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General licence system used as cover for criminal destruction of birds of prey
RSPB Scotland has expressed concern at Scottish Natural Heritage’s response to their recent consultation on the ‘general licences’ that permit the killing of some species of protected birds under certain circumstances. We do not believe that this approach will contribute to wider and helpful Scottish Government efforts to tackle wildlife crimes against birds of prey.
General licences are issued annually to allow land managers (and certain others) to kill a range of protected species such as some species of gulls, magpies and crows in situations where they are causing serious damage to crops or livestock; are a threat to public health or safety; or for the conservation of wild birds. These licences effectively allow unrestricted and un-monitored killing of otherwise protected species.
Although the licences permit some actions that are justified and necessary, RSPB Scotland has demonstrated that this system can be used as ‘cover’ for the criminal destruction of birds of prey, particularly through the abuse of cage traps. To reduce their risk we have suggested that the use of cage traps should be restricted seasonally to target the right species, and that these traps should not be placed in woodland or on the open hill where the risk of bird of prey by-catch is shown to be at its highest. We have submitted detailed evidence to SNH to support this advice.
There are many flaws with the newly proposed licences but several provisions cause us real concern.
One decision has made the illegal killing of birds of prey even easier. A few years ago the, the use of meat baits in certain cage traps was banned because this encouraged birds of prey to enter the traps. SNH then commissioned research that clearly confirmed this. Despite this, SNH have now said they will allow meat baits again, presumably in the full knowledge that protected birds of prey will certainly become trapped.
RSPB Scotland’s Head of Investigations, Ian Thomson, said: “The SNH proposals are very poor and represent yet another missed opportunity to tighten up the regulation of wild bird trapping in Scotland. While we recognise that legal control of some bird species such as crows can have positive conservation benefits for wading birds, red grouse and some other ground nesting birds, the suite of licences that SNH propose to publish for 2017 provides no framework for improved monitoring or enforcement, and simply extends a risky system that is mostly unaccountable.
“Despite SNH’s own field trials demonstrating increased likelihood of catching protected birds of prey when using meat baits, these are now to be permitted again. These licences also offer no improved mechanism for registration of trap operators, and provide no idea about how much trapping is going on, or its impact.”
RSPB Scotland is also concerned that far too wide a range of bird species are allowed to be trapped without any evidential justification. There is, for instance, no published science that suggests rooks pose a threat to the conservation status of other wild birds. Despite this, they remain on the licence for bird conservation even though their own population in Scotland has been in long term decline.
Ian Thomson said, “It is inexcusable that a rational review by SNH of species that can be killed in Scotland has not occurred, meaning that a species like the rook, which can actually benefit farmers through eating pest insect species, and has undergone a significant population decline, is still allowed to be routinely killed” .
“Also, given that a significant proportion of trapping and killing of crows is undertaken on land managed intensively for game shooting, the suspicion remains that the general licence is used not for wild bird conservation, but as ‘cover’ to produce unnaturally high densities of gamebirds for shooting. This would be an illegal use of the general licence but we have seen no efforts by SNH to investigate this issue.”
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The RSPB has also issued a video which explains the many contraventions of the current system and asks us to email [email protected] with our thoughts.
Mark writes: The RSPB is slowly ratchetting up its position on the need for licensing of shooting estates – good for them. There is a small question of ‘why not before?’ and another of ‘why only in Scotland?’ considering that licensing of game shooting is RSPB policy across the UK. But this type of evidence will weigh heavily with Scottish ministers who are thought to be rapidly losing patience with a game shooting industry that acts as though it is entitled to bend or ignore the law when it suits them.
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Why now, why Scotland? Well the Scottish Greens effectively holding the balance of power must factor into it. The SNP only hold majority with the support of its unofficial coalition with the Scottish Greens. Of course the SNP also having Fergus “The Shooter’s Friend” Ewing on their side does undermine that. Still, land reform is inextricably tied to shooting and environmental issues.
SNH…significantly negligent heretics.
Are the consultation returns on the licence change available?
Better late than never, eh? This is the second piece of good news I’ve received about RSPB Scotland in recent weeks. At the annual Orkney environmental quiz, earlier this month, the local RSPB team featured an unfamiliar face. Turned out it was a chap from NZ, who had been invited over to advise on non-native predator control. I understand that RSPB and SNH are now formal partners in the funding bid to protect Orkney’s wildlife (endemic Vole and a long Red/Amber List of ground-nesting birds). Appropriately for the Winter solstice, the immediate future looks to be a bit brighter.
Glad to hear this! NZ has pioneered a hell of a lot of conservation work, which just shows you don’t need massive population or resources. Funnily enough I heard the usual story from someone who I suspect is a shooter’s friend the other day, that the RSPB on Orkney is hated ‘for telling farmers what to do’ – almost certainly guff, the usual smearing that goes on – RSPB politely provide conservation advice for farmers and no doubt ask for it too, and that gets besmirched. The ‘best’ examples of this are the books ‘Isles of the West’ and ‘Isles of the North’ by a character called Ian Mitchell, Orkney features in the latter.
I once saw a video on Youtube where a gamekeeper, well known on social media, had filmed himself talking about a great book he’d read called ‘Isles of the West’ by Ian Mitchell. He said it ‘tells the truth about the RSPB’ so I checked the book on Amazon. The comments about it are scathing. Worth a laugh. Scroll down to the comments section, here:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B008R6AKI6/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
Haha! I see, you’re at the top of the reviews, Les.
The actual circumstances where the killing of other birds is necessary “for the conservation of wild birds” must be countable on the fingers of a wood-mill bandsaw operators fingers.
There are no circumstances that I can envisage where the conservation status of wild red grouse is threatened by predators. This GL has always been used in the production of a shootable surplus and we should make the Scottish Government embarrassingly aware of this.
If they then want to change the NCA to allow a GL for a shootable surplus then get it through parliament.
The video says it all – this sort of thing goes on all over the Country. No wonder when you look to the skies in areas with grouse moors and shooting estates you see so few raptors.
An interesting observation on a shooting website:
‘I000 BIRD DAYS. The number of very high bag days, as noted, seems to be increasing again. Worse, the birds shot on these days are now being given away to game dealers (I heard of one recent case where the price had gone down from 15p to 0p), and some shoots are having difficulty doing even that. Birds are, inevitably, buried sometimes too – what else do you do with such numbers once any demand is saturated? – and this shames our sport. If we don’t stop doing this, it may destroy us. I do not deny that a big bag may be enjoyable, but that is not sufficient justification for a practice which is, when there is no market for the birds harvested, despicable. Why isn’t there more discussion of the mal-practice? We all seem to be fiddling while Rome burns.’
The more I read this blog, and RPUK’s too, the more despondent I become about the future of our nature.
Who are these outfits that include the word ‘natural’ in their title?
Scottish Natural Heritage and Natural England; it appears to me that they do everything possible to help the cause of the grouse shooting industry, and other game shooting interests.
For that is exactly what it is; an industry; the production of goods or related services within an economy, in this case surplus numbers of gamebirds.
And, of course, the government is there to help industry to proliferate, and if that means that nature gets in the way of industry then it is hard luck nature.
Under the present system of government I do not believe that the UK’s nature will ever feature highly on the agenda, in fact it features quite the opposite, lowly.
One fine day, perhaps in the distant future, we will look upon these ‘wildlife unfriendly’ times as a travesty, in the same way we see racism and child abuse, but when that time comes it may well be too late as we will have lost much of our natural heritage.
Scottish Unnatural Heritage and Unnatural England are more apt titles for these industry-pushing public bodies.
Merry Christmas everyone.