Hen Harriers are rare breeding birds in the UK, known for their acrobatic ‘skydancing’ courtship display which they perform above upland moors in spring. These two birds are in addition to the 21 Hen Harriers that were reported as either killed or missing across Northern England in the last year, including one found dead in the Yorkshire Dales National Park with its head pulled off. Its tag had also been functioning normally until that point. On 17 May, another tagged bird, Wayland, vanished in the Clapham area of North Yorkshire, just north of the Bowland AONB, where the land is a mix of farmland with gamebird shooting. Lancashire Police and the National Wildlife Crime Unit carried out a search of the area but found no sign of the bird or its tag. The tag’s last fix put him over a grouse moor. Rush, an adult male bird, had been spending time in Mallowdale, in the Forest of Bowland, throughout the spring until his tag unexpectedly stopped transmitting on 4 May. The birds were fitted with satellite tags, which are fitted to gather information about this rare and persecuted species. Two Hen Harriers have vanished in suspicious circumstances in just two weeks within the Bowland Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) and nearby North Yorkshire. Hen Harriers are rare birds on the red list of conservation concern, with illegal killing the key factor limiting their recovery.The RSPB recently reported that 21 Hen Harriers had been either killed or disappeared in the North of England in the past year.Two satellite tagged birds disappeared over two weeks in May, in Lancashire and North Yorkshire: the latest in a succession of similar incidents.
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