LIFT-OFF FOR HEN HARRIER RECOVERY PLAN
MOST WILDLIFE GROUPS ARE SUPPORTING A NEW SIX-PRONGED PLAN TO SAVE ENGLAND’S HEN HARRIERS, BUT DOUBTS REMAIN AS TO WHETHER IT CAN SUCCEED. REPORTS.
e would love every child in England to think that they have a good chance of seeing a hen harrier in the wild,” says RSPB conservation director Martin Harper. With only six pairs nesting in England last year, that clearly isn’t the case at the moment, but the publication of the long-awaited action plan has raised hopes that the species’ seemingly terminal decline can be reversed.
“If we can meet Special Protection Area (SPA) targets, get up to 70 pairs in the uplands and get some coverage in the southern lowlands, that would be fantastic progress,” Harper says. The SPA figures he refers to are for the Bowland Fells in Lancashire and the North Pennine Moors – the Joint
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BBC Wildlife Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC) has previously said that these two areas ought to have room for 25 pairs.
Those birds are not there – or elsewhere in England – largely because of persecution. Hen harriers are illegally killed on grouse moors because, during the breeding season, they take grouse chicks, and this reduces numbers available for shoots.
The problem is not that anyone disagrees with this assessment – it’s what can be done about it.
“Persecution should not happen, but the reality is that people have been trying to stop it for years and it still is,” says Adrian Jowitt, principle adviser to Natural England.
“You are dealing with mass areas of moorland, and it’s probably just a few people involved. Society has to make choices about where it spends its money. Can you really ask the police to put more resources into the uplands, and take them away from urban areas?”
So, as well as highlighting the importance of building up intelligence o on where hen harriers are per secuted and protecting birds s both in their breeding groun ds and at winter roost s sites, the action plan a also includes propos sals to develop and t trial a so-called ‘broo od management’ sc cheme.
Where hen ha arriers reach a yet-to-be-agreed nesting density, grouse-moor workers would be licensed to take chicks away from the nest, rear them in captivity and then release fledged birds back into the wild. The idea would be to alleviate the predation pressure on grouse chicks because hen harriers wouldn’t be feeding their young, and so in turn reduce persecution. “We need to unlock this conflict between driven grouse moors and conservation, rather than have one at the exclusion of the other,” explains Andrew Gilruth of the