NGO responds to today’s RSPB Birdcrime report

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The National Gamekeepers’ Organisation have issued the following statement in response to  the RSPB birdcrime report, published today:

“The National Gamekeepers’ Organisation condemns all wildlife crime. One wildlife crime including illegal bird of prey killing is one too many, and criminality will not be tolerated. Any NGO member found guilty of wildlife crime will be expelled, and this information published on our website. 

Clever wording in the RSPB birdcrime reports means that suspected instances of a crime have been counted as fact. There is also a failure to acknowledge that two thirds of all raptors don't make it through their first year, with many sadly dying naturally in the first four months of life. Crimes against birds of prey are a hugely rare occurrence and we continue to work towards stamping out these crimes completely.

It is disappointing that the RSPB will not work together with organisations such as ours, for the good of all bird species. The NGO currently work closely with wildlife and rural crime units up and down the country and hope this will help us to achieve our aim of stamping out raptor crime completely.

The figures show that UK raptors are on the increase, and the RSPB’s own data shows a continuous, year-on-year decline in the number of raptor persecution incidents. The 2023 RSPB birdcrime report showed that incidents of illegal persecution of birds of prey have fallen to their lowest levels for more than a decade, which can only be seen as a positive. Birds of prey are thriving on land managed for shooting across all habitat types, from lowland to upland moors. 

Gamekeepers are also leading on important conservation success stories for many red- and amber-listed birds, through habitat and wildlife management.

We should be celebrating the fact that bird of prey species are flourishing when biodiversity overall is in decline, and the enormous conservation successes that gamekeepers and land managers are achieving."

Note to Editors:

The National Gamekeepers’ Organisation: The National Gamekeepers’ Organisation (NGO) represents the gamekeepers of England and Wales. The NGO defends and promotes gamekeeping and gamekeepers and works to ensure high standards throughout the profession. The National Gamekeepers’ Organisation was founded in 1997 by a group of gamekeepers who felt that keepering was threatened by public misunderstanding and poor representation. Today, the organisation has are around 13,000 members.
www.nationalgamekeepers.org.uk