{"id":1648,"date":"2012-05-30T10:12:17","date_gmt":"2012-05-30T09:12:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/?p=1648"},"modified":"2012-05-31T05:09:01","modified_gmt":"2012-05-31T04:09:01","slug":"beyond-belief","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/birdwatching\/beyond-belief","title":{"rendered":"Beyond belief"},"content":{"rendered":"

Earlier this year I blogged<\/a> about a North Pennines<\/a> trip on which we found a pair of H<\/strong><\/em>en Harriers<\/em>, <\/strong>a species that is very close to the hearts of both owners of NEWT as we spent a lot of time monitoring a nest site in North Tynedale from 2006-2008 (and since then, even though there hasn’t been a subsequent successful nesting attempt at the site).\u00a0 During the three years where we had successful nesting attempts, that one site and the surrounding area had an\u00a0adult female shot, an incubating adult female ‘abandoned’ a nest overnight, a\u00a0nest was robbed, unleashed dogs were allowed to run straight through a nest site, a number of empty nests were located.\u00a0 And that’s just the persecution\/disturbance that we know about.<\/p>\n

The sighting in the North Pennines was astonishing, as the area where the birds were is a heartland of illegal raptor persecution.\u00a0 First the female, and then the ghostly, sublimely beautiful, male dropped down into the heather close to a small burn.\u00a0 After a brief discussion with our clients on the day, a ‘phone call was made to alert a local raptor worker, with vast experience of monitoring harrier nests.\u00a0 He was astonished too, and couldn’t remember how long it was since a potential breeding pair had been recorded in that area.\u00a0 24hrs later there was no sign of either bird at the site, and the breeding attempt had presumably gone the same way as so many others.\u00a0 Now we’re in a position where there is only one nesting\u00a0pair in England<\/a>, and the main contributory factor in that is illegal persecution.<\/p>\n

Yet, with illegal persecution still rife and affecting many birds of prey, DEFRA commissioned, and\u00a0has now thankfully scrapped<\/a>,\u00a0a study into the effect of Common Buzzard<\/strong><\/em> predation on Common Pheasant<\/strong><\/em> populations.\u00a0 Methods proposed included destroying nests and capturing Common Buzzards<\/strong><\/em> and taking them into captivity for falconry.\u00a0 That’s right, \u00a3375,000 of taxpayer’s money was going to be spent deliberately suppressing the population of a native species, that is still recovering after centuries of persecution, in order to protect a non-native, artificially reared and introduced gamebird.\u00a0 You couldn’t make it up, it’s so far-fetched and ridiculous.\u00a0 This\u00a0would have\u00a0just been the thin end of a very big wedge though.\u00a0 Sparrowhawks<\/strong><\/em> next? then Peregrines<\/strong><\/em> and all of our rarer raptors?<\/p>\n

What’s really needed is the full force of the law to be brought to bear on those individuals, and estates, that persist in the barbaric, outdated, illegal practice of raptor persecution.\u00a0 Perhaps DEFRA could fund a study into what happens if raptor populations are left unhindered?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Earlier this year I blogged about a North Pennines trip on which we found a pair of Hen Harriers, a species that is very close to the hearts of both owners of NEWT as we spent a lot of time monitoring a nest site in North Tynedale from 2006-2008 (and since then, even though there […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,36,12,5],"tags":[148,839,425],"class_list":["post-1648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birdwatching","category-hen-harrier","category-pennines","category-northumberland","tag-common-buzzard","tag-hen-harrier","tag-raptor-persecution"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1648","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1648"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1648\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1651,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1648\/revisions\/1651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernexperiencewildlifetours.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}