A GAMEKEEPER in Cumbria has admitted illegally slaughtering birds of prey.
Colin Burne, of Winters Park, Penrith, has yesterday pleaded guilty to the intentional killing of buzzards on land managed by a private shooting syndicate in Whinfell Forest, near Penrith.
The 64-year old attended Carlisle Magistrates Court and admitted three charges relating to the killing of two buzzards on February 11, killing five buzzards before that incident possessing a wooden stick as an item capable of being used to kill the birds.
He was given a 70-day jail sentence suspended for 12 months and was told if it was not for ill health the judge would have considered sending him to prison.
On February 11, a cage trap containing live buzzards was found by members of the public on land managed by the shoot.
Cage traps can lawfully be used to control certain crows species, but any non-target species which become accidentally caught, such as buzzards and other birds of prey, must be released unharmed.
The next day the RSPB investigations officers set up a covert camera near the trap site. When the footage was retrieved it showed Burne entering the trap and beating two buzzards to death with a wooden stick.
Bob Elliot, head of RSPB investigations, said: “After we retrieved the footage and played it back, we were surprised at the openness with which Burne had killed the birds. Buzzards were given full legal protection in 1954 – six years after Burne was born – but he calmly dispatched the birds as though it was a routine operation, rather than an illegal act killing a protected species.”
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