Campaign against plan to remove
chicks from their nests and rear them in captivity raises £25,000 in four days
Mon 16 Apr 2018 06.01 BST
A controversial plan to remove
the chicks of endangered birds from their nests and rear them in captivity
could be challenged in the high court after a crowdfunded campaign raised
£25,000 in four days.
Wildlife campaigner and
author Mark
Avery is leading an application for a judicial review of the hen
harrier “brood management” plan, in which chicks will be raised
in captivity and released into the wild.
Conservationists blame the grouse
moor industry for the virtual absence of hen harriers from uplands in England –
there were four nests in 2016 – which government scientists calculated would
naturally support more than 300 pairs of the bird.
The Department for Environment,
Food and Rural Affairs plan, which is licensed
by Natural England, the government’s wildlife watchdog, is designed
to stop the illegal persecution of the legally protected bird of prey but critics
say it
instead rewards the owners of grouse moors. Removing the chicks from moorland
prevents the parent birds from predating so many of the red grouse which
generate a lucrative grouse-shooting business.
“It’s difficult to see how hen
harriers benefit from this plan,” said Avery. “They are taken into captivity
and released back into the places from which they are taken, where they will be
killed in the way that they would have been if they hadn’t been taken into
captivity.
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