Owls gunned down in Peak District

13/12/2018

In two separate incidents in the Peak District, single Short-eared and Tawny Owls have died as a result of being shot.

The birds were discovered on 11 September and 1 October respectively, with both suffering injuries consistent with shooting. The RSPB has passed on the information to the police and subsequently an investigation has been launched.

On 11 September a member of the public witnessed a Short-eared Owl flying overhead, followed by gunshots, before finding the severely injured bird at the same spot the following morning. It was taken to a vet but the extent of its injuries – which included a shattered wing – meant the owl had to be put down. Then, on 1 October, the corpse of a Tawny Owl was found close to the site of the Short-eared Owl.

Post-mortem examinations showed that both birds suffered injuries consistent with shooting, thus making it highly likely that they were illegally killed. The member of the public who found the Short-eared Owl said: "I had just got back to my car when I suddenly saw a Short-eared Owl fly over my head – it's always fantastic to see one of these gorgeous birds. This, however, was followed by the sound of a gunshots, coming from the direction of a dark-coloured pick-up. I really hoped this wasn't aimed at the owl I'd just seen.

"The next morning I returned to the same spot and, there on the ground, was a Short-eared Owl, still alive but clearly wounded. I was so upset but also furious to think that someone had done this on purpose."

Jenny Shelton, RSPB Investigations Liaison Officer, added: "It's very disturbing that owls are being illegally shot in our oldest National Park. Short-eared Owls are beautiful birds and should be a celebrated, not persecuted. They are part of a healthy ecosystem and part of our national heritage. I would urge everyone who uses the countryside to be vigilant of bird of prey persecution, and to report anything suspicious to the police immediately."

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Crane re-introduction project’s best breeding female bird found shot dead

Media release FOR IMMEDIATE PUBLICATION

The body of a female crane released as part of the Great Crane Project five years ago has been found shot dead. 

The bird, nicknamed Swampy, was found dead in a maize field, near Ilchester, by a Somerset farmer recently. The crane’s body was handed to the Great Crane Project team and a subsequent post-mortem examination identified four round metal objects identified as gun shot. The most likely cause of death was shooting, the post-mortem examination concluded. 

Because cranes are such large birds it is highly unusual for them to be shot. Details of the incident have been reported to Avon and Somerset Police. The bird was given the nickname Swampy because the egg she hatched from had been collected from a particularly treacherous and foul-smelling swamp in Germany. 

Damon Bridge, who manages the Great Crane Project, said: “This is tragic and upsetting and what is particularly galling is that Swampy was the project’s best breeding female, having successfully raised two chicks in Somerset in 2015, and another this year. “She would have been highly likely to go on and make more successful breeding attempts. “Her mate Alexander has been seen continuing to raise their 2016 chick. 

Alexander is likely to find a new mate for the 2017 breeding season but whether the new pair will go on to have the success Alexander and Swampy did remains to be seen.” 

The Great Crane Project team and police are working to raise awareness of the presence of cranes with the shooting community in Somerset, and the bird’s legal status. Cranes cannot be legally shot in the UK and the RSPB is offering a £1,000 reward for information that leads to a conviction. 

Anybody with information should contact Avon and Somerset Police quoting crime reference number 5216228321 

Ends

For further information, images, or to arrange an interview, please contact: Chris Baker, RSPB Communications Officer, 01392 453299 / 07701 050010

Notes: The Great Crane Project is a partnership between the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust, the RSPB and the Pensthorpe Conservation Trust, with major funding from the Viridor Credits Environmental Company. The aim is to restore healthy populations of wild cranes throughout the UK, so people can once again experience these beautiful birds.

Chris Baker Communications Officer Tel: 01392 453299 Mobile: 07701 050010 South West Regional Office, 4th Floor (North Block), Broadwalk House, Southernhay West, Exeter, Devon, EX1 1TS

Rare bird found shot in North Yorkshire

 1 April 2016 at 11:11am

A rare bird of prey has been found with gunshot wounds. North Yorkshire Police are appealing for information after a large, adult, female red kite was found shot on March 25, at Low Marishes, north of Malton. It was still alive.

The bird has received medical attention and is being treated at a specialist rescue centre.

"This is a magnificent bird of prey that has been deliberately targeted and shot. We are extremely lucky to be able to see these birds in the wild here in Ryedale, and as a community we should be appalled that someone has chosen to try to kill it.

"It is lucky that the bird has been found alive and there is still a chance that it might get to live a life in the wild. However, this does not diminish the severity of the crime and I am appealing to anyone who might have information that could assist me in my investigation."

– NORTH YORKSHIRE POLICE WILDLIFE CRIME OFFICER, PC JEZ WALMSLEY

Anyone with information is urged to contact North Yorkshire Police on 101

Last updated Fri 1 Apr 2016

Source 

RSPB shoots down 'utterly ridiculous' claims it is waging class war against hunters

Hedge fund manager argued charity wasn’t concerned about hen harriers

TOM BAWDEN

ENVIRONMENT EDITOR 

Thursday 06 August 2015

The RSPB has dismissed accusations by a City tycoon that it is waging a “class war” against the shooting fraternity as the “utterly ridiculous” comments of a man who knows nothing about the charity.

It has invited Crispin Odey, an old Harrovian hedge fund manager and shooting enthusiast, to visit it to find out more about its work.

This week he accused the RSPB of being the kind of charity that is “run for the people who work for them and not necessarily for the birds”.

Days before the Glorious Twelfth marks the start of the red grouse shooting season, Mr Odey suggested that the RSPB did not really want the rapidly dwindling hen harrier population it champions to recover because it provides a valuable fundraising platform.

And he said attempts to pin the blame for its decline on wealthy grouse-moor owners amounted to the kind of class war one might more typically associate with left-wing Labour leadership candidate Jeremy Corbyn.

“It’s utterly ridiculous. Up until relatively recently we had a man on our board of trustees [Sir Anthony Milbank] who ran a grouse moor – and he served two terms,” said Stuart Housden, director of RSPB Scotland.

read on

Reward Offered for Info in Shooting of Brown Pelican

by Chris Clarke

March 24, 2015 1:30 PM

Someone shot a pelican in Southern California recently, and a bird rehab organization is offering $5,000 for information that leads to the shooter's arrest and conviction.

According to the International Bird Rescue, an injured male brown pelican that could not fly was captured in Redondo Beach March 12. Redondo Beach Animal Control brought the pelican to International Bird Rescue, where staff determined via X-ray that a bullet had shattered its ulna.

International Bird Rescue veterinary staff operated to repair the fracture and clean shrapnel from the wound, but though vets are guardedly optimistic, the bird's survival is by no means certain. Injuring brown pelicans is a violation of the federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act, with fines of up to $2,000 and two years' imprisonment possible for a single offense.

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Wildlife licences: can’t shoot robins, but Egyptian geese are game

Changes spare top birds of Britain and allows trapping and releasing protected species found on farmland

John Vidal

The Guardian, Wednesday 17 September 2014 18.00 BST

Landowners wanting to be allowed to shoot robins, pied wagtails, starlings and other favourite birds seen eating their crops have been rebuffed by the government. But shooters will be able to legally kill or destroy the nests of Egyptian geese and trap and release protected birds like song thrushes, blue tits and dunnocks found foraging in food stores and barns.

Natural England, the government’s wildlife adviser, was swamped by over 2,000 responses from individuals and competing shooting and conservation groups earlier this year when it consulted the public on 46 proposals to change the licences which dertermine what wildlife can be legally controlled. Twenty-five changes were agreed by the board but many others were rejected.

Proposals dismissed included allowing schools to take temporary possession of great crested newts for educational purposes, and taking some species of the crow family off the list of birds that can be legally shot to protect crops and health.

But it was agreed that the jackdaw, jay and collared dove should continue to be killed under “general licences” that prevent agricultural damage. All three species have stable or rising populations, though none has been proven to constitute a threat to farming.

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Bird charity and shooting group clash over changes to law on crop protection

By WMNPBowern | Posted: May 20, 2014

Farmers who shoot pigeons and rooks to protect their crops should be ordered to consider and record alternative means of controlling them before resorting to the gun, the RSPB has told Natural England.

In its response to NE’s consultation over changes to the general licences under which pest bird species can be controlled, the charity also wants anyone who shoots birds to record and report on the numbers culled.

The British Association for Shooting and Conservation yesterday responded to the suggestion by warning that farmers and those who shoot as part of crop protection measures could find themselves “strangled by bureaucracy.”

NE closed the issue to consultation on Monday. A spokesman told the Western Morning News there had been a significant level of response and it would be some months before recommendations for changing the licence were put to Defra for approval.

Graham Madge, spokesman for the RSPB wrote in a blog on the bird charity’s website that they opposed a number of changes put forward as part of NE’s consultation document, including a proposal that the nests of robins, pied wagtails and starlings could be destroyed if they posed a public health risk.

But the response from the RSPB likely to cause the biggest concern among the shooting community and farmers who grow crops vulnerable to bird attack will be on the right way to deal with pigeons, rooks and other pest species.

Mr Madge writes: “The level of killing is unregulated and unrecorded. Natural England are looking to explore a system of reporting and asked for views on whether this should be voluntary or mandatory. Experience suggests that only a compulsory system stands a chance of working.”

Read more:

Peatlands put in peril as demand for grouse shooting takes off

Grouse shooting is ruining the countryside of Northern England and Scotland, as swathes of wildlife-rich upland peatlands are burned to provide the optimum conditions for commercial red grouse, the RSPB has warned.

As much as 77,000 hectares, or 770 square kilometres, of upland peatland has been badly damaged by burning so far, with a marked acceleration in the rate in the past 15 years that looks set to continue as grouse shooting becomes increasingly popular, the RSPB said.

The Pennines, the North York Moors, the Peak District, Dartmoor and the East Highland Glens are the regions most affected by the burning, which has widespread repercussions for local wildlife as well as the fight against climate change and floods. A further 50,000 hectares of this wetland has been drained over the years, in part to help grouse populations, the RSPB adds, pointing out that while this practice is rare nowadays the effects of the drains cut into the hill can last for up to 50 years.

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Reward offered in hunt for killer of rare whooping cranes in Kentucky

By Laura Smith-Spark, CNN

January 16, 2014 -- Updated 1919 GMT (0319 HKT)

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Wildlife officials seek the killers of two rare whooping cranes in Kentucky

The birds are thought to have been shot in the same incident in November

A reward is offered for information leading to those responsible for the crime

Whooping cranes are the most endangered of all of the world's crane species

(CNN) -- The hunt is on for the killers of two extremely rare whooping cranes, shot as they spent the winter in Kentucky.

The birds are thought to have been illegally shot in a single incident in November, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Kentucky Department of Fish & Wildlife Resources said Thursday.

Now a reward is being offered to help track down the killers.

Whooping cranes are the most endangered of all of the world's crane species, according to the release, and are protected under two federal laws.

Fewer than 500 of the long-legged birds live in the wild in the United States. Seven of them were in Kentucky this winter.

The first bird was reported injured on November 25 in Hopkins County, the news release said. Two days later it was rescued because it had become very weak, but its upper leg was shattered and it had to be euthanized.

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Second trumpeter swan dies day before hunters' conviction

CLYDE — A trumpeter swan shot Oct. 12 by hunters at Pickerel Creek Wildlife Area in Sandusky County died overnight Monday at Back to the Wild in Castalia.

The swan was one of three shot by two hunters, both of whom appeared and were convicted, in municipal court in Clyde on Tuesday.

Huron father-son hunters Robert and Mitchell Hagstrom, 54 and 20, respectively, pleaded no contest to shooting a trumpeter swan, a fourth-degree misdemeanor, in Clyde Municipal Court.

A third defendant, Charles Catri, 72, pleaded no contest to shielding and harboring an offender and providing false information.

Catri was given a three-day suspended sentence and fined $283 and must serve 20 hours of community service. His Ohio hunting privileges are suspended for six months, Bury said.

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Police appeal for information after protected hen harrier is shot dead

GRAMPIAN Police are appealing for information after a protected hen harrier was found shot dead on an Aberdeenshire estate last month.

Officers from the force’s Wildlife Crime Unit are investigating the discovery of the remains of the bird of prey by employees on the Fettercairn estate, near Cairn o’Mount, on Saturday, 13 October.

A force spokesman said: “Investigations have established that the bird had been shot and officers are appealing to members of the public who may have been in the area and may have seen something suspicious.

“Gamekeeping staff at Fettercairn Estate have already provided significant assistance to police in their enquiries and continue to work closely in the hope that the offender can be identified and brought to justice.”

Constable Gavin Lindsay, the force’s Wildlife Crime Coordinator, said: “It’s most disappointing someone has taken it upon themselves to kill such a wonderful bird. There are very few Hen Harriers in the north east of Scotland and for someone to have done this to such a rare bird is astounding.

“I appeal to all members of the public who might have seen someone acting suspiciously in the area on or around 13 October or who knows the person responsible for this crime to come forward and notify police to assist with our ongoing investigations.”

Katie Somervell, the owner of the estate, said: “Since its inception in 2006 Fettercairn Estate has been a long term participant in the North East Scotland Raptor Watch project. As such it was particularly distressing to hear that a dead hen harrier was found on the edge of the hill land and I join in the appeal for witnesses to come forward.”

Paul Wheelhouse, Scotland’s Environment Minister, also condemned the illegal killing. He declared: “This is another absolutely deplorable crime involving the shooting of one of our rarest species of raptor and I thank the Estate and Keeper involved for bringing this matter to the attention of the authorities which is in keeping with their positive engagement on wildlife crime issues

“We will not tolerate the illegal persecution of protected species such as the hen harrier and, as I have said recently in relation to another shooting, I am prepared to look at further measures to strengthen and assist enforcement if we continue to see this flouting of the law in respect of protected species.”

http://www.scotsman.com/news/environment/police-appeal-for-information-after-protected-hen-harrier-is-shot-dead-1-2664805