I've just completed an Email conversation with the RSPB's Skydancer Engagement Officer about why the RSPB is not supporting the E-petition.
See what you make of it but my interpretation is this;
The RSPB will not support any E-petitions as;
a) it thinks grouse-shooting is the correct method of upland management
b) it might lose a bit of funding from the lottery for appearing too political
c) no one has heard of Hen Harrier's so there is no point
d) it thinks its membership is too stupid to understand the idea of professional licensing or vicarious liability.
Its all a bit long-winded but here is the conversation in full
First email;
Dear Jim,
Thank you for your enquiry about the RSPB’s work on hen harriers:
With the recent extinction of Hen Harrier as a breeding bird in England could you tell me if the RSPB (as a whole rather then just its obviously dedicated investigations unit) is now going to take any serious action to protect the species and get in reestablished? For example will the RSPB back and promote the E-petition demanding licensing of gamekeepers by advertising it in Birds magazine and on the website? If not why not? Do you have a realistic alternative plan? I believe that the single most important thing the RSPB can do is work to stop extinctions, in this case something that it has clearly failed at, so is the organisation now prepared to take a serious stance on this issue?
The RSPB takes the current situation with hen harriers in England incredibly seriously. I agree that working to prevent extinctions is, and must be, a core part of our role and in the case of the hen harrier we’re taking a strategy of “kitchen sink conservation” – throwing everything we have at it. The fight to save hen harriers touches on just about every area of our work and I’ll do my best to lay as much of it out for you here as I can.
Protecting nests
· Through our Skydancer project, we employ four seasonal staff every year (two at Geltsdale and one each in Bowland and North Tynedale) explicitly to monitor hen harriers and work with local volunteers and raptor workers to seek out and protect any potential hen harrier nests, wherever they may be.
· We also widely promote and run the Hen Harrier Hotline on a 24/7 basis whereby all hen harrier sightings are collated into a central, restricted-access database to help build up a picture of where these birds are. In the breeding season particularly, any sightings are instantly fed back to our investigations team and working closely with the Northern England Raptor Forum (NERF) and Natural England, we have a system of dedicated staff and volunteers in place who aim to follow up any sightings on the ground within 24 hours.
· Should a nest be located anywhere in England, we have the funding and resources in place through Skydancer to establish a 24/7 programme of nest protection, following strict protocols and including round-the-clock surveillance, CCTV cameras, night-vision goggles and the latest technology.
· This was brought into action when a nest was discovered in Northumberland this year. Sadly despite our best efforts, the two eggs never hatched. We believe this to be a natural failure most likely due to the youth and inexperience of the female who was only a second calendar year bird. You can read more about our work to protect this nest here.
Tackling wildlife crime
· You’re clearly already aware of the dedicated and difficult work of our Investigations Team. We’re constantly trying to improve and enhance their capabilities with the latest technology and a targeted fundraising campaign to support their work last year also served as an awareness-raising campaign for hen harriers, with a direct mail-shot to supporters highlighting their plight.
· Our Investigations Team have recently also been trained in the use of satellite tags for hen harriers. We hope to increase the number of birds being tagged and the team will be working closely with Natural England to maximise the use of this technology to proactively and covertly tackle wildlife crime.
· As part of the Law Commission Review of wildlife legislation in England and Wales last autumn, RSPB campaigned strongly to secure increased funding and continued support for the National Wildlife Crime Unit. This has been granted in the short-term but we are still pushing for longer-term guarantees.
Lobbying for stronger laws & harsher penalties
· Our response to the Law Commission Review went much further and you can download our full response to the consultation from here. Some of the key points which our National Policy and Advocacy Team are still lobbying for include the introduction of an offence of Vicarious Liability and a system of regulation for grouse moors (as in the online petition). These were most recently reiterated on Martin Harper’s blog here.
Finding practical solutions
· I’m sure you’re well aware of our involvement in the ongoing Langholm Moor Demonstration project, which is now in its 7th year. This study has shown that diversionary feeding is incredibly effective at reducing the harrier-grouse conflict and we are now strongly advocating that this technique be adopted by more estates. Had the Northumberland eggs hatched this year, the local landowner and gamekeeper had agreed to take up diversionary feeding, as had United Utilities if there’d been a nest on their estate in Bowland. The more we can demonstrate that this is a readily available and legal solution that works, the more likely that other estates will take it up.
· Earlier this year, DEFRA established the Hen Harrier Sub-group, tasked with establishing a comprehensive emergency recovery plan for hen harriers in England. RSPB is an active contributor to this group, alongside Natural England, GWCT and others and the results are due to be published sometime this autumn.
Changing attitudes on the ground
· RSPB has been working for years with the heads of various organisations and government officials to find a solution to the hen harrier-grouse conflict. However it became apparent that if we want to truly secure a future for hen harriers in England, we also need to be working with people on the ground in the areas where these birds should be, changing attitudes and challenging perceptions about hen harriers and grouse shooting. Skydancer is a four-year project funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund, United Utilities and supported by the Forestry Commission, created to do just that. We are now just about at the halfway point of this project and some of the work we’ve been doing includes:
· Building relationships and running workshops with gamekeeping colleges such as Askham Bryan, Newton Rigg and Myerscough to change the attitudes of their students and instil in them a moral responsibility to act as custodians of all wildlife including birds of prey. You can read more about this work here.
· Talks to key local groups in hen harrier areas ranging from bird clubs to WI groups. With the latter particularly, many of the women I have delivered talks to are very influential in the local community and some have husbands or family members who are gamekeepers. To date we have delivered talks to almost 1,000 people.
· We have also been delivering a targeted programme of primary and secondary school visits in key hen harrier areas and many of the children who we work with have families involved in the local shooting communities, parents who shoot, and in some cases, gamekeeper fathers.
· More direct work has included running a demonstration day on the UU estate in Bowland last year, where keepers and managers from local shooting estates, as well as representatives from the AONB and local Councils, were invited together to discuss moorland management for hen harriers and see a demonstration of diversionary feeding led by staff from Langholm Moor. Another similar event is planned at Geltsdale targeting key estates and organisations in the North Pennines and Northumberland.
Raising awareness
· In addition to all of the above, a big part of our work is in simply raising awareness. A public consultation at the start of the Skydancer project revealed that the vast majority of the general public have never even heard of hen harriers, let alone that they are in trouble. Unlike buzzards, red kites and kestrels, hen harriers and their moorland habitat exist in remote and often inaccessible locations. People care about what they can see or experience for themselves and we’re working hard to convey the beauty of these birds and the tragedy of their loss. As well as the community talks and education work, we also run guided moorland walks, attend events like County Shows and Game Fairs, run a blog and a Twitter account, and have created information leaflets, issued press releases and put on specific awareness-raising events like the Hen Harrier Carnival.
I hope you’ll see from all of the above that rather than taking the hen harrier issue lightly, we’re doing everything in our power to tackle it from every conceivable angle. That said, saving hen harriers is not a job for the RSPB alone and we need everyone who cares about them – individuals and organisations to work together and play a part.
You asked specifically about the recent e-petition and the answer is that we welcome it as yet another way to put pressure on the government and highlight this as an important issue that people care about. Despite all of the above, the RSPB is just one organisation and we cannot turn things around on our own. We need everyone who cares about hen harriers to be shouting about this right now.
While e-petitions can be a good way to raise awareness, they very rarely achieve their objective on their own merit. In the first year of the e-petition site being launched, only 10 out of 36,000 petitions reached the 100,000 mark (see here). Experience has shown that printing a link in a high-circulation magazine is unlikely to translate into a similar volume of hits on a website. The RSPB’s own Bird of Prey Campaign generated around 350,000 signatures but only through hard on the ground lobbying and collecting written signatures on specially printed pamphlets at reserves and events over a period of about two years and with significant monetary investment.
What the e-petition does achieve, regardless of whether or not it’s successful, is a physical representation of public opinion and in that context, even 5,000, 10,000, or 20,000 signatures is still hugely positive. We will gladly draw people’s attention to the petition through appropriate tweets and blogs but I hope you now understand why we won’t be advertising it in Birds.
Unfortunately as regards the Skydancer project, the Heritage Lottery Fund have it written in their constitution that none of their money can be spent on anything that could be interpreted as political lobbying. As HLF fund 50% of all Skydancer work, if we were to promote e-petitions through the project, we could have this funding revoked. Frustrating at times but we are grateful to have the funding and will have to concentrate on other ways of raising awareness.
On a personal note, I have already signed the petition and am actively promoting it through my personal Facebook and Twitter pages.
I hope I’ve answered your questions here but if you have any further concerns, please don’t hesitate to contact me directly.
Kind regards,
Blánaid
