Hen Harriers
(asked on 7th September 2020) - View Source
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many breeding pairs of hen harriers there have been in England in each of the last 10 years.
Answered by
Rebecca Pow
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The results from the most recent UK national survey in 2016 (Wotton, S. et al 2018) showed that in England, the hen harrier population was at least four recorded pairs. However, data on nesting attempts from recent years suggests a higher breeding population. The table below shows data on hen harrier breeding success in England from 2011 to 2020.
| Nesting Attempts | Successful Nests | Chicks Fledged |
2011 | 9 | 4 | 12 |
2012 | 1 | 1 | 4 |
2013 | 2 | 0 | 0 |
2014 | 4 | 4 | 15 |
2015 | 12 | 6 | 18 |
2016 | 3 | 3 | 8 |
2017 | 7 | 3 | 10 |
2018 | 14 | 9 | 34 |
2019 | 15 | 12 | 46 |
2020 | 24 | 19 | 60 |
Hen harrier numbers are normally monitored through breeding data. Obtaining a figure for non-breeding and over winter numbers would be very difficult and there is no centrally coordinated monitoring of non-breeding numbers.