In April 2023, the Peak District National Park Authority issued a statement that the Peak District Bird of Prey Initiative was to close as persecution cases continued (see Sun sets on failed Peak District Bird of Prey Initiative).
Set up in 2011 by the National Park Authority, the ‘initiative’ was intended to restore populations of birds of prey (or raptors) to 1990s levels, but it crashed amidst ongoing deliberate (and illegal) persecution of those same birds of prey on the numerous driven grouse moors that blight so many of our (so-called) ‘national parks’.
Now the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority (YDNPA) has followed suit. It has shut down its unsuccessful partnership with shooting groups “to pursue a different approach to bird of prey persecution“.
The Authority says that a new nationally led initiative launched to tackle bird of prey persecution more widely, plus a national police led Hen Harrier Taskforce and the development of a National Wildlife Crime strategy, would provide the framework for the Authority’s work “in tackling the persecution of birds of prey in the Yorkshire Dales” going forward.
David Butterworth, Chief Executive of the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority was quoted saying:
“With the final bird of prey evidence report just published, now is the time for a different approach because the current one has just not delivered sufficient results…Sadly, all the initiatives to tackle birds of prey crimes have been unsuccessful.”
‘Partnership’ in name only?
The Yorkshire Dales Bird of Prey Partnership was launched in 2020. It was set up as part of The Yorkshire Dales National Park Management Plan 2019-24, which had an objective to: “work with moorland managers and other key stakeholders to devise and implement a local approach to end illegal persecution of raptors”
The ‘partnership’ consisted of representatives from the grouse-shooting industry, the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority, the raptor conservation community (including the Northern England Raptor Forum (NERF, who walked away in 2024), the RSPB (who walked away in 2023 because of shenigans by the Moorland Association), Natural England (who in March 2025 announced that it wouldn’t continue with ‘brood meddling’ of Hen Harriers because their illegal killing “had continued”), Police, and the Nidderdale AONB (now the Nidderdale National Landscape) Authority.
The latter was slammed by RSPB as the ‘bird of prey poisoning capital of Britain’ in November 2022 (so after the ‘partnership’ was launched), and a year later in October 2023 Ben Ramsden, ex-Director of the Moorland Association, pleaded guilty to three charges of burning deep peat on his family’s Lofthouse Moor, which lies within the East Nidderdale Moor Site of Special Scientific Interest.
And as David Butterworth acknowledged (rather wearily, it seems to us), raptor persecution has continued despite the moorland owners and their lobby groups insisting they have a ‘zero tolerance’ for wildlife crime…though the likes of the Moorland Association’s Andrew Gilruth’s hiding behind the frequent claim of ‘unsubstantiated’ (ie not proven, an incredibly difficult task when crimes take place on huge often remote estates and owners don’t hand over employees) is a more accurate reflection of where their mindset really lies.
Just too many snakes
Right before the ‘partnership’ failure was acknowledged by the YDNPA, the Northern England Raptor Forum posted a damning article titled “A short history of English Hen Harrier persecution and their lethal game of ‘snakes and ladders’”. In it, NERF wrote:
“Unfortunately for Hen Harriers, the ‘snakes’ are both numerous and varied, waiting to pounce at every opportunity. And they don’t just negatively impact chicks prior to fledging, they wait in the shadows to kill adults as they negotiate a route through their short lives.”
As we and other have pointed out many times, data from long-running satellite tagging studies by both the RSPB and Natural England show that more than 70% of satellite-tagged Hen Harriers have been killed or ‘disappeared’ in suspicious circumstances on or close to moorland used for grouse shooting. As NERF points out this data is largely based on satellite-tagged birds only: they say “it is highly likely” that many more untagged birds suffer the same fate as tagged birds (as demonstrated in the Channel 4 News expose of gamekeepers deliberately targeting and killing untagged harriers on an estate in the north of England (see Undercover footage of raptor persecution ‘a game changer’).)
An RSPB report – titled unambiguously Hen Harriers in the firing line – published in June 2025, revealed record numbers of Hen Harriers being illegally killed or going missing in suspicious circumstances over the previous five years, and that the majority of the 102 incidents occurred on or near grouse moors. The report also stated that the average life expectancy of a young Hen Harrier in the UK is just 121 days.
What next for the YDNPA? Who knows…
The National Wildlife Crime Strategy (2025-2028) hasn’t been published yet, so it’s impossible to gauge whether it amounts to anything ‘new ’ or is more of the same when it comes to tackling crimes against birds of prey or indeed what the YDNPA will be able to do to support it.
Like so many ‘national park’ authorities, they are in a very weak position. As they state on their own website, 95% of the land inside the Yorkshire Dales National Park is privately owned. Large areas of the park are owned and managed by grouse shoots. A similar situation exists in the Peak District where the Park Authority owns just 4% of the land. Another area of intensive grouse shooting is the Northumberland National Park, where the Authority owns an almost token 0.2% of the land (see ‘National Parks’ in name only).
Park Authorities were denied the opportunity when they were created to do very much other than put in protests about building applications. They have no say over how the land is used for shooting or agriculture. The balance of power lies firmly with the private landowner and the shooting industry, and it should be clear by now that pro-wildlife groups will never get anything out of working with them.
‘Partnerships’ with people who don’t want the same as you do simply don’t work. They can struggle on (with good intentions), but the shooting industry has proven over and over again that they have zero intention of actually working to find solutions for the problems they cause and intend to continue just as they always have.