BirdWatch Ireland, Ireland’s largest conservation charity, is utterly appalled by the illegal killing of yet another protected bird of prey in Ireland. The victim this time was a female Hen Harrier called Mary, who hatched in the summer of 2019 from a nest on the Isle of Man and met her tragic end in a field in Drumcondra, Co. Meath. She was fitted with a tracking device, which Manx BirdLife and the RSPB, our UK BirdLife International partner, had been using to monitor her movements and survival.
There was great excitement when the tracking data revealed that Mary had flown westwards from the Isle of Man to Co. Meath. Unfortunately, on 2nd November the data from her tracking device revealed that she had died suddenly. A National Parks and Wildlife Service investigation revealed that she had been illegally poisoned: a dead pigeon, which had been laced with the banned toxin Carbofuran, dangerous to animals and humans, was found at the scene which was on lands managed for shooting, along with poisoned chunks of meat. Pieces of poisoned meat were also found in Mary’s body, proving that she had eaten some of the bait and succumbed. The use both of Carbofuran and of meat bait, poisoned or not, are serious criminal offences.