot their movements. Hen Harriers wander widely and the tags show that almost invariably young birds gravitate towards prime upland habitat - where they are found killed.
Persecution on grouse moors is routine. Just last year, the RSPB Birdcrime Report 2024 stated that “The majority of raptor persecution incidents are associated with land managed for gamebird shooting”. Incontrovertible proof was broadcast by Channel 4 News in October 2024 (see Undercover footage of raptor persecution 'a game changer'). As we reported, a trio of gamekeepers from the Coniston and Grassington Estate in the Yorkshire Dales National Par was recorded discussing ‘jets’ (their name for harriers, presumably thinking no one would possibly work that one out!), a ‘bomber’ (a Buzzard shot earlier in the day), and ‘nolling’ (killing). The broadcast ends with a single shot ringing out off-screen and the keepers congratulating themselves for ‘nolling’ a ‘clean’ (ie untagged) harrier…
It is a fact that if the shooting industry was shut down, illegal persecution of Hen Harriers would stop. After all, who other than shooting estates wants a harrier dead…?
Licencing
So what is the solution to ending the routine persecution of Hen Harriers on grouse moors?
The answer seems obvious to us, but rather than campaigning for an end to bird shooting, the RSPB - as it has done repeatedly - pushes for ‘licencing’ instead. In their statement they write.
“We are urging the UK Government to introduce a system of licensing for all gamebird shooting, whereby this licence to operate could be revoked if crimes against birds of prey are detected on an estate. This would set a better precedent and act as a greater deterrent to those tempted to harm or kill birds such as Hen Harriers.”
We might not be popular for saying this, but we fundamentally disagree. Licencing grouse shooting estates is not the answer to all the problems they cause. Getting rid of them is.
Licencing will legitimise the grouse shooting industry and officially condone the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Red Grouse every year. That is not acceptable to us, and we don’t think should be acceptable to anyone - or any organisation - that says they love birds.
Licencing essentially says that the ‘legal’ killing of countless numbers of foxes, corvids, stoats/weasels, and other native animals in traps and snares to support the shooting industry can continue as of now. That is also unacceptable to us.
We are led to believe that licencing will ‘act as a greater deterrent to those tempted to harm or kill birds such as Hen Harriers’, but estates aren’t ‘tempted’ to break the law, they are doing it. That’s despite legislation which already exists to protect birds of prey ‘such as Hen Harriers’ and has done so for well over half a century.
Raptors are being killed on grouse moors as a matter of routine because it is so difficult to catch the criminals in the act. Estates are huge, often isolated, and largely private. Estates shield criminals (no estate has ever handed one of its gamekeeper over to the police). There is no suggestion here of increased resources for investigators or enforcing authorities or new powers for police to investigate crimes.
New legislation in Scotland brought in to supposedly tackle raptor persecution has become a mess already (see Grouse Moor Licencing: the legal mess we always thought it would be). Shooting groups put so much pressure on NatureScot that they decided to hugely reduce the area of land affected a new licensing regime after legal threats. Estate owners don’t want legislation and are doing everything they can to limit its reach. Given Natural England and Defra’s closeness to landowners and support for what they (and the government) call ‘sustainable shooting’, why would anyone think that wouldn't happen again?
Estates don’t want it. In 2019 the Scottish Field wrote that “Scottish grouse shooting estates fear any introduction of a licensing system will expose them further to false claims by campaigners vying to have them closed down.” What that means is that estates will fight any attempts at scrutiny by claiming activists are planting dead harriers…
Estates can afford defence lawyers that will gleefully exploit exemptions in laws that are either poorly written or deliberately hobbled by Parliament itself (like the Hunting Act 2004). Does anyone have any faith that an estate will simply say 'You got me, take away my licence'? They will threaten legal action, deny responsibility, and tie up the courts for years. In the meantime birds and mammals will continue to die.
As we said, saying this may not make us popular, but we’re not here to compromise or agree to things we simply don’t think will work. Especially when it means the ongoing loss of life of so many birds and mammals.
Hopefully economic pressure will force the closure of grouse shoots, particularly with all the big money leaving the country.
Hi Charlie, thanks for educating so many people about these wretched owners of large Estates and their gamekeepers who are fixated on death and cruelty towards birdlife and other wildlife to suit their own pathetic interests. Unfortunately they are well-connected but it’s well overdue that such abuse is well and truly ended for the sake of such wonderful wildlife