Hen Harriers
(asked on 2nd February 2026) - View Source
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment she has made of trends in the the numbers of hen harriers over the last 5 years.
Answered by
Mary Creagh
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The number of breeding hen harriers is assessed annually by Natural England in partnership with the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB). Summaries of these figures are published as blogs via Natural England’s .gov blog page.
Assessments of the number of breeding hen harriers from the last four years can be seen below:
Nesting attempts per upland area of England
Area | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
Bowland | 18 | 11 | 11 | 15 |
North Pennines | 7 | 11 | 4 | 2 |
Northumberland | 9 | 17 | 15 | 18 |
Peak District | 5 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
Yorkshire Dales and Nidderdale | 10 | 15 | 4 | 2 |
Total | 49 | 54 | 34 | 39 |
In 2025, a peer-reviewed paper was published assessing the population trends in hen harriers in the UK and Isle of Man between 2016 and 2023. This included data and co-authorship from Natural England’s hen harrier programme: https://doi.org/10.1080/00063657.2024.2446373.