From Science to Spin: How The RSPB is Losing Credibility on Hen Harriers

The RSPB’s latest missive, “Hen Harriers in the Firing Line – 2025”, has all the hallmarks of a tired detective novel: confident conclusions, convenient villains and crucial evidence that always seems to vanish. If this is the best the RSPB Investigations Team can produce after twenty-five years, one might wonder whether they’re running out of actual crime - or just determined to keep the story alive regardless of the facts.

Tagging trouble: when ‘missing’ means ‘murder

The centerpiece of the report rests on satellite-tagging data. 94 tagged birds “confirmed or suspected” persecuted between 2020 and 2024, a phrase so flexible it might as well say “we don’t really know.” The RSPB assures us this is just “the tip of the iceberg,” conveniently invoking invisible crimes to inflate its narrative.

Even Natural England, who run the government’s tagging effort, politely cautions that missing tags don’t necessarily mean foul play. It could be natural death, a tag failure, or an unfortunate collision with bad luck.

But the RSPB takes every unexplained disappearance on grouse moorland and throws it onto the “persecution” pile, bypassing even basic scientific prudence. This kind of analysis sounds less like ecology and more like conspiracy theory: “if we can’t find evidence, it must have been destroyed!”

What the report doesn’t mention is that, even well away from grouse moors, juvenile harrier mortality has always been high. For example, a study on Orkney (page 352) found that about three-quarters of hen harriers die in their first year. But on the UK mainland, every vanishing bird is now “suspicious.” Really?

Grouse moors: apparently guilty for having birds

According to the RSPB, the fact that most tag disappearances occur on grouse moors proves guilt. But Natural England data shows grouse moors host 80% of England’s Hen Harrier nests - despite comprising only 50% of suitable upland habitat. Put simply: the birds are there because the habitat is better managed. Of course, more interactions, positive and negative, will happen where the birds actually live.

In contrast, the Republic of Ireland has suffered a 30% drop in hen harrier numbers - and you can’t blame driven grouse shooting for that. Nor does the RSPB try. Instead, they gloss over all inconvenient facts that don’t fit the RSPB story.

Inflated incidents, ignored increases

The RSPB presents a record 34 suspected persecution cases in 2023, as if this means things are getting worse. What they don’t mention is that 2023 also had a record number of breeding harriers in England. Of course there are more incidents - there are more birds! Natural England has even said that survival rates are improving.

But nuance gets in the way of headlines, so the report avoids it. Instead, it treats every case, no matter how circumstantial, as proof of illegal activity. The word “alleged” is rarely seen. Even the steep drop in bird of prey persecution incidents reported in the RSPB’s own report last year - down 57% since 2020 - is ignored in this one. Too inconvenient.

Evidence-free enforcement

The RSPB laments a “climate of impunity,” bemoaning that only two individuals have ever been prosecuted for hen harrier persecution. Yet successful prosecutions require evidence - not innuendo. With remote terrain and elusive culprits, it's hardly surprising that convictions are rare. But to imply this proves guilt without proof is lazy at best, reckless at worst.

The RSPB also fails to reflect the substantial work of the National Wildlife Crime Unit, the seven police forces now focused on moorland areas, or the collaborative efforts of landowners and keepers. The Moorland Association and other organisations have issued zero-tolerance policies and removed members where evidence justified it. The RSPB declines to acknowledge any of it.

Licensing: a "simple fix" from those who condemn simple fixes

After criticising “simple fixes,” the RSPB immediately proposes one of its own: licensing. That would be ironic if it weren’t so dangerous. No licensing scheme has ever eliminated crime - and the RSPB knows it. Any legislative goal is ‘negligible occurrence’. Two convictions in 25 years is low by any standard. We all wish it to be zero but most of us live in the real world – but clearly not the authors of this RSPB report.

The idea that an entire estate could be punished without knowing who the criminal is, simply for proximity - is unjust. Natural England’s own findings make clear that illegal killing is carried out by a rogue few, not the majority. Yet the RSPB wants guilt by geography.

Langholm Moor: a telling omission

Perhaps the most glaring omission of all is in the Langholm Moor section. The RSPB loves to mention it - as long as they forget the ending. When the gamekeepers left, so did the hen harriers. Numbers crashed. A decade of intensive conservation effort was undone, not by illegal killing, but by the absence of upland gamekeepers. If the RSPB were truly committed to the evidence, it would own that too.

Collaboration rewritten as failure

The Defra Brood Management Trial, a cornerstone of the Hen Harrier Action Plan, quadrupled the harrier population in five years. Even the RSPB admits it played a role. The British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) says the increase cannot be explained by other factors. Yet the RSPB opposes brood management, calling it a failure because crime still occurred. By that logic, every conservation scheme that doesn’t reduce crime to zero must be scrapped.

The reality is this: the trial worked. It fostered trust, enabled cooperation and reduced conflict. The RSPB delayed it and derailed the hen harrier reintroduction in the south of England. And for what?

Respecting rural professionals

The RSPB’s inflammatory rhetoric has real-world consequences. We know that an upland gamekeeper is physically assaulted every 12 days in England. That has to stop. The RSPB should be calling for that as loudly as it calls to end bird crime. Instead, it continues to paint the profession with a criminal brush - ignoring the good, exaggerating the bad and omitting the inconvenient.

Conclusion: time for balance, not blame

Conservation is not a morality play. It’s a practical challenge. And while bad actors must be held accountable, blanket accusations and data manipulation will not help hen harriers - or public trust.

We, the Moorland Association, remain committed to evidence-based conservation and collaboration with government and NGOs. But we will not be silent while our members are smeared and assaulted. This report is not a conservation document. It’s a polemic. And it deserves to be read as such.

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