Why are the RSPB so quiet? The latest eagle's death that doesn't fit the charity's narrative

The death of Percy, a four-year-old golden eagle found fatally injured on a Borders estate in April, was a sad moment for everyone who has followed the painstaking work to return these birds to the skies of southern Scotland. But the story of his final hours tells us something that the RSPB seems determined never to acknowledge: when a bird of prey was in trouble, it was gamekeepers who stepped in to help.

Percy was not the victim of any wrongdoing. An investigation by Scotland's Rural College concluded he died from injuries sustained in territorial combat with another golden eagle, a natural and well-documented feature of how breeding eagles defend their ground against intruding younger birds. Satellite tag data showed he had flown close to an active nest before being chased and coming down, gravely hurt, on a nearby estate.

What happened next is the part worth dwelling on. The gamekeepers who found him recognised the severity of his injuries, did what they could to care for him, and contacted Restoring Upland Nature, the new home of the South of Scotland Golden Eagle Project, immediately. His injuries proved too severe and he died before help could arrive, but the response was exactly what anyone who cares about these birds would want to see.

And, tellingly, that is precisely how the conservation sector described it.

Dr Cat Barlow, chief executive of Restoring Upland Nature, did not hedge or qualify her words. She thanked the gamekeepers who "did what they could" for Percy and said the episode "highlights how much gamekeepers engaged in our work care about these majestic birds, and their vital role in supporting the recovery of golden eagles to once again soar in southern skies."

Scottish Land and Estates spoke of being "very proud of the swift and responsible actions of gamekeepers." The Southern Uplands Moorland Group described how rewarding it was to know the sector plays a key role in supporting golden eagles.

This is not an isolated outbreak of goodwill. Across the country, the organisations actually doing the work of species recovery are increasingly clear that they cannot do it without the people who live and work on the land. The South of Scotland Golden Eagle Project has long depended on the cooperation of estates and the keepers who manage them.

Eagle numbers in southern Scotland are now at their highest level in three centuries, an achievement built on exactly the kind of partnership that Percy's story illustrates. Time and again, when a project succeeds in the uplands, gamekeepers are found somewhere near the heart of it, monitoring, reporting, recovering injured birds, and providing the boots-on-the-ground presence that no charity headquarters can replicate.

Which is what makes the RSPB's posture so difficult to understand. While the conservation bodies working most closely with raptors are publicly thanking gamekeepers and describing their role as vital, the RSPB continues to run a campaign that treats the same people as the problem. The contrast could hardly be sharper. One set of organisations is on the ground, recognising who helps them and saying so plainly. The other is issuing reports, lobbying for licensing, and framing an entire community as suspects.

It is worth asking why. If the goal is genuinely the recovery of birds of prey, then the people recovering injured eagles and ringing the alarm when one comes down are allies, not adversaries. The professionals running these reintroduction projects clearly understand that. They have to: their results depend on it. The RSPB, by contrast, increasingly finds itself out of step with the very practitioners whose verdict on gamekeepers carries the most weight, because it is based on working alongside them rather than campaigning against them.

Which brings us to a question worth posing directly. When a raptor is found shot, the RSPB is rarely slow to issue a statement, brief journalists, and fold the case into its persecution narrative. So where is the organisation now?

An eagle has died, gamekeepers tried to save him, and the conservation sector has lined up to thank them. It is hard not to notice how little the RSPB has had to say about a story that reflects so well on the people it spends so much energy opposing. Perhaps that is the point. A dead eagle is only useful to the campaign when there is someone to blame, and territorial combat between two birds offers no villain and no fundraising hook. So the story passes in silence.

Percy's death was a loss. But the conduct of the gamekeepers who tried to save him, and the warmth with which the conservation sector acknowledged it, point to a future in which the uplands are managed in partnership rather than in conflict. That future is already taking shape in the places where eagles are once again recovering. The only question is how much longer the RSPB intends to stand apart from it, and how many inconvenient stories it will quietly let pass on the way.