Wildlife Crime Officer claims no persecution of Harriers on his Watch?

[Fracster]

Originally Posted by Jonathan

What an odd situation! As I understand it - and please correct me if I'm wrong - the PC in question is a shooting man himself? Relations between the long dog fraternity and shooters is generally bad at best! I don't understand why someone who is biased towards shooting, as inferred in the raptorpolitics website, would not want those guilty of coursing deer with lurchers prosecuted.

I take it you have first-hand experience of all the misdemeanours that are being thrown at PC Thomas?

Jonathan

Some of them,Yes, I have.

No, I will not discuss them on here.

[The Woodman]

I've just come across this statement from the Non Native Species Report, "In 2007, the remains of two hen harriers and a buzzard were discovered at the nest of the breeding pair in Bowland Fells, Lancashire."

I don't think it would take long for these newcomers to the area to make inroads into the HH population.

[fairplay]

Originally Posted by Nightranger

Sadly, this is true and responses differ from force to force and officer to officer. For example, Kent does not have a specific WCO scheme although I read recently that this was because they do not view wildlife crime any differently than any other crime rather than it being through a lack of interest/priority. At the other end of the spectrum you have the excellent work of Norfolk police in presenting a case to the CPS following the shooting of two harriers at Dersingham Bog/Sandringham. It was almost certain that the CPS would throw out the case but Norfolk police deserve a tremendous amount of praise because it was inevitable all would (and did) break loose when it was realised who was potentially present at the time. I still think it is sad that the police's efforts were lost in the uproar that followed and the various conspiracy theories that started.

Does anybody know what the present situation is now regarding the excellent work the police did in this case - has the government ordered the Norfolk Constabulary to 'back off' ?

Neil.

[The Woodman]

Doesn't the decision to prosecute rest with the CPS?

Nobody in the public domain should know what evidence the police have gathered until the trial if held and not abandoned "because it was not in the public interest".

Some questions might be answered by the content of this link

http://www.cps.gov.uk/publications/c.../codetest.html

[terry Pickford]

Originally Posted by silent flight

If it was not for the RSPB and UU there would be no Harriers in bowland. PC duncan Thomas as an exellent working relationship with these organisations, and has to be fair to all parties including the landowners and their keepers. To keep targeting him for everything that goes wrong in Bowland is wrong, he has had success which nobody heres about on raptor politics. Anyone who has read the raptor politics site will realise that it just one sided. that has to be because any arguments are being blocked, otherwise it would be the same on this site. what is the point of a site where we get only one view. To even think about trying to destroy the economy of bowland tells me that the person who's idea it was does not know Bowland. Its laughable

There has never been any attempt by raptor politics to block anyone from adding their view to the site. The only thing that is not allowed is bad language which is blocked for obvious reasons. Indeed the site states it welcomes both sides of any arguement. The above quote "that had it not been for the RSPB there would be no Harriers in Bowland" is also missleading. In the early 1970's members of the North West Raptor Group first alerted the RSPB to the fact that raptor persecution, particulary Hen Harrier, was widespread throughout the whole of the region. Initially due to a lack of interest from the RSPB, it was only following media publicity initiated by the NWRG that finally pushed the Society into taking action.Today the Harrier is once again on the brink of extinction, what is being done, very little we are sorry to say, except thanking gamekeepers for all their hard work to conserve the few harriers remaining.

It is obvious that the person who submitted the comments above has not taken the time to read the full content of the raptor politics web site.

[silent flight]

No Terry, I said if it was not for the RSPB which relates to the present, not, had it not been for the RSPB which relates to the past. No one is saying that the raptor group have had no input into raptor protection in Bowland over the years and you probably started out with all the best intentions but I feel you have lost your way over the years.
It has become a power thing now and the birds are just a vehicle for this power. Every nest failure is not down to persecution and gamekeepers. Merlin’s had a poor season in 2008 due to weather conditions and then had a good season this, so why can’t this be the same with Harriers, (and I am referring to this year here) not in general. They do rely on voles especially early in the season and it was a total crash this year for the vole population. I am not saying there isn’t a problem with persecution of harriers in parts of Bowland but I think it is unfair to point the finger at people on the UU estate without proper foolproof evidence. If I thought you were right on this matter I would back you 100% but it’s a dangerous game to accuse without proper evidence. It is not getting you anywhere accusing people and falling out with everyone, people get fed up with it. As for the raptor politics site; I have read it well and if you say you are not blocking comments then I will have to accept this but what I will say is that many things that have been written on it are out of order. The Eagle Owl fiasco section is just that, a fiasco. The Owl did not desert because of anything the police did and I believe you know that and if you don’t then you are not as informed as you like to think you are.

[Sentinel]

What a breath of fresh air from 'silent flight!' Having been blocked from posting my observations and comments (no swear words) on the raptor politics web site, I welcome this opportunity to hopefully try to set peoples minds at rest.
Firstly, anyone who knows anything at all about raptors can't fail to notice the one-sided arguments put forward by the raptor politics website. The site contains inaccuracies with regard to facts supplied to the site by so called 'experts' (sic!), is full of innuendo, and has attacked all the organisations who put the welfare of the raptors of Bowland first and foremost and do not use them as political footballs!
It appears that most of the comments on that site are from people that dont even have any input in Bowland.....how can they comment?
There have been several allegations on the raptor politics site about human persecution of raptors in Bowland this year......think about it.........allegations, thats all, and all of them unfounded!

[Nightranger]

Originally Posted by fairplay

Does anybody know what the present situation is now regarding the excellent work the police did in this case - has the government ordered the Norfolk Constabulary to 'back off' ?

Neil.

It would be difficult to prove anything conclusively but the CPS threw the case it out relatively quickly because there was no hard evidence (harrier carcases, in particular) I doubt there was any chance for interferece. Given all that was said my theory is that Norfolk police actually presented the case (not prosecuted, as Woodman says, the CPS do that) knowing it would reach the wider world. I did not have access to the full details of what happened (and I never asked) so I cannot even speculate if something happened to annoy the local police into taking such a step or whether the case was presented on the insistence of another body (the NT and RSPB were involved at some level but you will have to do your own homework to figure out the details). Nevertheless, other police forces have shown much less willingness to even go this far - even when the case had much more going for it so I still think Norfolk police should stand proud in our assessment of a subject like this.

[Nightranger]

Originally Posted by silent flight

Every nest failure is not down to persecution and gamekeepers. Merlin’s had a poor season in 2008 due to weather conditions and then had a good season this, so why can’t this be the same with Harriers, (and I am referring to this year here) not in general. They do rely on voles especially early in the season and it was a total crash this year for the vole population.

I am not sure about the merlin population but I had heard that the problem lay with the wet summer of 2008. Hen harriers are notoriously sensitive at the nest so a deserted nest [of eggs] that has been disturbed (as opposed to destroyed) is difficult to determine after it has happened. Disturbance could mean anything from a nest being kicked to a walker being unintentionally careless but it all adds up to the same thing. However, death of young in the nest is less likely to be through disturbance because the adults tend not be disturbedquite so easily when they have invested some time in youngsters (especially for a single brooded species). Sadly, there were enough cases of the latter to suggest this was a difficult year to begin with and the cause harks back to last year rather than necessarily any conspiracy theory about what happened this year.

One thing I would say is that there are people working hard to save these birds and idle speculation that has no proof does not help. It is like the boy that cried 'wolf' - we have claims of persecution every year whether it is reality or not and this helps dilute the message about how sensitive these birds are during adverse conditions. Apex predators are often the harbingers of problems lower down the food chain and who is going to listen if the message is muddled through needless accusations? No one is saying persecution is not happening but it has to be clear what incident relates to what cause - and now more than ever.

[silent flight]

Well put nightranger