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Birds of prey troubles again


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It’s easy for the shoot agent to fire the three men as scapegoats. The company should take responsibility for the action of their foot soldiers. If you put ridiculous pressure on keepers to put on a good season, and are prepared to turn a blind eye, then this is what you are going to get. I get very angry about wildlife crimes as it puts our sport and my sons’ future sport in jeopardy due to selfishness. 

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It is possible but seems unlikely....

I’m not au fait with old fashioned raptor control but presumably the Goshawk was simply bye-catch in a Larsen for corvids?  When it got trapped it was stupidly dispatched rather than released. There must be thousands of camera traps showing perfectly legal use of traps, waiting for someone to eventually mess up. 

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18 minutes ago, WalkedUp said:

There must be thousands of camera traps showing perfectly legal use of traps, waiting for someone to eventually mess up. 

Or waiting for a Bye catch they can use to advantage.   The question I would ask is why is the perpetrator hooded and masked, a keeper about their duties would not be.

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I am afraid that I take an awful lot of these reports with a pinch of salt. I have first hand experience of the lengths that some of these so called 'protection bodies' will go to. I do not suppose that this is the only corvid trap in operation on the estate, it begs the question, do they ALL have a camera watching them  ?  It appears that the alleged offender KNEW of the existence of the camera, otherwise he has no reason to hide his face. Is there actual footage of the bird being removed from the trap or actually being harmed  ?  There is no carcass. I would suggest that there is insufficient evidence to prosecute the alleged offender and by the resignation of one of the Keepers, the incident will now be closed.  Once  a report like this hits the headlines, the damage is done. There is NEVER a retraction printed. I accept that there is always a 'bad apple' in the barrel, but it has already been said that the locals seem to have other issues with the estate, apart from the wildlife issues.   

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Speaking from recent experience of a good friend who is a keeper, he became suspicious about things being mentioned by a local policeman about some of his movements and his times he was leaving his house. Knowing that none of this could be seen from any vantage points or without driving a good way into the estate he spoke to his boss as it was making him feel uneasy.

They paid for an investigator to investigate what was going on, a total of 48 stealth cameras were located from various parts of the estate including around his house, all state of the art with sim cards in them. No traceability of ownership or who had installed them. In the year before this he had been subject to 3 police searches of his home, buildings and vehicles. All clear. 

These are the lengths various groups are going to in an attempt to get evidence. 

I have been shown photos using thermal of people hiding 24/7 around certain nests with cameras.

The footage of this alleged crime with the Goshawk involves very sophisticated cameras which are able to be remotely zoomed or this was actually filmed by a person hiding close to the trap, there are 2 or 3 people who have the skills to do this working for Raptor groups including an ex SAS soldier who was last seen on an estate in Scotland 3 weeks ago caught by a stealth cam close to a Harriers nest.

I will also say that the Raptor groups do also have the knowledge, the people and the desire to stage the whole scenario as seen in this film, and as no actually footage of the Goshawk being killed only put in a bag I do question this bit of filming. The Goshawk could easily have been removed very much alive and released elsewhere in the whole set up as it was filmed.

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