Thanks to Rob Sheldon we now know the scale of Raven killing licensed by SNH in Scotland over recent years.
Licences have been issued to kill over 4,000 Ravens – a species otherwise protected by law – by the Scottish government’s nature conservation agency. With friends like this, protected wildlife needs no enemies.
Read Rob’s blog here. This is just yet another example of two things: the fact that nature conservation is entirely subservient to landowning pressure and the growing power of individual conservationists compared with the wildlife NGOs who ought to be flushing out this type of disgrace and combatting it.
I have no real issue with the possibility that any protected species might be killed under some circumstances – but the statutory agencies ought to be the gatekeepers of that threshold and ensuring that only under rare and well-documented circumstances should applications get through that doorway. I expect that Rob will be going back to SNH to request the details behind those licences and I’d be fascinated to see the applications. It couldn’t be the case, could it, that SNH are operating an open door policy for applications to kill Ravens?
Well done Rob! SNH ought to take care over issuing licences next year – otherwise they might find themselves the subject of further judicial reviews. And I will gladly chip in to fund them.
These are shocking mumbers. ON the face of it, it would appear that SNH is now embracing a role as a facilitator for those who wish to avoid complying with wildlife law in rather the same way as tax havens are facilitators for those who wish to avoid taxation law.
Once more, would the simpleton who disliked this post care to justify themselves?
How is this regulated; does anyone actually count the birds killed by each licence holder and what’s to stop them killing every Raven they see?
Howard – licence holder has to report what she/he has done – that’s it!
And of course we are expected to believe entirely in their honesty and integrity, aren’t some of these people shooting estates, gamekeepers and agents? That’ll be OK then give their track record on honesty and integrity won’t it!
Thanks for the positive words Mark. I was rather shocked at the number of licences issued and the number of Ravens that were authorised to be killed. In my FOI I did ask SNH to supply me with copies of all the licences, which they refused due to the large number of them that have been issued – which is just about reasonable as I doubt I would have read all 621 of them!!
However, I am currently compiling a list of the specific licences that I would like to see and this request will be submitted soon (I’m travelling at the moment).
Apparently, the population modelling report is due soon.
Isn’t it strange that in the late 1980s the decline of Ravens in Galloway was one of the mounting list of charges against afforestation (see Birds & Forestry pp209-10) and now they are being killed on a massive scale – but then there always were different rules for sheep and grouse and for everyone else.
Once again, Q.E.D.