Rare wild bird egg collector jailed

Nick Britten, The Telegraph 1 Apr 08;

A decorator has been jailed for 23 weeks after amassing one of the largest collections of wild bird eggs ever uncovered.

Richard Pearson turned a bedroom in his home into an "Aladdin's cave" devoted to his collection of 7,715 eggs, all of which are protected under law. Many of them were carefully stored in polystyrene boxes and catalogued by the date on which they had been removed from their nests. A pile of diaries also "fastidiously" detailed the make-up of the collection, with Ordinance Survey Map grid references and even notes on freshness.

His haul contained eggs from Britain's rarest nesting birds including the golden eagle, little tern, osprey, black-necked grebe, avocet, black-tailed godwit, stone curlew, chough, peregrine falcon and red-throated diver.

Skegness magistrates heard that Pearson was "simply a working man with an overwhelming fascination for eggs".

But jailing him, District Judge Richard Blake said he had been responsible for a "carefully organised, evil campaign against wildlife".

He added: "The message must go out that the perverted activity of people like you, who seize eggs to satisfy their lust for them, will not be tolerated.

"People like you threaten the fragile heritage of this island, not just for now but for future generations, by preying on birds - and the very rarest of birds."

By day Pearson earned a living as a painter a decorator, but for 15 years he spent evenings and weekends painstakingly researching where he could find the eggs and then stealing them.

Police and officers from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds received a tip off in November 2006 and raided his home in Cleethorpes, Lincs, where they found the astonishing collection.

David Outterside, prosecuting, said: "The house was an Aladdin's cave, crammed full of wild bird eggs.

"Mr Pearson accepts by his pleas being a professional bird egg thief and collector at the highest level of one of Britain's most destructive natural pastimes."

He added that the collection was "one of the most significant seizures of bird eggs since the inception of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981" and the largest in 20 years.

Almost 600 of the eggs could not be identified by experts. But he pleaded guilty to possessing 653 Schedule One eggs - the rarest and most protected under the Act - and possessing a further 6,477 eggs.

He claimed he was given many of them by the notorious collector Colin Watson, who died two years ago falling from a tree while stealing from a sparrowhawk's nest, but he admitted three charges of theft of eggs that he took from nests himself, including peregrine falcon and barn owl eggs.

Police also found a an egg-blowing kit, a rubber dingy, padded containers, egg boxes and maps.

Richard Butters, mitigating, said Pearson, who was also ordered to forfeit the eggs and pay £1,500 costs, never made money from his collection.

He said: "He was simply a working man with an overwhelming fascination for eggs. He said it was a kind of habit that simply got out of control."

After the case Pc Nigel Lound, Lincolnshire police's wildlife officer, said he hoped the sentence would serve as a deterrent to others.

He said: "We didn't really know what to expect when we got into the house, but we really hit the jackpot. The bedroom was chock-a-block with eggs."

Mark Thomas, head of investigations for the RSPB, added: "Between 2000 and 2005 he was out every day. But this sentence tells people like him they won't be collecting eggs, because they will be in jail."

Around 100 collectors are thought to be active in the UK. Eleven have been jailed since the Countryside and Rights of Way Act, which contains tougher regulations, was introduced in 2000.