New stoat licences

More News

The National Gamekeepers’ Organisation (NGO) says that new General Licences issued this afternoon will allow stoats to continue to be trapped humanely in England.

The news comes after draft licences circulated two weeks ago were described by the NGO as “completely unfit for purpose.”

Since then, six fundamental problems with the drafts, identified in a letter sent to the Secretary of State for the Environment by NGO Chairman, Liam Bell, have been corrected. The NGO now says the English licences are, “workable if not ideal.”

Natural England (NE) today issued two new General Licences for stoat trapping (GL38 for Conserving Wild Birds, and GL39 for Preventing Serious Damage to Livestock) which allow gamekeepers and others to continue trapping stoats from tomorrow (1/4/2020) providing they use newly-approved humane traps and follow other requirements in the 5-page licences.

A spokesman for the NGO said:

“Had these new licences not come out today, all stoat trapping would have become illegal from midnight. It is appalling that the publication of the licences was left to the eleventh hour when the need for them was identified by Government over two years ago but at least gamekeepers can now continue to do their important work.

“We still have reservations about some detail in the wording. Why, for example, does the conservation licence allow stoat trapping to protect only the ground nesting birds? Does NE not realise that stoats climb trees? There are also inconsistencies between different parts of the licences as well as numerous grammatical errors.”

But the overwhelming reaction of gamekeepers tonight will be relief that they can protect gamebirds and wildlife from stoats this spring.

For its part, the NGO will continue to highlight the underlying issues of delay and incompetence on the part of the licensing authorities, with the aim of solving these issues in the longer term.

Equivalent licences covering Wales are still awaited, with Natural Resources Wales blaming the recent coronavirus outbreak and saying that they hope to publish their licences tomorrow afternoon.