In the UK, the Hen Harrier is subjected to intense organised illegal persecution by gamekeepers and their employers on shooting estates, particularly those managed for Red Grouse shooting.
I disagree with the above: the are not subject to "intense" persecution, as despite all reports, few Hen Harriers are shot in the UK. Also, i doubt that people formally organise to go out to shoot harriers. I beleive that this article is becoming biased and does not give a voice for the gamekeeping point of view. Greenfinch100 17:37, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
Agree with the wording about hen harrier persecution. Surely it would be better to say they are in conflict with the interests of some gamekeepers and therefore persecution is a pressure on their conservation status in the UK. At the moment, the entry is certainly biased and slightly hysterical.
Also, the police have closed the case on the harriers brought down by the royal artillery. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.152.35.199 (talk • contribs) 2007 November 18
I have removed the sentence that claimed that they were "very rare and in danger of extinction in the UK" as this was an exaggeration. Hen harriers are indeed very rare in England, and perhaps under threat of extinction there, where successful nests are barely in double figures and breeding populations exist on only a handful of moors. However in Scotland there are several hundreds of breeding females and while the birds are clearly under threat from persecution they can not be considered to be likely candidates for extinction. My rewording of this statement is probably less than ideal but it much more accurate than the original.--Thunderbuck ram (talk) 11:26, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
unfortunately, persecution continues. I note that this previous discussion of 2009, after "hysteria", "bias", and "more neutral", apparently led to there being no mention at all of persecution!
This article is in serious need some neutral mention of the continuing persecution of Hen Harriers (and other raptors) in the UK. jw (talk) 21:46, 2 February 2023 (UTC)
MPF, please do not un-do my edits where i am trying to create an neutral article. I respect your views but there is no need to totally incriminate the opposing side of the argument. Greenfinch100 (talk) 21:26, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
I'm afraid that distilling the findings of the JRS down to producing "some evidence that the two species are unable to flourish simultaneously" is grossly misleading. What the langholm study report showed was that under certain circumstances it was likely that red grouse populations would be limited by raptor predation, they made it quite clear that these circumstances may not apply to all moors. In the report summary they provide evidence to show that the long-term decline of grouse is almost certainly not due to raptor predation (it is strongly related to grazing and heather loss), but on the flip side they found evidence that when the grouse population dropped to very low densities the large raptor population was probably preventing their recovery. It is important to note that it is not neccesarily raptor populations that drove the grouse population down but that a host of other factors are involved, e.g. habitat, management, general predator levels, and importantly, disease. Population cycling in red grouse is a well studied phenomenon, when a population is at the low point in its cycle and other conditions are poor for grouse but right for raptors then it is possible that the grouse will not recover due to predation, but this does not mean that the two species cannot 'flourish simultaneously' under other conditions. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Thunderbuck ram (talk • contribs) 09:48, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
This article could do with better pictures - ideally, a fine-plumaged male, and a female showing the "ring-tail". Can anyone assist, please? Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 11:20, 15 November 2008 (UTC)
Please note that the Northern Harrier (Circus hudsonius) of America is now being regarded as a distinct species; the DNA differs about 0.8 %. See for example Robert E. Simmons: Harriers of the World (2000). I recategorized the pictures on commons, please check if they still suit the article.--Toter Alter Mann (talk) 16:20, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
The article states that only 20 pairs survive in England. This is unlikely to be the case. The RSPB estimate (http://www.rspb.org.uk/wildlife/birdguide/name/h/henharrier/index.aspx) is 749 breeding pairs in England (plus more on the Isle of Man). There is one circling the meadow at the bottom of my garden right now...
Sorry if I've misunderstood the article, but perhaps that would mean it needs a little bit more tweaking by someone with more knowledge?
Anyway, thanks for writing it and hope this helps. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.8.89.178 (talk) 17:48, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just added archive links to one external link on Hen harrier. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add ((cbignore))
after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add ((nobots|deny=InternetArchiveBot))
to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.
This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template ((source check))
(last update: 18 January 2022).
Cheers. —cyberbot IITalk to my owner:Online 06:16, 17 October 2015 (UTC)
cf. previous Persecution discussion in 2009, above
Somehow the very mention of persecution disappeared from this article, although persecution continues.
jw (talk) 22:01, 2 February 2023 (UTC)
There is currently a redirect from 'marsh hawk' to this hen harrier article. Is this correct? I have never heard that name used - does anyone use the term marsh hawk to mean hen harrier? Or should the redirect point to northern harrier? Marsh hawk seems to be common useage in Northern America for northern harrier. Masato.harada (talk) 18:16, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
This duplicates an existing discussion at Talk:Northern harrier#Redirect from Marsh hawk. Please continue the discussion there instead. Thank you, Rotideypoc41352 (talk · contribs) 19:31, 10 January 2024 (UTC)