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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
National
Severin Carrell, Rob Evans and David Pegg

Royal estate linked to many deaths and disappearances of protected birds

Aerial view of Sandringham in Norfolk.
The Guardian has identified 18 cases since 2003 involving suspected wildlife offences or the alleged misuse of poisons, linked to the royal estate and neighbouring farmland owned by the king. Photograph: David Goddard/Getty Images

King Charles’s private country estate at Sandringham in Norfolk has been linked to the deaths and disappearances of a string of legally protected birds over the past two decades, a Guardian investigation has found.

The cases include the alleged poisoning, shooting and disappearance of some of the UK’s rarest birds of prey. One of the cases involved the mysterious loss of eastern England’s last breeding female montagu’s harrier, a critically endangered species whose future in the UK is now looking bleak.

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