We're not giving up

I'm on holiday this week so I've lined up my colleague, Jude Lane, to post on my behalf. You might remember Jude from the end of last year when she posted about the death of a hen harrier, Bowland Betty. Jude is our Bowland Project Officer, monitoring the breeding attempts of hen harriers on the United Utilities estate within the Forest of Bowland.

With the news officially out last week that no hen harriers bred successfully in England this year, where do we go from here?

We’re certainly not giving up on one of our most iconic birds of prey, that’s for sure.

Working in Bowland I am involved predominantly with species protection. Hen harrier nests (when we get them) are monitored 24 hours a day using cameras, but they also benefit from regular non-disturbance monitoring by staff and volunteers to ensure nests are progressing as we would expect and also to intervene should the nest be at risk from disturbance (at such low population densities, every nest needs to be given the greatest chance of success).

Sadly, Bowland had another blank year. However, in Northumberland, one of England’s two failed nesting attempts was protected by both cameras and a 24/7 manual watch. This was a partnership project involving RSPB staff, Natural England, the Ministry of Defence, The Forestry Commission, Northumberland National Park Authority, local raptor workers, tenants and keepers who were very cooperative and happy to deploy diversionary (artificial) feeding if the need had arisen. Back in Bowland, the work we do on the United Utilities estate has shown over decades the benefit of how good will and open communication can allow partnerships to work together in order to achieve the best possible outcomes for breeding harriers.

The loss of Bowland’s nesting harriers, for now, is part of a wider problem of providing effective protection for a bird that lives at a landscapes scale and calls the uplands of England and Southern Scotland home. Safety in one place is no guarantee of safety elsewhere. For example, take the story of Bowland Betty. This female hen harrier, from Bowland, was fitted with a satellite tag in 2011. After wandering around parts of the UK, she was located dead, after being shot on a grouse moor last year.  She was from the last cohort of harriers from Bowland.

The first blank year of hen harriers in England has to be a watershed. We believe the recovery of the hen harrier in the uplands, especially in England, will rely on the Government grasping the nettle and establishing a positive vision for managing the uplands sustainably.

This vision will take time to develop and even longer to see imprinted in our upland landscapes. In the short term we believe there are some immediate steps the Government can take.

Firstly, we believe that estate owners should be held legally responsible for crimes committed by their employees; invoking the principle of vicarious liability.

Also, we believe there should be tougher penalties for wildlife crimes and the introduction of a regulation scheme for grouse moors.

We will be working hard to try and achieve these goals in Westminster. But we can’t ignore what’s happening on the ground in some parts of our uplands.  As part of my role I also work closely with our investigations team. These guys and girls are a fantastic and incredibly passionate group of people who are driven by the desire to investigate wildlife crimes and bring offenders to justice. And believe me; you need to be passionate about this stuff to do their job.  Catching rogues Hell-bent on killing harriers is an almost impossible task, especially in some of our wildest landscapes.. Thankfully, our investigations staff are made of tough stuff, and tough stuff combined with support and intelligence provided by field staff, regional raptor study groups, local police forces, members of the public (you guys) and with the latest in surveillance technology at their disposal, they are certainly a team to be reckoned with.

Technology is helping in our battles against persecution.  One exciting area of development is radio and satellite tracking that is being carried out on hen harriers now and led to the discovery of Bowland Betty’s death. There is still so much we need to know about where harriers go once they leave their breeding areas, especially now that so few are fledging from England now (just 16 in the last 3 years). Understanding how much interaction there is between the various UK populations (especially as they are now becoming so few and far between) and what happens to harriers that don’t survive is critical in working to protect them and to catching their killers. The tragically short life of Bowland Betty highlighted both of these benefits. Although no harriers fledged in England this year, you can follow the progress of four fledglings from Langholm moor, just north of Carlisle over the border in Scotland at this page.

Hope for the recovery of the English hen harrier is not lost. But everyone with a role in this magnificent bird’s recovery, and the more sustainable management of our uplands, will have to play their part to the full.