Recording and Addressing Persecution and Threats to our Raptors

 Recording and Addressing Persecution and Threats to our Raptors 

Ireland’s native birds of prey are part of our natural heritage, key indicators of the health of our ecosystems and important assets in attracting tourists to come and stay in Ireland. High profile raptor poisoning or persecution incidents have been documented in the media. For example Hen Harriers shot in Kerry, a White-tailed Eagle shot in Tipperary, attempted poisoning of Peregrine Falcons in Dublin and numerous poisonings of Red Kites in Wicklow. There are however many other cases that are not highlighted in the media and for the past five years Government agencies have been systematically determining how great an issue poisoning and persecution is for Ireland’s native raptors. This has been made possible by a cooperative approach between the National Parks & Wildlife Service (NPWS), the Regional Veterinary labs and State Lab who collectively produced a formal protocol for investigating bird of prey deaths in 2011. This is known as the RAPTOR (Recording and Addressing Persecution and Threats to Our Raptors) protocol. This protocol entails a significant amount of effort between three Government Departments, from collecting and handling carcasses, injured birds and evidence, to x-rays, Post-Mortem examinations, toxicological testing and follow-up investigations, data analysis, interpretation and reporting.

Statistics from 2007 to 2019 have just been published in a report, available to download by visiting https://www.npws.ie/sites/default/files/publications/pdf/IWM126.pdf. The report finds that during this time period, a total of 338 incidents were confirmed and recorded on the RAPTOR database. ‘Those incidents were comprised of 214 incidents involving poison (poison in the system or poisoned bait), 58 incidents involving shooting, one trapping and one mutilation, in addition to 57 road collision incidents, six wind turbine strike incidents, three ‘traumatic death’ incidents, two disturbance incidents, two fence collision incidents and one powerline collision incident’. Between 2007 and 2019 County Cork had the fifth highest number of incidents on a county basis, behind, and in order; Wicklow, Tipperary, Kerry and Dublin.

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