Flying high

AFTER promising results, the brood-management scheme currently being trialled in the North of England to help restore hen harriers has secured a Defra licence for the fifth consecutive year. Part of the Hen Harrier Action Plan, the scheme, which is triggered if there are two active nests within 6.2 miles of each other, consists of collecting eggs or chicks, rearing them in a dedicated raptor facility, then releasing the fledged birds into a suitable area. Although only five broods have been managed this way since the scheme began, it has helped change attitudes towards hen harriers by reducing their impact on birds such as red grouse, curlew or lapwings. As a result, fledglings’ numbers have consistently increased, rising from the 51 recorded in the five years before the scheme’s introduction, to 224 between 2018 and 2021, including some from birds that had previously been brood managed.

‘The trial of the brood-management scheme has exceeded all expectations,’ says Amanda Anderson of the Moorland Association. ‘The fact that broodmanaged birds have gone on to reach maturity in the wild in their first year and breed successfully is a historic moment and shows excellent progress towards a sustainable population in

England. The trial has created a blueprint for sustainable upland management.’

However, the scheme has proved contentious, with the RSPB voicing opposition to it. ‘We firmly believe the first step in hen-harrier recovery should be the end of illegal persecution, as the evidence is clear that this is the main reason driving the decline of this bird of prey,’ says the charity’s Katie-jo Luxton. ‘Fundamentally, brood management is about forcing hen harriers to fit in with driven-grouse shooting. That’s starting in entirely the wrong place: driven-grouse shooting should instead fit around the recovery of hen harriers.’

Miss Anderson acknowledges that ‘the trial would always have been controversial to a certain extent, as it represents an intervention in a natural process’. However, she hopes the RSPB will have a change of heart: ‘It is one of many such entirely pragmatic interventions in the UK and Europe that have proven to be successful for the species involved, including harriers. We hope that RSPB will eventually join forces with us to roll out the scheme.’