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Tim Bonner: Another round of humiliation for RSPB and activists

Yet another Judicial Review brought against Defra failed this week when the Court of Appeal dismissed legal challenges brought by the RSPB and Mark Avery against the trial hen harrier brood management scheme. Avery, you may remember, is one of the three Directors of Wild Justice, the anti-shooting group which has recorded a litany of failed legal actions since its inception. This long running case pre-dates the creation of Wild Justice and, even by the standards of subsequent Judicial Reviews, looks especially stupid and wasteful.

It is bad enough for the RSPB and Avery to have their cases roundly rejected for the second time, but it must be especially humiliating against the backdrop of Natural England's announcement of a record breeding season for hen harriers as a result of the Hen Harrier Action Plan that the legal action was trying to subvert.

In fact, the RSPB's position on hen harriers is looking increasingly untenable. The RSPB joined the Hen Harrier Action Plan in January 2016 and resigned six months later in July stating that it had failed. In 2020, the Alliance exposed its sabotage of the project to reintroduce hen harriers in the South of England, and throughout that time it was funding this vastly expensive and utterly meritless Judicial Review aimed at halting the rearing and releasing of hen harrier chicks. Yet, despite all the efforts of the RSPB, hen harrier breeding success in England has increased dramatically through that period, culminating with what Natural England described as 'the highest breeding numbers in modern times' this year.

You might ask what the RSPB has against hen harriers, but in reality it is grouse shooting which is the issue. Sadly, for what it is increasingly obvious are ideological rather than conservation reasons, the RSPB has been pushed into opposition to grouse moor management and has weaponised the issue of illegal hen harrier persecution in particular. So deep has it travelled into the worm hole of anti-grouse sentiment that it would rather see see fewer hen harriers than lose a stick with which to beat grouse shooting.

Thankfully, both the government and a range of more sensible organisations were robust in the face of the RSPB's attacks and by delivering the Action Plan, which amongst other things tackles both hen harrier persecution, and the causes of that persecution, they have greatly improved the species' status. Hopefully the end of this long running court case will also signal a change of attitude from the RSPB both to hen harriers and grouse shooting. Its behaviour over recent years on this issue has been unedifying and unworthy of an organisation that does so much good and has so much more to offer. As a start it might want to consider who it works with and the message that sends.

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