Shooting lobbyists respond predictably to Hen Harrier persecution report

BASC response a typical exercise in denial and deflection

Last week we looked at ‘Hen Harriers in the firing line’, a newly-published report written by the RSPB which said that “record numbers” of Hen Harriers had been illegally killed or had gone missing in suspicious circumstances over the past five years (see ‘Number of Hen Harriers killed or missing reaches new high’).

The report also unambiguously stated that the majority of the 102 incidents reported occurred on or near grouse moors. Hen Harriers, the RSPB says, are 10 times more likely to die or disappear on grouse moors than on land used in other ways.

As we wrote, that won’t come as a surprise to anyone interested in the appalling levels of wildlife crime that take place on grouse shooting estates. The RSPB have climbed off a fence in the last twenty years or so and is now unequivocal about where the blame lies (even if that’s not a phrase they would use themselves). Their latest annual Birdcrime Report makes clear that, for example, “The majority of raptor persecution incidents are associated with land managed for gamebird shooting, where some individuals deliberately target birds of prey to maximise the number of gamebirds available to shoot for sport.”

While we do have some disagreements with the RSPB (why do they keep using that awful term ‘gamebird’ for one thing), it almost goes without saying that the charity does some fantastic work when it comes to documenting raptor persecution. Their investigation team is world-class and their evidence-based approach stands in increasingly stark contrast with the ‘3Ds’ (divide, deny, deflect) lobbying of pro-shooting organisations.

Zero tolerance - if only…

The response to the RSPB report from BASC is sadly typical and illustrates exactly what we mean.

BASC was created to support killing wildlife for ‘sport’ (it grew out of the Wildfowlers’ Association of Great Britain and Ireland, which was joined in 1975 by the Gamekeepers’ Association of the United Kingdom). By default it appears to disagree and argue with anything or anyone that suggests (or proves) that ‘shooting’ is not a wholesome, above-board recreation enjoyed by millions of caring men and women - who just happen to enjoy blasting birds out of the air in a wholesome, above-board kind of way.

We won’t reprint BASC’s entire six-paragraph statement here, but it opens with a standard claim to represent the countryside while outlining its attitude to wildlife crime:

“BASC, alongside other rural organisations, is a signatory to a zero-tolerance declaration on the illegal killing of birds of prey. We have always strongly condemned such activity; it has no place in our community and those convicted should face the full force of the law.”

It would be bizarre if an organisation were to come out and say they supported the illegal killing of birds of prey, but where is the ‘action’? BASC has repeatedly made the exact same statement about ‘zero tolerance’ for years - and as incidents have only increased, to seemingly no effect whatsoever. BASC and other shooting organisations don’t hand criminals over, there is nothing to suggest they are actively rooting out the criminals at the heart of their ‘community’. And note the use of ‘our community’, which strongly implies wildlife crime is BASC’s business and no one else’s (especially the RSPB’s)

Even when talking about tackling raptor persecution, BASC routinely divides the world into ‘pro-shooting’ and ‘anti-shooting’ sides. It was BASC remember that boycotted the first meeting of the Raptor Persecution Priority Delivery Group, claiming along with other lobbyists that it favoured “anti-shooting groups” and wasn't balanced.

Convictions

BASC is also frequently found using the same arguments about ‘convictions’ that the Countryside Alliance uses to deny hunting-related crime. In the next paragraph it says

“However, the RSPB’s report once again conflates suspicion with fact, presenting unproven allegations as evidence…of the 294 tags fitted to hen harriers between 2013 and 2024, less than five per cent, or fewer than 14, have been listed as ‘confirmed persecution’.”

The RSPB themselves acknowledge in ‘Hen Harriers in the firing line’ that there have been no convictions for crimes against Hen Harriers in England - the only two convictions in the last 25 years have both been in Scotland. But for BASC to conflate a lack of convictions with a lack of crime is disingenuous to say the least.

Everyone and their dog knows how incredibly hard it is to get a conviction for wildlife crime, especially on remote shooting estates where landowners never hand over their employees to the police and gamekeepers never speak out for fear of losing tied properties and jobs in a dwindling employment sector. Tony Juniper, the Chair of Natural England, has lost a lot of goodwill amongst the pro-wildlife community over the years, but a blog he wrote in 2019 on why NE didn’t support vicarious liability for shooting estate owners in England still summarises the situation nicely: making landowners responsible for the actions of their employees, Juniper wrote, won’t achieve any further prosecutions “due to the difficulty of collecting good quality evidence from isolated moors for use in court.”

It is very difficult to believe that BASC doesn’t know full well that crimes against Hen Harriers are not taking place. They will have seen the same news report we did in which gamekeepers were recorded brazenly discussing ‘nolling Jets’ (killing Hen Harriers) by the RSPB and broadcast by Channel 4 News (there have been no prosecutions yet, but the evidence was clear). They will have read NE’s blog in April 2025 titled ‘Conclusion of Hen Harrier Brood Management Trial’ which stated that the “illegal killing of hen harriers has continued”. They will have seen the same NE ‘Hen Harrier Tracking Data’ that we have (image below), which also showed in April 2025 just how many tagged harriers were ‘Missing Fate Unknown’.

That is not supposition, guesswork, or ‘antis’ making false accusations. That is Natural England monitoring tagged Hen Harriers and saying that they are disappearing time and time again, on or near grouse moors, never to be seen again.

This is the same data that the remarkable Raptor Persecution UK blog uses to keep its rolling tally of Hen Harriers confirmed missing or illegally killed in the UK since 2018 “because that is the year that the grouse shooting industry ‘leaders’ would have us believe that the criminal persecution of hen harriers had stopped and that these birds were being welcomed back on to the UK’s grouse moors.” As of June 2025 that total stands at 141.

Chicks vs Adults

It is also disingenuous to conflate the number of Hen Harrier chicks being born with the number of Hen Harriers in the uplands.

BASC says that

“In 2023, 141 hen harrier chicks fledged in England, the seventh consecutive year of population growth and the highest number recorded in over two centuries.”

We repeatedly point out that the number of Hen Harrier chicks does not in any way correspond with the number of breeding adults. Once those chicks leave the relative safety of well-monitored nests (many have almost round-the-clock surveillance) their chances of survival out on the grouse moors are slim. As ‘Hen Harriers in the firing line’ states, the average life expectancy of a young Hen Harrier in the UK is just 121 days. Besides which, the base starting point for that lauded ‘population growth’ was close to zero, and birds are still being shot, poisoned or even stamped on while still in the nest!

Why won’t BASC admit that shooting has a serious criminal problem? We’ll leave that one to our readers to work out…

Shooting won’t work with real conservationists

The RSPB has repeatedly called for a grouse moor licencing system where ‘offending estates can be stripped of their licence shutting down the shoot. We have repeatedly said that a system like that won’t work (let alone the fact that it legitimises the slaughter of grouse and moorland predators).

We outlined why in a series of bullet points in our previous post “Number of Hen Harriers killed or missing reaches new high”. One of those points was that shooting simply won’t cooperate with moves to set up a licencing system.

BASC makes that very clear in its fifth paragraph:

“Proposals for a licensing system based on a civil burden of proof risk punishing the law-abiding without due process. Nor should we criminalise a whole sector of responsible and committed conservationists based on the crimes of a small minority.”

Licencing will be a legal quagmire. However much we dislike BASC and the CA, there is no doubting the terrier-like ferocity they defend their own. The police, CPS, and the courts rightly insist on very high evidence bars and the pro-shoot and pro-hunt sides are well-versed at using vague legislation to sow doubt. It’s simply ridiculous to imagine that the ‘law abiding’ would be punished without due process (almost as ridiculous as the rebranding that hopes to convince the public that gamekeepers are ‘conservationists’ working for the public good, rather than brutish employees taking out whole suites of native predators to protect landowners’ profits).

BASC doesn’t help

Raptor persecution is a serious issue on shooting estates, and BASC's kneejerk response does nothing to help. But then shooting has just one clear aim: to continue killing wildlife with as little restriction as possible.

In its eyes, there is no neutrality in this debate: you are either on shooting’s side or you are not. You are either standing with it, or standing against it. There is no compromise here. Every statement that pro-shooting lobbyists make proves that.

For how much longer will our leading conservation organisations keep banging their heads against shooting’s brick wall of division, denial, and deflection?