WILDLIFE crime investigators have been sickened after a rare bird of prey was shot down and left to die in agony.
The injured red kite, a young female, was discovered lying on an upland grouse moor in Berwickshire by a doctor and his children out walking.
The bird was taken to a wildlife vet, who took X-rays showing it had shotgun wounds on its wing and b
ody.
The bird, which was unringed and in good breeding condition, at first appeared to be making good progress, but died three days later. A post mortem examination showed its liver had been ruptured by a shotgun pellet.
Mike Flynn, a superintendent at the Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, yesterday criticised the gunman responsible for the callous killing.
He said: "This is the second iconic bird to be persecuted in the Scottish Borders alone, following the poisoning of a female golden eagle last August.
"Red kites are very distinctive and would not be mistaken for a crow or the like.
"In my 21 years with the SSPCA I have never known the shooting of a red kite and this is a bad news day for the Borders.
"The vet at the Berwick Swan Trust was treating the wing and it seemed to be responding but the internal injuries were too great and the kite died. It would have been very distressed and it would have been a slow, painful death.
"It is a senseless killing.
"We would ask anyone with information about this to contact us as.
"It is sad that, despite the comments from government ministers and leading police figures about tackling wildlife crime, this sort of thing is still happening."
Bob Elliot, head of investigations with the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds Scotland, added: "Red kites are one of our most spectacular birds, with numbers just starting to recover after the species was wiped out in Victorian times due to human persecution.
"The vast majority of people are proud to see birds like this in Scotland's skies, but it never ceases to shock when the mindless vandal minority seeks to ruin the re-introduction effort."
Investigators are keeping an open mind on who might have been responsible for the shooting, but it happened near a grouse moor, where gamekeepers are keen to protect sporting birds from large raptors.
However, the red kite is little threat as the bird tends to feast on dead flesh.
Wildlife experts are still unsure where the red kite, which was found last week, came from, as no re-introduction project has taken place in the Borders because of the high rates of persecution against birds of prey.
It is believed to have come from Gateshead in north-east England, Dumfries and Galloway or central Scotland.
Anyone convicted of shooting a red kite faces a jail sentence of up to six months or a £2,000 fine under the Wildlife and Countryside Act.
The SSPCA has set up a 24-hour hotline on 0870 2404832 for anyone to report information about the shooting. The red kite is one of the rarest bird species in the UK and a programme of re-introduction in Scotland got under way in 1989.
There were 12 confirmed persecution incidents involving red kites in Scotland last year.
The full article contains 562 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
