Best of 2023, Killing the Skydancer: episode two, The Perfect Crime

Science Weekly

The Guardian

Science

4.2 • 1K Ratings

🗓️ 27 December 2023

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this special Age of Extinction mini-series from Science Weekly, which first aired in August 2023, the Guardian’s biodiversity reporter, Phoebe Weston, explores the murky world of the illegal killing of birds of prey on grouse moors, and asks why it is so difficult to solve these crimes. In episode two, Phoebe speaks to the people trying to protect these rare birds but, as she digs deeper, she encounters a surprising silence around the killing of a hen harrier’s chicks. 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're revisiting our is on its Christmas holidays.
0:12.6	So this week we're revisiting our miniseries
0:15.9	Killing the Skydancer.
0:18.2	Back at the start of this year,
0:19.7	Biodiversity reporter Phoebe Weston and I
0:22.3	set out to investigate the illegal killing of the UK's birds of prey and we were focusing on a nest of hen harrier chicks.
0:31.0	As we delved into what happened to them, we began to learn just how easy it is to
0:37.0	get away with raptor persecution, which is the subject of today's episode, part two The Perfect Crime. Enjoy.
0:47.0	Before we start, if you haven't heard episode one, go back and take a listen. And a warning, this episode includes descriptions of animal
0:56.7	cruelty. So I had my first call with Natural England six weeks ago and asked them if they could send over the camera
1:06.0	footage of the chicks being stamped on and I haven't got it yet. We basically want
1:12.3	them to show us the nest and tell us about the henhary conservation
1:16.1	work that they're doing in that area. They're not getting back to my emails about arranging this
1:21.7	trip.
1:29.0	For weeks I had been trying to arrange a meeting with Stephen Murphy from Natural England, the government body in charge of protecting its wildlife.
1:33.0	Stephen was the lead staff member who'd been monitoring Susie.
1:38.0	Susie was the hen harrier whose nest of chicks had been crushed
1:42.0	and this was the story I had been investigating.
1:47.3	Natural England has to work closely with landowners because nests are often on private land and they need permission to access them.
	...

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