The new Patterns of Persecution report documents that between 2015 and 2024, there were 182 confirmed raptor persecution incidents in Scotland, with victims including nine Golden Eagles, ten Peregrine Falcons, 12 Goshawks, 27 Red Kites and 52 Common Buzzards.

The report’s analysis of government laboratory postmortem examinations, police investigations, prosecutions, intelligence reports, and eye-witness evidence shows there were a total of 62 shooting incidents, 54 poisoning incidents and 41 incidents involving the illegal use of traps.

The majority of these crimes take place in remote and difficult to access areas of the countryside with little chance of detection by the public. Previous cases have shown that culprits go to significant lengths to dispose of evidence of their offending, including the destruction of satellite tags.

Ian Thomson, RSPB investigations manager, said:“This report makes horrendous reading for anyone who cares about the protection of some of our rarest and most spectacular species. 

“Documented incidents were widely scattered across the country, from the Scottish Borders to the Western Isles, but it is telling that a significant majority, almost two thirds of recorded incidents (64.3 per cent), occurred on land managed for gamebird shooting.”

Duncan Orr-Ewing, RSPB Scotland’s head of species and land management, added: “The Scottish Parliament has recognised the adverse impact that criminal incidents on some grouse shooting estates have had on Scotland’s birds of prey and introduced legislation, the Wildlife Management and Muirburn (Scotland) Act 2024, licensing grouse shoots. 

“We hope that the very welcome passing of this legislation, during the last year covered by our report, has created a significant deterrent to these crimes, and that the skies above our grouse moors will be safer for eagles, Hen harriers, Red Kites and Peregrines. This legislation therefore needs to be backed up with monitoring and effective enforcement.

“Time will tell, but recent incidents of raptors being shot, suspicious disappearances of satellite-tagged eagles and illegal trap use suggest that there is still a long way to go.”

The report also outlines the challenges in obtaining a sufficiency of admissible evidence to facilitate a prosecution. 

The recent conviction of a Perthshire gamekeeper who bludgeoned a Goshawk to death relied on the submission of video evidence taken by a covert camera deployed the RSPB to monitor the operation of a crow trap.

“There are hundreds of these traps in use in our countryside, with no compliance monitoring, little regulation and no accountability,” said Thomson. 

“We hope that NatureScot’s recently announced review of General Licences, which permit the use of such traps, will finally recognise the substantial evidence base documenting their widespread abuse and misuse and their indiscriminate nature, as well as the impact they are having on protected birds of prey”.