The RSPB has reported this week that two male Hen Harriers have suddenly ‘disappeared’ from their nest sites at Geltsdale in Northern England. The birds vanished within a few days of each other. Another Geltsdale male Hen Harrier was found shot dead on neighbouring land in spring 2023.
A Red-listed species in the UK due to low breeding population levels following long-term persecution, multiple studies and reports confirm that illegal killing on or near land managed for shooting is the main factor limiting the recovery of Hen Harrier in the UK. Persecution has caused a reduction in nesting success, annual productivity, and survival of breeding females.
In 2024, two pairs of Hen Harriers successfully bred at Geltsdale, with a total of eight chicks fledged, making it one of England’s most important Hen Harrier nesting sites. In its press-release the RSPB said that observations show that the two males (which were actively providing food for their young) hadn’t returned to their nests since going missing, and a local RSPB team were providing food to a female at one of the nests in a desperate attempt to save the chicks. The entire breeding season is now in doubt.
While waiting for definitive evidence that the two males are dead (recovering bodies in such remote areas is extremely difficult, see Hen Harrier Action Launches Wildlife Crime Detection Dog Fundraising Appeal for an interesting initiative that provides one solution), the charity is fairly unequivocal about what has happened: “The shocking loss of the Red-listed birds points to yet more illegal killing.”
This report follows another in April
Hen Harriers have had full legal protection since 1954 and the Protection of Birds Act. In the eyes of extremely wealthy, often highly taxpayer-subsidised moorland estate owners, every chick eaten by a harrier is one less grouse to be sold to the guns.
This latest report follows on from news just three weeks ago that ‘Four satellite-tagged Hen Harriers have vanished since January’:
For the record, those four birds were listed as follows (note these birds were named and fitted with satellite tags, there is no indication yet that the birds in Geltsdale were also named and tagged).
- ‘Dina’, a female last known position near a grouse moor in the Lammemuirs, south Scotland: 12 January 2025
- A female last known position a grouse moor in the North York Moors National Park: 03 February 2025.
- ‘Beanie’, a female last known position Scotland. ‘Site confidential – ongoing investigation’: 04 April 2025.
- ‘Gill’, a female last known position Scotland. ‘Site confidential – ongoing investigation’: 10 April 2025.
In addition to this quartet, another female Hen Harrier was found dead in the Yorkshire Dales National Park this spring. At the time of writing she was listed as ‘awaiting post-mortem’ and the date of last contact was 02 April 2025.
Following the latest news, Raptor Perscution UK (RPUK) has updated its rolling tally of Hen Harriers “confirmed ‘missing’ or illegally killed in UK since 2018, most of them on or close to grouse moors” to 141. Many of those birds will have been young and will have never had the chance to breed.
As RPUK points out, only one of these 141 ‘incidents/crimes’ has resulted in an arrest and a subsequent prosecution (which is ongoing, with gamekeeper Racster Dingwall due in court in September 2025).
Raptor persecution shocking – but not surprising
Raptor persecution is undoubtedly shocking – it’s illegal and the general public is firmly against it – but it’s really not surprising. It happens routinely and is ‘baked in’ to moorland management.
While some estates simply won’t tolerate birds of prey under any circumstances (anecdotal evidence suggests that some shoot managers get very uppity if a wild bird of prey dares flush grouse or pheasants before their clients get the opportunity to kill them), some have decided that the presence of birds of prey anywhere on ‘their’ moor equates to ‘profit conflict’.
The decade-long Langholm Moor Demonstration Project (LMDP) proved as much, when stakeholders (largely landowners and a handful of conservation organisations) concluded that a grouse moor couldn’t be profitable when raptor populations were allowed to reach natural levels. During the LMDP, raptor populations thrived; the Hen Harrier population was maintained at qualifying levels for Special Protection Area (SPA) status at around 6-7 breeding pairs. Diversionary feeding (putting out alternative food for harriers at selected feeding stations under licence) of Hen Harriers proved very successful, reducing the number of grouse chicks being taken to Hen Harrier nests by between 34% and 100%. That was still not enough for some moor owners who claimed their appalling industry (intensive farming of birds for the gun) wasn’t compatible with birds of prey (native predators who have always been integral parts of the local ecosystem).
Shooting lobbyists GWCT allude openly to the supposed ‘conflict’ between grouse moors and legally protected birds of prey. It states on their website (under a section titled ‘Diversionary feeding and nestling diet of hen harriers’) that:
“There has been long-standing conflict between red grouse shooting and the conservation of raptors, particularly hen harriers…feeding of hen harriers alongside grouse moor management did not increase grouse numbers enough to sustain economically viable driven shooting...estate owners may be reluctant to adopt this technique without better evidence that it can contribute to successful driven shooting.”
These sentences above must be understood against a background that birds of prey have had legal protection for over seventy years. Profit is all that matters to estate owners. As we have said, while there is a grouse shooting industry, birds of prey will die…
Why weren’t these make Hen Harriers safe on a nature reserve though?
No one persecutes rare birds of prey on an RSPB nature reserve itself, of course, so how can these birds have gone ‘missing’ (a legally compliant way of investigators saying, ‘We know what happened we just can’t prove it’).
Male Hen Harriers hunt over large areas – potentially 500 hectares or more (females tend to focus their hunting closer to their nest, within a radius of 300-500 meters). RSPB Geltsdale is surrounded by grouse moors. Harriers and other raptors have no way of knowing where the boundaries of the reserve lie. It may even be that the neighbouring moors – because they are kept stocked so high for shooting later in the summer – have more prey in the form of Red Grouse chicks on them than the more natural ecosystems of the nature reserve.
So harriers are doing what harriers do at this time of year (covering large areas searching for food for their young). At the same time, there will be far fewer people out on a grouse moor (where they’re generally not made welcome anyway) compared with a biodiversity-rich nature reserve. A male harrier only needs to disappear over a hill onto neighbouring land for it to be vulnerable to being killed by a gamekeeper. Gamekeepers track exactly where raptor nests are, and where the birds hunt. Shooting one would not be difficult. And the given the utter disdain which many in shooting hold the RSPB, it’s not hard to imagine that there might be a bonus for ‘nolling’ an RSPB breeding ‘jet’ (‘killing a harrier; as exposed in an RSPB investigation broadcast on Channel 4 News – see Undercover footage of raptor persecution ‘a game changer’).
In fact, as the RSPB press release makes clear:
“male birds from Geltsdale have gone missing time and time again, most recently when a male was found shot dead on a neighbouring grouse moor in 2023 when the Police unable to prove who had killed it.”
Is there a solution?
Disappointingly, the RSPB filled almost half their press release with yet another plug for grouse moor licencing.
Beccy Speight, RSPB Chief Executive (who is a highly committed conservationist but tied by the RSPB’s 1904 Royal Charter which pledges neutrality on bird shooting, describing it as a “legitimate sport”) once again led the calls, saying:
“We need the immediate introduction of a licencing system for grouse shooting, so estates proven by the Police and Natural England to be linked to raptor persecution would simply lose their licence to operate.”
We will state for the record once again that we fundamentally disagree with ‘licencing’.
- 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 over and over again. That’s despite legislation which already exists to protect birds of prey ‘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 of increased resources for investigators or enforcing authorities or of 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.” And they don’t want to work with organisations like the RSPB to implement it.
- 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 in almost unthinkable numbers.
We simply don’t think will licencing work, and will mean the ongoing loss of life of so many birds and mammals.
