The Truth About Hen Harriers

[@snazzygagagigo524]

As someone who is a fan of the RSPB I am delighted to see this reintroduction programme. It’s great to see gamekeeping and conservation going hand in hand. I wish this project the best of success.

[@leebarker839]

Brilliant film I hope the reintroduction is a success the hen harrier is a beautiful bird definitely be another egg dropped by the RSPB and pakham

[@kevinparker461]

The RSPB are all about money, if the Hen harrier is re introduced they wont be able to keep "Bleating" about persecution by gamekeepers & raising money to stop the persecution that doesn't exist. Packham is also all about the money & he keeps the sympathy going claiming aspergers!!. Even the experts on the condition say even they find it very difficult to tell the difference between aspergers & narcissism!!. and we know what Packham is!!

[@darellkettley6622]

Johnny you get everywhere, great video.👍

[@user-is7ns3if6e]

What a brilliant informative film let's just hope it's a massive success and let's just hope that some non shooting people actually take a look at the information that is spoken about and think wait a minute someone's been telling us porkies all along these figures are a lot different to what they say. As for the RSPB not showing a lot of fondness for the scheme I think it would look very bad on them if it succeeds especially with so many shoots about and with so many people who visit that area they would look damn silly if it showed that keepers and shoots made a better job at conservation than they can.

[@jazinzlaty4823]

Amazing bird

[@davidtaylor8707]

Enjoyed watching excellent video, and come to think of it over the years the only place I have seen hen harriers is on keeperd grouse moors!

[@peregrinepete]

Yeah me too dead

[@gregsifaction]

i love hen harriers

[@darrenbarkham7639]

Great film what can you say about Wild Justice? Nothing positive for sure!

[@joehuggard]

Great film, but I see that you used my clip with the fox being dive bombed by the Hen harrier. If you gave me credit would be good. Thanks.

[@nationalgamekeepersorganis9866]

Apologies, we have credited you in the description. Great footage.

[@shinywarm6906]

This relocation programme has cost about £1m so far and it's telling that neither Natural England nor this video is unable to report any success to date. A baseline review published in the highly prestigious "Nature Communications" showed that 72% of satellite-tagged hen harriers were confirmed or considered likely to have been illegally killed, and this was ten times more likely to occur over areas of land managed for grouse shooting. It was widely hoped that in return for this relocation programme, shooters would ease off on persecution in the uplands. Natural England even signed an agreement with the BASC (a shooters organisation) such that in return for a donation of £75k, "both parties shall ensure that communications ...contain no derogatory remarks about the other party or the Programme." Since then, the list of tagged Harriers which have disappeared" continues to grow. The Raptor Persecution UK blog lists 98 harriers confirmed ‘missing’ or illegally killed in UK since 2018, most of them on or close to grouse moors.

[@nationalgamekeepersorganis9866]

The project has only just this year managed to get the breeding birds because of blocks. So stage one is now successful, costs always will escalate when there are delays that are outside of the projects control. All reports with the word suspected in are simply conjecture with no evidence. A report without evidence is simply an opinion

[@shinywarm6906]

@@nationalgamekeepersorganis9866 thanks. In fact , the only unsubstantiated allegation here is that of the presenter, when he alleges that the RSPB's opposition is motivated by fundraising concerns - even though he offers zero evidence for this, and the claim itself makes no sense even in its own terms. Meanwhile, the word "suspected" is not used in the study I cited. Instead, they report , "high rates of unexpected tag failure and low first year survival [on land managed for grouse shooting] compared to other harrier populations. The likelihood of harriers dying or disappearing increased as their use of grouse moors increased. Similarly, at the landscape scale, satellite fixes from the last week of life were distributed *disproportionately* on grouse moors in comparison to the overall use of such areas...We conclude that hen harriers in Britain suffer elevated levels of mortality on grouse moors, which is most likely the result of illegal killing." The study substantiates likely causes of death by autopsy whenever corpses could be recovered. As for this intiative, even the keeper admits he's "very dubious" about the likelihood that harriers would become breeders at the trial site. When we know that harriers are being persecuted in their preferred breeding sites, it's hardly surprising that bodies established to protect nature - rather than to protect the shooting industry - have opposed this scheme.

[@jonathanhall4662]

Shooting propaganda.

[@petergardner2334]

rspb has got to big

[@leebarker839]

Brilliant film I hope the reintroduction is a success the hen harrier is a beautiful bird definitely be another egg dropped by the RSPB and pakham