After more than a year, Natural England are beginning to come clean about their role in the Bowland Gull Cull (see here for series of earlier blogs).
This is the letter I received from NE last Monday afternoon.
At face value, this might give the impression that there was no consent for a gull cull. But it kind of looks like that the MoU was a consent in waiting, but, perhaps rather luckily for NE, it was not signed and so it did not count as a consent. That’s what I took this letter to mean.
And NE state that whatever occurred, ie the killing of young LBBGs in an SPA which should protect them, was carried out outside the terms of the agreement (which wasn’t signed so wasn’t officially an agreement) anyway.
Of course, this raises the question of what steps has NE taken over the culling of LBBGs in the summer of 2017? I’ve asked them to tell us.
But maybe reading the MoU will make everything clear. Do you think it will? I’ll let you know later today.
PS I’ve gone back and changed the titles of blog posts which are about this particular matter – the culling of a protected species, LBBG (protected in this particular place) – to make it easier to follow the story. And I’m fairly sure there is more story to come.
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