Earlier this year one of our regular followers submitted the following question to Natural England regarding the future of the hen harrier in England:
The question was:
What future has the hen harrier in England? As it is now extinct as a breeding bird what does Natural England propose to do or does a review not cover the species is it too controversial due to the complete failure of the past recovery project.
A response from Adrian Jowitt Principle Advisor at Natural England to my question has been enclosed below:
We would welcome comments from our followers, for example does what Natural England propose go far enough? Is there any point in conducting further talks with the shooting fraternity? After all it has now been a decade since these talks were initiated, and the result after hundreds of thousands of pounds of tax payers money spent, we are left with one viable pair of hen harrier in the Lake District National Park.
Adrian Jowitt reply:
Firstly we are aware of rumours that the single Hen Harrier nest in England this year has failed but these have turned out to be incorrect. At the time of writing those overseeing the monitoring of this pair report that the nest is still active and indeed chicks have now been ringed and fitted with satellite tags.
As you will be aware Natural England have worked on Hen Harriers through the Hen Harrier Recovery Project since 2002. The initial findings of this monitoring and research work have been published in a report which is available on our website:
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=natural+england+publications+future+hen+harrier&meta=
Further work will be published in the future as part of an ongoing PhD project. This work has helped to clarify the main factors responsible for the current poor status of the Hen Harrier population, as set out in the report. Work involving the use of radio and satellite tags has demonstrated just how mobile this species is and has shown that it will be necessary to provide favourable conditions for this species over a wide area in order to effectively protect the population. The protection of a small number of isolated sites is unlikely to be sufficient because the birds face threats away from these sites when they are hunting for food or moving between areas used at different times of the year.
Natural England has and continues to monitor the small population in Northern England and study the movements of the remaining birds, we are also committed to the Environment Council dialogue process which involves key stakeholders with an interest in Hen Harriers and grouse shooting and seeks a solution that will allow the current population to increase. Natural England contributes to the Langholm Moor Demonstration Project which seeks to trial potential solutions such as diversionary feeding of Hen harriers during the breeding season. This approach has shown considerable promise in limiting the predation of grouse and so reducing the conflict between Hen Harriers and driven grouse shooting but further research is required.
You specifically asked about what the future for the hen harrier in England was. The elements of the recovery project outlined above have all now started to yield results in terms of the evidence about what is required and possible solutions/ways forward. No one single solution is likely to bring about an upturn in the fortune of Hen Harriers on its own and therefore a recovery plan will need to have a number of different components. This is a very live issue and we are currently working with Defra to agree a plan of action that incorporates some of the outputs from the existing work and looks to take forward some possible solutions. We remain confident that it is possible to put a programme of work into place that can result in positive outcomes for the hen Harrier.
Adrian Jowitt Principle Advisor at Natural England
Bland…
….but there is a wee gem in there:-
“The protection of a small number of isolated sites is unlikely to be sufficient because the birds face threats away from these sites when they are hunting for food or moving between areas used at different times of the year.”
The habitats directive requires that member states set up a network of SPA’s which protect the full range of habitats required to support all stages (of the birds on the Annex 1) are within the sites.
This statement in the letter is a clear admission that the current SPA network is inadequate…we should expect a number of new…very large SPA’s. (They may already overlap with other protected sites) The big problem is that they will need to include winter roost sites and there is a risk that designating these sites may put the roosts at risk (by pointing towards the locations).
Is that the best Natural England can come up with after a 10 year project that has failed. It is also clear that throughout the Natural England Recovery Project, shooting estates had no intention of ever accepting hen harriers on the moorlands they managed. They now have what they wanted all along, to get rid of all harriers!
So go back and ask for statistics fro the harrier pop for the past 10 years. Ask what the objectives of their project actually were (there must have been a project brief). Have they met their objectives?
Ask if they will be expanding the SPA network to cover all of the key areas used by the birds.
Ask them to expand on “seeks a solution that will allow the current population to increase”. The use of the word allow clearly points to a “decision” rather than natural limiting factors.
Oh and ask if they will be reporting the contraction of the breeding range in England as part of the next 6 yearly report.
In my view as the softly softly approach as adopted by Natural England has failed there may now only be one way forward out of the mess we are in, the introduction of a licensing scheme as proposed several years ago by the RSPB. Quotas could then be set for numbers of hen harriers and other threatened raptors which estates would have to comply with. If these conditions were not met or adhered to, shooting could be ended for a pre-determined number of years until the quotas had been met.
It’s also painfully obvious here in the Forest of Bowland the SPA and SSSi moorland designations have been ignored, certainly they have been of little if any benefit to breeding raptors, the hen harrier in particular. Indeed one painful example already highlighted by Raptor Politics has been the total destruction of habitat on the Tarnbrook moor east of Caton and Lancaster. After Natural England granted approval to the landowner allowing the estate to install miles of access tracks crossing the moor’s valuable habitat used by both hen harrier and peregrine was ruined, this resulted in the permanent loss in that region of both species due to NE’s complicity..
The EU directive on the conservation of wild birds is given here http://eur-lex.europa.eu/Result.do?T1=V1&T2=2009&T3=147&RechType=RECH_naturel&Submit=Search
It seems to me that the british government have broken it and need to have their behaviour corrected.
Complete and utter waffle from NE!!
What an absolute load of nonsense once again from this pointless quango that is Natural England. We all know the reasons why there are no Hen Harriers, the man obviously has no back bone and will not stand up and say, it is the shooting fraternity to blame for the demise of this wonderful bird.
If they were a Quango they could take an independant view but they are no longer a Quango, they are a branch of DEFRA. Mainline civil servants doing what the politicians in power tell them to do (although I am fairly certain that most of them are griting their teeth).
I’ll tell him the solution, nail the people who are doing the dameage instead of pussy footing around them letting them get away with a slap on the wrist and a £50 fine!
They can carry out all the surveys/projects they like and sit around tables or on computers thinking up strategies but it doesn’t mean jack if the thing in question is being wiped out while they decide whether to have a custard cream or hobnob!
Editor’s Comment. Jimmi, lets not forget about community service.