Wild Justice submitted an e-petition to the House of Commons Petitions Committee over 50 days ago – they are clearly very busy but quite why it took so long, I can’t say. But after a flurry of activity yesterday it was published around 09:30 this morning and we started promoting it around 10:30. By 12:30…
Tag: Natural England
Press release – #SaveSevernsFish
Last chance to save the fish in the Severn as the Environment Agency, planning Inspectorate and Marine Management Organisation deliberates a landmark decision. This crucial decision could see thousands of fish, including cod, sprat, salmon, and whiting, drawn to their deaths each day as they are sucked into double-decker sized water-cooling systems of the new…
Dear Marian Spain, CEO of Natural England
Dear Marian I am writing to you to ask that you carry out an urgent, independent review of the functioning of Natural England’s wildlife licensing work. I believe that is clearly underperforming and in some very serious ways. Since the bits of your licensing system that I can see are only a few, and since…
The 2019 Natural England licensing scandal – a few bits of context.
It’s helpful to remember that all wild birds are protected by law in the UK. There are few exemptions and even those exemptions are carefully prescribed. So, you can shoot gamebirds but only in season (apart from that there aren’t many constraints on shooting wildlife for fun, unlike in many European countries). If you want…
Revealing more details of the 2019 Natural England licensing scandal (2)
We know that last year Natural England was shovelling licences out of the building authorising all and sundry to kill unlimited numbers of any of the species formerly listed on the general licences anywhere in the UK (see earlier blog today and links therein). Is this because the applications described in detail and clearly the…
Revealing more details of the 2019 Natural England licensing scandal (1)
Recap: Bob Berzins discovered that Natural England had issued what amounted to a general licence for conservation purposes after they had stopped issuing general licences for conservation purposes (sounds odd doesn’t it – see Bob’s guest blogs Natural England licences; a cover up? Part 1 and Natural England licences; a cover up? Part 2). And…
Mr Slater of Natural England – a star blogger
Natural England has been forced into some wise back-tracking which they call clarification and some unconvincing verbal contortions through the pressure put on them by blogs such as this and the social media storm into which they often blunder. They are, after all, No-Mates Natural England. Their attempt to shore up their reputation came in…
Just a taster
I requested some stuff from Natural England – a sample of the application forms for successful applications for conservation licences made last year – see here for a quck update. I got a pile of stuff the other day and I will work my way through it this weekend. But here is a taster of…
Just for the record…
Natural England (yes, them again) have behaved very peculiarly in not releasing a report by the BTO on impacts of Badgers on birds (see here, here, here and here). Natural England say I can’t see the report which they cited in another document, and I complained, which meant they had to carry out an internal…
Letter to my MP – all three parts
This is a letter sent to my MP today. This instalment brings the letter up to date with the highlighted paragraphs. Dear Mr Pursglove PROTECTION OF HEN HARRIERS You are always kind enough to respond to me and you were particularly informative and helpful in our recent exchange. Thank you. You have now posted your…