The BTO website has had an overhaul and it looks very attractive. In a blog on the spanking new and attractive website, the BTO CEO Andy Clements (also a Board member of Natural England) writes about the scientific challenges for the new general licensing regime that Natural England is introducing.
The blog is well worth a read in full but this will leap out at many readers:
… there may be insufficient scientific evidence to merit the inclusion of Jay on the licence list in order to conserve birds …
https://www.bto.org/community/blog/2019/general-licences-and-bto
Andy should have gone further, I think, there’s no ‘may’ about it! Andy cites the BTO study (co-authored with GWCT and St Andrews University and funded, so highly amusingly, by Songbird Survival) that I cited in a blog a week ago that is probably the major correlative analysis of the issue of generalist predators and population changes of UK birds.
According to the GWCT, about 10,000 Jays a year were killed under the previous general licenses.
My blog of a week ago was based on the Wild Justice witness statement that Natural England received by email on 21 March as part of our court papers. It’s not as though Natural England have been unaware of this study until now and yet in their proposed timetable for issuing new general licences (issued a week ago) Natural England included the Jay as a species for which they intended to issue new general licences for the purposes of protecting wild birds. This now seems very unlikely to happen, otherwise, in the difficult position that Andy Clements finds himself as a Natural England Board member, he would surely not have made even the very cautious public remark about Jays that he has just made.
In contrast, over a week ago on Farming Today, the interim Chief Exec of Natural England, Marian Spain, was claiming that their new licensing regime would not really change anything for anyone – at the time (or at least on the Monday straight afterwards) I wrote on this blog,
Jay was listed on all three previous licences but is now only found as a Priority 3 species and only for conserving wild birds – I will look forward to seeing that licence (see here). All of a sudden the Jay is not a threat to public health, public safety, a serious threat to livestock, a serious threat to crops or a problem of disease transmission – that’s quite a rehabilitation for a bird species after decades of denigration and licensed killing. The Jay doesn’t belong on the Priority 3 list as a threat to wild birds, any more than the Blackbird would deserve to be there as a threat to wild earthworms, but we’ll wait and see what happens. Jays will be flocking to Wild Justice to give us acorns as presents!
https://markavery.info/2019/04/29/ne-plans-for-licensing-of-bird-killing-represent-massive-change-of-emphasis/
Looks like I was right. And I predicted that Natural England will face similar difficulties, with coming up with a scientific justification for general licences for killing other corvid species too (Magpie, Jackdaw and Rook). The exception (perhaps – see below) will be the Carrion Crow in England (and potentially Hooded Crow in Scotland) where the impacts of crow predation on ground-nesting birds are real although have been grossly exagerrated by the shooting industry over the last 10 days. The Carrion Crow, as Andy indicates, will be a tricky species for which to get licensing right. One wonders whether a general licence will be the appropriate way to address any conservation issues of Carrion Crows for Curlew, perhaps Lapwing and perhaps Grey Partridge. After all, Curlews don’t live everywhere in England and generalised Carrion Crow shooting in Cornwall is hardly going to be justified on the basis of ‘saving the Curlew’, ‘saving the Grey Partridge’ or ‘saving the Lapwing’ as a general licence approach would not be reliably targetted – have a look at the excellent online Atlas maps of breeding distribution for these species on the excellent revamped BTO website for Curlew, Grey Partridge and Lapwing. These maps pose some issues for the validity of issuing general licences for the purposes of conserving wild birds – the relevant wild birds don’t live everywhere.
But for now, as Andy almost says, there isn’t any reason to issue a general licence to kill Jays, and as he didn’t say, there isn’t any very clear evidence to issue ones to kill Rooks, Jackdaws or even Magpies for the purposes of conserving wild (native) birds, and the case for Carrion Crow control needs to be looked at closely and carefully so as not to allow disproportionately large numbers of Carrion Crows to be killed to save a tiny number of Curlew. That debate will have to be carried out sensibly, as Andy says, and ‘for licensing to work, there needs to be an open and transparent system that enables monitoring and the legal adherence to appropriate conditions’.
Andy Clements has led the BTO as it modernises, and the attractive new website is just one good example of that. He is in a potentially difficult position being a paid Board member of Natural England, and a former staff member, through a time when its licensing of bird killing has been unlawful and unscientific but it is part of his day job at the BTO to help modernise the Natural England bird-killing licensing regime by bringing it into line with the science of the twentyfirst century (and away from the blind prejudice of the nineteenth century). His words in the new BTO blog are a cautious step in the right direction.
PS I think we made a good choice in the species to illustrate our legal challenge
Jay. Photo:Andy Rouse
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I suspect the carrion crow will find itself retained on the GL, not necessarily for its impacts on curlews or other threatened wild birds (since, as you say, the nationwide justification for this would be questionable), but more for its alleged impacts on livestock, principally lambs, which of course are found right across the UK in their millions. How serious this threat really is I am poorly placed to judge, but I do wonder whether it might be questioned what measures have been attempted to avoid such attacks that do occur. Presumably sheep are safe in lambing sheds, so might we question the ethics of leaving sheep to lamb unsupervised on the hill if they are so vulnerable to attack? According to Animal Aid, “every year some four million newborn lambs – about one in five of the total – die within a few days of birth, mostly from disease, exposure or malnutrition.” If true, that sounds quite difficult to defend, and one notes that predation is a relatively minor threat beside these other causes of mortality. Some sheep are also apparently forced to lamb in winter to be ready for the “spring” market around Easter, which may increase their exposure to bad weather and indeed sustain predators over a longer period. How often do sheep suffer miscarriages or other pregnancy complications unaccompanied on the hill? Again, according to Animal Aid, “Each year, around one in 20 adult sheep die of cold, starvation, sickness, pregnancy complications or injury before they can be slaughtered. Often, they will die before a farmer even realises anything is wrong.” I have tried asking farmers about whether using more shepherds would help but have mostly been met with scorn, abuse and derision. The principle objection seems to be the cost of shepherds, but this raises an interesting issue in itself – namely what costs/inconvenience do we or NE reasonably expect individuals to incur before resorting to the cheap and easy solution of lethal control? And should we be paying more for meat if that is necessary to fund responsible husbandry?
Hugh – the licence for killing Carrion Crows to protect livestock (lambs, pigs and millions of Pheasants) was the first to be published – so you are right. We await a separate licence for killing Carrion Crows to protect wild birds now. https://markavery.info/2019/04/29/ne-plans-for-licensing-of-bird-killing-represent-massive-change-of-emphasis/
Your general points are also well made (as usual, maybe even as always).
Surely if Pheasant pens have a roof on them then they should be predator proof? No excuse to shoot anything including crows?
Daniel – some do, some don’t. Maybe they all should.
This is an excellent summary of game shooting practices and explains the difference between the main types of pens …
AIM OF THE GAME – BASC
PDF
https://basc.org.uk › downloads › 2013/06
Cracking news!!! As others have pointed out the beautiful blue wing feathers jays have happen to be very valuable in fly tying, feathers that colour are hardly commonplace especially on British birds. Like selling dead birds of prey to dodgy taxidermists once was, is selling these feathers to professional fly tiers a way for keepers to make a few bob? Also as a potential threat, even very mild one, to gamebird nests they are no doubt the target of genuine ire too. I can count the number of times I’ve seen a jay on one hand, the last time was 4 years ago. Hopefully they might just be a little more common now – what’s going to happen to the sale of jay feathers I wonder, will be interesting to keep an eye on that and see what if anything changes. Brilliant result absolutely disgusting they were ever persecuted even legally.
Also great points from Hugh. A few pictures and videos have started appearing on social media of lambs which have supposedly had their eyes pecked out by crows accompanied by the message this is all down to Chris Packham of course. Even if genuine these images have to raise questions about how sheep are kept in this country and the horrendous mortality rates for a species that no matter how much selective breeding is applied to it comes from middle eastern deserts and is forced to live on wet, windswept, shelterless hills getting the full force of northern winters. It seems lambs dying from hypothermia and malnutrition are not worthy of similar sympathy to ones that have been ‘crow’ pecked. Since a Welsh farmer was prosecuted for injecting diesel into his cattle to get fake TB positive results and the accompanying compensation (he said he got the idea from other farmers) is it too ridiculous and dark to think that any living, but eyeless lamb presented to ‘educate’ us townies about predation might not be what they seem? We need to start asking quite a lot of questions publicly including if the GWCT etc are so concerned about conservation why aren’t they campaigning to reduce food waste and thereby the impact of agriculture, or tackling food chain destroying invasive non native plants smothering our woods?
I am glad for the Jay, however, the “various” columns in many game books, will look a little sparse from this season, and the buzz of excitement on the end of season beaters shoot, as a Jay attempts to break back over the line will no longer be heard.
In modern times, Carrion Crows only really impacted Pheasant rearing, if raiding open topped laying pens.
The general licence provisions were used to protect wild nesting birds, in theory.
This had the most beneficial effect, to those estates trying to maintain wild bird shoots, where other
declining wildlife was also a beneficiary.
Trapit – thank you. But open-topped rearing pens contain Pheasants regarded in law as livestock and Carrion Crow control is authorised for them by the Carrion Crow licence already issued. But there will be another Carrion Crow licence issued which will cover wild birds, which will be Pheasants and everything else.
Good news indeed, for this artful and usefully forgetful acorn burier. Expect more young oaks soon.
Jays have a kind of song at this time of year. It’s short but tuneful – a sweet and repetitive ‘coo-coo-coo-chee.’ (The Song Bird Survival take note.) But it seems to be rarely used. (Only ever heard it two or three times.) Anyway, perhaps we’ll all hear more of it from now on.
The Jay is a clever mimic – the Buzzard’s cry is a favourite trick these days. Expect more confused Buzzards and people.
Apparently, Jays are much tamer in France. But from today, our comparatively timid birds have a general licence to spread a bit of Gallic insouciance in the absence of being constantly shot at.
If crows are going to included on a general licence to protect wild birds surely it would be possible for NE to restrict the licence to those parts of the country where they are possibly having an effect on ground nesting birds. For example if the main species that could be affected by crow predation are lapwing and curlew then killing crows to protect wild birds would only be allowed in areas with significant populations of these species.