Raptor Politics

FTAO Lancashire’s Wildlife CRIME Officer:

This year has seen an increase in numbers of Peregrine Falcon nesting sites plundered, resulting in complete clutches of eggs and young birds lost from both the Forest of Bowland and in East Lancashire. Earlier in June you were notified of the disappearance of 4 Peregrine chicks from a nesting [...]

Following Natural England’s decision to with draw funding for their controversial reintroduction of the White-tailed Eagle into East Anglia, a leading Cumbrian conservationist has now spoken out about his dream to bring back this iconic raptor to Cumbria. Mr John Miles, former warden on the RSPB Geltsdale Nature Reserve, has always maintained the landmark scheme [...]

Crofters who claimed that white-tailed eagles had killed upwards of two hundred lambs on their hillfarms in the West Highlands of Scotland are to be given conservation grants of up to £1,500 to prevent a wider revolt against the reintroduction of  birds of prey.

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For foreign readers of these entries, the repeated references to the Forest of Bowland,Lancashire England, Hen Harriers, government institutions, conservation charities and the like must, at times, fill them with confusion. Repeated rhetoric and calls for action must, inevitably, generate questions as to what actually is going on in this location, all of which is [...]

The images used to illustrate this article are very graphic and may upset many readers of this web site. We would like to point out, however, that the images – as upsetting as they may be – were not taken in Malta but on a grouse moor owned by United Utilities in Lancashire’s Forest of [...]