Have you ever read the General Licences?
Help yourself, here they are: GL04, GL05 and GL06. So the reasons why you might be able to kill birds under these licences are quite sensible. They include serious damage to crops and livestock. They include the prevention of disease. And they include the conservation of fauna and flora. And you have to be ‘satisfied that legal (including non-lethal) methods of resolving the problem are ineffective or impracticable’.
There are plenty of questions about the habitual and casual killing of some of these species. How about ‘How does gamekeeping fit in here?’ for starters? Here’s another one ‘What is serious damage?’, it presumably isn’t the same as ‘damage’. And how about ‘Can you shoot a Woodpigeon to eat it if it isn’t wrecking your crops, health or affecting public safety?’ ?
I have met many gamekeepers who have been killing Carrion Crows routinely and with huge enthusiasm and not one of them has ever mentioned the terms of the General Licences – I think they believe that these are pest lists and anything goes. But that clearly isn’t supposed to be the case.
Jay – 10,000 are killed in UK each year. Photo: Guy Shorrock.
So, how exactly does killing 10,000 Jays every year fit into the conditions set out in the General Licence? Loss of acorns?
Woodpigeon – 3.6 million are estimated to be killed under the General Licence. Photo: Tim Melling
It has been suggested to me that this species could be classified as a game bird. I guess it could – it would be the only one as far as I am aware not to have an open or close season. When should the open season for Woodpigeons start? And if all 3.6 million are being killed to prevent serious damage to crops, for example oil seed rape, then who is assessing that damage and surely that would limit the months of the year and counties of the UK where such killing could possibly take place?
I have few problems with Woodpigeons being shot for food but I don’t quite understand how that fits into the General Licences at the moment. And I’d rather have my pigeon breasts lead-free please – perhaps that could be a condition of any licence?
Ring-necked Parakeet in London. Photo: Tim Melling
So this is a non-native species (a bit like the Common Pheasant I guess). Who shoots or traps it at the moment? In what numbers? Under what conditions set out in the General Licences? Does anybody know? I’d be very surprised in Natural England, the government’s advisory agency on wildlife, have the faintest idea…
Carrion Crow – look at the sleekness and colour of that bird! Photo: Tim Melling.
100,000 Carrion Crows are apparently killed in the UK each year. I guess most of them are killed by gamekeepers (and farmers). How exactly does gamekeeping fit under the conditions set out in the General Licences?
The General Licences seem to have been used as a dumping ground for species that someone wants to kill for some reason in the hope that no-one will ever question their placement there.
Even if the General Licences are legal, and Wild Justice’s challenge to them is based on legal advice that they are not legal, then they are a complete mess.
It has been suggested to me that Natural England could regularise (sorry – ghastly word) the killing of these species so that it was legal and perhaps even more of them could be killed. I guess that is possible but how low are Natural England and Defra prepared to sink?
Wild Justice has gifted NE and Defra an opportunity to make things better. We notice that the piece in yesterday’s Guardian about our legal case includes quotes from NE saying they are going to review the licensing of bird killing in England. Woohoo! That is good news and no doubt had nothing to do with our legal challenge even though I cannot find a single person inside or outside NE who knew anything about this until our legal challenge was launched. So when I am told that NE could make things worse in response to the challenge from Wild Justice I have to wonder … quite simply … why would they do that? This is the body responsible for nature conservation in England, and they might choose to make things worse for nature when they have the opportunity to make things better?
Really?
Really?
How low might NE sink? Would the great Derek Ratcliffe have reacted in that way a mere three decades ago? We can be sure he would not? And I think we can be sure that Marian Spain and Tony Juniper will not either. Can’t we?
And if you would like to contribute to the Wild Justice ‘casual killing’ crowdfunder with over 600 other individuals then please follow this link.
[registration_form]
Good luck with the campaign!…
You seem to have forgotten “the preservation of other wild birds” from GL06?!…. Out of interest, how many animals culled during your time as conservation director?..
Edward – of which birds were you thinking?
Pheasants and Partridges in pens are not wild and it is my firm belief it should say in the licence to protect native native flora and fauna.
The game “lobby” has always wanted ( and had it both ways) their poultry is livestock in the pen yet “wild” once out of it. This of course is an ecological and logical nonsense they are free range poultry and in many places ( nature reserves and gardens near shoots) just a damned nuisance. We regularly have 30+ in the garden and they eat EVERYTHING! Yet legally we cannot get rid of them outside the shooting season.
From a personal perspective, Grey Partridge!…. but farmland birds in general!… there’s been a decline…
I’m not sure what Derek Ratcliffe would have thought about this, but when he was in charge you really could kill ‘pest’ species with gay abandon without having to worry about any form of licensing. And that included House Sparrow, Starling, Herring Gull and Great Black-backed Gull which were on the GLs when they first came in but have since been removed. The GLs were an attempt to ensure that these ‘pest’ species could continue to be killed whilst fulfilling new obligations under the Birds Directive and The Wildlife & Countryside Act that helped to implement it. Perhaps the approach is illegal (we’ll find out!) but that was how GLs came into being. Under this system one advantage is that (perhaps illegally) these few species are treated differently to all the other species covered by individual licencing. So, while you can kill as many Carrion Crows and Magpies as you like provided that you say the right thing if challenged, if you want to kill Ravens or Buzzards you must apply for an individual licence and they can be tricky to obtain. If the GL approach is discontinued then I think Carrion Crows and Magpies will be quite pleased but Ravens and Buzzards might become a little more nervous. Under the legislation they would all have to be treated in the same way when considering the damage they do and the measures that can be taken to prevent it. Overall, it might be that far fewer birds are killed in total, but that a far greater range of species are killed on a regular basis. But that’s guesswork really – it will be interesting to see how this plays out.
I know that only too well Edward but predator control is hardly the answer to farmland bird declines. Try looking at what happens at RSPB Hope Farm or Dart Farm or Vine House Farm near Spalding all places that still farm very profitably yet have vastly increased populations of declining farmland birds. They hold the key to these things not killing crows.
There’s a flock of about 200 wood pigeons in our immediate area. My guess is that they are thriving on the food put out by the local pheasant shoots. The ones that actually visited our garden in the last few weeks have included a juvenile, indicating a plentiful supply of food even in winter. So if the pigeons are becoming a pest perhaps the first step should be to reduce the number of non-native birds released into the wild.
Spot on Lyn! The full impact of pheasant and partridge shooting in all its aspects must be enormous and diverse, but the overall effect like driven grouse shooting is a few species benefit at a cost to a great many more. It all starts of course with the land intensively farmed to produce the 236,000 tonnes of feed to raise gamebirds and supplement their diet in the ‘wild’.
More of a CRT man myself!…
Ed – backing the wrong horse is a habit then.
CRT?? Cognitive Retention Therapy?
Countryside Restoration Trust, Richard, the Robin Page founded thing. Not quite my cup of tea, I’ve always found Page to be an odious, how can I put this politely, ah well never mind you get the idea , and yes I have met him. He’s a man with totally ignorant views of prey and predator relationships, me I prefer, RSPB, the Wildlife Trusts, BTO or Plantlife to name but a few even NT compared to that!
CRT the wrong horse?! Interesting.
…so, how many animals culled during your time as conservation director?!… you keep swerving that!
Ed – not swerving anything – read to the end of this reply.
But you seem, perhaps, to think that the Wild Justice legal challenge is to end bird killing whereas it clearly isn’t, it is to put it on a legal footing. You must agree with that – do you? Putting it on a legal footing might reduce the amount of it happening – it’s hardly likely to increase it is it?
NE/Defra, the statutory sector organisations that are supposed to be on the side of wildlife, appear unlawfully to allow bird killing on an unknown scale.
So, how many birds, of which species, have you killed in the last 8 years? For me, the answer is none – I can’t even remember a road kill in that time. How about you, Ed?
I left RSPB 8 years ago and cannot remember the details of how many crows (quite a lot), magpies (very few), woodpigeons (none I would guess), jays (none?), jackdaws (hardly any? maybe none?), rooks (hardly any, maybe none?) were killed while I was Conservation Director but the figures are in the public domain so you can look them up, as I made the decision to publish them every year. I wonder whether they have increased or decreased?
While on that subject, the RSPB internal process at the time of my leaving would be entirely legal. If NE/CCW (at the time)/SNH had asked us under what conditions we carried out very limited predator control we could have given chapter and verse on non-lethal means and evidence of need. One last thing, the RSPB land area of nature reserves was then (it is bigger now) a bit larger than the size of Bedfordshire (a small but whole county).
Probably down to local oilseed rape, and it’s drilli season!…
Probably true Edward. Did you know that unless they only eat the most nutritious growing tip of the plant pigeons have to eat so much rape because it is so nutritiously poor for them they have to eat huge quantities and even then they often loose weight eating rape exclusively but it is better than starving. Here in rural Wales where we have no remotely nearby crops the woodies seem to survive quite well in winter eating oil rich ivy berries as do the Stock Doves.
Shoot all the blue jays you want, if you can hit ’em, but remember it’s a sin to kill a mocking-bird.
Should have put my comment in quotes! Sorry to see that three people dislike one of the greatest novels ever written.
Another: “I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.”
Mark, in addition to my personal gamebook, I have to keep records of all trapping etc. I even have to supply the Estate owner with copies of Gamebook & trapping records every year, standard lease policy. …. the Grey Partridge are doing fantastically, thanks for asking!
Ed – and the numbers are?
So you’d be happy to apply for a licence, pay for it and then supply licence returns, no doubt.
I think Mark’s rounded view and balanced view of the problems associated with the current licensing system is spot on (in other words, coincides almost exactly with my own), and a few extra quid will be flowing Wild Justice’s way shortly.
I’ve found myself disagreeing with Ian C over several issues recently (although I have tried not to comment publicly on all of them) and I think I’ve found the common factor that underlies most of our differences. Ian C seems to be almost oblivious to the wider consequences of some of the positions he takes. I think the importance of general and personal licensing goes far beyond the precise numbers of birds killed and its effect on their conservation status. I think the signals it sends, and the culture it contributes to, are also important.
I think that issuing large numbers of individual licenses and the widespread use of general licenses with a low justification threshold has contributed to the continuation of Victorian attitudes and behaviours among farmers and gamekeepers who believe that it is their right to kill any wildlife that inconveniences them, or which they simply don’t like, and such behaviour has official approval.
One important approach to reducing wildlife crime is, of course, to improve policing, evidence gathering and sentencing. However, we all know how difficult this is. In my view, another essential strategy is to send clear and unequivocal signals to those involved and the wider public that killing wildlife is something that must not be done lightly or without very good reason. Tightening the licensing system could send a signal that Victorian practices are no longer acceptable and, in time, lead to a change in attitudes and culture without which progress will be slow and painful.
In my view current licence is fine, it’s only Yourselves that have an issue with it!
Magpies average 35 ish a year. Half a dozen Jays. crows, surprisingly few! Foxes seem to fluctuate, last 3 years, 14, 35, & 11.
Ed – thanks, appreciated.
So the RSPB killed 400 foxes annually on its land in 2015-17. The RSPB UK land holding in 2011 was 141,000ha. Let’s imagine it’s 150k ha in 2016. You kill about 20 foxes a year. Your area of influence would have to be around 7,500ha (18,000acres) for the RSPB to be killing as many foxes as you pro rata. Are you covering that sort of area? I doubt it.
Let’s lump crows, magpies and jays together, and let’s assume you kill 2 crows a year because you don’t say there aren’t any. So you kill 43 corvids a year and the RSPB kills c500. Is your land area 13,000ha or so in size? I doubt it. Is it perhaps one tenth of that size? Or even smaller perhaps?
And how many Pheasants and partridges are shot on your land please (hardly any – maybe none at all – on RSPB land)?
The RSPB figures I used are from here https://community.rspb.org.uk/ourwork/b/martinharper/posts/the-conservationist-39-s-dilemma-an-update-on-the-science-policy-and-practice-of-the-impact-of-predators-on-wild-birds-5
400 foxes – terrible!
So I presume that from your point of view Lizzy, one fox would also be terrible and not justified. It’s fair enough to take that view but then you’d have to accept that sometimes it might result – for example – in a fox wiping out a breeding colony of Little Terns or some other rare species. I prefer to take the view that lethal control methods should be avoided as far as possible but that sometimes they are necessary and justified. The problem with the General Licence of course is that it promotes an attitude that so called vermin should be killed on sight without any consideration of whether any alternative control method might be preferable or even if control is needed at all.
I accept that if you think one killed fox is too many then the numbers are irrelevant but from a conservation point of view 400 foxes is a negligible fraction of the country’s fox population but one fox could easily make serious inroads into the population of some rare ground-nesting species.
I think many of us would prefer a system that requires a return Ed of both the species you kill because you think they are a problem (actually I doubt Jays are) and the Pheasants and Partridges (if any) you both release and shoot. We might argue about some of those species but not all and it would not be that onerous.
I ring birds and record details of some nests, to retain my ringing permit and Schedule One licence I have to make annual returns before the new licence is granted, all ringers and nest recorders have to do this and rightly so. It seems only right that those who kill things they deem a pest or game should have to do the same, to my mind this is not a witch hunt.
Paul – good point!
Absolutely spot on Paul
Yes, the terms of the current General Licence are fine. However the problem is that very few people stick to the terms of the General Licence. How many really exhaust non-lethal methods before resorting to shooting or otherwise killing these birds?
I heard a few years ago that the price for wood pigeons had slumped and shooters began to supply falconers instead but in order to do so had to switch to using non-lead shot since the falconers didn’t want to poison their birds…..
Nick – that is interesting if true.
If this Wild Justice venture will also target those organisations that apply for these licenses then I’ll back you, but not financially. If this is just an excuse for another cock-eyed vendetta, then you deserve my contempt.
Conservation is monetary selective, not proactive protective, we choose to knock-off the carrion crows because those organizations get subsidies for doing so, just because we have a history of this action doesn’t make it right. There’s no difference in my book for implementing protective measures for curlew chicks than red grouse/ grey partridge chicks – there’s a money motive behind both, each operate under the shrouded guise of conservation.
With operations such as Hope Farm, you get a clearer picture by delving into their yearly accounts and analyzing them, more than just accepting what PR the RSPB push out.
The unfortunate issue with “pest species”, is the farmland crop feed formula put forward by the organizational bodies (for which we get subsidies) suits game birds, we stopped planting this and instead grew sunflowers mixed with kale, (which we didn’t).
The sunflowers are a huge success, but has inherent problems that the end crop needs to be sprayed, something we are dead against.
I believe that with supplementary feeding (game feeding) we can entice turtle doves back here, we certainly have the hedgerows.
We don’t have a pigeon/pheasant problem, primarily because we have abundance of raptors/predators, and for that reason only we don’t have our hedgerows full of yellowhammers or fields full of skylarks, what we have is a balanced landscape. We don’t knock-off our predators, we encourage an equilibrant number of predators to prey species, something the RSPB seems reluctant to do without financial assistance, somehow the ‘giving nature a home’ strapline seems to me to be slightly tarnished.
Tom – thank you for your first comment here although I am struggling to grasp your point – even after reading several times.
People don’t apply for a general licence. A General Licence allows landowners and their agents to use lethal control against certain species, only if it is for specific reasons laid out in the terms of the General Licence, and they have taken all reasonable measures to resolve the problem with non-lethal methods. If the person killing these birds does not stick to the terms of the general licence, then they are acting illegally.
Mark, just over 2000acres here. We don’t shoot the whole estate, and predator control is limited to where I know there are Grey Partridge (due to time constraints, part time).
The number of pheasants & Partridge shot on the Estate is pretty irrelevant because we don’t rely on wild stock, the predator control I do is for the benefit of farmland birds, as I’ve said Predominantly Grey Partridge. Counted 14 pairs so far, still got the other half of the Estate to check.
Ed – thank you. So you are killing 9 times as many foxes as do the RSPB per unit of land and six and a half time the number of corvids.
If RSPB had to apply for licences I expect they would get them – maybe you would too. Some who are casual killers would not…
…I must have 6.5 x more wildlife then!
Ed – you reckon?!
It’s about time this scam was clamped down on. The terms of the General Licence are clear. However, I can say with almost 100% certainty, that most shooters and landowers make absolutely no attempt whatsoever to follow the terms of the General Licence. These just shoot or trap these birds whenever they feel like it. The act as if these birds are not protected, and they have the right to shoot them whenever they want. A lot of these birds are essentially killed for sport, when the season for game birds closes.
The authorities have long turned a blind eye to this mass breaking of the law.
That’s exactly right, SteB. It’s been said previously that we should distinguish between regulated and unregulated killing, and be mainly worried about the unregulated sort.
But the truth is that, in practice, the killing of the general licence species is entirely unregulated, and the individual licence system produces only the feeblest, ineffective form of regulation. As you say, many of the birds are just seen as additional quarry species on slow days and out of season, or as a bit of variety for the bored.
It’s high time things changed.
When I was a policeman I once prosecuted a man for shooting wood pigeons, collared doves and domestic pigeons, after a woman reported seeing him wandering around the local woods with his rifle. He claimed he had been doing so under the general licence (his solicitor had never heard of it) because they were “vermin”. He was annoyed that I hadn’t anything better to do (thereby failing the attitude test and guaranteeing his fate). There were dozens of carrier bags full of dead pigeons, in various stages of decomposition, in his back garden. He’d been doing it for years, he told us. He was astonished to hear that the GL didn’t apply to him, that he wasn’t allowed to kill birds just because he didn’t like them and that he would have to go to court. He was fined and his guns were forfeited. It’s not hard to imagine there being many others like him, regularly doing the same thing up and down the country every year.
Let’s just say we have our fair share of red & amber listed species, and rare visitors!
I’d be interested to know the average grey Partridge numbers on rspb sites in East anglia.
Ed – you don’t have quite as many Bitterns, Cranes or Black-tailed Godwits as the RSPB though (just guessing here really).
But a good comparison would be the GWCT farm at Loddington compared with RSPB’s Hope Farm; last I heard the GWCT had no Grey Partridge at Loddington (despite them being there when they acquired the site) whereas Hope Farm had them (despite them being absent when RSPB acquired that site). RSPB do (or certainly did) no predator control at Hope Farm whereas GWCT make quite a meal of it.
See here for the comparison published in 2015 https://markavery.info/2015/11/05/high-hope/
I’ve just checked, going off 2013 figures site number wise I’m on similar numbers, 154 corvids over 5 sites! Foxes work out similar site average!
There are several necessary definition in the GLs including as has been pointed out above. My point is about GL6 and the ‘conservation’ of wild birds.
I suspect it might only be RSPB and other conservation organisations that make some attempt at lethal control only when it is known to be a necessary and effective means of allowing say the safe breeding of scarce species for the conservation of the species.
Others acting under GL6 are assuming and are being allowed to believe that the killing of the listed ‘pest’ species will result in more of the species on which they might predate. For instance, even if say pheasants are considered ‘wild birds’ once out of the pen, the killing of predators is absolutely not necessary for their conservation.
Have I explained that well enough?
Bimbling – yes indeed.
I understand the issue re GLs is on the agenda for tomorrow’s monthly board meeting of Natural England.
On NE’s website, it states that the meeting is open to the public.
I checked to confirm this, but it transpires that the meeting is, in fact, closed to the public apart from one item (about a proposed new SSSI in the North-East).
Bit disappointed by that.
James – me too. But I’m going anyway!
Lizzy, did you not read any further than the second line?
What a hollow victory this seems to be. The consequences of this are that now, these large bullying creatures, who I must admit have an attractiveness about them, will bully and out compete smaller and/or native species. This will lead to less breeding and potential starvation of our beautiful looking and beautiful sounding song birds. Additionally, corvids, particularly the overpopulated magpies, will now gorge themselves on the chicks of these beautiful song birds. I note that there is no apparent factual, statistical evidence re songbird populations being negatively affected by being starved to death or being eaten alive by corvids and/or parakeets etc. However, the accepted facts are that magpie populations have seen phenomenal growth circa 115-120% and THEY DO EAT SONGBIRD CHICKS. I have witnessed a magpie from 1.2m away break into a thorn bush, rip apart an enclosed spherical nest (pied wagtail I believe) and eat their poor defenceless chicks. You sick people are clearly callous, clueless or both. You are cheering the death of millions of songbirds that, again, factually are known to be in decline. I hope you look forward to a world full of cawing, screeching corvids, parakeets and a continued decline of twittering songbirds. Well done to all of you. Thank you for proving that ignorance is still rampant amongst my fellow human beings. Sleep well and hope that you continue to wake to the sound of songbirds for at least little while longer.