In today’s Guardian is a full-page report about a golden eagle in Scotland undergoing a necropsy. She had been poisoned to death with carbofuran, a pesticide banned in Britain since 2001. It’s a painful death: the central nervous system is attacked, causing rapid paralysis, seizures, cramps and coma. Golden eagles mate for life. Her fledgling chick was nearby when she died. These are rare birds who deserve our protection. Why are they being killed? Here’s why:
Police and conservationists believe the eagle is the victim of an intensifying and illegal war against birds of prey being fought by gamekeepers and landowners to protect commercially reared game birds – red grouse, pheasant and partridge – from their natural predators.
But its death – the latest of 85 proven and suspected cases of golden eagle persecution in Scotland since 1980 – may be the turning point. Ministers are now pledging a fresh crackdown on the persecutors, while conservationists are pressing for new controls on grouse moors, including licences forcing their owners to preserve all the area’s wildlife.
[…]investigations have led to the conviction of six shooting estate workers in the Borders for persecuting birds of prey, sometimes using baited traps, live pigeons and snares. None were sacked. They very rarely are, say conservationists.
And what do gamekeeping leaders claim?
the corpse may have been planted by animal rights activists
