OUTRAGE from UK's top shooters after ROGUE gunmen kill one of England's rarest birds

ROGUE gunmen killing England’s rarest birds of prey over grouse moors have caused outrage among the country’s top shooters.

By STUART WINTER

PUBLISHED: 17:45, Wed, Mar 20, 2019 | UPDATED: 19:06, Wed, Mar 20, 2019

Hen harriers: RSPB warns of threat of hunting to birds of prey

Academic proof that hen harriers are being illegally slaughtered has seen the country’s leading shooting organisation warn how the killings are causing “terminal damage” to the sport. A ten-year study tracking 58 satellite-tagged harriers that vanished mysteriously has concluded almost three quarters were either confirmed or highly likely to have been destroyed illegally. As the study was published this week, the British Association for Shooting and Conservation warned: “the criminals are wrecking shooting”.

The plight of the hen harrier on moors managed for grouse shooting has become one of conservation’s most controversial issues.

Harriers, known as sky dancers because of their flamboyant breeding display flights, are blamed for taking young red grouse and posing a serious threat to a countryside tradition that has become big business and starts with a bang on the Glorious Twelth of August.

Prestigious "driven shoots" can cost up to £15,000 a day for a party of eight guns, with a brace of grouse costing a shooter more than £140 to bag although they only fetch around £4 from game dealers for the table.

With far fewer legally protected harriers nesting on English uplands than conservationists believe the landscapes should be supporting, illegal persecution to protect game birds has long been suspected. 

By analysing a tracking study from the Government’s wildlife agency, Natural England, along with data supplied by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, researchers from the University of Aberdeen and the University of Cape Town found direct evidence of four tagged harriers being illegally killed while another 38 disappeared in a way that makes them believe they were also illegally slaughtered.

The findings prompted a stern response from BASC.

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Concern mounting for missing rare owl from North Yorkshire

AN owl sanctuary owner has issued an urgent appeal for help after two rare birds of prey escaped during a storm.

Rose Dawson said Canadian great horned owls Bramble and Briar, which stand at about 2ft tall and have wing spans of more than 4ft, flew off after a tree branch crashed onto an aviary overnight on Wednesday, October 9.

Mrs Dawson has run a private sanctuary at Long Acre, Sowerby, since being approached by vet Donald Sinclair, who was portrayed in the James Herriot books as Siegfried Farnon, with an injured barn owl 26 years ago.

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Concerns on risk to birds of prey over turbine plan

Red kites and other rare birds of prey would be at risk from big new wind turbines proposed for a zoo near Huntingdon, a conservation organisation has warned.

An objection to the scheme at Hamerton Zoo Park by a member of the British and Irish Red Kite Co-ordination Group said the birds would “undoubtedly” be at risk.

The zoo wants to install two new turbines standing almost double the height at 150ft as its current turbines.

People living near the zoo are also objecting to the scheme because they believe it would have a major impact on the small rural community.

Members of Huntingdonshire District Council’s development management panel came close to refusing the turbine plan at their meeting in August, but decided to defer their decision until after making a site visit and gathering further information.

Planners at the council are standing by their original recommendation that the bigger turbines should be approved. They believe the scheme would not have a major impact.

Cllr Doug Dew, panel chairman, said they would have to agree plausible reasons for rejecting the application and that the site visit would take in similarly-sized turbines elsewhere so councillors could make a comparison.

He said: “We have to find positive reasons for saying no which stand up. If we do that would be brilliant.”

Continued:  http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/Huntingdon-St-Ives-St-Neots/Concerns-on-risk-to-birds-of-prey-over-turbine-plan-11102012.htm