The 16 ‘Pest’ Bird Species Are Currently Fully Protected in England

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The three General Licences (GL04, GL05, and GL06) which used to allow gamekeepers and others in England to kill or catch crows, rooks, magpies, jackdaws, jays, woodpigeons, Canada geese and nine other ‘pest’ species were revoked yesterday (Thursday 25 April 2019) by Natural England (NE) at one minute to midnight.

All 16 species are therefore now fully protected and it is a serious offence for anyone to kill or catch them unless they have been granted an Individual Licence by NE to do so.

The move is the latest step in NE’s approach to replacing the old General Licences with new, lawful General Licences over the next few weeks. This process will start later today, the NGO understands, when a new General Licence for controlling crows (only) for the purpose of preventing serious damage to livestock (which includes lambs and captive gamebirds) is expected to be published and come into effect.

The other General Licences that were, until last night, most used by gamekeepers, i.e. those for the control of ‘pest’ birds other than crows, and for purposes other than protecting livestock (eg, for conserving wildlife, such as red grouse and other wild gamebirds) will, NE says, start being replaced ‘as a priority’ starting from early next week, with new General Licences. But it is likely to be well into next week or perhaps beyond before all those General Licences are back up and running, and yet more new General Licences, designed to cover all the other species and purposes, are not expected to be completed until well into May.

Late last night NE issued its own update on the situation, which you can read here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/general-licences-next-steps-to-apply-online

NE also launched yesterday, albeit four hours late and with serious ongoing technical glitches, new application forms for temporary Individual Licences, which people who need to carry out bird control urgently can apply for. But please be careful, these are application forms, not licences. You will not be legal to control anything until your application has been assessed by NE and they have granted you an Individual Licence to do so. NE says it will process such applications as fast as possible but it may well be several days, possibly weeks (depending on demand) before an Individual Licence comes through. You can find the application forms via the link below but as of early this morning there are still technical problems with the forms, which mean they cannot be read or filled in on all computers. NE says it is working fast to resolve any remaining problems and the NGO is keeping the pressure on them to do so. The link to the forms is:  here

So to summarise:

• 1)  All 16 ‘pest’ bird species are currently fully protected
• 2)  Killing or taking them without a licence is a serious offence
• To control them you either need to have obtained a relevant Individual Licence
• 3)  Or you can wait a few days or weeks for whichever new General Licence you want to rely on to be published.

Those are the essential facts, and we will keep this website updated over the coming days if and as they change.

Turning to the reason, we remind members and other readers that this mess is entirely of NE’s making. They now admit that over a period of years they failed to carry out the necessary background assessments of the ‘pest’ species and the problems that they cause which were necessary to keep the old General Licences legal. When anti shooting campaigners took NE to court, that failing became apparent. And when it became clear to NE, on the basis of legal advice they were given, that they would lose the court case, they decided that rather than fight it, the only way out was to revoke the old licences, which they then proceeded to do without any consultation or forewarning and at just two days notice.

The NGO has been working night and day since NE’s first announcement about all this on Tuesday, to try to understand the chaos it has caused and to keep members informed as clearly as we can. We will continue to do that.

We have also been involved in our own extensive direct lobbying of NE, of politicians and others, to influence what is going on and to make the needs of gamekeepers clear. (It is because of this work, we believe, for example, that the planned General Licences that gamekeepers most need are right at the top of NE’s priority work list for next week).

There has also been excellent coordination and joint lobbying by all the shooting organisations working together and this continues. You can read a press release about this via the link below.

In it, you will see NGO Chairman, Liam Bell, quoted thus: "Natural England has made an absolute shambles of this and has put gamekeepers and others to huge inconvenience and concern, to say nothing of imperilling vulnerable nesting gamebirds and wildlife. We are united with other like-minded organisations in demanding a return to workable General Licensing within the shortest possible time. Once that has been secured, there must surely be consequences for those at NE who have made serious mistakes and miscalculations."

To read the full text, please follow this link : here

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The National Gamekeepers’ Organisation: The National Gamekeepers’ Organisation (NGO) represents the gamekeepers of England and Wales. The NGO defends and promotes gamekeeping and gamekeepers and works to ensure high standards throughout the profession. The National Gamekeepers’ Organisation was founded in 1997 by a group of gamekeepers who felt that keepering was threatened by public misunderstanding and poor representation. Today, there are 13,000 members of the National Gamekeepers’ Organisation.  www.nationalgamekeepers.org.uk