ANIMAL PEOPLE is the leading independent newspaper providing original investigative coverage of animal protection worldwide. Founded in 1992, ANIMAL PEOPLE has no alignment or affiliation with any other entity.

 

This site built and maintained by: GREANVILLE ASSOCIATESand CRESCENT COMMUNICATIONS •Rev. 12.1.05 Copyright ANIMAL PEOPLE, INC. 1992--2006

 

 

 

 

 
   

 
powered by FreeFind

ESSENTIAL DESTINATIONS

MONTH: January/February 2008

Gamekeepers fined for killing protected raptors in both U.K. and U.S.

 

EDINBURGH, LANCASTER (Pa.), NICOSIA -- Prince Harry may have dodged the bullet for allegedly shooting two hen harriers to
protect captive-reared "game" species, as ANIMAL PEOPLE reported in November/December 2007, but gamekeepers have been fined in comparable cases on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.

Scottish Borders region cattle and sheep farmer James McDougal became "the first landowner in the United Kingdom to have his agricultural subsidies cut as a punishment," Guardian Scotland correspondent Severin Carroll wrote.

"The Scottish executive said it had docked £7,919 from last year's single farm payment and beef calf scheme payments to McDougal--more than the £5,000 maximum [fine] for a wildlife crime," Carroll reported on January 7, 2008.

Explained Carroll, "McDougal, one of Scotland's highest European Union subsidy recipients, employs George Aitken as a gamekeeper on a small pheasant shoot he runs near Lauder in Berwickshire. Lothian and Borders police, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, and the Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals found two cage traps near McDougal's farm at Blythe, each baited with a live pigeon. Pheasant carcasses were found beside nearby woods dosed with carbofuran--a banned agricultural chemical--and a similar but legal pesticide called carbosulfan. Highly toxic sodium cyanide was also seized."

Aitken was sentenced in June 2007 to do 22 hours of community service. Aitken was at least the fifth gamekeeper in six months to be prosecuted for killing raptors, and the seventh in a year.

The known total of raptors killed in the British Isles to protect animals reared for shooting were down in 2007 from 2006, but a record 11 endangered red kites were poisoned, nine of them found on shooting estates. The previous high was 10 red kites killed, in 1981.

The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds told Times of London correspondent David Lister that 74% of all the people prosecuted successfully for wildlife crimes in Britain during the past 10 years were involved in game shooting.

On January 3, 2008, meanwhile, the Pennsylvania Game Commission agreed to drop 14 charges against the Lanco Beagle Club of Martic
Township in Lancaster County, after the club agreed to pay a fine of $1,600 for allowing gamekeeper Guy Lefever, 77, to use a leghold
trap illegally set on an eight-foot-high pole to kill federally protected birds. Lefever, a club member since 1950, set the trap to keep raptors from eating rabbits who are raised for beagle field trials.

Founded in 1946, the 35-member club has operated a 179-acre shooting preserve since 1956.

"The pole-trapping incident was the second time in recent months that a sportsmen's club in the county has been embarrassed in a high-profile incident," recalled Ad Crable of the Lancaster New Era. Last year, the Elstonville Sportsmen's Association was fined $400 for violating animal cruelty laws by using live turkeys in an archery contest."

But there has been no progress in trying to bring Cypriot bird hunters and trappers into line with European Union rules, another situation exposed in the November/ December 2007 edition of ANIMAL PEOPLE. BirdLife Cyprus executive director Martin Hellicar told Associated Press that illegal trappers killed more than half a million protected birds in 2007, the most since 2003.

In addition, poachers followed an October 2007 massacre of 52 officially threatened red-footed migrating falcons by shooting several dozen protected Egyptian fruit bats. Cyprus is the bats' only European habitat.

"We believe hunters went into a fenced-off and sign-posted restricted area, entered the cave to scare them out and then started shooting," forestry department officer Harris Nicolaou told Agence France-Press