Countryside Alliance welcomes Operation Owl

The Countryside Alliance has welcomed Operation Owl, an initiative to reduce the number of illegal attacks on birds of prey that is being rolled out across the country. The initiative sets out to raise awareness of raptor persecution, encouraging the public to be vigilant for signs of this criminal activity, whilst increasing police surveillance checks on known hot-spots in order to disrupt offenders. Originally launched in February 2018 as a joint initiative by North Yorkshire Police, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) and the Royal Society for the Protection of Animals (RSPCA), together with the North York Moors and Yorkshire Dales National Parks, Operation Owl has now launched as a nationwide initiative led by the Chair of the Raptor Persecution Priority Delivery Group in partnership with the North Yorkshire Police Rural Taskforce.

As a member both of the Partnership for Action Against Wildlife Crime, and the Raptor Persecution Priority Delivery Group, the Countryside Alliance is committed to seeing an end to the illegal persecution of birds of prey, and the new website for operationowl.com provides access to detailed information, and resources to support the public in being vigilant for signs of raptor persecution, and reporting anything incidents of concern.