As regular CFZ-watchers will know, for some time Corinna has been doing a column for Animals & Men and a regular segment on On The Track... particularly about out-of-place birds and rare vagrants. There seem to be more and more bird stories from all over the world hitting the news these days so, to make room for them all - and to give them all equal and worthy coverage - she has set up this new blog to cover all things feathery and Fortean.

Monday 15 July 2013

Rare buzzards beaten to death by gamekeeper

With four brutal blows, Colin Burne smashes the protected bird of prey until its life ebbs away.

Seconds later, he repeats the outrage, grabbing another trapped buzzard and pummelling the bird to death with a wooden stake.

In a final act of defilement for one of the countryside’s most beautiful creatures, the 64-year-old gamekeeper hurls the lifeless birds into a bucket.

Unknown to Burne, each graphic moment of the 90-second onslaught was being captured by a covert camera set up to watch a bird-trap on land managed by a private shooting syndicate in Whinfell Forest, near Penrith, Cumbria. RSPB investigators had begun the surveillance operation after a tip-off and were left stunned at the brazen way Burne killed the protected birds. When officers from Cumbria Police and the RSPB later searched the site they found the remains of several other buzzards.



Only 70 days jail sentence?  Suspended for a year due to ill-health?  Oh come on.......

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