As you may have heard Peregrines have been in the news recently.
Last week Jeffrey Lendrum pleaded guilty of attempting to take fourteen Peregrine eggs out of the UK and of stealing these eggs from four nest sites in Wales. The Peregrine eggs destination was thought to be Dubai, where falconry is a national sport.
Lendrum received a two and a half year jail sentence.
Luckily for these Peregrines, eleven of the fourteen eggs were incubated and seven chicks were introduced to existing Peregrine nest sites in Scotland, with the remaining four being re-introduced to the wild by falconers using alternative methods. All the birds have now fledged successfully.
In recent years the Peregrine population has made a recovery, with the last UK survey showing a population of fourteen hundred breeding pairs. Despite this, the Peregrine is still clearly a persecuted species.
If you’d like to learn more about this story have a read of one of the RSPB’s wildlife crimes senior investigator’s blog: http://www.rspb.org.uk/community/blogs/investigations/archive/2010/08/20/falcon-smuggler-caged.aspx