The RSPB has today (23 October 2024) published its 2023 Birdcrime report, which provides a summary of instances of raptor persecution in the UK in 2023. The report lists 59 persecution incidents for the year 2023, two fewer than was reported for 2022 in that year’s report. However the RSPB has also revised down their figure for 2022 from 61 in the 2022 version to 57 in the 2023 Birdcrime report. The 2023 figure is also almost 30% lower than the previous 10-year average.
Just like the previous year’s Birdcrime report, which dismissed a year-on-year 34% drop in persecution incidents but still focussed on the single year figure, the 2023 report does not consider that 2023 saw 30% fewer incidents than the 10-year average. Instead, the 2023 report regards only the 15-year cumulative figures, in order to create support for their targeted attack on game shooting.
The Countryside Alliance agrees with the RSPB in condemning all instances of raptor persecution. However, it is disappointing that the RSPB continues to fail to recognise another year of lower numbers of persecution instances. The RSPB chief executive, Beccy Speight, describes raptor persecution in the 2023 report as “relentless”, however, falling numbers shown in the graph below indicate that instances in fact are relenting.
It is also disappointing that the RSPB again calls for sweeping and restrictive changes to game shooting legislation in response to these statistics, despite the proven conservation, community and economic benefits of shooting and its associated land management practices. The Hen Harrier Brood Management scheme is one such success story, thanks in no small part to the hard work of moorland managers. Hen harrier breeding success for the same 10-year period is shown in the below chart, and in spite of the clear good news from the scheme, the RSPB continues to be unsupportive of the Brood Management scheme, and also prevented the reintroduction of hen harriers in the South of England in 2020. It should also be pointed out that consistently poor weather in 2024 resulted in lower breeding success in hen harriers, along with other species of ground nesting birds, than in previous years.
The illegality of killing, injuring or taking any bird of prey in the UK is prescribed by several pieces of existing legislation. Anyone conducting raptor persecution is committing a criminal offence and is liable for prosecution. As in all walks of life, a tiny minority of rogue individuals break laws which already exist, and the licensing of a pastime and livelihood is unlikely to change that. The shooting community contributes conservation work to the value of £500m per annum, equivalent to 26,000 full-time jobs, to suggest that introducing increased restrictions on shooting will benefit conservation efforts would appear to be somewhat short-sighted.