Who killed Bowland Betty? It’s no real mystery

Wild Notebook

Come on, everybody, sing along: ten poisoned red kites, four poisoned buzzards, two shot red kites, two shot buzzards, one shot kestrel and a poor trapped sparrowhawk too.

A song with a fine seasonal ring to it, I think you’ll agree. These are confirmed incidents of illegal persecution of birds of prey in the Yorkshire Dales between 2007 and 2011.

There were also four incidents involving illegal poisoned baits. A number of dogs were poisoned. They don’t much care for birds of prey in the Yorkshire Dales; nor, it seems, do they have much respect for the law.

The story is an old one and has been visited more than once before in this column. The English breeding population of the hen harrier was down