Hen harriers are among the UK's most persecuted raptors, with illegal killing on grouse moors suppressing populations far below their ecological potential. Their conservation requires both legal protection enforcement and cultural change in land management.
Hen harrier persecution represents ongoing, deliberate welfare harm to a legally protected species. Individual birds that are shot, poisoned, or whose nests are destroyed suffer directly, and the population-level suppression to near-extinction across much of England represents a systemic welfare failure. The birds lost to persecution - which satellite tracking suggests may number in the hundreds annually - experience acute suffering through the killing methods used. The broader ecological cost of removing a top predator from upland ecosystems has secondary welfare implications for prey populations. The failure to effectively enforce existing wildlife crime law perpetuates this welfare harm year after year.