crosshair – ethic gamekeepers may not persecute raptors but many do. Grouse moor is not biodiverse and they ALWAYS kill predators on the grouse moors.

Have a read of this to see just how much raptor persecution goes on by gamekeepers. https://raptorpersecutionscotland.wordpress.com/about/
30 eagles killed in Scotland in the last few years.

tjagain Please look at population trends too. Our Raptors are in very good shape.
With the Eagle thing- Farmers are far worse culprits than ‘Keepers.

When I visited Scotland to shoot a Red Deer, I complimented the Stalker on the beautiful location of his house. “Aye! When <his boss> had it built for me, I chose this spot because it overlooked the Eagles nest on the opposite Glen”
We asked him if they still bred there.
“Oh nooo, after thiirty years, the RSPB bought the opposite Glen and stuck up that hide” he pointed to a barely conceled monstrosity half way up the hill. “And they’ve never nested there since!”

He also showed us two Hen Harrier nests on their ground. I remarked that I bet the RSPB warden was pleased with that. “You think I tell them ANYTHING?” he said. “We’d be plagued with Twitchers in no time!”

The RSPB also relentlessly moan that the local Deer Management Groups (collectives of estates and land managers who take a wider view on the local deer population as their territories are far wider than one estate) aren’t hitting their cull targets.
Yet on two of the days we were there, the RSPB wardens decided to take open air meetings on Donalds ground- meaning we were unable to visit those areas those days as they had driven off all the Hinds. The RSPB employ contractors to shoot deer and don’t even extract the carcasses- they are left to rot!

There’s a lot more going on than meets the eye and its not always as black and white as it seems.

As Upland Wales demonstrates- remove the managed Moorland and predator control and you lose the Prey AND the Predators.

Bubs very nice and a lovely light

Grouse moor is not biodiverse

Biodiverse is the “wealth inequality” of animal welfare, ie it’s a campaigners diversion from the real issue. There are plenty of other places all that diversity can flourish, the Grouse not and without the Estates they’d be largely gone.

Crosshair you are simply wrong. The numbers of raptors killed by gamekeepers and shooting estates far outweighs any other form of deaths of these birds. Check that blog for details. Yes the raptor population is growing but at a much slower rate than it should given the dozens of birds killed illegally by gamekeepers every year. and yes – its dozens of proven killings every year of golden and white tailed Eagles and Hen Harriers. Uncountable buzzards

The pair of Golden eagles I watched over the Monadliath a couple of years ago has now been killed by the local gamekeeper

The sooner we have a much tougher regime for control of the shooting estates the better. Ethical estates will still flourish, raptor killers will have their liveliehoods taken away.

Pure nonsense Jamba.

A 20-year review of the illegal killing of birds of prey in Scotland shows 779 raptors died between 1994 and 2014, according to RSPB Scotland.

The charity said a “significant majority” of the killings took place in areas associated with game shooting.

RSPB Scotland’s review records 468 birds of prey being poisoned, 173 shot and 76 caught in illegal traps. The figures include 104 red kites, 37 golden eagles, 30 hen harriers, 16 goshawks and 10 white-tailed sea eagles.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-35120692

Thats just the ones they can PROOVE were killed on sporting estates. Vastly more are killed but no proof exists.

have a read of this as well.
http://www.scottishraptorstudygroup.org/news.html

There is a much darker side to shooting pheasants. Only a month before my visit to Raveningham and just 12 miles from the estate, a gamekeeper called Allen Lambert was sentenced for killing ten buzzards and a sparrowhawk. The 65-year-old had a lifetime in the profession. At his workplace on the Stody Estate in Norfolk he was caught with a bagful of dead birds of prey, along with a “classic poisoner’s kit”, including syringes and the banned pesticides aldicarb and mevinphos. It was the worst incident of illegal raptor poisoning recorded in England.

http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2015/07/unfair-game-why-are-britain-s-birds-prey-being-killed