Best of 2023, Killing the Skydancer: episode three, An Open Secret

Science Weekly

The Guardian

Science

4.2 • 1K Ratings

🗓️ 28 December 2023

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this special Age of Extinction mini-series from Science Weekly, which first aired in 2023, the Guardian’s biodiversity reporter, Phoebe Weston, explores the illegal killing of birds of prey on grouse moors, and asks why it is so difficult to solve these crimes. In the third and final episode, Phoebe finds out more about the pressures that drive people to commit raptor persecution, discovers how the police investigation into the case of Susie’s crushed chicks unfolded, and how Susie, the hen harrier, is doing now. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/sciencepod

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is the Guardian.
0:05.0	Hi, host Madeline here.
0:07.0	Science Weekly is on its Christmas holidays.
0:12.0	So this week we've been revisiting our miniseries
0:15.7	killing the Skydancer. Today is the final episode. As Biodiversity reporter Phoebe Weston and I investigated why so many of the UK's birds of prey are being illegally killed,
0:29.0	we realized how much these crimes have to do with culture and economics and why stopping
0:36.3	it isn't as simple as it might seem on the surface.
0:41.0	Enjoy. includes descriptions of animal cruelty.
0:53.0	On a trip up to North Yorkshire earlier this year,
0:57.0	I stopped in a small market town near where Susie's chicks had been killed.
1:02.0	It was there I'd met Alan who you heard in
1:06.2	episode 2. The shouting fertility is not here to kill everything. Some of these doggone is
1:12.4	want to come and actually just
1:13.5	stand and keep their bloody mouth shut and watch what a shoot does the other day.
1:17.3	Yeah. It was a beautiful place full of old stone buildings with lovely cafes and shops,
1:25.0	a couple of classic British pubs, all surrounded by scenic moorland.
1:30.0	The moorlands bring in a steady stream of hikers, cyclists and grouse shooters.
1:37.0	So I was curious, did people living here know that birds of prey are being illegally killed.
1:43.0	It does happen and it should be allowed to coexist.
1:47.0	Everyone that I spoke to knew about it.
1:55.0	Do you think there's awareness? People are aware of it up here.
1:58.0	Do you think they care?
	...

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