The Secret Monitor: The war on wildlife on a North Yorkshire shooting estate

"I began monitoring the local pheasant shoot around a decade ago...the endless, year-round killing of native wildife drove me to do this."

Damaging stories from inside hunting and shooting have been circulating for years. Both industries present a public face that aims to convince politicians and the public alike that everything they do is lawful or ‘sustainable’. The truth is very different, and much of what takes place is out sight. Supporters, clients and even the police seem happy to 'turn a blind eye’- but not everyone is looking the other way.

There is always someone watching, always someone listening. The Secret Monitor.

When shooting lobbyists promote their horrible industry, an industry that involves killing literally millions of birds and trapping and killing countless native predators in snares and traps, they use terms like ‘tradition’ and ‘respect for the quarry’, and they persuade politicians that shooting is somehow ‘sustainable’…

The Secret Monitor begs to differ. The North York Moors National Park should be a haven for wildlife, but as the Secret Monitor, who is reporting in this post from North Yorkshire - the county repeatedly named as having the most confirmed cases of raptor persecution in England - all is not as it seems…

*NOTE THE IMAGES BELOW are graphic and may be upsetting to many, but they are the reality of the war on wildlife being waged on many shooting estates.*

---

The North York Moors

The beautiful landscape close to my home in the North York Moors National Park appears idyllic, especially if you love nature and walking. However, all is not as it seems.

From my midteens, I developed a healthy love of birds, long walks, and the countryside. In the 1970s and 1980s I accepted that bird shooting happened in the countryside, and I don’t remember having any real issues with it.

But shooting was relatively uncommon back then, with far fewer shoots and smaller numbers of pheasants on the ground compared to now.

When you are passionately interested in the natural world, you become more aware of and concerned with the harmful practices you see over time. For me, habitat loss, species declines, pollution, and the intensification of farming, are all worrying changes. The huge growth in driven pheasant shooting where I live is too. The impact it is having on all our native species is alarming.

As many as 50 million pheasants and other non-native birds are released into the wild countryside in early summer. The exact number is not known but it could be more. It’s mind-blowing to think that the total biomass (or combined weight) of these released birds is more than all our wild birds put together.

Gamekeepers provide supplementary feed to released birds but this only forms part of their diet. Pheasants will also feed on snakes, lizards, amphibians, invertebrates and native wild plants.

Gamekeepers are not like the rest of us

In my experience, gamekeepers have a very different attitude to wildlife to my own. They face huge pressure to produce ‘big bags’ on shoot days and as a result their actions risk total destruction of many of our native species. Strong words, but true.

Since moving to my current home, I have become involved with some environmental groups and organisations, for whom I conduct bird surveys and record sightings of other wild animals. When I am out carefully observing wildlife, I feel privileged to be part of their environment. However, gamekeepers are people who want to control wildlife, rather than fit in alongside it.

The whole area where I live has intensive shooting estates, with large numbers of pheasants released for shooting each year. Fox hunts (including the Sinnington, Derwent, Hurworth, Middleton and the Ampleforth Beagles) sample the delights of killing wildlife in a ‘national park’ during the hunting season, sometimes damaging badger setts and rampaging through woods and copses.

In the first year I moved to the area, I had to involve the police when I discovered badger setts attacked on hunt days and by shooting estates.

Then I began monitoring the local pheasant shoot around a decade ago, which covers around 10 square miles of land within walking distance from my home. It was the endless, year-round killing of native wildlife that drove me to do this.

Dumped pheasansts found on North Yorks shooting estate. Image Secret Monitor.

Involving police, authorities and local people has been difficult, not least because catching the estates committing an offence is always hard. Also, most people I speak to say, ‘Living in the countryside, I don’t have a problem with it’.

How has what I see become so normalised?

A war on wildlife

What I am about to list are just a few examples of the incidents and needless killing of wildlife that I have personally observed over the years. Some have involved the police, while others have involved different authorities. But most of what I am about to describe are just unreportable incidents and are classified as non-crimes.

I need to leave public footpaths a lot of the time to observe the area fully, which often leads to gamekeepers challenging me. My relationship with the gamekeepers on the estate – past and present – is one of mistrust and grudging tolerance. I suppose you could say it’s a ‘keep your friends close and your enemies closer’ type of relationship.

I visit the estate most weeks and often multiple times a week. I have discovered carcasses of foxes, roe deer, hares, rabbits, crows, squirrels, pheasants, and even a badger. In fact, I find a fresh carcass on at least half my visits. Based on what I have witnessed, I suspect more protected species are killed, but they will dispose of them more carefully.

Dumped corpses of foxes and deer found on North Yorks shooting estate. Images Secret Monitor.

Large holes are dug into the ground on the estate to put some of the carcasses into, which are slowly filled with dead pheasants and their eggs. I have discovered hedgehogs trapped in these holes. Without my intervention, I fear they would be killed if found due to their liking for eating eggs. These ‘stink pits’ also attract flies and scavengers. It got so bad one year that I contacted environmental health and, after a bit of persuasion, I managed to get the pit filled in.

Dumped pheasant eggs in pit on North Yorks shooting estate. A hedgehog was found trapped here and rescued. Image Secret Monitor.

Meanwhile, shot foxes and deer are dumped in a small copse on a monthly basis. There are so many dead or injured pheasants around that it’s not surprising foxes are attracted to the area as they search for an easy meal. Unfortunately, this puts them in the crosshairs of the estate management. The largest pile of dead foxes I have photographed there is seven. Shooting estates are waging war on foxes.

Many badger setts are present on the estate. While foxes don’t have much in the way of legal protection, badgers and their setts do. Over the past 10 years, though, most of them have suffered some form of attack. Every time I hear a gun go off after dark, I fear a badger has been shot. I once found a dead badger at the entrance to a sett on the estate. The body was badly decomposed but I managed to get the police to collect it, and an examination by a vet confirmed it had been shot. No further action was taken due to the lack of evidence as to who had fired the fatal shot.

Badly decomposed badger found on North Yorks shooting estate. Image Secret Monitor.

A month after this event, I also witnessed the gamekeepers shooting at three buzzards above woodland on the estate. All birds of prey are protected by law. I contacted North Yorkshire police and managed to get them to speak to the two gamekeepers but unfortunately not under caution. The gamekeepers claimed they were scaring the buzzards away from pheasants going to roost. No further action was taken. In fact, they wanted the police to take action against me for trespass!

One summer, three cage traps baited with dead pheasants were placed on a badger sett at a time when cubs are about. Again, I managed to get North Yorkshire police to attend and the gamekeeper was asked to remove them. He claimed he was catching foxes who were using the sett. No further action was taken.

A struggle to get police interested

By the way, I keep using the phrase ‘I managed to get police to attend’ because it can be a struggle sometimes even to obtain a crime number.

More recently, an artificial fox earth clearly being used by badgers was attacked following the new gamekeeper replacing the two old ones (note that any structure/hole/ tunnel etc that a badger occupies is defined in law as a sett and therefore protected in law). It was filled in at both entrances and a large hole was dug over it and filled back in. This is a classic indication that the digging out of an animal took place. Flies were all over the dugout area, suggesting that animal blood and remains were present.

I had monitored this artificial earth for years and had proof it was constantly occupied by badgers, including badger hairs in the entrances, fresh bedding taken in and out, latrines, and badger print marks. After I noticed the attack on the artificial earth, I obtained a crime number and the scene was visited by the police. They refused to take me with them and concluded it wasn’t a badger sett. I pointed to the photographic evidence I sent them, making special note of the freshly dug out hole. The officer said it was overspill from a plough, but when I pointed out that the field adjacent to the earth hadn’t been ploughed, he went a little quiet. No further action was taken over this incident. However, I persuaded the police to speak to the gamekeeper. Unfortunately, once again, this was not under caution.

Most of these larsen traps are set illegally as they are baited with meat (the law says that operators must NOT use meat baits, including carrion, in any trap – unless strictly necessary - to minimise catching non-target species). Larsen traps are meant to catch corvids, but are baited with meat to attract birds of prey (which can never legally be targetted). Eggs should be used unless the gamekeeper can show all other non-lethal methods have failed. Also, the entrances to the fenn trap covers are not reduced in size, which allows non-target species to enter.

Corvid in baited cage trap found on North Yorks shooting estate. Image Secret Monitor.

Rabbit caught in illegally used spring trap. Image Secret Monitor.

At this point I should say that if I released a crow from one of the Larsen traps on the estate and the keeper said he saw me, I would be interviewed by the police under caution (typically for criminal damage). Another sad truth. Needless to say, I stay within the law in this respect.

The list goes on, with larsen traps, snares, and fenn traps all over the estate. One snare I photographed was made of barbed wire! How can this be explained away by shooting as a ‘restraint device’?

Snare made of barbed wire found on North Yorks shooting estate. Image Secret Monitor.

I won’t give up

I have turned to our local parish council for help more recently. Armed with my long history of evidence, I’m hoping that we can persuade the landowner who leases the shoot not to renew the lease. Instead, using the parish council’s biodiversity plan, we want him to rewild parts of the estate. It won’t be easy to get this done, not least because some members of the parish council actively hunt and the landowner is a shooter himself.

In summary, worse case practices are happening here and I often feel helpless, unable to get local support and help from the authorities. Nonetheless, I will continue to gather evidence and hopefully through the parish council our rewilding plan may gain some support from local people too.

What I have witnessed over the years is too damaging to just give up fighting for a better future for all wildlife. It has been seen from projects where shooting has ceased that wildlife returns. A wild creature belongs to nobody, it is wild. Continued killing of predators and scavengers has created an imbalance in the ecosystems vital for all species. I want to see a time when all our countyside activities exist without controlling wildlife through trapping, snaring and habitat destruction.

---

• We have listed numerous pubs and hotels around the North York Moors National Park that support shooting and welcome shooters. Search bloodbusiness.info

---

Want to help Protect the Wild fund more investigations?

Let me be brutally honest — the first few months of this year have been the toughest we've ever faced at Protect the Wild. Financially, it's been a real struggle. As an organisation that runs entirely on small donations, we've always pushed ourselves to grow and make an impact, but right now we're having to make hard choices. Our Equipment Fund, which usually supports sabs, monitors, and wildlife defenders, is currently being used solely to fund vital undercover investigations — and that means we can’t support those on the ground in the same way we want to.

That’s why we’re launching Project Investigation, a fundraising drive to raise £2,500 a month so we can run investigations without compromising our frontline support. We’re asking 500 people to donate just £5 a month — enough to fund consistent, fearless, high-impact work that exposes cruelty and forces change. You’ve seen what our covert work can do: our Beaufort and VWH Hunt investigations shattered the trail hunting myth, our badger cull footage aired on the BBC and challenged government policy, and our exposés on raptor persecution are helping take down the shooting industry. What we’re working on now could change everything — but only if we have the resources to keep going. Please, if you believe in what we do, be one of the 500 and help fuel this fight.

We’re currently on 176 donors! 35% of the way there! :)