Moorland Association goes public on hen harrier ‘hotspot’ dispute

The Moorland Association has published two years of correspondence with the National Wildlife Crime Unit (NWCU) and the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) over how suspected hen harrier persecution is attributed to individual estates, after being told that extracts were due to be released under a Freedom of Information (FOI) request. The association says the police have now offered a meeting with Deputy Chief Constable Nigel Harrison, the NPCC lead for rural and wildlife crime, in the first week of November to work through eight unresolved concerns.

What are the Moorland Association’s eight concerns?

In a post by its chief executive Andrew Gilruth on 9 September, updated the following day, the association set out its points of dispute. They include the distinction between a proven offence, a suspected offence, intelligence and an unexplained satellite-tag loss; the definition, evidential threshold and methodology behind the NWCU’s description of estates or areas as “hotspots” for suspected hen harrier crime; and incidents being associated with estates where a bird was last recorded many kilometres away or had already left the land.

The association also questions requests to estates to permit cameras and monitoring equipment on their land, the language used in communications with land managers, and what information is being supplied to Defra while the department gathers evidence on gamebird rearing, release and shooting in England. It says it condemns wildlife crime and supports its proper investigation, and that its concerns are about how evidence and suspicion are interpreted and communicated.

The police reply, as the association reports it

According to the association, a letter from North Wales Police on 3 September, sent on behalf of DCC Harrison, confirmed that a particular hotspot report about which it had raised concern had not been submitted to Defra, that the NWCU provides Defra with quarterly stakeholder updates, and that the work of the satellite-tagged bird of prey taskforce could form part of a future police response should Defra consult on gamebird shooting. The association welcomed those clarifications but said they did not resolve the central questions of methodology, attribution and governance.

The same letter, the association says, stated that it had not responded to an action concerning the police 4P plan for bird of prey crime, and that correspondence sent in December 2025 had not been answered until May 2026. The association disputes both points and has published what it says is its reply of 3 December 2025, sent the day after the police wrote, together with the letters it sent in May, June and August this year seeking a follow-up meeting that had been agreed in September 2025 but never took place.

Why publish now?

The association says it kept the exchanges private while it tried to resolve them, but on 7 September the NPCC told it that selected extracts were due to be released under an FOI request. It has published redacted copies of the substantive record from both sides so that members can read the exchanges in context, and on 7 September wrote again to DCC Harrison asking for the record to be corrected where necessary and for the meeting to go ahead.

The dispute dates back to July 2024, when the association was removed from the Bird of Prey Crime Priority Delivery Group after questioning police requests to install surveillance equipment on estates. Shooting Times has asked the NPCC and the NWCU for their response to the published correspondence.

What happens next

The association says the police responded on 10 September and offered a meeting with DCC Harrison in the first week of November specifically to discuss the eight points. It intends to attend, and says its aim is to establish what can be agreed, correct factual inaccuracies on either side and record clearly where genuine disagreement remains. It will update members after the meeting. Defra’s call for evidence on gamebird rearing, release and shooting in England, to which the taskforce material could be relevant, closes on 1 November.