Hen Harrier
Circus cyaneus
Family Name: Accipitridae
The Hen Harrier was formerly a widespread breeding bird in Britain, occurring in lowland and upland heathland habitats. The loss of these habitats, particularly in the lowlands, along with widespread persecution on grouse moors led to such a retraction in range that by the 1900s, the mainland population had been lost and breeding was restricted to the Western Isles of Scotland and Orkneys. Since the 1930s, there was a slow recolonisation of mainland Scotland and by the late 1960s, they had returned to breed in northern England including parts of the Dales.
The Hen Harrier represents one of the uplands' most contentious conservation issues due to conflicts with grouse shooting on heather moorland, where harriers prey on grouse and can disrupt shoots. Despite legal protection and proven mitigation measures like diversionary feeding, illegal persecution severely limits populations - while northern England could support 323-340 breeding pairs, only nine successful nests occurred in 2018, with satellite tracking showing 72% of harriers were illegally killed or disappeared near grouse moors. In the Yorkshire Dales, after the last breeding in 2007, hopes were raised by returning females in 2017 (which failed naturally) and successful breeding of six young in 2018 under close monitoring. A joint action plan and the National Park's management objective now focus on ending illegal raptor persecution through stakeholder cooperation, independent monitoring, and coordinated nest protection to gradually increase this charismatic species' numbers.
