Poached Page #2

is a man called Matthew Gonshaw.

This man cannot

stop taking eggs.

He's totally obsessed by it.

[Done, Done, Done playing]

[song ends]

[tweeting]

My name is Matthew, and I

was a convicted egg collector.

I got convicted of

collecting birds' eggs.

I mean, Matthew

came to our notice about

eight or nine years ago.

And since that,

he's been caught,

I think now, at

least four times.

When I got caught the first time,

it didn't stop me starting again.

I went out collecting again.

I was even collecting when

I had the tag on me ankle.

At the end of the day, if someone wants

to go out and collect eggs, they will.

It's almost like he's putting the finger

up at the authorities and the RSPB.

He's like, "You're not gonna beat me. I'm

gonna carry on doing what I want to do."

Sometimes I think, "[omitted]

the police, as well," you know?

The balaclava comes off.

Yeah.

Golden eagle eggs from a

nest on the Isle of Lewis

were among more than 600

stolen by a prolific thief.

Matthew Gonshaw, one of the most notorious

wild bird egg collectors in the UK,

is believed to have raided

170 nests

over the last eight years.

Uh, you know, I wanted a clutch

of eagle eggs, you know,

for my own gratification,

if you like.

[Mark] They had golden eagle eggs.

There was also peregrine falcon eggs.

There was avocet eggs,

osprey eggs.

It was a real kind of amazing

moment and sad moment in one go.

These were, you know,

the shells of birds

that should have hatched

and should be flying around.

And here we have

Gonshaw again being

really destructive to birds.

They've described me as

a prolific egg collector.

I mean, blimey, the

second lot of eggs,

I only had 800 individual eggs.

People like these

protectionists,

they like to sort of, uh,

try and label egg collectors,

that there's something

wrong with them.

They've got an egg collection,

themselves, the RSPB,

but they don't tell all their members

that. They keep it all quiet.

Most of their eggs they've got is what

they've stolen off of other egg collectors.

They haven't taken

them out in the field.

Guys show up, of the

RSPB, as a house thief.

When the police

searched my flat,

they took everything that

was to do with birds.

He's got maps.

He's got the binoculars.

He's got clothing

that is camouflaged.

He also has The SAS

Survivor's Handbook,

a handbook for elite forces.

Obviously, it gave Mr. Gonshaw

to some interesting reading

at nighttime, including chapters

on evasion, capture, and escape.

[Matthew] Completely

cleaned me out, basically.

All my optics, I lost,

my GPS.

Everything.

[Charlie] This is what Gonshaw

used for blowing the eggs

and which the DNA evidence

was obtained from.

"I hope it never happens again,

so [omitted] off all you

protectionists and wildlife pigs.

The authorities are the ones which destroy

the planet, along with cars and aeroplanes.

I want no part with all this

greed and do what I believe in."

That was the

telescope I had there.

The guy showed up, the 50 that he stole

out of my flat. I paid 750 pounds for it.

I saved up a long time

for that telescope.

The man's a thief,

just a parasite, a thief.

I'd spit on him if

I see him again.

That's how I look at

him, is a piece of sh*t.

All we want these people to

do is stop egg collecting.

You know, we don't want to send any people to

jail. We just want them to stop egg collecting.

It's just got so

bad with this man

that jail sentences don't

seem to be any deterrent.

[Charlie] After he'd served a

six-month's jail sentence in England,

he was actually picked

up from the jail

and brought up to Scotland,

where he then faced

the Scottish charges and

was sentenced to six month's

imprisonment, but was also given

an anti-social behavior order.

They think that people

that collect eggs

have got something wrong with

them, mentally wrong with them,

but it could have

been a lot worse.

Could you imagine if there'd

have been dodgy videos

up here, DVDs of sexual things?

They would have had

a field day at that,

but they found because

none of that's here.

[Charlie] The Scottish courts

banned him from entering Scotland

indefinitely for the

bird-nesting season,

February to September, which

means for the rest of his life.

I'm not aware of any other case where

someone has been banned indefinitely

from entering Scotland.

If he chooses to go to Scotland

in the bird-breeding season

then gets caught, it will be

the longest ever jail sentence

an egg collector has faced in Britain.

It could be up to five years.

That would send out an

incredibly strong message

to anybody else who's considering

starting egg collecting

or, indeed,

continuing egg collecting.

[Matthew] If I wanted to go up to

Scotland, I would go up there.

What can they do?

You know, if I walked

into a police station,

what could they do, arrest

me, take me to court?

If I wanted to, I could still take all the

eggs I wanted to in England, couldn't I?

There's plenty of good birds

that nest in England.

[Alan] Catching wildlife criminals is a

priority for wildlife crime officers,

but you've got to take account of the

whole scale of crimes that are committed.

I've known John Kinsley, really,

since he came to light

in the mid '90s in an

egg collecting related case.

I think he feels

he's been perceived

as some major

wildlife criminal,

but he was always at the bottom of the

pecking order as far as we were concerned.

My name's John Kinsley, now known as Ben

Tarvie, and I'm an ex egg collector.

I don't like that one because you try

to get sort of a frown like that.

"And I'm an ex egg collector," you

know, because I came forward.

So that can look in body

language as though--

[crew member]

You've took ten takes.

Yeah, that's right, yeah.

My name is John Kinsley,

now known as Ben Tarvie,

and I'm an ex egg collector.

And this is Miller, and she's

never been an egg collector.

I started collecting birds' eggs

at about seven years of age.

And it was more like a shoebox

collection and

thrush eggs and blackbird eggs,

local birds

and working up.

And I always thought

when I was younger,

"Oh, this is something

I love doing.

I enjoy doing it.

I'd never, ever give it up."

And then when I was about 18, I

started working at a falconry center.

It changed me direction

because I had contact

working with birds of prey

and realized what an environmentally

destructive hobby I was going into.

I thought, "That's it.

I'll never collect eggs again."

And then I got into photography

and started doing photography.

If I hadn't have had that, maybe I might

have still been collecting eggs today.

I still get a lot of the same

feelings with photography

as I used to for

the egg collecting.

You know, you're going out,

and you're finding the birds.

You got to know when they're

breeding, where they are,

the best time to go

and find them and that.

Look at it. Look at the

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