Hen harriers and YFTB (again!)

In this guest post from Jeff Knott, RSPB Head of Nature Policy, he talks about his visit to the CLA Game Fair, the fortunes of hen harriers and the latest from You Forgot the Birds:

I’ve just got back from a weekend spent at the CLA Game Fair.

While every year there are some challenging discussions, this is an event I genuinely look forward to. The opportunity to engage with the shooting community in all its variety is always fascinating and useful.

Positive discussion

This year, in addition to useful chats with organisations such as the Moorland Association, CLA and GWCT, I was particularly pleased to have the opportunity for a positive discussion with Richard Ali, Chief Executive of BASC, on Radio 4’s Today programme.

This was a classic example of why I enjoy the Game Fair. We didn’t agree on everything, but we had a good exchange of views in a respectful and professional way. He even gave me a bag of their new grouse flavoured crisps!

Latest from You Forgot the Birds

All of that makes it even more disappointing to see the latest missive from You Forgot The Birds (YFTB) issued today. For previous from this recently formed group, see here and here.

This time the allegation is that RSPB is causing hen harrier nests to fail through excessive human interference. These allegations are extremely serious. If YFTB (or indeed anyone) has any actual evidence of disturbance, whatever the source, they should go to the Police immediately.

But, as far as I’m concerned, our staff and volunteers monitoring and protecting hen harriers on the ground are some of the most dedicated, professional and brilliant conservationists in the world. They live and breathe hen harrier conservation and their commitment to saving hen harriers is unquestioned.

I know many of the individuals involved personally and their passion though the ups and downs of a hen harrier breeding season is unmatched. I’m proud to call them my colleagues. All of us who care about wildlife owe them a massive debt of gratitude.

RSPB nature reserves across the UK provided a home to 49 pairs of hen harriers in 2014, about 8% of the national population. These pairs are found on that tiny percentage of the UK's uplands where the RSPB has reserves.

This is good, but we want it to be even better.

Five nests in England (four at Bowland and one on our Geltsdale reserve) failed this year after males disappeared while out hunting. This is extremely unusual and a real worry.

While we may never know what happened to these five individual birds, it’s hard to see how anything happening at the nest could cause the male to disappear while away from the nest, but leave the females unaffected and patiently sitting on their eggs, or brooding their young whilst under the protective gaze of our volunteers and staff.

But I want to remain positive.

The RSPB’s EU Life-funded hen harrier project is a cross-border England and Scotland project running from 2014-2019 on hen harriers. It clearly sets out to tackle what a government report says is the biggest issue facing our hen harriers – illegal persecution. We will get there.

And this Sunday a group of people will come together, organised by Birders Against Wildlife Crime, in the Goyt Valley and at other locations around Britain, as part of “Hen Harrier Day”.

This will be a wonderful show of grass roots support for these iconic and threatened birds and it’s this that shows the way forward. We encourage everyone who cares about these beautiful birds to take part and attend if you can.

I’ll be there in the Goyt and hope to see many of you there.