Comments Off on GWCT caught up in unlawful licensing by DefraAfter being caught up in unlawful licensing by Defra, GWCT seem to shrug.
Last week we won a legal challenge, after Defra finally conceded that the issuing of some of their 2023 gamebird release licences was unlawful. We were very pleased, particularly as it took us some digging to uncover.
The process by which these dodgy licences were granted was rather murky and unclear (see cartoon here) – but we know that Therese Coffey was personally involved (she was Secretary of State for Defra at the time). We also know, that she chose to involve other organisations when rejecting Natural England’s recommendations – recommendations given to protect vulnerable bird populations during a catastrophic outbreak of Bird Flu.
Coffey was keen to take advice from the pro-shooting Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT) but didn’t seek advice from expert organisations like the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) or the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO). The minister who signed most of the licences was Lord Benyon, a land owner who shoots and who has been, when not a minister, a trustee of the very same GWCT.
“As one of the UK’s leading wildlife research charities, Defra called on the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT) to provide independent advice on gamebird management and releasing in 2023.
The GWCT has undertaken decades of peer-reviewed research in this field and the advice it gives is based on research evidence and expertise.
The Trust was pleased to have been consulted by Defra on technical matters relating to gamebird ecology and management as part of the ministerial department’s decision-making process.”
What does their statement say about being caught up in unlawful licensing by Defra? Not an awful lot except that GWCT seem chuffed to bits to be Defra’s mates and completely unbothered about the unlawful decisions made by their mates which favoured the shooting industry from which GWCT get much of their funding.
The current chair of GWCT, Sir James Paice, was a Defra minister, alongside Lord Benyon in the early years of the coalition government, Another former Defra minister, Sir Robert Goodwill MP, is also a trustee of the GWCT and is chair of the influential Environment, Food and Rural Affairs select committee which oversees the work of Defra.
You might be forgiven for thinking that the shooting industry has had an awful lot of influence on government since 2010. And you might reflect on the lack of progress that Defra has made on regulating intensive grouse shooting, clamping down on illegal killing of raptors, banning toxic lead ammunition and reducing the harmful impacts of massive releases of non-native gamebirds on the environment.
Where there has been progress on regulating the shooting industry it has often been (eg in general licences and licensing of gamebird releases) through legal challenges mounted by Wild Justice.
Comments Off on Badger consultation period – last minute extension
With our friends and colleagues at the Badger Trust we wrote to Defra about their consultation on 22 March – click here – and Defra told us that they would respond by Friday 19 April, ahead of the closing date of the consultation of Monday 22 April. Defra did indeed respond yesterday, our lawyers received a response at 17:07 yesterday.
Lengthening a flawed consultation is something, but our original concerns with the validity of this consultation remain (and also see our more recent blog – click here). We will be having urgent discussions with our legal team and our friends in the Badger Trust early next week. Watch this space!
Comments Off on The confusing Defra Badger consultation
On Friday morning we asked you to spend about 20 minutes reviewing the current Defra Badger cull consultation. We are very grateful to 1082 of you who completed that task: 715 on Friday, 145 on Saturday, 108 on Sunday, 107 on Monday and 7 on Tuesday. Here are the summarised results which we will be making available to Defra later today. Defra has said that it will respond to the letter sent by Wild Justice and the Badger Trust criticising the consultation by Friday so this is further input to their cogitation.
Question 1 – we asked about your motivation to respond to the consultation.
Question 2 – we asked whether you were keen on Badgers
Question 3 – we asked about your views on bovine tuberculosis
Question 4 – we asked about what factors would be important to you in assessing bovine tuberculosis control measures
Question 5 – we asked about your overall impression of the consultation
That’s the easy bit! The responders to the Wild Justice questionnaire were highly motivated to respond to this public consultation, they were keen on Badgers, keen to see a reduction in bovine tuberculosis in wildlife and cattle, thought that there were many aspects of the issue that would influence their views and thought the consultation looked very difficult to engage with.
Question 6 – the Defra consultation asks (in its question 5, on p17 of the consultation document) whether you agree with the ‘stated objective’ of a targeted badger intervention policy without stating what the stated objective might be:
We asked our respondents to look through the Defra consultation document and tell us on which page they believe that ‘stated objective’ was stated. 919 of you responded (92 skipped the question)
The commonest response was ‘Can’t find it’ – 462 respondents (50%)
Of those who indicated they found the ‘stated objective’ on a single page the breakdown was as follows:
Of those who indicated they found the ‘stated objective’ on multiple but adjacent pages the breakdown was as follows:
Pages 3, 4, 5 and 6………………..1 Pages 4 and 5……………………….1 Pages 6 and 7……………………….1 Pages 6, 7 and 8……………………1 Pages 7 and 8……………………….5 Pages 10, 11 and 12………………1 Pages 12 and 13………………….17 Pages 12, 13 and 14………………2 Pages 12, 13, 14 and more……10 Pages 13 and 14…………………..3
An additional 11 respondents identified multiple non-adjacent pages as the location of the stated objective.
To summarise: • half of our respondents could not find the ‘stated objective’ referred to in Defra’s question 5 • the other half of our respondents identified all but two (pages 2 and 9) preceding pages of the Defra questionnaire as being the location of the ‘stated objective’ i.e. pages 1,3,4,5,6,7,8,10,11,12,13,14,15,16 and 17. • Wild Justice would plump for the top of page 13, in fact section 5.7, as being the ‘stated objective’ and if we are generous in including page 12 alongside page 13 as the ‘right’ answer then around 150 of our respondents agree with us – 150 is 16% of those who answered the question. This means that 84% of our respondents either could not find the ‘stated objective’ or thought that it was somewhere other than where we believe it might be.
This is not a sound basis for Defra to rely on the responses to their question 5.
Question 7 – we asked our respondents whether, having looked at Defra’s question 5, and looked for the stated objective, how easy would they find it to answer Defra’s question 5, right now.
Question 8 – we asked our respondents where the issue of costs was addressed. Most responses, to keep it brief, were highly critical and pointed out that the mentions of economic benefit and Value for Money did not state costs, and did not provide analysis of the figures given, nor comparative figures for alternative actions. One respondent stated that they were ‘losing the will to live’ after a quarter of an hour of trying to understand this public consultation paper.
Question 9 – we asked our respondents where the issue of humane killing was addressed. Most responses, to keep it brief, could not find any mention of it. Some pointed out that there were mentions on pages 19 and 20 of the consultation paper (and a few other scattered mentions) but that these were statements simply stating that the Chief Veterinary Officer regarded the current cull methods as humane (many of our respondents disagreed) or that culling would be humane.
Summary:
The Wild Justice questionnaire did not deal with all unsatisfactory aspects of the Defra consultation paper. We did not ask about factual inaccuracies, misrepresentations or important omissions. We concentrated on whether the Defra consultation was understandable and represented a fair series of questions that could be answered by a motivated member of the public. We concentrated on Defra’s question 5, which we believed was important as it asked whether respondents were in favour of Defra’s plans, against them or needed more information.
Defra’s question 5 asks respondents views on the ‘stated objective’ without being clear about the stated objective. The questions was asked on page 17 and our respondents thought that they had found the ‘stated objective’ on a wide selection of the 17 pages of the consultation preceding and including the question, but half of our respondents reported that they could not identify the ‘stated objective’. Our guess is that the stated objective had to be hunted down four full pages preceding the question about it – a horrendous way to structure a consultation.
After being invited to think about Defra’s question 5 in our questionnaire, 63% of respondents said they would find it very difficult to answer Defra’s question 5 and another 24% reported that it would be somewhat difficult to answer. Thus almost nine out of 10 of our respondents would find Defra’s question 5, a crucial question one might think, difficult to answer even after being directed to it specifically.
By inspection of the free text responses it is clear that this is partly because half of our respondents did not feel that they identified the stated objective, but also because the stated objective in section 5.7 has an element of ‘reducing bovine tuberculosis’ (which most people support) mixed up with increased Badger culling as the mechanism (which many people do not support). How is the public supposed to answer Defra’s question 5 if they want to reduce bovine tuberculosis but do not want badgers to be killed by free shooting OR do not want badgers to be killed OR do not think that badger killing is effective OR want to know the costs OR have a wide variety of other concerns.
Wild Justice would not know how to answer Defra’s question 5 ourselves nor would we know how to recommend that others answer it. Defra’s question 5 cannot deliver useful or reliable information.
The consultation lacks any meaningful information about other aspects of Badger culling eg cost and humaneness that are important to the decision making of many members of the public.
We note that if a respondent doesn’t care much about Badgers and wants more culling, the Defra consultation is relatively easy to complete. This will create a massive bias in the responses gathered.
Wild Justice thanks over 1000 respondents to our questionnaire.
Wild Justice will make these findings available to Defra later today.
PS Thank you for all your message of support and donations following yesterday’s news of our legal victory over Defra over gamebird releases.
PPS The link to our questionnaire – click here – is open so that people can inspect the questions but we will not be adding any further responses to our analysis.
Comments Off on Defra gamebird licensing found to be unlawful. Wild Justice wins legal challenge
Last week, after months of spinning things out, Defra finally conceded that the issuing of licences for gamebird releases in the Deben Estuary and Breckland in 2023 was unlawful. This is what Wild Justice has argued for months and months. Defra is paying Wild Justice’s costs up to the Aarhus threshold of £35,000. Yesterday, the court sealed the consent order, which means we can now begin to tell you more.
It was a Wild Justice legal challenge back in 2020 that forced Defra to strengthen protection for wildlife and important habitats from the mass releases of non-native gamebirds for recreational shooting.
In 2023 we were seeing a huge outbreak in bird flu, and so Defra used this legislation to require landowners to apply for individual licenses if they wanted to release gamebirds in or near certain designated sites. This didn’t please the shooting industry – the UK has one of the least-regulated recreational shooting industries in Europe.
The process for granting or refusing these licences was particularly murky (see cartoon above) – something we blogged about last year. Through some digging, we managed to find out that licenses for the Deben Estuary and for 27 sites in Breckland were granted despite being protected areas – and we wanted to know why.
The crucial aspect of this case is that Defra ministers did not follow Natural England’s formal advice on issuing these licences. Instead, Therese Coffey and Richard Benyon adjusted the terms of the licences to weaken the protection that they would give to wild birds and these changes made life easier for shooters.
Wild Justice challenged the lawfulness of these licences on three grounds. Defra has now conceded on the first ground and admitted that the issuing of these licences was unlawful because the ministers involved could show ‘no cogent reasons’ why Natural England’s advice was not heeded. We interpret Defra’s words on Ground 2 as a concession too. We also believe that had this case gone to court then we would have won on the Ground 3 too – but we’ll never know.
Let’s be quite clear here – Defra ministers did not adhere to the legal requirements of the Habitats Directive and the advice of their own conservation agency. Not only that; they were unable to give good reasons for why they didn’t.
Does it matter? Yes, it always matters if politicians act unlawfully. Yes, it matters when the most powerful politicians running government departments act unlawfully. And yes it matters very much if there is any suspicion that ministers are ignoring the law in order to please particular interest groups.
Wild Justice is pleased to have taken this legal challenge, and very pleased to have won it! This victory helps to remind all public bodies that they are subject to the law, not above the law. When a tiny organisation like Wild Justice (working with brilliant lawyers) faces down a powerful government department this helps to create a landscape of fear in Whitehall, Cardiff, Edinburgh and Belfast. Respect for the law is always helped by strong enforcement. This outcome was only possible because of a legal challenge.
We will reveal some of the documents relating to Defra’s decision-making over the next few weeks.
Wild Justice said:
‘Defra had ‘No cogent reasons’ to disregard Natural England’s expert advice. So to find out that Therese Coffey and Richard Benyon have licensed releases of pheasants and partridges into what are supposed to be some of our most precious places, against that advice – and during a catastrophic outbreak of bird flu – it frankly reeks of both recklessness and arrogance. It seems to us they may have had more regard for the interests of the shooting industry than those of the environment in this matter.
Natural England has faced legal challenges by Wild Justice in each of the past five years, but in this case we support them and have stood up for them.
We challenged these decisions because government is bound by the law, just as the rest of us are. We shall expose more about this reprehensible behaviour over the next few weeks.’.
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We jointly instructed Leigh Day solicitors to send an urgent request to Defra on 22 March 2024 on their recently published consultation to evolve badger control policy and introduce additional cattle measures.
We feel at the present time there is insufficient evidence about what is proposed and the basis on which it has been brought forward.
We have asked Defra to respond by 28 March 2024 (it is a very short consultation process) with this missing information to allow sufficient time to respond to any additional information.
We have also drawn attention to the fact that the Northern Ireland Executive consultation on bTB measures was recently found unlawful for a number of omissions.
We are awaiting the response from Defra before deciding on further action.
Our supporters are angry at this further planned assault on a much-loved native species.
Comments Off on Phasing out toxic lead voluntarily STILL isn’t working…
In February last year we shared news of a study showing that voluntary phasing out of lead ammunition by the shooting industry isn’t working. Twelve months later, and we can report that not much has changed – phasing out use of lead shot STILL isn’t working.
Wild Justice has spoken about many times about lead contamination of game meat. Lead is a known toxin, it’s bad for humans and wildlife alike. Its widespread and longstanding use by the shooting sector has contaminated areas of the countryside and has caused the deaths of millions of water birds who ingest it accidentally. It also crops up in food – both for humans in the form of game meat, and even in dog food.
Other countries in Europe have completely banned the use of lead shot, and there’s been a call for an outright ban in the UK for decades, which has been strongly resisted by shooting organisations and businesses.
In 2020, nine major UK shooting and rural organisations pledged to completely to phase out lead shot in UK game hunting by 2025. Today, another study from SHOT-SWITCH and scientists at the University of Cambridge has been published in Conservation Evidence Journal . It shows that whilst a small decline in the use of lead shot appears to have happened, a huge amount of work still needs to be done to see the transition complete successfully.
In late 2023 and early 2024, researchers obtained Pheasant carcases from supermarkets, butchers, farm shops, online retailers and shoots (a number of which Wild Justice helped locate). Of the 340 they managed to get hold of, 93% were found to have been killed using lead ammunition. This has reduced only slightly from 94% of samples tested in 2022-2023. And, if we look at the rate of reduction since the pledge was made, we can see it’s very unlikely to succeed before next year; in 2020-21 and 2021-22 over 99% of pheasants were shot with lead. At this rate of decrease, it’ll take another half a century to phase out the use of lead shot completely.
In February 2020, the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust emphasised how important a move away from lead by the industry is. In a statement announcing the five year voluntary transition, they said:
“This is a vital step we must make together to safeguard our wildlife and the wider environment.””
It may have been vital, but now 80% of the way through their transition period, it’s clear it’s not been working. We think it’s about time an outright ban on using lead shot be brought into place.
Defra has now published its response to the consultation – click here – and it amounts to pretty much a reinstatement of what have been the regulations for decades. We will read them several times more to be sure but they look pretty good to us – and we see that others have praised them too.
There is a problem though – at the moment those regulations are not in place, they lapsed at the end of 2023 and Defra needs parliamentary time to reinstate them. So hedgerows currently lack legal protection. We shall have to hope that farmers act responsibly and do not harm wildlife just because of Defra ineptitude – this late consultation was sent out in the Therese Coffey period as Secretary of State.
There are hopeful signs that most farmers will act responsibly because many farmers were in favour of maintaining the protections that have now, albeit temporarily, lapsed.
But do just keep an eye out for farmland hedgerows being cut between now and the end of August. If you see such management and are able to take a quick photo of what’s happening then we’d love to see them. There are some limited circumstances under which management of hedgerows was legal during the bird nesting season so please do not accuse any farm worker of wrong doing – you might be wrong. If you see farmland hedgerows being cut then please send details, including a photo and geographic location, to admin@wildjustice.org.uk. In our recent questionnaire (more on that probably next week – but thank you to over 4000 respondents) there was a strong request (obviously only from some of you) to be offered tasks that you could do outdoors. Well, this fits that bill. Thank you.
You could also write to your MP saying that you are glad that eventually these regulations will be reinstated but that you are concerned that they are not in place right now. Ask your MP to ask Defra when the regulations will be reinstated and ask for their support for government to find time to rectify this loss of environmental protection.
If you read the government response to the consultation responses – click here – you’ll see that both the RSPB and Wild Justice are credited with asking their supporters to respond to the consultation. Of the 8,692 responses received, Defra reckoned that 354 came from the RSPB members and 1939 from Wild Justice supporters. The RSPB has an income of over £100m/annum and a membership of over a million, Wild Justice has an income of less than £250k/annum and a subscriber base of c35,000 to this newsletter. We’ll just let you digest that comparison.
Every single response you made was counted and influenced the Defra decision – you helped send a strong message to government. We think our supporters are wonderful (and we are sure that your responses to the Lead Ammunition consultation will have been important too).
One of our aims is to give you more and more opportunities to have your say. We won’t tell you what to say but we will give you suggestions and guidance, which you can take or leave. We are in this together and you will get more support from Wild Justice to make your views known than you will from many other larger wildlife organisations.
We think you’re great! If you think we’re OK too then please consider making a donation to encourage us through PayPal, bank transfer or a cheque in the post – see details here.
Comments Off on Wild Justice partners with League Against Cruel Sports to fund development of new test to detect medicated grit
Wild Justice has partnered with the League Against Cruel Sports (Scotland) to fund the development of a new laboratory test which can detect the presence of medicated grit (Flubendazole) on grouse moors.
The new test has been used to analyse grit samples collected by the League from a number of moorland estates across Scotland and has revealed that some grouse-shooting estates are not adhering to the industry’s voluntary ‘best practice’ guidelines, raising questions about the prescription process, the administration of the drug, withdrawal and disposal issues and the potential impact of this drug on both environmental and human health.
Toxic medicated grit is used by grouse moor managers to tackle parasites in Red Grouse. Photo: Ruth Tingay
We have published a joint briefing document (see below) and met with officials from the Scottish Government and its statutory nature conservation agency, NatureScot, last week to discuss our concerns.
Robbie Marsland, Director of League Against Cruel Sports Scotland, said: “Medicated grit is used by the shooting industry in a bid to treat parasites that reduce the numbers of Red Grouse to be shot for sport. Before we undertook this research, no one knew the extent, concentration or the prescription process behind this chemical which is known to be toxic to people and animals.
“It turns out that tonnes of medicated grit litter the Scottish landscape at levels of up to 2.5 times the recommended dose. We found the chemical at times when we would have expected it to have been withdrawn under statutory requirements and we found it both in trays with drainage holes or directly strewn on the ground.
“We have also uncovered the fact that this chemical isn’t even licensed for use on Red Grouse in the UK. It is prescribed using an emergency procedure that is supposed to be used on a case-by-case basis to ‘avoid unacceptable suffering’.
“With this new information, Ministers in Scotland need to urgently consider the potential dangers of medicated grit to the environment and to humans – especially to human health.
“An urgent and detailed review needs to be carried out into how such vast amounts of medicated grit are prescribed and used and, in the meantime, the Scottish Government should introduce a moratorium – a suspension – on the use of Flubendazole on grouse moors.”
Dr Ruth Tingay from Wild Justice said: “Wild Justice was pleased to co-fund the development of a test to detect the presence of the veterinary drug Flubendazole on grit placed out on grouse moors. The use of communal grit trays has already been linked to the rapid spread of a highly contagious disease in Red Grouse (Respiratory Cryptosporidiosis), which leads to serious welfare and conservation concerns, especially the threat of cross-contamination to other red-listed species in the area. To date, the statutory agencies are not adequately monitoring either the use of the drug nor the environmental consequences of its use. The report’s findings also lead to an important ethical question about this dubious widespread drugging regime of wild birds, simply to provide an opportunity for those birds to be shot later by a privileged few”.
Scottish Government officials told us that the issue over the prescribing of medicated grit is a reserved issue to the Westminster Government. However, they reassured us that the use of medicated grit will be included in the Grouse Moor Management Code of Practice currently being drawn up to accompany the Wildlife Management & Muirburn Bill (we had previously heard that some organisations from the grouse-shooting sector were trying to have it excluded from regulation). If grouse moor managers are found to be in breach of the Code of Practice this could be grounds for having their new grouse shooting licences revoked.
We have been invited to provide input to the draft Code of Practice on the use of medicated grit. Our recommendations will include the requirement for all medicated grit users to provide a copy of their veterinary prescription to NatureScot; that NatureScot can randomly sample grit from moors to test for the presence of Flubendazole or other anthelmintics (especially during the period when there is a statutory requirement for the drug to be withdrawn to prevent it entering the human food chain via shot Red Grouse) – this testing can now be facilitated by the newly developed laboratory test; that medicated grit should be administered in such a way that it is not allowed to leach in to the environment, and that medicated grit should be disposed of as a toxic substance.
An exclusive article about our joint project featured in The Herald yesterday, here.
Comments Off on Wild Justice donates a further £5,000 to support forensic investigations into alleged raptor persecution crimes
Wild Justice has donated a further £5,000 to the PAW Forensic Working Group (a sub-group of the Partnership for Action Against Wildlife Crime) to help support police investigations into alleged crimes against birds of prey.
You may recall we began this funding initiative in 2020 with an initial budget of £10,000. Those funds were donated by Wild Justice, Northern England Raptor Forum, Tayside & Fife Raptor Study Group, Devon Birds, and a number of individuals who wished to remain anonymous.
Since then the fund has been used to help secure the conviction of at least four gamekeepers.
The first one was gamekeeper Hilton Prest who was found guilty in December 2021 of the unlawful use of a trap in Cheshire (see here). The second one was gamekeeper John Orrey who was convicted in January 2022 of beating to death two buzzards he’d caught in a trap in Nottinghamshire (here). The third one was gamekeeper Archie Watson who was convicted in June 2022 of multiple raptor persecution and firearms offences on a pheasant shoot in Wiltshire (see here). The fourth one was gamekeeper Paul Allen who was convicted in January 2023 of carrying out multiple wildlife, poisons and firearms offences on a pheasant shoot in Dorset (here).
All this work had almost depleted the forensics fund so we’re delighted to have been able to contribute another £5,000. Rare Bird Alert has also recently donated £6,000 so the fund currently stands at approx £11,000 which will enable this important work to continue.
Dr Lucy Webster, Chair of the PAW Forensic Working Group said:
“The additional funding provided to the Forensic Analysis Fund has demonstrated the benefit of supporting early-stage investigations where no crime has yet been proven. Veterinary examinations at this stage allow crimes against birds of prey to be quickly identified, giving an investigation the best chance of progressing to a prosecution. The PAW Forensic Working Group welcomes these further donations to the Forensic Analysis Fund which will allow this early-investigation support to continue and help tackle bird of prey persecution”.
The fund is solely administered by the PAW Forensic Working Group and is open to any regional or national statutory agency in the UK, specifically to support forensic testing in raptor crime investigations. For further details please visit the PAW Forensic Working Group website here.
Wild Justice would like to thank its friends and supporters who have donated to this work.
Separate to this forensic fund, Wild Justice also recently provided funding of approx. £800 to cover the cost of DNA testing in the case of a Hen Harrier found dead with shotgun injuries on a grouse moor in Northumberland. The DNA results were used by the RSPB to demonstrate a genetic link between the shot Hen Harrier (a breeding male called ‘Dagda’) and his offspring who were at an early nestling stage in a nest on the adjacent RSPB Geltsdale Reserve. It is believed that Dagda was away hunting on the neighbouring grouse moor when he was shot, although so far police have been unable to determine who was responsible. See here for further details of that case.
Comments Off on Wild Justice’s Books for Schools ProjectThe six titles sent to schools in 2023/24 by Wild Justice; Dara McAnulty Diary of a Young Naturalist, Gill Lewis Swan Song, Ollie Olanipekun & Nadeem Perera Flock Together: Outsiders, Chris Packham & Megan McCubbin Back to Nature, Jess French Book of Brilliant Bugs, and Gill Lewis Eagle Warrior.
In spring 2020, Wild Justice decided to supply schools and libraries with some books, choosing titles relevant to wildlife and conservation. Little did we know how challenging that would be with the pandemic emerging! However, with lots of patience and effort, we persevered.
For our first project, we focussed on schools and libraries in areas proximate to driven grouse moors; supplying free copies of Sky Dancer and Eagle Warrior by the wonderful Gill Lewis, and Inglorious Twelfth by our own Mark Avery. In this year we supplied 395 books to 39 libraries and 41 schools.
The following year we completed this endeavour again; this time opening up further and focussing on community and voluntary libraries (including one on the Isle of Man). We wanted to support these due the strains of the ongoing pandemic on volunteer staff, plus they offer a wider range resource – they’re invaluable places. To compliment, we also selected community and rural schools, for similar reasons.
We had such a positive response to the 3 titles in 2020, we chose to offer these again, and in 2021, we supplied 405 books again to 41 schools and 39 libraries.
For 2023 and 2024 we decided to throw this project open to our newsletter subscribers and see what happened. What a response we received with nearly 400 nominations – outstanding!
We had to narrow this down a bit, so we selected schools according to a couple of factors. Firstly, schools in England were selected by the highest pupil premium rates – all of which were over 50%. For Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, where such data doesn’t exist, schools were instead selected to reflect a broad geographic distribution across each country.
The 2023/24 project will be completed this month and we’re delighted to share the news that 97 schools across the UK (including a school on the Isle of Man) will receive 2 copies of each title – that’s 1,164 books!
Map showing distribution of nominated schools selected to receive free copies of wildlife and nature books.
We remain sincerely grateful to our wonderful supporters, who not only fund this project, but this time have given the opportunity to so many worthy schools and most importantly, young people, access to these titles – thank you!
Comments Off on Nutrient Neutrality – we challenge Defra
UPDATE (16:30 16 February): we received a response from Defra yesterday and having spoken to our legal team today we have decided there is no prospect of winning this challenge. We got this one wrong. But what Defra is doing is shockingly bad and if we were still in the EU we would be considering challenging this policy. As it is, we can’t see a legal route forward. However there is work to be done by us and others to ensure that the promised upgrades are produced and that the relevant regulators do their jobs properly. Watch this space for more thoughts.
We’ve started another legal challenge. We recently asked our lawyers to send this Pre Action Protocol (PAP) letter to the Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. You might remember that last year, the government tried to amend the Habitats Regulations in a way that could have allowed lots of unchecked nitrate and phosphate pollution by housing developments.
Whilst that was shot down, some new guidance has been issued in January this year. We suspect it might be attempting to achieve the same relaxation of rules by house builders as the proposed amendments last year, but by the back door.
You can find a press release about this below from our lawyers at Leigh Day. We should get a reply soon, and we’ll keep you updated.
Wild Justice challenges second bid to relax water pollution rules
Wild Justice is challenging a bid by the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (SSEFRA) Steve Barclay to change water pollution rules to permit house building in sensitive water catchment areas without enforcing measures to protect them from sewage pollution.
Wild Justice says a notice to planning authorities and water companies published 25 January 2024 is an unlawful attempt to use guidance to introduce a change that was defeated in the House of Lords last year when Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove proposed an amendment to the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill (LURA).
The amendment was voted down after the Chair of the Office for Environmental Protection said it would “permit certain environmentally damaging activity to proceed without appropriate assessment”.
Now the SSEFRA has published a “Notice of designation of sensitive catchment areas 2024” in accordance with section 96C of the Water Industry Act 1991. The notice requires water companies to upgrade sewage infrastructure to improve pollution control measures for the removal of nitrogen and phosphorus from discharges into sensitive catchment areas by 1 April 2030. Wild Justice welcomes that.
However, the notice also says that planning authorities considering proposals for developments should assume that that those pollution control measures will be in place by the deadline of 1 April 2030, even though there is no guarantee that the measures will be in place.
Wild Justice says the notice would have the same effect as some of the LURA amendments that were defeated in the Lords.
Represented by the environment team at law firm Leigh Day, Wild Justice has sent a pre-action protocol letter to Steve Barclay, signalling the start of the judicial review process, challenging the lawfulness of the notice. The group is challenging the notice on four grounds:
Ground 1: unlawfully requiring competent authorities and other local planning authorities to disregard matters which they are required to have regard to in accordance with the Habitats Regulations and planning law generally. A competent authority is required to have regard to any potential adverse impacts which a proposed development may cause to a European site, and is prohibited from granting planning permission for such a development. By requiring authorities to assume that the relevant nutrient pollution standard has been met, the notice would require the authorities to ignore potential impacts to sensitive catchment areas in situations where the relevant pollution standard has not been met.
Ground 2: unlawful fettering of discretion: By purporting to prohibit competent authorities from considering that a relevant nutrient pollution standard has not been met, the notice unlawfully fetters authorities’ discretion.
Ground 3: ultra vires the statutory power: The notice is made “in accordance with the power in Section 96C” Water Industry Act but the act does not give the Secretary of State power to direct what planning authorities may consider in determining a planning application. Those matters are governed by the Habitats Regulations and planning legislation.
Ground 4: Irrationality: The notice has the perverse effect of lowering the level of environmental legal protection afforded to the nutrient sensitive catchments. In that sense, the notice is self-defeating and therefore irrational.
Wild Justice said:
“This appears to be a con. Did the new Secretary of State really read this passage which tells regulators to assume the unlikely and unproven will be true? We think Defra is not to be trusted, and quite honestly, we don’t trust them. This is a legal fight that is worth having.”
Leigh Day solicitor Ricardo Gama said:
“After a huge outcry from environmental groups and a defeat in the House of Lords last year our client thought that the government had quite sensibly given up seeking to remove legal protections for internationally important habitats. The latest notice appears to try to achieve the same thing through the backdoor.”
Here’s a very quick run through some highlights of 2023. It’s been a good year for our legal challenges.
The changes to the Northern Ireland general licences occurred in January but we started considering and working on our legal challenge from early January 2021. You could actually say that we started working on this from our very first day in the public eye when we challenged the lawfulness of Natural England’s general licences. But the trigger was when one of us sent an email to our lawyers in Leigh Day saying ‘Do you do NI? This looks pretty ropy [with a link to the existing Northern Ireland general licences].’ and received the reply ‘It is definitely possible for us to help with a case in NI, and that licence looks like a real shocker!‘. The reply took 23 minutes to arrive – that’s how on-the-ball Leigh Day are and then things started to happen quickly at our end but slowly at every other stage during the legal process. It took two years to get the result that should have been offered by the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs, Northern Ireland, right from the start. Their general licences were ‘real shockers’ in legal and biological terms. But we got there in the end.
We had another win in Northern Ireland, on Badger culling. This was a sweet success, with the Northern Ireland Badger Group (who were just brilliant) and we won a judicial review where the process followed by DAERA was judged to be unlawful and they will have to repeat a public consultation in a very different way if they even consider going ahead with a cull. We wonder whether they will as the science has changed in that time.
The NI Badger case started with an email from us to our lawyers early on a Monday morning and a response, within the hour, in September 2021 and led to our eventual victory in October 2023. These things take a while, and are taking far longer than they used to take, and longer than they should take.
We sometimes get a bit of moaning from public bodies about how much time, money and effort goes into fighting our cases. We have some but rather little sympathy for this view. They are a lot of work for us too – we’re volunteers! The solution to not spending time on defending legal challenges is not to make dodgy decisions which can be challenged as unlawful. But if you have taken some unlawful decisions then we suggest that giving in quickly is the right thing to do!
In Wales, the recent announcement (see our newsletter a few days ago) of changes, good changes, to the Welsh general licences shows that our successes there continue to accrue and the proposed changes to releases of gamebirds (disappointingly weak though they are – click here) follow directly from our success in England.
And the current legal challenge occupying our time is on the licensing of gamebird releases in England this year. We can’t say too much about it other than these three blogs that were written some time back (click here, hereandhere).
We are hopeful that our petition on the Woodcock shooting season will bring about changes in shooting seasons for Woodcock and maybe a few other species too. This hasn’t been quick either. Hannah Bourne-Taylor’s Swift brick petition also passed 100,000 signatures and was debated and is languishing in the shallows of government dithering. These are simple government decisions which are easy to take but our current system of government makes few big decisions well and can’t even cope with the small easy decisions.
Hundreds (we know), but probably thousands (we think) of Wild Justice supporters responded to government consultations on gamebird releases in Wales, hedgerow regulations and lead ammunition control. Wales is moving ahead with restrictions on gamebird releases but we have yet to hear how Defra will move on hedgerows or lead ammunition. What we do know, is that Wild Justice supporters were effusive in their praise for our advice and suggestions on these responses. Consultations of this sort are rarely completely straight forward to complete and we are pleased that a bit of guidance from us has allowed many more members of the public to voice their views on issues that do concern them. We’ll do more of this in the future.
Wild Justice published our first three reports. A Site for Sore SSSIs analysed data from England and showed that Sites of Scientific Interest in England are in worse condition than the official figures show and the data are very out of date anyway (click here) – the protected area system is in a terrible state of disrepair. Meddling on the Moors looked at Hen Harriers in England and particularly took a critical look at the controversial brood-meddling scheme licensed by Natural England to suit grouse moor managers (click here) – we think it’s a rotten ‘trial’ where the evidence is clear that it has failed. Ban or License? presented the results of a poll of over 7000 respondents and showed that these respondents (who may not have been a representative sample but were a large sample) favoured banning of driven grouse shooting over licensing – click here. Strikingly, this was firmly true of RSPB members despite the RSPB’s corporate support for licensing.
We carried on our data collection on glyphosate levels in your urine and lead levels in game meat, our funding helped secure quicker results in forensic analysis of wildlife crimes, we had a couple of boat trips in Poole Harbour and we helped fund legal challenges on river pollution, tree protection, underwater developments in Northern Ireland and Open Seas‘s successful legal challenge of the Scottish government’s licensing of scallop dredging – click here.
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That’s a quick summary of 2023 – bring on 2024, we say!
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All of these things, and many more, have been reported in our newsletters through the year. Our newsletter is our favoured means of keeping you in touch with our thoughts and work. It’s free – subscribe here.
And all this work is funded by donations from the public – if you feel you can support our future work then you can donate via PayPal, cheques or by bank transfer – click here for details.
Comments Off on Low convictions allowing wildlife crime to go unpunished, say nature groups
Wildlife & Countryside LINK’s Wildlife Crime Group (of which Wild Justice is a member) has published its latest report on wildlife crime that took place across England and Wales in 2022.
Here is the WCL press release:
Low convictions allowing wildlife crime to go unpunished, say nature groups
Some of the country’s leading nature voices are today releasing analysis showing that our cherished wildlife is being failed in the courts, with people who commit crimes (including persecution of birds of prey, badgers and bats) rarely being convicted. Such a lack of convictions removes a key deterrent for would-be criminals and makes it more likely for people to become repeat offenders. Wildlife crime can also be linked to other serious crimes like firearms offences and organised crime.
The Wildlife Crime Report for 2022, compiled by Wildlife and Countryside Link, with information from groups including RSPB, WWF UK, and the League Against Cruel Sports, has shown that convictions for crime against wildlife in 2022 decreased substantially. This is despite a record number of reports of wildlife crime over 2021. Other wildlife crimes include the disturbance of seals and dolphins, and the illegal trade of wildlife across international boundaries.
In 2022, Link estimates that there were around 4,457 reported wildlife crime incidents in England and Wales, compared to 4,885 in 2021 (a record level sustained from a surge in incidents in 2020 during the pandemic). Despite record levels of wildlife crime in 2021, there was a notable 42% fall in subsequent convictions for wildlife crime, from 900 in 2021 to 526 in 2022.
Dominic Dyer, Wildlife and Countryside Link’s Wildlife Crime Chair, said: “To put it simply, people who hurt wildlife are getting away with it, with a lack of convictions leaving them free to cause further suffering. Despite shockingly high levels of wildlife crime in recent years we’re not seeing higher levels of convictions to give nature the justice it deserves.
“With the Government’s deadline to halt the decline of nature by 2030 getting ever closer, it’s time for ministers to take the issue of wildlife crime seriously. This means the Home Office making it a notifiable offence to help police forces identify crime hotspots and plan accordingly.”
Despite a slight fall in the overall number of reports of wildlife crime, the report shows that reports of disturbances on marine mammals (including seals and dolphins) rose from 450 in 2021 to 508 in 2022. This is likely due to the rise in the number of people participating in outdoor activities on or near the coast including walking, paddle boarding, kayaking and jet skiing, as well as wildlife tours and wild swimming. Marine experts and water sports governing bodies are working to educate the public on how to enjoy our beaches and ocean without putting the welfare of marine wildlife at risk.
Sue Sayer MBE of Seal Research Trust, said: “More people enjoying our ocean is great news for health and wellbeing, but we must be more mindful of how this can impact marine wildlife including seals. If a seal gets scared by people getting too close it will use huge amounts of energy to scamper away and could also risk serious injury when getting back into the water. Fortunately, it’s very easy to enjoy our beaches and ocean without putting seals at risk of harm. Just follow the Defra Marine and Coastal Wildlife Code, Give Seals Space (100m+), and slowly move further away from seals if they start to look at you.”
Bat crime figures for 2022 increased by 23% compared to 2021. A survey issued by the National Wildlife Crime Unit to the 43 police forces across England and Wales (19 responded meaning these numbers are likely far less than the true extent of crime), coupled with reports to Bat Conservation Trust revealed 164 cases of bat crime. The most common form of bat crime is disturbance or destruction of roosts, often due to property development. The report points to a case in Monmouthshire of a developer being fined more than £7,000 after renovating an old school building where bats were known to be present.
Kit Stoner, chief executive of Bat Conservation Trust, said: “Bats are long lived, roost faithful, and slow to recover from population losses. Unfortunately, many species of bat in the UK are under threat from loss of roosting sites. With the most common form of bat crime being disturbance or destruction of roosts, it is vital that we maintain and enforce protections. Without this action, we will not meet targets to halt the decline of species.”
Due to a lack of official data, these figures on crime (most of the data relies on direct reports from members of the public to nature groups) are likely to be a significant under-estimate of wildlife offences. Wildlife and Countryside Link is therefore calling on the Home Office to make wildlife crime notifiable, to help target resources and action to deal with hotspots of criminality.
To properly tackle the issue of wildlife crime, nature experts are calling for the following actions (most of which were also recommended by a UN report in 2021):
Making wildlife crimes notifiable to the Home Office, so such crimes are officially recorded in national statistics. This would better enable police forces to gauge the true extent of wildlife crime and to plan strategically to address it.
Increasing resources & training for wildlife crime teams in police forces. Significant investment in expanding wildlife and rural crime teams across police forces in England & Wales, would enable further investigations, and lead to further successful prosecutions. Funding for the National Wildlife Crime Unit should be increased in line with inflation, to allow the Unit to continue its excellent work.
Reforming wildlife crime legislation. Wildlife crime legislation in the UK is antiquated and disparate. A 2015 Law Commission report concluded these laws are ‘‘overly complicated, frequently contradictory and unduly prescriptive’’. Much of this stems from the need to prove ‘intention and recklessness’, which has stunted the potential for prosecution in even clear cases of harm being done to protected and endangered species.
Comments Off on Please respond to a public consultation on lead ammunition
Today we are asking you, please, to respond to a consultation by the Health and Safety Executive on the use of lead ammunition. This is an issue on which Wild Justice has been very active.
Below we have set out some background information on the issue, as well as some guidance on how you might want to fill out the consultation, step by step.
Background.
We believe that restrictions on the use of lead shot and lead bullets for shooting live quarry are long overdue. Lead is a poison and shooting it into the environment or into creatures that may enter the human food chain or be eaten by other wild animals is senseless. This consultation is important and it feels like getting change is possible. Honestly, it won’t take you very long to make your views known and the more people who respond, the better.
Many of the respondents will be shooters who have been briefed by the shooting industry. This is an industry which has been dragging its feet on this matter for years and years and years. Some shooters will respond in wildlife-friendly ways but this is your opportunity to speak up for wildlife (and for human health). The consultation applies to Great Britain (England, Wales and Scotland) but if you live in Northern Ireland or elsewhere there is no bar to you responding and there may well be implications of the decisions that apply to you.
The consultation has two attached papers – we’ve read them. They are both very long (100+ pages each), quite technical and would take you hours and hours to read properly. But filling in a public consultation is not an exam test and you’ll be able to answer the few questions without wading through all of the two papers although you may find them interesting and informative.
However, if you want more information then here are some comprehensible sources of information on the topic, we include them to show that we know our stuff on this subject and we regard it as important:
Webpage of the Lead Ammunition Group – click here – which contains much information including their 2015 report (after five years of expert work), correspondence, updates and various other information
Recent blog by John Swift, chair of LAG, calling for restrictions on use of lead shot and lead bullets for shooting live animals – click here – these are exactly the same measures that Wild Justice supports. It is striking that John is a former Chief Exec of the British Association for Shooting and Conservation and has been an active shooter.
Oxford Lead Symposium – a 2015 compendium of accessible research papers on the impacts of lead ammunition on people, wildlife and the environment generally – click here.
Wild Justice website has a variety of blog posts on tests of lead levels in supermarket game meat – click here for information on lead in dog food, lead in supermarket game meat and more.
An RSPB blog post by one of us 13 years ago which describes the RSPB trialing copper bullets for deer control and deciding to make that change permanent – click here
A letter from RSPB and Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust (2022) calling for an all-out removal of lead for shotgun pellets – click here.
A blog post by the RSPB which calls for the end to the use of lead ammunition (shot and bullets) from 2022 – click here.
The Food Standards Agencyadvice on not eating game meat shot with lead – click here
NHS advice on not eating game meat shot with lead
if pregnant, trying to get pregnant or for young children – click here
The consultation closes at midnight on Sunday 10 December so you have 6 days including today, and including the weekend, to respond. Here is the link to the consultation:
We think that this is a very poorly worded and dense consultation. This is ‘the’ public consultation by a government agency on a matter of considerable public interest and yet the questions are off-putting and assume quite a lot of technical knowledge. It does look quite scary but please don’t be put off. There aren’t many questions, you can skip lots of them and so with some explanation from us we think you can make a difference by expressing your views within a few minutes. Note that you don’t have to finish the answers all in one go, you can do a bit and then click the option for ‘save and come back later’ at any time and do just that.
The good thing is that the draft Agency Opinion (ie what they propose to do) is heading in absolutely the right direction on lead shot but needs a bit of a kick up the backside as far as lead bullets are concerned.
Filling out the consultation:
Below, we refer to the 7 pages of the consultation (which contain 20 questions), although the pages aren’t numbered, because we think it will help you navigate the document.
OK, let’s get started.
Page 1: There are 12 questions about you (eg what’s your name?) so they are relatively easy and because you are responding as an individual, not an organisation, you can skip a few of the questions anyway. That’s the first page done and only eight questions left.
Page 2:
This has one question about transition periods – otherwise known as delays. Should the shooting industry be given three years or five before the use of lead shot for shooting live animals is banned?
We say, three years, and you may feel the same. Our reasons are that lead ammunition is already banned for use over wetlands and/or for shooting a list of waterbirds (details differ across the UK nations) and therefore many shooters have already had many years to transition. Despite being illegal for over 20 years, compliance with the lead shot ban in this form of shooting has been very poor, and so bringing in a short transition for the new measures will not only bring in new protection it will help to enforce the existing laws which have been flouted by shooters for decades.
OK, so you have now answered 13 out of 21 questions.
The next page, Page 3, is about ‘Humane Dispatch’ where we guess you won’t have any special knowledge so that you can almost certainly tick ‘no’ (14th question) and move on to Page 4 and a question (the 15th question) about monetising raptor deaths.
Page 4:
This page’s question is a stinker: ‘Monetised benefits associated with restricting lead bullets for live quarry shooting: Do you have information regarding the monetary benefits associated with reducing the risk of secondary poisoning of raptors from the use of lead bullets e.g., from WTP-based evaluations or similar?’
Your reaction may be ‘Wtf is WTP?’ but this extremely poorly posed question is about how much you care that birds of prey may ingest lead from the carcasses of injured animals that they kill or dead animals that they scavenge. You can answer that, so tick ‘Yes’ and then say why you care about birds of prey such as Golden Eagles, Red Kites and Buzzards that may be poisoned by ingestion of lead ammunition (and that you care about other carrion-eating birds and mammals).
You might want to say that nobody has ever asked you about your willingness to pay (WTP) to see poisoning of birds of prey from lead ammunition addressed but that if they had you would be willing to pay and you are sure that large numbers of wildlife lovers would do so too. However, you might want to point out that protecting threatened birds of prey is a responsibility of government and that you are already paying your taxes so that government, and bodies such as the HSE, do that job properly.
You might want to point out that taking the time to answer this badly-phrased question on this consultation is a proxy for willingness to pay. You could also say that since non-toxic alternatives to lead ammunition are readily available then this is very simply a question of sensible regulation where a less harmful ammunition is readily available. You might want to say that you care very much about rare birds of prey such as Golden Eagles and you don’t want them to suffer or be harmed by unnecessary contamination of their food by a poison.
You may want to end by saying that there are so many reasons why removing lead bullets from use on live ‘quarry’ is a good idea that your view is that they overwhelmingly outscore a small inconvenience to shooters and that you want restrictions on using lead bullets to be as strong as those in the draft Agency Opinion for lead shot.
Page 5:
Let’s move on to Page 5 where there are two questions (questions 16 and 17) about ‘Use of different bullet types for live quarry shooting and target shooting’. If you know anything about these issues then do answer the questions but we are confident that the vast majority of you can tick ‘no’ to both and move on.
That just leaves three questions and the good news is, on Page 6…
… we doubt whether many of you can or want to answer the two questions on ‘Rifles and Zeroing’ so that’s 19 of the 20 questions done. Which takes us very quickly on to Page 7.
Page 7:
This page is for General Comments and we would encourage you to go to town here.
You may want to start your general comments with these three points:
I support the draft Agency Opinion that restrictions on sale and use of lead shot for shooting live animals should be brought in as a matter of urgency.
I support those restrictions being brought in after a transition period which is less than five years; I would favour three years rather than five (see my response to that question above) but I would urge an even quicker transition because this simple and necessary measure has been delayed overlong.
For the sake of clarity, since this question has not specifically been asked in this consultation, I support similar urgent restrictions being brought in for the use of lead bullets for shooting live animals
Then make some or all of these comments in your own words:
This is your first opportunity as a member of the public to comment and so there are issues not addressed by the consultation questions that you want to make.
Lead is a poison and it is crazy to shoot a poison into wild animals destined for the human food chain. There is no mandatory labelling of game meat as containing lead (if it does) which is a poison so the only safe way for game consumers to avoid eating lead is if lead ammunition is removed from use. The FSA and NHS both draw attention to the human health aspects of lead ingestion. These concerns apply to game shot with shotgun pellets (eg Red Grouse, Pheasants, partridges and duck) but also to many species of deer shot with bullets and sold as venison.
Environmental contamination and secondary poisoning of scavenging and predatory birds and mammals is an issue that needs addressing so restrictions should apply to lead bullets as well as lead shot.
Strong, quick regulation is needed because existing regulations on shooting of waterfowl are flouted by shooters.
The 2015 report of the Lead Ammunition Group recommended that such restrictions should be brought in and it is outrageous that UK governments are still consulting and delaying on this very simple issue.
Other jurisdictions in Europe and North America have brought in similar restrictions – the UK would not be going out on a limb but would simply be following what is clearly going to become the norm.
Removal of lead from petrol, water pipes, paints has been achieved years ago and removing lead ammunition from use is simply one more step based on lead’s known harmful impact on people and wildlife.
It is up to you how you respond but please do respond. We’re sorry that the consultation is so badly worded and framed but this is an important opportunity, your only opportunity, to make your views known. Please do have a go – thank you!
Wild Justice will respond as an organisation but we are asking you to accept the invitation from the HSE to respond to this consultation as an individual. Perhaps you know others who also might want to respond to it – feel free to bring this information to their attention.
In this case, we would like to hear from you if you respond to this consultation. Please drop us an email (admin@wildjustice.org.uk) and tell us if you responded and any comments you have on the consultation and/or on the advice contained in this blog.
Comments Off on NRW advises Welsh Government to regulate gamebird releases
Natural Resources Wales (NRW) has announced it has provided advice to the Welsh Government to regulate the release of significant numbers of non-native gamebirds for shooting. This regulation is required to help NRW monitor and evaluate the potential environmental impacts of such releases on native flora and fauna as well as on protected sites. NRW’s proposals followed increased regulations introduced for gamebird releases in England after Wild Justice action.
Seven week old pheasant chicks, often known as poults, after just being released into a gamekeepers release pen on an English shooting estate
NRW first announced its proposed measures to add Common Pheasant and Red-legged Partridge to part 1 of Schedule 9 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 earlier this year. Part 1 of Schedule 9 lists non-native species that are already established in the wild, but which may pose a conservation threat to native biodiversity and habitats. This would mean that any release of those species in Wales would need to be carried out under a licence issued by NRW.
NRW then held a public consultation over the summer and has now reviewed those consultation responses and has reiterated its advice to Ministers that these two species should be added to Schedule 9 so that any releases should then be licensed, either by a General Licence or by an individual licence when releases are on or close to protected sites.
If Ministers accept NRW’s advice, the new regulations are expected to be in place for the 2025/26 shooting season.
Here is a copy of NRW’s advice to the Welsh Government, published yesterday (8 November 2023):
Comments Off on Chris Packham wins libel action against Fieldsports Channel Ltd and journalist Andrew (Ben) O’Rourke
Press release from Leigh Day (6 November 2023)
Chris Packham settles defamation claim with Fieldsports Channel after it admits death threat claims were untrue.
Environmental campaigner and naturalist Chris Packham CBE has settled a defamation claim against the website Fieldsports Channel after it falsely accused him of writing a fake death threat letter to himself.
The online shooting and hunting channel has agreed to pay Mr Packham substantial damages and contribute to his legal costs as well as provide an undertaking never to repeat the allegation.
In June 2022, Fieldsports Channel and one of its journalists, Ben O’Rourke, published an online video and article alleging the TV presenter had written a fake death threat letter to himself and lied about it being sent by an anonymous third party. The serious allegation was not put to Mr Packham directly to offer him right of reply.
In bringing the claim against Fieldsports Channel Ltd and Mr O’Rourke, Mr Packham’s lawyers argued the allegations were plainly baseless and had caused him enormous reputational damage and distress. They pointed out that the only possible basis for the allegation was handwriting analysis of the letter which has since been comprehensively discredited.
Of particular concern to Mr Packham was the implication he had lied to his family about the death threat, knowing it would cause them considerable anxiety. Also, that he had lied to, and knowingly wasted the time of, Hampshire Police, who investigated the letter and on whom he relies for his and his family’s safety.
Mr Packham’s distress was later compounded by Fieldsports Channel’s derisive response to his claim, in particular mounting caricatures of his head on a “trophy wall” at the British Shooting Show in February 2023. Mr Packham has been the victim of arson attacks and has received numerous death threats, and he considers its actions to have been utterly reckless and irresponsible in that context.
As well as paying Mr Packham substantial damages and contributing to his legal costs, Fieldsports channel and Mr O’Rourke have agreed never to repeat the allegation and will publish a legal statement, which is also to be read in the High Court on 6 November 2023, explaining the matter on its platforms.
Mr Packham was represented by Mr Jonathan Price and Ms Claire Overman of Doughty Street Chambers, who are instructed by partner Tessa Gregory and solicitor Carol Day of law firm Leigh Day.
Chris Packham said:
“Fieldsports TV displayed a complete contempt of even the basic codes of real journalism. They allowed a vicious vendetta to drive a targeted catalogue of lies in an attempt to destroy my credibility, integrity and reputation. Further, even when involved in this litigation they recklessly posted images of myself contrived to fuel hatred amongst fire-arms owners when they knew I was already the victim of targeted attacks from members of this community. They also failed to show any respect for the legal process. As a consequence, Fieldsports TV have now issued a full apology and agreed to pay substantial costs and damages. My message is clear – if anyone publishes or perpetuates lies about me or my conduct I will challenge them and I will win.”
Carol Day, solicitor at law firm Leigh Day said:
“Our client Mr Packham was the subject of an egregious slur against his reputation based on the flimsiest of evidence that failed to stand up to even the most basic form of scrutiny. To be accused of writing a fake death threat to himself, with all the consequences that brings for his family and the authorities, was a highly damaging attack on Mr Packham’s integrity. The fact he was then mocked publicly for objecting to these defamatory remarks shows how little regard the defendants had for the reputation of others. Our client can only hope that lessons have been learned from this sorry episode and it brings an end to these gratuitous attacks on Mr Packham’s character by people who simply disagree with his views.”
Comments Off on Wild Justice wins judicial review as Northern Ireland badger cull ruled unlawful
Press release from Leigh Day (25 October 2023)
Northern Ireland badger cull by shooting ruled unlawful in High Court
A decision to allow a cull of badgers in Northern Ireland by shooting has been ruled unlawful in the High Court.
In a judgment handed down in Belfast this morning, Wednesday 25 October 2023, it was ruled that the 2021 consultation into the decision to allow the cull of up to 4,000 badgers a year was so fundamentally flawed as to be unlawful. Therefore, the resulting decision to control the spread of bovine tuberculosis (bTB) by allowing farmer-led groups to shoot free-roaming badgers with rifles was also unlawful and the policy has been quashed.
Now the Department for Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) will have to rethink the policy following the former Minister’s decision in March 2022 to allow farmers to use rifles to kill badgers to tackle bTB. It will have to hold a new consultation on its options for tackling bTB.
Photo by Chris Packham
The legal challenge to DAERA was brought by Wild Justice and Northern Ireland Badger Group (NIBG) who are represented by the environment team at law firm Leigh Day. Additional witness evidence was provided by the Born Free Foundation.
The Judge, Mr Justice Scoffield, agreed with Wild Justice and NIBG that the consultation did not meet the requirements for a lawful consultation.
He said DAERA failed to comply with the requirements of a fair and lawful consultation by failing to provide consultees with sufficient information about the basis for its proposed decision to permit them to engage meaningfully with the Department’s thinking.
He said the Minister ought to have been advised, but was not, of why those who responded to the consultation believed a cull by shooting was an inhumane option which would give rise to unnecessary suffering.
The 2021 consultation document repeatedly referred to a “business case” as being the basis for DAERA’s recommendations and decisions. DAERA singled out Option 8 – the culling by shooting of free-roaming badgers by farmer-led companies – as its preferred option and asked consultees if they agreed. But without the business case, Wild Justice and NIBG say it could not understand how that option had been chosen or properly respond to Option 8.
Wild Justice and NIBG argued that because they didn’t have the business case, they couldn’t meaningfully engage with the consultation process and as such the process and the resulting decision were ineffective and unlawful.
They also argued that the Minister failed to properly consider the responses they were able to make. For example, their views on the humaneness of the options available does not appear to have been factored into the decision-making process. The possibility that informed consultation responses could have affected the outcome is clear because when the options were scored, the most humane option (Test, Vaccinate and Remove (TVR) scored only 10 per cent lower than the least humane option chosen (a non-selective cull)).
The judge said consultees were entitled to further information about the analysis behind the Department’s preference for Option 8 including the non-monetary criteria used and how the options were ranked on both cost and risk, with some indication given of why the options were so ranked.
He added that the consultation document effectively skated over DAERA’s reasoning on the scientific issues in a way which did not permit meaningful engagement from expert consultees.
Wild Justice said:
“We are obviously thrilled that DAERA’s policy to allow a non-selective cull of badgers by farmer-led groups has been quashed and that our legal arguments have been upheld with such convincing authority by Mr Justice Scoffield. We are mindful that DAERA may try again to implement a similar policy and we stand ready to challenge any proposal that fails to comply with due consideration of not just public law, but also of the scientific evidence and welfare aspects associated with such action. We are grateful to our partners at the Northern Ireland Badger Group and the Born Free Foundation for their expertise, to our brilliant legal team at Leigh Day, Matrix Chambers and Phoenix Law for their dedication, and especially to our supporters whose generous response to our crowd funder enabled us to take this case”.
Mike Rendle of NIBG said:
“Today’s judgement has vindicated our very grave concerns about the way the bovine TB strategy consultation was conducted and the decision to implement a farmer-led cull which would inflict immense suffering on great numbers of healthy badgers. The scientific evidence clearly shows that cattle, not badgers, are driving bovine TB in Northern Ireland. Badger culling is not only cruel and ineffective, it is a costly distraction that has no benefit for cattle, farmers or badgers.”
Dr Mark Jones of the Born Free Foundation said:
“Born Free is delighted that Northern Ireland’s High Court of Justice has upheld the Wild Justice and the Northern Ireland Badger Groups challenge to DAERA’s proposals to introduce mass badger culling in Northern Ireland. DAERA’s refusal to disclose the full details of its Business Case during the consultation process on its policy made it impossible for consultees to scrutinise the financial and other arguments it had in mind. The introduction of an England-style badger cull in Northern Ireland, when the latest peer-reviewed science from England clearly demonstrates the failure of this approach to reduce bovine TB in cattle, has no basis in evidence, and would result in the unnecessary and inhumane killing of thousands of perfectly healthy badgers. DAERA should now permanently abandon any such plans and focus instead on the cattle-based measures required to bring bovine TB, which has such devastating impacts for farmers and their cattle, under control.”
Wild Justice and NIBG are represented by Carol Day and Ricardo Gama at Leigh Day, with Phoenix Law as agents in Northern Ireland.
Leigh Day environmental law specialist, solicitor Carol Day said:
“Our clients are delighted that the Judge has held this consultation to be so unfair as to have been unlawful. The failure to provide consultees with the Business Case, which formed the basis for the Minister’s decision to proceed with the controlled shooting of free-roaming badgers, prevented them from engaging meaningfully in the process. The judge also held that the Minister failed to conscientiously consider key points made when making his decision, such as the relative “humaneness” of the various options for addressing bovine TB, on which our clients made specific submissions.”
Counsel instructed were David Wolfe KC and Blinne Ní Ghrálaigh KC, both of Matrix Chambers.
Comments Off on Gamebird releases in Norfolk and Suffolk – can you help?
Good morning!
On Monday we told you what we have heard about the process of assessing licences for gamebird releases by Defra (see our blog – click here). Yesterday, Tuesday, we looked at one area of coastal Suffolk, the Deben Estuary Special Protection Area, where Natural England recommended that no licence for gamebird releases be issued and yet we believe that advice may have been overturned by Defra ministers, perhaps by the Secretary of State herself, Therese Coffey, who also happens to be the local MP (see our blog – click here) .
Today we tell you more of what we’ve learned from information requests to Natural England. We asked for the documentation of the decisions on licence applications for a variety of sites. Let us tell you about the Breckland, a Special Protection Area in Norfolk and Suffolk, see https://magic.defra.gov.uk/MagicMap.aspx.
Breckland Special Protected Area
If you travel from Cambridge to Norwich, or King’s Lynn to Bury St Edmunds, you’ll pass through the Breckland, an area of sandy soils with conifer plantations, arable crops and some remaining areas of heathland. The British Trust for Ornithology’s HQ in Thetford is particularly well situated to explore this wildlife-rich area. It’s a large SPA (and SAC and SSSI) designated because of its wildlife importance and as far as the birds are concerned, three main species, Woodlark, Nightjar and Stone Curlew (see here).
There are many landowners in this large area but some stand out as being particularly interesting with the Elveden Estate of the fourth Earl of Iveagh and the van Cutsem Estate at Hilborough being particularly notable.
The gist of Natural England’s formal advice to Defra was that licences could be granted for gamebird releases but, because Stone Curlews are late nesters, gamebird releases should be delayed until 1 September in some cases and 1 October in others in order to protect the species for which the SPA exists from the dangers of avian flu carried by released gamebirds.
We can just imagine how this would have gone down with a bunch of large shooting estates. Remember the shooting season for Red-legged Partridges opens on 1 September and for Pheasants a month later. Natural England advised that gamebird releases should be delayed by a matter of around 6-10 weeks which would have implications for the length and scale of the shooting season.
This seems sensible to us, although an outright ban for a few years would be even more sensible.
We believe, though we do not know for sure, that this is an example of a licence which was granted by Defra lacking the conditions (relating to date of release) recommended by Natural England.
Can you help, please? We will get to the bottom of this through information requests but it may take some time. If you have information that would help, then please do get in touch. Thank you to all those who have contacted us so far.
By the way, do you realise who are the two local MPs? They are both rather well known, perhaps even notorious; in the south of the area it is Matt Hancock and in the north it is Therese Coffey’s best friend – Liz Truss.
If you can add information to this story then please contact Wild Justice and we will respect your anonymity.
We were expecting a response from Defra this week on one of our information requests but heard yesterday that they won’t respond until early November. It’s almost as though they feel they must hide and cover up what they’ve done, isn’t it? We’ll review where we are with our legal team in a few days. If we find evidence of unlawful decision making then we will consider taking legal action even though the process works so slowly the chances are that there might be a different government in place by the time these matters could be resolved by the courts.
Comments Off on Gamebird releases in Suffolk – can you help?
Good morning!
Yesterday we told you what we have heard about the process of assessing licences for gamebird releases by Defra (see our blog which reproduces yesterday’s newsletter – click here).
Today we tell you some of what we have discovered from information requests to Natural England. We asked for the documentation of the decisions on licence applications for a variety of sites. Let us tell you about the Deben Estuary, a Special Protection Area in Suffolk important for wading birds, see https://magic.defra.gov.uk/MagicMap.aspx.
The SPA runs from Woodbridge to the sea at Woodbridge Haven and in autumn and winter holds important numbers of waterfowl, especially waders and geese (see here).
Natural England’s advice was clear – no licence should be granted for gamebird releases here:
Specifically the advice states ‘In line with the strict protection afforded to European Sites, Natural England recommends that this licence is refused’.
We believe, though we do not know for sure, that this is an example of a licence which was granted against Natural England advice.
Can you help, please? We will get to the bottom of this through information requests but it may take some time. If you have information that would help then please do get in touch.
If you live locally to this site and know of any Pheasant or Red-legged Partridge releases, this season, in or very close to the SPA as shown on the map above, then please let us know. Is there gamebird shooting occurring on this site this year?
We don’t know, but we intend to get to the bottom of this.
By the way, do you realise who is the MP for the Deben Estuary? It’s Therese Coffey – the Secretary of State at Defra. Let’s hope that she didn’t play a part in this decision because there is a clear potential conflict of interest. We wonder who was the applicant for the licence? Do you know?
If you can add information to this story then please contact Wild Justice and we will respect your anonymity.
If you’ve just found us and like what we’re doing then it would be remiss of us not to inform you that it’s possible to donate to Wild Justice, now or in the future, through PayPal, bank transfer or a cheque in the post – see details here. Thank you for all your donations. You are our source of funding.
Let us tell you a story – some of it is known, some of it is surmise based on anonymous information, apparently from several sources (but we can’t be sure – it’s anonymous!) received by Wild Justice. We’re asking that the people who know what is happening become whistleblowers and contact us to reveal more.
It’s a story about gamebird releases.
Introduction
Thanks to a legal challenge by Wild Justice in October 2020 – see here – Defra was forced to introduce new regulations on gamebird releases near sites of high nature conservation importance because of the impacts of large numbers of non-native Red-legged Partridges and Pheasants on native species and sensitive habitats. This was a significant change to the level of regulation of gamebird shooting in England (Wales is considering action too – see here).
Last year, many organisations, including Wild Justice, called on Defra to limit gamebird releases because of the prevalence of avian flu. Defra didn’t act then but calls continued – see here. This spring, rather late in the day, Defra sensibly introduced more restrictions on gamebird releases and such releases inside or close to Special Protection Areas (SPAs) had to be individually licensed.
The licensing system – what we know
Licences had to be sought for releases of non-native gamebirds in and near SPAs. The licence applications were made to Natural England who provided Defra their expert advice on whether individual licence applications should be approved. Defra is the licensing body, and Defra ministers are ultimately responsible – but they must seek Natural England’s advice as their nature conservation advisor.
The licensing system – what we are told
Wild Justice has been told, by anonymous sources, but apparently several of them, that the process of deciding on the issuing of licences looks more like this;
First, we are told, there is a secret mystery committee involving other ‘experts’. Can this be true? If it is, then who are its members? We would surmise that it contains members of the shooting industry and nobody from the likes of RSPB or BTO.
Second, we are told, that Natural England’s advice is sometimes countermanded by the secret mystery committee. The committee decides in favour of more licences being approved against Natural England’s advice, and then passes them on to Defra ministers including the Secretary of State, Therese Coffey, herself.
Third, we are told, that further applications are approved and/or the conditions of the licences are weakened by ministerial decision. It is a matter of considerable public interest if ministers are going against the formal advice of their expert advisors. It is of even more public interest if the ministerial decisions are arbitrary or not based on the facts presented in the licences.
Wild Justice has tried to get to grips with this process through the process of Environmental Information Requests. Natural England were supposed to get back to us on Thursday after asking for an extension of the normal response time to 40 days (we started asking on 9 August). We heard nothing from Natural England on Thursday, chased them on Friday and then received a response which we will tell you about tomorrow. Defra simply refused to answer our questions claiming that they were too onerous.
This is speculation about what is happening
We can’t be sure what’s happening – but that’s because we have asked and Defra hasn’t come clean. Would that make you more relaxed or more suspicious about events? It has made us pretty suspicious.
We know that shooting interests have threatened legal action over the licensing scheme – maybe a deal has been done so that the licensing system is as weak as possible, through ministerial intervention, to keep the shooting industry happy?
What if other politicians (there’s quite a lot of gamebird shooting in Rishi Sunak’s Richmond constituency for example) have put pressure on Defra to fix this for their constituents?
We don’t know, but we intend to get to the bottom of this.
If you can add information to this story then please contact Wild Justice and we will respect your anonymity.
Comments Off on Regulating gamebird releases in Wales – an update
Earlier this year, Natural Resources Wales (NRW) opened a public consultation about its proposed measures to regulate the release of significant numbers of non-native gamebirds for shooting. This regulation is required to help NRW monitor and evaluate the potential environmental impacts of such releases on native flora and fauna as well as on protected sites. NRW’s proposals followed increased regulations introduced for gamebird releases in England after Wild Justice action.
NRW’s public consultation focused on NRW’s advice to Welsh Ministers to add Common Pheasant and Red-legged Partridge to part 1 of Schedule 9 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. Part 1 of Schedule 9 lists non-native species that are already established in the wild, but which may pose a conservation threat to native biodiversity and habitats. This would mean that any release of those species in Wales would need to be carried out under a licence issued by NRW.
NRW proposes a General Licence for gamebird releases that are 500m or more from sensitive sites, and an individual licence for gamebird releases on or within 500m of a sensitive site. The new regulations, if approved by Welsh Ministers, were intended to be in place in time for the start of the 2024 shooting season (1st September 2024).
The consultation closed in June and attracted an exceptionally high volume of responses (42,000). Wild Justice had encouraged its supporters to ask for greater regulation than was being offered (thank you to everyone who participated), and representatives from the gamebird shooting industry had asked their members to argue that regulation wasn’t required.
Last week, NRW wrote to stakeholders (see letter below) to explain that it will still provide advice to the Welsh Government by 31 October 2023 but that if Ministers decide to proceed with the licensing proposals, NRW will need extra time to prepare the new licensing regime and that this would not be achievable by the 2024 shooting season but would be in place by the start of the 2025 shooting season.
We look forward to hearing what advice NRW gives to Ministers by the end of October 2023.
Here is a copy of the NRW letter to stakeholders, sent out last week:
Dear Stakeholder
As you are probably aware, we received over 42,000 responses to our recent consultation including some very detailed and technical submissions.
We are currently analysing and considering the responses, beginning with those relating specifically to the proposal to add common pheasant and red-legged partridge to Schedule 9 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 and we will shortly be providing advice to Welsh Government and the Minister for Climate Change by 31 October 2023. We have provided copies of all the consultation responses to Welsh Government.
If the Minister makes the decision to add common pheasant and red-legged partridge to the Schedule, we will need to put in place a licensing response.
Considering the views of consultees is an important part of ensuring that any regulatory approach is workable, proportionate, and effective. Given the volume of consultation responses, we feel that having licensing in place in time for the 2024/5 shooting season is not achievable. We have decided, following discussions with Welsh Government, that, should licensing be required, it will not come into force until the 2025/6 season – a delay of 12 months from our original target.
This revised timetable will allow us to properly consider the responses to the consultation and engage with stakeholders, as well as honouring our commitment to give shoots in Wales sufficient time to prepare for any changes.
We will be in touch with you again when we have provided our advice to the Welsh Government.
Last weekend Wild Justice took to the seas – venturing out into Poole Harbour, Dorset, with two boat loads of our supporters. Working with Birds of Poole Harbour, we set out with our binoculars raised, on the lookout for some of the local avian superstars.
Wild Justice is having a busy year. Our projects have varied enormously – from looking at the state of our SSSIs to testing lead levels in game meat, and from supporting a successful legal challenge of scallop dredging to securing a debate on shortening the Woodcock shooting season. Throughout all of our investigations and legal challenges, our wins, our losses, there’s one consistent element; your support. With each challenge, report or newsletter we hear your words of encouragement, news of your own actions, and your thoughts and ideas. Our work is funded by you, our supporters; many ‘small’ donations adding up to a sizeable sum which enables us to campaign, challenge and take action. We’re only a small organisation and team, and we don’t deal with the millions of pounds that larger NGOs deal with, but we know we pack a punch.
Earlier in the year we invited our newsletter subscribers to register their interest in joining us on a boat trip in Poole Harbour. Over the weekend, over 120 of you and some invited guests joined us and we saw Ospreys, a White-tailed Eagle, Spoonbills, Sandwich Terns, Curlew Sandpipers, a variety of waders and even a rare Forster’s Tern (from North America!). This was also an opportunity for us to talk to just a few of you about Wild Justice’s work and how our Pine Marten-like tenacity creates a landscape of fear among government and regulatory bodies. We also heard from some of our lawyers at Leigh Day, who work incredibly hard with us to bring justice for wildlife.
It energised and buoyed us to share the experience with a group of like-minded people. We’re really grateful for your support, thoughts and ideas – thank you! A big thank you also to Birds of Poole Harbour for their hosting and excellent bird-spotting skills. the weather was great on Friday and Saturday and then it tipped down with rain on Sunday – we were lucky!
If this type of trip sounds like something you’d like to come along to – make sure you’re subscribed to our newsletter – click here – to hear about any future events. And please spread the word – our newsletter is where you hear about our work, challenges and news first. The more people we reach, the more effective we can be for our wildlife!
Comments Off on Please respond to the Defra hedgerow consultation
Today we are asking you, please, to respond to the Defra hedgerow consultation. Does that sound dull and unimportant? Well, it might be slightly dull to fill in the form (but it is quick, and we are providing you with quite a lot of suggestions which will make it even quicker) but it is certainly important because hedgerows are very important refuges for farmland wildlife – birds, insects, plants, mammals, spiders … everything.
Many of the respondents will be farmers, who are likely to respond in ways that make life easy for farmers and not necessarily in ways that make life easier for wildlife. We’re sure that many farmers will respond in wildlife-friendly ways but this is your opportunity to speak up for wildlife. The proposals apply to England but responses are welcomed from all parts of the UK (as is clear from Q6).
The consultation is a consequence of Brexit and so is a test of the promises that were made that Brexit would not weaken environmental protection. We are in a wildlife crisis and Defra should be strengthening existing protection, stiffening the enforcement of existing and future protection and focusing on producing recoveries in farmland wildlife. This consultation scores low points in those areas. There is a danger that Defra weakens the existing rather feeble levels of environmental protection at the behest of the intensive agriculture lobby.
The consultation closes on Wednesday 20 September, presumably at midnight, and so you have seven days including today to respond. Here is the link to the consultation:
If you have responded to a government consultation before then you’ll find this one very easy – there are lots of Yes/No questions and boxes for (optional) comments. Unless you want to go overboard it won’t take you more than 10 minutes to answer all the questions and make brief comments. If you’ve never responded to a government consultation before, then this is a good place to start because it is quite straight forward.
OK, let’s get started.
There are 26 questions but the first eight are about you (eg what’s your name?) so they are easy. The last two questions are about the form so respond to them or not depending on your frame of mind.
That leaves 16 questions but almost all of them can be answered Yes or No. You can, of course, answer the questions however you want, but these are our suggestions based on our view that the current regulations are too weak, they need to be strengthened rather than weakened and that our proposals for strengthening them will not disadvantage the farming industry, food production or profitability to any significant degree.
So, you’re less than 100 keyboard strokes from having your say:
Q9: Yes
Q10: No
Q11: No
Q12: Yes
Q13: Extend beyond 31 August
Q14: No
Q15: Yes
Q16: No
Q17: Yes
Q18: [Skip or see below]
Q19: Yes
Q20: Yes
Q21: Yes
Q22: Yes
Q23: Yes
Q24: Yes
You could stop there – thank you! You’ve stood up for hedgerow protection just by answering those questions. But if you want to add comments then these are what we would suggest (feel free to copy and paste these suggestions):
Q9: Please consider widening them to at least 3m.
Q10: Small fields have wildlife too – conceivably more of it per unit area. We are in a wildlife loss crisis and farmland has lost more wildlife than most other habitats/land uses. We should be doing more not the same (it clearly isn’t working) or less.
Q11: I can’t see any reason why.
Q12: You have not defined ‘important’ bird species – all bird species and all wildlife species are important. All wild birds and their nests are protected by law – the no-cutting period is a simple means of ensuring that nests are not destroyed accidentally and it simplifies farmers’ lives in that otherwise they should check all hedgerows for active bird nests before hedge cutting.
Q13: I can’t see any good reason to shorten the period.
We are in a wildlife loss crisis and farmland has lost more wildlife than most other habitats/land uses. We should be doing more not the same (it clearly isn’t working) or less.
As a citizen and taxpayer I expect farming to deliver more for the environment.
Many species of birds which nest in hedgerows are declining and/or rare and for some of these the late season is particularly important. Two buntings come to mind – Yellowhammer and Cirl Bunting.
But it’s not all about birds – other wildlife would benefit from later cutting dates too.
Q14: We are in a wildlife loss crisis and farmland has lost more wildlife than most other habitats/land uses. We should be doing more not the same (it clearly isn’t working) or less.
As a citizen and taxpayer I expect farming to deliver more for the environment.
The existing exemptions aren’t really needed – they are examples of farming getting an easy ride.
Roadside hedges can be cut at other times of year.
I have not seen a well-argued case for relaxing cutting dates.
Q15: leave blank
Q16: leave blank
Q17: leave blank
Q18: Regulations must be backed up by effective enforcement. Poor enforcement is to blame for the failure of many environmental policies from raptor protection, preventing sewage pollution of rivers, banning of lead ammunition in shooting wildfowl, restricting the burning of blanket bogs and adherence to the terms of general licences.
Defra should engage the public in reporting breaches of regulations and ensuring follow-up.
Q19: Yes, although I believe the benefits might be modest compared with those in agricultural land. Golf courses and renewable energy sites (windfarms and solar farms) must surely be areas where hedgerow protection can be introduced at little disadvantage to anyone.
Q20: Yes, but I have answered yes to Q20-Q24. Some combination of measures is needed and you have not consulted on a proposed mixture. This requires more thought than you can reasonably expect a member of the public to be able to provide at this stage. This is a flaw in your consultation.
Q21: Yes, but I have answered yes to Q20-Q24. Some combination of measures is needed and you have not consulted on a proposed mixture. This requires more thought than you can reasonably expect a member of the public to be able to provide at this stage. This is a flaw in your consultation.
Q22: Yes, but I have answered yes to Q20-Q24. Some combination of measures is needed and you have not consulted on a proposed mixture. This requires more thought than you can reasonably expect a member of the public to be able to provide at this stage. This is a flaw in your consultation.
Q23: Yes, but I have answered yes to Q20-Q24. Some combination of measures is needed and you have not consulted on a proposed mixture. This requires more thought than you can reasonably expect a member of the public to be able to provide at this stage. This is a flaw in your consultation.
Q24: Yes, but I have answered yes to Q20-Q24. Some combination of measures is needed and you have not consulted on a proposed mixture. This requires more thought than you can reasonably expect a member of the public to be able to provide at this stage. This is a flaw in your consultation.
Wild Justice will respond as an organisation but we are asking you to accept the invitation from Defra to respond to this consultation as an individual. Perhaps you know others who also might want to respond to it – feel free to forward this email to them.
Comments Off on Ban or license? – a Wild Justice report
We asked subscribers to the Wild Justice newsletter whether they favoured licensing of driven grouse shooting or would they support an all-out ban. The 7000+responses sent a clear message in favour of a ban.
Food for thought for environmental organisations and politicians.
Comments Off on Meddling on the Moors – a Wild Justice report
Today, in the run up to the start of the Red Grouse shooting season on Saturday – The Inglorious 12th – Wild Justice publishes a report assessing the five-year trial of a controversial conservation measure. Some people call it brood management, we call it brood meddling. This trial only applies to England and came out of discussions between Defra and a range of shooting organisations. No such measures are being talked about or implemented in Scotland (which alongside England, has large areas of grouse moors) or Northern Ireland or Wales (both of which do have grouse moors, but they don’t make up a very high proportion of the upland area).
Our report finds that little has really been learned from this trial and many of the data remain unanalysed. Basically, we are pretty critical of how things are going. Read our report (takes a few seconds to load) and see what you think:
Comments Off on NRW consultation on gamebird releases: your chance to participate
Natural Resources Wales (NRW) is consulting on future regulations to control gamebird releases. Their plans are to adopt a very similar set of regulations to those in England. We think there are lessons to be learned from the English regulations, and that Wales could do better, but we generally support the measures being proposed.
The consultation paper can be found here – click here. It closes on 20th June so there is just over a week for you to participate. Here are our suggestions for how to respond but you must make up your own mind as to what you say – but please do respond regardless of where in the UK you live.
The first three questions relate to your personal details. Here are the remaining five main questions, Questions 4-8, related to the release of gamebirds in Wales, and our suggested responses in italics:
Q4. Do you agree that common pheasant and red-legged partridge should be added to Part 1 of Schedule 9 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 in Wales? This change would mean that releasing those species in Wales would need to be carried out under licence. Please give reasons for your views.
I strongly agree with this proposal. This is a proportionate and logical response to the issues laid out in the consultation document and its accompanying papers. Self-regulation will not work as here we are dealing with the shooting industry – a notoriously uncooperative group of people who promote self-regulation but rarely deliver it (eg on wildlife crime, moorland burning and lead ammunition use). The shooting industry always claims to be highly regulated whereas in fact shooting is almost unregulated across the UK with respect to many other European countries.
Q5. If these species are added to Schedule 9, please give us your views on whether our proposed licensing approach would be effective and proportionate?
I generally support the proposals but they need to be made tougher in order to build on lessons learned from the last few years in England – Wales should do better.
Enforcement and monitoring – the shooting industry cannot be relied upon to stick to new regulations, it is a notoriously conservative industry which is reluctant to change. NRW must ensure that monitoring and enforcement of compliance is in place. In England, Natural England has not carried out this function, and neither does Defra and so the regulations are not properly enacted. Wild Justice has recently (8 June) started a legal challenge to the regime in England.
Use of general licences – I believe that instead of a general licence, these measures should be enforced through individual licences where anyone wishing to release gamebirds must apply for an individual licence. Such measures were not introduced in England but have now been imposed for releases close to many ‘European Sites’ partly as a response to the widespread prevalence of avian flu and well-founded concerns over the role of gamebird releases in exacerbating the problem through providing a very large reservoir of captive bred and released birds. Wales should move directly to this approach.
Reporting of releases – an individual licensing system would go a long way to providing information on numbers of birds released and their locations. Current measures, including the APHA poultry register, provide very little useful information on which to base future improvements to regulation.
Should Mallard releases be included in these measures? – at a time of avian flu, but in any case, why are not Mallard releases covered by these proposals?
Buffer area around sensitive sites – the 500m proposal is not based on the current scientific evidence. Gamebirds travel much further than this from release sites. Based on the current evidence I would support a buffer zone of 1km. The maximum distance travelled by released gamebirds (Pheasants) in the study by Turner (2007) was, on average, over 900m and this only considered the first three months after release – gamebirds can be expected to disperse further in the other nine months of their first calendar year, and beyond. It is a commonplace event whilst travelling in the countryside to see gamebirds far from any potential release sites – the 500m zone is not supported by evidence and is not fit for the purpose of protecting sites of conservation importance.
Will the proposals be sufficient to protect sites of conservation importance? – the English regulations largely ignored the impacts of gamebirds on reptile and amphibian populations, the effects of gamebird releases on mammalian predator populations, the indirect impacts on lead shot use and the impacts on avian flu transmission to poultry and to wild birds. In England stronger measures have recently been introduced (individual licensing near SPAs) which partly address the avian flu issue. I see that Annex 3 of the consultation papers provides a long list of known or suspected impacts of gamebirds on wildlife of conservation importance and that includes reptiles and amphibians which were largely ignored by Defra. There is clear need for tougher regulations than were initially introduced in England and I strongly feel that NRW should introduce a larger buffer zone (1km) and individual licensing of releases as its starting point for effective regulation of harmful impacts of gamebirds on native wildlife.
Charging for licences – NRW and Defra have both moved to a position of regarding non-native gamebird releases as a wildlife conservation issue which must be controlled. The polluter pays principle should apply here and the eventual licensing system should not be a burden on the taxpayer. I support individual licensing of releases and those licences should carry a charge. This can also be seen as a charge on the failure of the shooting industry to self-regulate over recent years and their opposition to any form of new regulation which will protect the environment.
Q6. We have based the proposed general licence conditions for pheasant release on the recommendations in the GWCT guidelines for sustainable gamebird releasing. However, the guidelines do not include specific density thresholds for red-legged partridge and there appears to be less evidence on which to base conditions relating to partridge. We have used what evidence is available, and expert opinion, to propose conditions for partridge releases. These are either based on a density threshold linked to the area of cover crop provided, or on density per hectare of release pen (as with pheasants), depending on how the birds are released. We would welcome views on whether these proposals are appropriate and workable and whether they could they be improved.
I do not regard the GWCT guidelines as having taken sufficient account of new evidence or the current condition, and they were produced by an organisation strongly supportive of gamebird shooting. NRW should take a precautionary approach and assume that all impacts are worse than GWCT recognise.
Q7. The GWCT guidelines include a recommendation that no more than one third of woodland with game interest should be used for release pens. This is to ensure sufficient woodland remains that can benefit from habitat management activities. We would like to include this recommendation in our proposed general licence. However, we would prefer to be able to define what can be included in the calculation. Do you have suggestions for how this might be achieved?
I do not regard the GWCT guidelines as having taken sufficient account of new evidence or the current condition, and they were produced by an organisation strongly supportive of gamebird shooting. NRW should take a precautionary approach and assume that all impacts are worse than GWCT recognise. In any case, these measures do not in themselves limit the scale of gamebird releases – if a woodland currently has release pens that occupy less than a third of the woodland area then increases in gamebird releases would be possible. This is not what NRW should be accepting. An individual licensing system and a 1km buffer would go some way to addressing this point.
Q8. Location and density appear to be the main factors influencing the environmental impact of releases, but we recognise that smaller releases in less sensitive areas are likely to present reduced risks. It may be appropriate that small gamebird releases taking place away from sensitive protected sites and their buffer zones are not subject to the same general licence conditions that apply to larger releases. Do you think this is something we should consider? Please give reasons.
Many small releases add up to the same cumulative impact as few large releases – it is the overall impact that NRW must address. I cannot see that this approach does anything other than complicate matters to the benefit of very few individuals and the potential disadvantage of the wildlife that NRW must protect.
Please do consider responding to the consultation – click here – which closes on 20 June. Numbers are important and we know that the shooting industry is encouraging their supporters to respond. Numbers do matter, so this is definitely a subject on which you can make a difference.
It was thanks to Wild Justice, including our supporters, that regulations were brought in in England and those regulations of gamebird releases are better than nothing but need to be improved over time (hence our current legal challenge about the release of gamebirds in England – here). NRW has been slow to move on this subject, but quicker than Scotland and Northern Ireland, and needs to be shown that there is public support for effective regulation now. You can help that to happen.
Comments Off on Wild Justice starts new legal challenge of gamebird release regulationsP28PYW Seven week old pheasant chicks, often known as poults, after just being released into a gamekeepers release pen on an English shooting estate
Today Wild Justice sent a Pre-Action Protocol letter to Dr Therese Coffey, the Secretary of State at Defra, and named Natural England, and Alexander and Diana Darwall (owners of the Blachford Estate) as interested parties. Our claim is that Defra has failed to monitor compliance with GL43 which regulates gamebird releases in England and with the lawfulness of the reissue of GL43 a few days ago.
GL43 came into existence when Wild Justice caused Defra to back down rather than face us in court over the issue of whether unlimited releases of tens of millions of non-native gamebirds (Red-legged Partridges and Pheasants)(click here) damage sites of high nature conservation value. We have never been happy with the provisions of GL43 but recent events have increased our concerns.
We wrote to Natural England (on 7 February) about Pheasant releases and received a response in early March (click here). We asked about enforcement of GL43 and wrote this about their response;
When it comes to regulation of shooting, it is interesting that Natural England confirms what we thought, that there has been no notification to them of any releases of gamebirds within 500m of the Dartmoor Special Area of Conservation in either 2021 or 2022. We believe that such releases have taken place and failure to notify Natural England is a serious matter.
However, Natural England don’t regard it as their job to ask about this and instead point the finger at their government department sponsor, Defra, by metaphorically shrugging and saying ‘GL43 is a DEFRA licence and though the conditions of the licence require information on the use of the licence to be submitted to Natural England, monitoring compliance with the licence is DEFRA’s responsibility. Responsibilities around the investigation and enforcement of suspected breaches of GL43 rest with the Police and the CPS. Outside the scope of GL43, NE is in contact with landowners and estate managers of SSSIs to ensure any conditions relating to SSSI consents are being met.’. Natural England’s jobsworth view is that it is everyone else’s job to look at these matters, but not theirs.
We suspect that Defra will be less than thrilled to have been fingered by the statutory body they sponsor as being the body failing on this matter. We’ll find out – we’ve written to Defra to ask them whether a bowler-hatted person from the ministry, in pin-stripe suit and with a rolled up brolly under their arm has taken the train down to Devon to have a poke around on this issue. We’ve also written back to Natural England.
We did write to Defra and this is what we got back from them:
We asked three questions of DEFRA in our letter of 16 March 2023. Our questions and DEFRA’s responses (16 May 2023) are set out below: “What steps if any Defra takes to monitor compliance with GL43 in general? Defra does not carry out proactive compliance monitoring in relation to the general licences that it issues. The reporting requirement under condition 3 of the licence is used to build an evidence base for the location and extent of relevant release activity only.
What steps Defra will take in light of the apparent contravention of GL43 identified in this letter? Thank you for drawing this matter to our attention. We will consider your representations and what if any further action is required to ensure compliance with the conditions of the GL43.
If Defra does not intend to take any action, the reasons for that decision The steps Defra intends to take are set out above.”
Natural England is quite clear that it regards it as their parent department’s job to monitor compliance with GL43 – it’s as though Natural England is simply a passive letterbox on this subject. And Defra is quite clear it doesn’t monitor compliance with GL43. So, it seems that no-one does. We might ask you to help them out…
But if nobody does, then these regulations which were brought in so that they would give better protection to sites of high nature conservation value aren’t really working are they?
Wild Justice has asked for the following;
In order to remedy the legal errors, we request that the Secretary of State: a. commits to a review of the approach to monitoring and enforcement of GL43, taking advice from Natural England as to the compliance of such approach with the Habitats Directive; and b. revokes the current iteration of GL43 while such review is ongoing.
Wild Justice PAP letter to Defra sent today, 6 June 2023
These matters are relevant to BASC’s huffing and puffing about GL43 – click here – and also to the consultation in Wales on proper regulation of gamebird releases. It’s not clear that BASC has actually started a legal challenge – be in no doubt, we have!
More on this over the next few days – the quickest way to find out about all of our work is to sign up to our free newsletter – click here.
Comments Off on Chris Packham wins High Court libel case & is awarded £90k damages
Statement from Chris’s lawyers at Leigh Day, 25th May 2023:
The High Court has today ruled in favour of environmental campaigner and naturalist Chris Packham CBE in his defamation case brought against Dominic Wightman, editor of Country Squire Magazine, and one of the magazine’s contributors, Nigel Bean. The court accepted the account of a third defendant, Paul Read, who claimed he was a mere proof reader.
The Court has awarded Mr Packham £90,000 in damages against Mr Wightman and Mr Bean.
The case, heard between 2 and 11 May 2023 related to nine articles, ten social media posts and two videos. The court ruled that the allegations made in these materials were defamatory and untrue. The allegations included that:
Mr Packham dishonestly raised funds for The Wildheart Sanctuary in relation to rescued tigers, which he falsely said had been mistreated
Mr Packham lied about peat burning on Scottish game estates during COP26.
Mr Packham dishonestly raised funds for the sanctuary during the covid pandemic while concealing that it would receive an insurance pay-out
During the trial, Mr Wightman and Mr Bean withdrew their truth defence in relation to the second and third of these allegations. They maintained a truth defence in relation to the first allegation, but the court determined that they “fail[ed] to come even close to establishing the substantial truth” of that allegation.
The Court concluded that: “Mr Packham did not lie and each of his own statements was made with a genuine belief in its truth. There was no fraud of any type committed by him in making the fundraising statements.”
Mr Wightman and Mr Bean also argued that they had a reasonable belief that publication of the allegations was in the public interest. The court ruled that this defence also failed “by some margin.”
The judgment states that, “rather than approaching the task with an investigative mind, these defendants targeted Mr Packham as a person against whom they had an agenda”. In particular, following receipt of Mr Packham’s initial legal complaint, the articles published by Mr Wightman and Mr Bean “gave way… to increasingly hyperbolic and vitriolic smearing of Mr Packham, with further unsubstantiated allegations of dishonesty regarding peat-burning and the Trust’s insurance gratuitously thrown in”. One of the articles complained of mocked Mr Packham’s manner of speaking, and several made offensive references to his autism.
During the trial the court heard that Country Squire Magazine published 16 articles mentioning Mr Packham in the four years before the first article complained of in the legal case, and a further 93 articles were published in the three years following. Mr Packham had not been approached for comment before the publication of any of the articles containing allegations about him, as is journalistic best practice. Furthermore, there was sparse documentary evidence that any of the allegations had been properly researched to ensure their veracity.
Mr Read withdrew his reliance on the defences of truth and public interest when he instructed separate legal representation shortly before trial, and his case (which the Court accepted) was solely that: (i) as a mere proof-reader, he had insufficient involvement in the articles; and (ii) his retweets of the defamatory allegations had not circulated sufficiently widely to have caused serious reputational harm to Mr Packham.
In awarding Mr Packham substantial damages against Mr Wightman and Mr Bean, the High Court accepted that their campaign “would have misled and agitated vocal and sometimes violent groups”, who “posted threatening and vile material about Mr Packham and his family online”.
The Court also held that the men had used this case as a way of introducing offensive and wholly unsubstantiated allegations to smear Mr Packham, and to “scare [him] off… from seeking recourse in a public hearing for the libels”.
In addition to the articles, social media posts and video complained of the in the legal case the defendants had also claimed that a death threat received by Mr Packham had been written by himself. This caused particular anguish to Mr Packham as it implied that he had lied to his family and friends, as well as wasting police time. The court held that Mr Packham did not write the death threat letter, concluding that “even a cursory examination of the handwriting in the death threat and comparison with a true sample of Mr Packham’s handwriting demonstrates obvious differences between the two.”
The court had also expected the handwriting expert instructed by Mr Wightman, Mr Bean and Mr Read to have been “horrified… and to have unequivocally withdrawn their evidence” when it emerged in November 2022 that their report, which concluded with certainty that Mr Packham wrote the death threat, had in fact analysed samples of his accountant’s handwriting. However, Mr Wightman, Mr Bean and Mr Read did not withdraw the allegation when this error was pointed out to them. Moreover, the court held that Mr Wightman was instrumental in procuring ostensibly third-party statements repeating the serious allegation, in “The Packham Papers” and in an article by Fieldsports TV. The death threat allegation was only formally withdrawn by Mr Read shortly before trial, and by the other defendants only on the third day of trial.
Chris Packham said:
“Every day many thousands of innocent people are victims of online abuse and hate crimes. This can be racially, religiously or politically motivated. It can be generated in regard to gender politics, environmental beliefs, body shaming. This vile part of modern life ruins lives, livelihoods, reputations, it disrupts young peoples’ educations, causes incalculable mental health problems and tragically causes people to take their own lives.
“As it stands the criminal law is simply not there to protect us from such hate – something that must change. The current governments ‘Online Safety Bill’ is plodding along. In the meantime a tiny minority of victims are able to take civil action.
“In the offending articles and tweets Mr Wightman and Mr Bean accused me of defrauding the public to raise money to rescue tigers from circuses, defrauding the public by promoting a crowd-funder during the COVID epidemic, lying about the burning of peat during COP26, writing a death threat letter to myself, and elsewhere of bullying, sexual misconduct and rape. They also accused me of faking an arson attack at my home and repeatedly called upon the BBC to sack me.
“In a full and frank vindication of my innocence the court has found that “Mr Packham did not lie and each of his own statements was made with a genuine belief in its truth”.
“Most egregiously all three defendants had advanced an allegation that I had forged a death threat letter to myself, an allegation that they managed to disseminate to the mainstream media.
“The Court has held that I did not write the death threat letter, concluding that “even a cursory examination of the handwriting in the death threat and comparison with a true sample of Mr Packham’s handwriting demonstrates obvious differences between the two”.
“Thank you to my followers for your unswerving support and belief in my honest crusade to make the world a better place for wildlife, people and the environment.”
Carol Day, Solicitor at law firm Leigh Day said:
“Mr Packham is grateful to the judge for his careful deliberation of the issues and is delighted with the judgment, which completely vindicates him of any fraudulent motivation in raising funds to rescue the ex-circus tigers, alongside further unsubstantiated allegations of dishonesty regarding peat-burning and insurance fraud. This case should provide a strong deterrent to anyone who sets out to gratuitously smear someone’s character simply because they don’t agree with their views.”
Mr Packham is represented by partner Tessa Gregory and solicitor Carol Day of Leigh Day and barristers Jonathan Price and Claire Overman of Doughty Street Chambers. Leigh Day instructed specialist costs counsel Benjamin Williams KC of 4 New Square Chambers for the hearing on costs and consequential matters on 25 May 2023.
Comments Off on Wild Justice supports a legal challenge on scallop dredging
Wild Justice is pleased to support, and share the word about, a campaign to stop the damaging practice of scallop dredging in Scotland.
Open Seas is a SCIO (Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisation) taking legal action against this widespread form of fishing. The organisation believes the current licensing of scallop dredging is unlawful and has accused Scottish ministers of regulatory negligence.
The practice of scallop dredging is intensive and invasive. It involves ‘bottom trawling’ using heavy metal dredges to scrape and rake scallops from the seabed. The process is brutal and damaging, smashing up marine habitats and harming wildlife.
Why does Open Seas believe scallop dredging is unlawful?
The Marine Scotland Act requires Scottish Ministers to ensure that their decisions conform with the National Marine Plan. Within this plan, one policy requires the assurance that no use of the sea will have “significant impact on the national status of Priority Marine Features.” These marine features include marine habitats and species in Scotland.
Evidence gathered by Open Seas across multiple locations shows that scallop dredging has caused significant damage to marine habitats. Despite this evidence, the dredging continues to be licensed – which is why they’re requesting a Judicial Review.
Wild Justice agrees with Open Seas and we have been happy to support their campaign. Ahead of their request for Judicial Review we contributed £10,000 towards their legal costs – a small proportion of the total costs, but one we hope makes a difference, and which Open Seas was able to use to encourage other donors to step up.
How can you help?
The hearing is to take place on May 22 – that’s on Monday. In the meantime, you can help by signing the ‘Our Seas’ coalition petition, which is asking for an inshore limit on scallop dredging and bottom-trawling.
Comments Off on We wrote to Natural England about SSSIs…
So far in 2023, we’ve been having a nosey at some Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs), and their condition – see here. We wrote to Natural England about one site in particular called Dendles Wood, found on Dartmoor.
From their response (see here) we’ve concluded that it’s in a bit of a sorry state; pheasants were being released very close to it, it hadn’t been assessed since 2011, and its current management plan had expired in 2020. This got us thinking.
So, earlier this spring, we wrote to Natural England under the Freedom of Information regulations. In our letter, we asked for some information about all Sites of Special Scientific Interest in England. This is what we said in our email to them:
Dear Natural England
We write to request information under the Environmental Information Regulations and/or Freedom of Information Act regulations.
Our request is in relation to Biological Sites of Special Scientific Interest within England. Specifically, please provide:
A list of all Biological SSSIs in England, the county in which they are found, their constituent Units, the size in hectares of each Unit, the condition (Favourable, Unfavourable Recovering etc) of each unit and the year in which each SSSI Unit’s condition was assessed by Natural England. All of this information is publicly available but we would ask for the data in electronic format (such as an Excel file) so that they can be analysed easily. Please provide the information so that each SSSI Unit is a row in the file which contains information for each unit on the constituent SSSI and the condition and date of assessment of the Unit.
These are data that Natural England must hold electronically, they are publicly available on your website, and so we assume that it is a minor task to extract these data and provide them in the requested form. However, we would be prepared to pay reasonable costs of data extraction.
Please meet this request inside, well inside, the maximum allowable period of 20 working days. Many thanks, Wild Justice
Whilst the information we asked for is available online, it is only accessible as individual web pages for each SSSI, and is therefore in a format that makes it difficult to assess. The information we asked for included:
A list of all Biological SSSIs in England
The county in which they are found
Their constituent Units
The size in hectares of each Unit
The condition (Favourable, Unfavourable Recovering etc) of each unit
The year in which each SSSI Unit’s condition was assessed by Natural England.
Well, we’re please to say that last week we heard back from Natural England, following our FOI request. You can see their response below. Now we have these data (and it’s quite a lot of data) we’ll be looking at what they tell us about SSSI condition in England. Watch this space…
Comments Off on A dog’s dinner: high levels of toxic lead found in UK dog food.
Would you feed your dog something that wasn’t safe for yourself?
Lead is a heavy issue. Wild Justice has campaigned on lead levels in food since we started. Whilst our previous investigations have analysed lead levels in game meat sold for human consumption on supermarket shelves, we’re now looking at how lead gets into the diets of our four-legged best friends.
Recently, Wild Justice funded tests of lead levels in dog food sold in the UK. Specifically, these were dog food products, in various forms, that contained Pheasant. The study, published in the journal Ambio today (click here), analysed a mix of Pheasant-based dog foods from online retailers including raw, air-dried and wet products, as well as some control products containing no Pheasant.
These are products you might buy with the intention of giving your pet a healthy diet. The results, however, indicate that you could be doing the exact opposite…
THE RESULTS:
Raw Pheasant-based dog foods:
The researchers found that approximately three quarters of samples from raw Pheasant-based dog food packs exceeded the EU maximum lead levels permitted in animal feed – i.e. a level of lead that would be considered unsafe to feed to livestock that we might eat ourselves.
In three of these raw products being sold in the UK, lead levels were found to be an average of 245, 135 and 49 times above the maximum permitted levels respectively.
Not only that, but every single sample of raw dog food containing Pheasant exceeded the permitted lead threshold in the meat of domestic stock, such as chicken, beef and pork, that is destined for human consumption.
Air Dried dog foods:
In the air-dried product tested – described as ‘100% Pheasant and Partridge sticks’ – 60% of the samples tested exceeded the EU Maximum lead levels permitted in animal feed.
Wet Pheasant-based dog foods:
The processed, tinned dog food tested contained a mix of Pheasant (40%) goose (40%) vegetables and oil. Interestingly, none of the samples tested exceeded the EU maximum lead levels permitted in animal feed.
The samples did, however, exceed the level of lead permitted as safe in livestock meat destined for human consumption.
Control samples:
None of the control samples of other dog foods, containing no Pheasant meat, exceeded the EU maximum levels of lead permitted in animal feed.
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?
We can see from these results that pet owners are unwittingly feeding their dogs levels of lead that may harm their health. We know, from other recent research, that lead is still very widely used by the shooting industry for the shooting of gamebirds such as Pheasant and partridges. We know that their pledge to phase out the use of lead shot voluntarily over five years hasn’t been going to plan – with only a 6% reduction in three years. As a result, some of that lead is ending up in the pet food chain, and is consumed by our companion animals.
Consumption of lead is detrimental to human health, being especially harmful to developing brains and the nervous system. But this harm isn’t limited to humans; other animals are affected in similar ways. Lead ingestion can affect the gut, nervous system, heart, kidneys and blood of companion animals like dogs, and could be particularly harmful to puppies.
Chris Packham, Co-Director of Wild Justice said “That people might be unwittingly poisoning their beloved companion animals is outrageous. It’s clearly a failure of our regulatory systems when products like raw Pheasant-based dog foods can be sold containing such high lead levels. No animals should be exposed to these levels of lead in their food, under the guise of being healthy, when they in fact contain levels of lead that would be illegal to feed to cows or chickens or indeed, if it was in your own beefburgers or pork sausages.
Like us, our dogs are vulnerable to toxic lead and we must ask; would you feed your dog something deemed too toxic to eat yourself? These results show the repercussions of lead ammunition use by the shooting industry reach wider than just those who eat game out of free choice. Wild Justice is taking legal advice on these shocking findings.”
SO, WHAT CAN YOU DO ABOUT IT?
If you have a dog, (or even if you don’t), there are two things you can do to try and put a stop to this:
Write to Pet Food Manufacturers. If you’ve got a favourite brand of dog food, and they sell products containing Pheasant or partridge, get in touch with them. Ask them if they’re aware of this study, and if they’ve carried out their own testing of lead levels in their products. We’d love to hear what they say in response.
Write to your MP, MSP or MS. Get in touch with your parliamentary representative, and point out this research to them which demonstrates a massive failure of regulation.
Wild Justice is a not-for-profit organisation set up by Chris Packham, Ruth Tingay and Mark Avery. We are entirely dependent on donations. To support our work – click here. To hear more about our campaigns and legal cases subscribe to our free newsletter – click here.
Comments Off on Are lead levels falling in game meat?
Wild Justice has led the way in testing game meat (Pheasant, partridge (unknown species) and Woodpigeon) that has been on sale in supermarkets, online and in independent butchers and game dealers over the last three shooting seasons and reporting on the levels of lead found in that meat.
We have analysed (or, more correctly, had others analyse) Pheasant and partridge meat purchased from Harrods, Sainsbury’s , Waitrose, M&S and Lidl. Others have looked at the metallic composition of shot found in purchased game birds, and those studies indicate that lead is still used predominantly for shooting game which is sold for human consumption in the UK (see here). However, Wild Justice is in a unique position to comment, on the basis of hard facts, about what is happening to lead levels in game meat in the UK.
A short introduction to the subject: lead is a poison and its use has been regulated, across much of the world, in many uses such as in vehicle fuel, water pipes, paint and in food. That’s one reason why, when you go into a food store you can be reasonably sure that the meat you might buy won’t have high levels of lead in it. We’ve tested a variety of non-game meat over the last three years and found nothing whatsoever to worry about.
As this table shows, the measures of lead (Pb) levels in non-game meat are very low, and critically, there are no samples that breach the maximum legal level – which is 0.1mg of lead per kg of wet meat.
However, when it comes to game meat, much of it is shot with lead ammunition and tiny fragments of lead are shed from the ammunition as it passes through the flesh of the bird (or mammal) and lodge in the flesh (soon to be known as meat). These are tiny particles and cannot realistically be detected or removed from game meat in the cooking or preparation process. The way to prevent them from being in the meat is to use ammunition other than lead (such as steel and bismuth).
Bizarrely, despite all this being well-known, and despite there being health implications of eating high levels of lead (see here for just one example) there are no limits set for lead levels in game meat being sold to the public. Wild Justice believes this is wrong and a failure of governments to regulate for the public good.
But it means that however high the levels of lead, harmful lead, we find in game meat, this meat can legally be sold. Our work highlights the scale of the problem.
Levels of toxic lead in game meat samples: our sampling has only scratched the surface, but we seem to have the largest recent dataset of lead levels in UK game meat. How weird is that? A tiny organisation is leading the way in monitoring the levels of a poison in our food!
Here is a big table with lots of numbers in it:
This table is in the same format as the non-game table above. Whereas for non-game meat the righthand-most column has all zeros in it (showing that none of the samples was in excess of the legal level for non-game meat) in this table most samples have many lead levels that are legal, but would be illegal in non-game meat. There is one row, the penultimate row (Eat Wild partridge breast) that is an exception – we’ll come back to that.
The rows shaded in yellow are this shooting season’s results (and are discussed in a bit more detail in our two previous blog posts), the unshaded rows are results you have seen before if you have been following our work on this issue.
Is there evidence here of lower lead levels in game meat on sale to the public? Yes, although it is too soon to whoop with joy and there is a long way to go. But all credit to Holme Farmed Venison whose Eat Wild partridge breasts were the first samples we have seen of game meat where all of the samples had below the legal level of lead for non-game meat. That’s good and came as a pleasant surprise. As a very rough and ready measure, if one compares the proportion of samples above 0.1mg/kg Pb ww this year, 52/95 (55%), with those from the previous two years, 93/119 (78%) it looks as though things might be getting better (and it would look that way even more if we hadn’t discovered those very high levels in Lidl stores in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland).
There is evidence, but not proof, that things are getting better. Wild Justice will continue to test game meat samples next shooting season to see whether things really are getting better.
Comments Off on Lead levels in supermarket game meat – latest results
This winter we bought game meat from supermarkets in the UK and sent the samples to be tested for lead levels by experts at a laboratory. This is the latest in a series of such examinations we have carried out with game shot in the 2020/21, 2021/22 and now 2022/2023 shooting seasons. As usual we also purchased non-game meat and had those samples tested in the same way.
We bought meat from Sainsbury’s stores in southeast England (London, Essex, Suffolk and Bedfordshire); Pheasant breasts, game mix and beef escalopes (black, red and blue diamonds respectively in the graph below).
We bought Pheasant and partridge breasts online from Eat Wild, Holme Farmed Venison (green and purple diamonds in the graph below)
We bought whole Pheasants online from M&S and picked them up before Christmas at a local store (yellow diamonds in the graph below).
The horizontal line (at 0.1mg/kg Pb ww) shows the legal maximum lead level for non-game meat. There is no legal maximum lead level set for game meat – which is totally bizarre.
You can see that the beef escalopes are all well below the line (any lead in them was below the detectable threshold of the test). That’s what they should look like and in previous years when we have tested chicken, duck, and pork then all those samples have been similarly ‘lead-free’. Good!
Also – and this is encouraging – the 12 partridge breasts bought from Holme Farmed Venison also had low lead levels. If the maximum levels that apply to pork, beef, chicken etc did apply to game meat then these samples would have been legal to sell.
However, Pheasant breasts and game mix from Sainsbury’s, Pheasant breasts from Holme Farmed Venison and whole Pheasants from M&S had some samples that were high in lead levels. When we say ‘high’, some were very high. The scale on the Y-axis of the graph is a logarithmic one so that we can fit all the data onto one graph. If we had used a linear scale then if you are looking at this on a PC the highest points would be heading for the ceiling of the room you are in!
If you consider the 70 game meat samples shown in the graph above, nine of the 10 highest values are from Sainsbury’s Pheasant breasts or the game mix bought in their stores (the other of the top ten, the ninth highest, was from the Eat Wild Pheasant breasts).
We discuss these results, and those of the analyses of game meat bought in Lidl stores in Northern Ireland, in the next blog which puts this year’s results in context with previous years’ findings.
Comments Off on Pheasant breasts sold by Lidl contaminated with lead levels up to 85 x higher than legal limit set for non-game meat
Lead-contaminated Pheasant breasts are on sale at Lidl supermarkets across Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, new research by Wild Justice has found.
Tests on frozen Pheasant breasts bought from Lidl stores found lead levels at up to 85 times higher than the legal limit set for beef, pork, chicken etc;
88% of samples tested positive for potentially dangerous amounts of lead;
Findings indicate the voluntary phasing out of lead shot by the shooting industry hasn’t prevented lead contamination of meat three years after its announcement;
Packaging information reveals the Pheasants were shot inUK, processed in Poland, then shipped to Northern Ireland & RoI to be sold at Lidl stores
We bought 25 samples of frozen Pheasant breasts from seven Lidl stores across Northern Ireland & the Republic of Ireland in February 2023 and had them tested for lead levels using methods previously described (here) for tests we have conducted on game meat bought from other supermarkets.
Five of the 25 packs contained whole shot, which was removed and tested to confirm it was lead (which was the case for all five samples). Even after the whole shots had been removed, 22 of the 25 samples still contained lead levels over the legal limit set for livestock meat, with one sample containing a lead level 85 times higher than the legal limit set for livestock meat.
This excessively-high lead content found in 22 samples isn’t illegal for gamebird meat sold in the UK because currently (and inexplicably) there is no legal limit for lead levels in wild game meat such as Pheasant, partridges, grouse and venison, only for meat such as pork, beef and chicken etc, which is really quite non-sensical given that gamebirds are routinely shot with toxic lead ammunition but pigs, cattle and chickens are not.
We couldn’t see any public health warning on the Lidl packaging.
Our findings on the high lead content of pheasant breasts sold in Lidl stores don’t come as any surprise as they align with the results of previous tests we’ve undertaken on gamebird meat sold in Sainsbury’s, Waitrose, Harrods, and by three independent game dealers, over the last two years (e.g. here, here, here, here, here, here). Our results also align with the results of a recently published peer-reviewed study conducted by scientists at the University of Cambridge (here).
What is surprising about the Lidl Pheasants, however, is the very strange apparent route to market.
The packaging of the Lidl Pheasant breasts includes the following statement:
‘Produced in Poland, using UK pheasants‘.
So it looks like Pheasants that were shot in the UK (whether this includes Northern Ireland or not isn’t clear) were then shipped to Poland to be processed (carved up), and then the Pheasant breasts were shipped to Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic to be put on the shelves of various Lidl stores. That’s hardly a sustainable model, is it?!
Furthermore, it has previously been reported (here) that the UK has imported over 1.2 million ready-to-hatch Pheasant eggs from game farms in Poland to be reared and released into the UK countryside as live targets for recreational shooters. Are these the same Pheasants we’re then exporting back to Poland for processing, or are those different Pheasants?
What’s also odd is the stated date the Pheasant breasts were frozen (17th May 2022 according to the Lidl packaging shown in the photo above). Given the Pheasant-shooting season closes on 31st January (in Northern Ireland) and 1st February (rest of the UK), and assuming these Lidl Pheasants were all shot on the last day of the season, where and how were these shot Pheasant carcasses stored for at least 3.5 months if they weren’t frozen prior to export? Or were they frozen prior to export, defrosted in Poland, and then refrozen for transfer to NI and the RoI?
Something seems very amiss here with this whole set-up and deserves closer investigation…
Two years ago we sent out a survey through our newsletter and summarised the responses in five blogs over the Easter Period. This year we have repeated the process, almost exactly (we dropped one question and refined another), and this and a preceding blog post set out the results so that you can see how you fit in and read a range of views from others.
What do you care about (note the wording of the question)?
How would you describe your relationship with Wild Justice?
NB the options were: I wouldn’t class myself as a supporter (green), I’m a passive supporter (dk blue), I’m an active supporter- I am prepared to sign petitions, donate money and/or write letters, at least now and again (yellow) and I’m an active supporter and I’d like Wild Justice to give me more opportunities to make a difference (lt blue)
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What do you think of our involvement with the legal system?
Think you do well to use legal framework to argue case for better protection for wildlife – brilliant strategy- and 100% support the challenges to laws that harm wildlife.
It seems no one can do the decent thing voluntarily – they have to be forced into it by legal enforcement – that’s you!!
Without Wild Justice I think that many current laws and practices would go unchallenged as major conservation organisations do not want to take on any contentious issues and come into conflict with politicians or business.
I am absolutely thrilled that Wild Justice is taking the active roll to support the protection of wildlife and taking the government to task in its failings over current legislation. After all what is the point of legislation if it is not properly applied or monitored.
I really like the fact that you use the legal system to drive change – much more effective that the more widespread ‘clicktivism’.
what you are doing – being the legal voice for the silent wildlife – is utterly vital to help them survive in this human dominated world – fight smart, fight hard my friends!
You are an ingenious organisation. In today’s world you can only effect real change & combat greed through legal action.
I really admire your intelligent use of the legal system.
The legal route is the only way to ensure change long term.
I think your work is first class. However I’m slightly concerned that you have too much faith in the lawyers you use. They should be judged more critically on their success rate.
I like and support Wild Justice as it uses the law to tackle important and often englected issues.
I am right behind their use of the justice system to effect change. Writing to MPs, signing petitions, demonstrating etc can be useful, but the results of going to court can’t be brushed aside.
I consider that holding government to account for enacting existing legislation is the keystone of your work.
You do an excellent and much needed job using legal argument to force change.
I see Wild Justice as an intelligent conduit to change government policy regarding wildlife and environmental issues. Kind of playing the establishment at their own game by legally challenging corporations and government rather than demonstrating.
Most people (myself included) do not have the legal understanding or means to make these challenges, however angry or frightened we might feel – through Wild Justice, I feel I have a chance of making my voice heard.
I am impressed with the smart use by Wild Justice of a combination of judicial review or the threat of it, together with pressure by other means, to provide the best chance of a successful result.
I particularly like how proactive and assertive Wild Justice is, striving to achieve its goals creatively and cleverly, and where it exposes failings in our legislation and legal processes it focuses effort to rectify them, which I think is the best approach.
It is great that parts of the UK government/civil service know that they are being scrutinised by people who care and are prepared to “put their money where their mouth is”.
Welcome the great progress made by making good use of the legal system to support nature’s recovery.
Regulation and it’s enforcement has failed us as a society and you are trying to correct that.
Keep up the good work – taking the legal route to correct questionable ‘legal’ unacceptable practises around wildlife issues is much needed.
I believe in trying to make a difference and actually holding organisations to account in the courts.
I agree with everything you stand for and especially the use of the legal system to further your aims.
Two years ago we sent out a survey through our newsletter and summarised the responses in five blogs over the Easter period. This year we have repeated the process, almost exactly (we dropped one question and refined another), and we’ll tell you the results in this and a following blog post.
We received 7219 responses in a week! Question 8 allowed you to write anything you liked about Wild Justice and just under 5000 respondents took that opportunity – we have read every single response. Thank you for all the feedback.
In this post, and the following one, we refer to the respondents to the survey as Wild Justice supporters. That seems fair enough since over 96% of respondents described themselves as supporters of one sort or another. That is a bit of a contrast to two years ago when we received hundreds of responses from people, often claiming to be shooters, who took the opportunity to berate us often with considerable rudeness. That type of response was missing this time around – perhaps because such people realised that their opinions might be published in this feedback and might not reflect well on the pastimes they claimed to enjoy.
At a very high level the results are:
Wild Justice supporters are spread right across the UK and a small proportion of you live abroad.
Wild Justice supporters are getting on a bit – >50% aged 65+ and >80% aged 55+ (just like us!)
Wild Justice supporters are slightly more likely to be female, 55%, than male (44%) or ‘other or prefer not to say’ (1%)
Wild Justice supporters eat less meat than the general public; 26% never, 28% 1-2 times a week
Wild Justice supporters see themselves as supporters of a wide range of other conservation organisations with RSPB and the Wildlife Trusts the most popular overall – very low support for BASC, a pro-shooting organisation
Wild Justice supporters are first of all wildlife conservationists, second environmentalists and lastly interested in animal welfare (of course most people are a complex mixture of all three)
Over two thirds of respondents (68%) describe themselves as active supporters of Wild Justice (signing petitions, writing to MPs etc, donating) and an additional 7% would like to become more active still.
Where do our newsletter subscribers live?
England 82%
Scotland 9%
Wales 6%
Outside UK >1%
UK (no other details) 1%
Northern Ireland <1%
But we can do better than that, because you gave us your postcodes:
How old are our newsletter subscribers?
And your gender?
Are you meat eaters?
Which of these organisations do you also support?
Here are some of the things, representative examples, of what you said about Wild Justice in general:
You are doing a fantastic job in the face of overwhelming threats to our environment and wildlife. Please continue with your good work.
Thank you for your persistence in protecting wildlife and habitats
So wonderful that you exist! Your work is essential – please keep going!
I find supporting Wild Justice more ‘real’ than other charities who tend to ‘pussy foot around’ and pretend that we can solve the climate and biodiversity loss crises. I think that probably the most productive way to fight for these causes is through the courts. So I like what Wild Justice does. I like the fact that sometimes you win cases. You’re prepared to go back to court. At the very least you raise the profile of issues which are not widely known about. I am educated by you. I like your no-nonsense, clear, personable, emails. (I don’t do Twitter). I hope I have managed to introduce you to a few other people.
Your work gives hope in a world where most things man-made seems to be awful for the natural world. Please continue.
I totally support your aims and what you do. If I was younger I would be more active, but that is not possible. The pressure you exert on government and other agencies to be more wildlife and animal aware is absolutely vital to the survival of our planet.
Compared to other charities I support such as WWF and RSPB, it is small but powerful. Keep on fighting!
I am very glad you exist, you give me hope and belief that there are people who care, you are showing that things can change
You annoy all the right people. Please keep doing what you are doing. Our money is being well spent.
I’m really pleased that Wild Justice exists – daliwch ati!
Really feel your battles with “authority” are worthwhile especially those concerning the environment like sewage dumped in rivers, the value of the SSSI’s etc.
Nobody else does what you do or even gets close. For god’s sake keep at it.
Your work is needed badly. Corruption and incompetence by govt bodies demand that you expose them.
Wild Justice has begun to highlight and solve the problems that most wildlife charities have failed to address. The more you do the more support I shall give, because the law-makers will do nothing for wildlife or the environment unless you shine a light on their dreadful policies.
I love Wild Justice’s proactive approach to supporting our wildlife and environment. They have really bought home to me how little is being done by the government and landowners.
I enjoy the spirit and energy of Wild Justice.
I think that you are doing a brilliant job in spite of a lack of interest from the Government in doing anything which upsets their mates.
Comments Off on More glyphosate results – thank you for taking the p*ss again!
Introduction
Last year, in February/March we asked you to consider sending a urine sample to Germany to get the glyphosate levels tested. Over 120 of you participated and the results were quite interesting – click here. We asked the original participants whether they would get another sample tested in the autumn and 59 test results were received.
Results
The data came from across Great Britain:
Figure 1. Distribution of subjects taking Test 2. The size of the circles is proportional to each subject’s Test 2 glyphosate levels.
People whose urine glyphosate levels were high in the February/March tests were also likely to be high in the September/October/November tests (Pearson correlation coefficient R=0.49) suggesting some consistency in urine glyphosate levels within individuals.
However, urine glyphosate levels were lower, slightly but significantly, in the autumn tests compared with the spring tests.
Figure 2. Boxplot showing Test 1 and Test 2 results for subjects who took both tests (n = 59). Means are shown as squares, medians as horizontal lines. There was a statistically significant difference between Test 1 and Test 2 results (Wilcoxon paired rank test, P < 0.00001).
We could find no relationship between age, gender, diet (omnivore, flexitarian/pescatarian, vegetarian and vegan) and urine glyphosate levels. Our sample of people was not very diverse when it came to gardening habits so those factors revealed nothing.
However, we also looked at land use around the address of the participants using digitised maps like this one:
Figure 3. An example of 1- and 5-km buffers around a postcode centre (in this case LE10 1HJ) placed over the UKCEH 25-metre land-cover product. Red indicates arable land, dark blue is agricultural grassland, light blue is suburban land, olive-green is urban land and light green is woodland.
We found a tantalising relationship between urine glyphosate levels (Test 1, where sample size was biggest) and land use. Not significant but intriguing. Which way did it go? Higher urine glyphosate levels came from participants in built up areas. Is that what you expected?
Conclusions
The results suggest that there is a moderate degree of within-subject consistency in glyphosate level between tests, and that there is temporal variation in glyphosate levels, which were higher on average in Test 1 (Feb-Mar 2022) than in Test 2 (Sep-Nov 2022). There was a weak suggestion of a positive relationship between a subject’s glyphosate levels and the amount of built-up land (urban or suburban) around them.
We’re going to share these results with others and ponder what further studies could be built on this basis.
Thank you!
Over 120 people took part in these tests, and 59 in both tests. That makes a reasonable sample of people. It’s a bit of a faff sending off for the test kit, and then sending it off to be analysed (particularly as Brexit has made postage of p*ss to Germany more expensive and involve more paperwork. Many participants refused our offer of reimbursement for postage and the cost of a kit – that meant that the study was much cheaper than it might have been. Thank you very much to all who participated. We’ll get back to you with future plans.
What we take from this is that, for a National Nature Reserve, owned by us all, the management plan ran out in 2020 and a new one will be written for 2024. That’s pretty pathetic and we wonder whether the new plan will be written and whether it would even have been thought of without our intervention. But it is typical of the rest of the answers – either nothing has been done or nothing much has been done. The Blue Ground Beetle hasn’t been paid much attention at all since 2016 it seems. The most recent condition assessment of the condition of the four SSSI units is 2011 – well over a decade ago. But an update is now scheduled for this year – we wonder whether that was planned before or after our intervention. This is a picture of a regulator (and in this case, in part a land owner too) failing to carry out its duties. If this is the state of attention given to protected sites across England then the system is in disarray. It probably is in disarray because of government cuts to Natural England but also feebleness by NE themselves.
When it comes to regulation of shooting, it is interesting that Natural England confirms what we thought, that there has been no notification to them of any releases of gamebirds within 500m of the Dartmoor Special Area of Conservation in either 2021 or 2022. We believe that such releases have taken place and failure to notify Natural England is a serious matter.
However, Natural England don’t regard it as their job to ask about this and instead point the finger at their government department sponsor, Defra, by metaphorically shrugging and saying ‘GL43 is a DEFRA licence and though the conditions of the licence require information on the use of the licence to be submitted to Natural England, monitoringcompliance with the licence is DEFRA’s responsibility. Responsibilities around the investigation and enforcement of suspected breaches of GL43 rest with the Police and the CPS. Outside the scope of GL43, NE is in contact with landowners and estate managers of SSSIs to ensure any conditions relating to SSSI consents are being met.’. Natural England’s jobsworth view is that it is everyone else’s job to look at these matters, but not theirs.
We suspect that Defra will be less than thrilled to have been fingered by the statutory body they sponsor as being the body failing on this matter. We’ll find out – we’ve written to Defra to ask them whether a bowler-hatted person from the ministry, in pin-stripe suit and with a rolled up brolly under their arm has taken the train down to Devon to have a poke around on this issue. We’ve also written back to Natural England.
We’re sure we’ll have more to tell you about on this issue.
Comments Off on Woodcock debate – does anyone shoot Woodcock before 1 December?Woodcock. Photo: Tim Melling
Some MPs really showed themselves in an unflattering light when they spoke in the Woodcock debate. Considering that GWCT and BASC favour NOT shooting Woodcock in October and either all of or most of November they were falling over themselves to criticise our proposal, supported by over 107,000 of you, that shooting should not be allowed in October and November. Here we quote some extracts from some very confused speeches – read the full transcript of the debate here.
Sir Robert Goodwill (Scarborough and Whitby, Con) suggested that ‘Sustainable levels of shooting and the voluntary delay of shooting are the way forward‘ but also said that ‘The proposal in the petition will have little effect on the resident population, as only around 2% of birds that are shot are not migratory‘. And in one bound appears to have missed the fact that the proposal in the petition is the same as voluntary restraint except that it is adding the power of regulation. How can that be worse or have little effect? And we all know that the resident birds make up a very small proportion of the overall numbers gunned down – but they make up a very high prioportion of those at risk in October and November. That’s very much the point Sir Robert but you appear not to have grasped it.
Jim Shannon (Strangford, DUP) said ‘There is now … voluntary restraint in place: woodcock are not to be shot before 1 December. There is no evidence of any significant harvest of birds before that date and no evidence that shooting is the cause of the decline in the resident population. Given that shooting does not take place to any significant degree before 1 December and that the current harvest of migrant woodcock is clearly sustainable, there is no need for regulatory change.’. A bit like Sir Robert – maybe they been confused by the same briefing note?
David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner, Con) said that ‘…the evidence so far shows that the voluntary actions that have been undertaken have been beneficial – that is an appropriate first step for those of us who have concerns about ensuring that the issue is addressed in the long term‘ and then dismisses the second step thus ‘I am not convinced by the evidence that has been presented that further regulation is justified at this time, nor am I convinced that it would be beneficial for the … woodcock‘. Mr Simmonds doesn’t explain why he doesn’t favour regulation on the subject on which he agrees with voluntary restraint, but he was ‘struck be’ the briefing of the Countryside Alliance who can’t explain why they don’t want people to shoot Woodcock early in the season but only through the kindness of their hearts and not through the operation of shooting seasons.
Sir Bill Wiggin (North Herefordshire, Con) said ‘If both sides of the argument agree that woodcock are special and should not really be shot until mid-November or the beginning of December, why do we need to legislate? We need to legislate when things go wrong, not when things are going right, and I think that—by and large—people have not thought about what punishment they would like to see for somebody who shoots a woodcock at the end of November.’ It’s difficult not to smile when Sir Bill speaks as he seems so affable and confident – maybe he got those traits from Eton? If one changed the shooting season then the penalties for shooting a bird out of season would be just as they are now. But we see again the embracing of voluntary measures and the rejection of a few penstrokes which would change the shooting seasons.
Greg Smith (Buckingham, Con) said ‘Why do we need to legislate for something that, as my hon. Friend the Member for North Herefordshire has just said, is not actually a problem?‘. Mr Smith says that we shouldn’t add anything to the statue book because (presumably) he thinks that all the good laws are in place already and nothing needs to change (?), but in any case he is wrong because the change in shooting season is secondary legislation and can be achieved very simply – no new law is needed.
Running up to the debate and during the debate it was repeatedly stated that voluntary measures were working – pretty much perfectly. There is no reason at all to believe this. There are, despite the claims made, no real data to back up this claim. The only ‘evidence’ is what shooters say about their own behaviour. This comes from the industry that claims that it is giving up lead ammunition voluntarily, which claimed it would cease burning blanket bogs voluntarily and which has claimed for decades that hardly any illegal killing of birds of prey goes on – none of those things is true and yet each is said with equal certainty as the nonsense on Woodcock shooting.
We don’t doubt there is a bit more restraint on Woodcock shooting than there was a decade ago, but the idea that everything is fine is just a story. Let’s look at the evidence.
Back in June 2020 the GWCT published a popular account of their satellite tagging study of Woodcock in British Birds. It’s a very interesting study and the paper included the exhortation to shooters not to shoot Woodcock before 1 December. One of us wondered whether this was being respected and spent just a few moments searching the internet for advertisements for Woodcock shooting before 1 December – click here. There were loads and loads of examples and they didn’t take much searching.
In March 2022, when we wrote to Defra on this matter the situation had not changed – there were plenty of shooting estates and websites offering Woodcock shooting to paying clients before 1 December – look at the examples in our letter to Defra at footnotes 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 here.
As the date of the debate approached, shooters became a little more circumspect about publicly offering Woodcock shooting before 1 December – but only a little. In January, the Shooting Times published a letter , and a photo, of a dad and his son who had been out shooting in Lancashire in mid November and the adult had achieved a ‘left and right’ of Woodcock under the title of ‘A day to remember’ (don’t you worry, we will – click here). Bragging about breaking what is claimed to be an effective voluntary restraint on shooting in a shooting magazine is not a good look for an industry whose advocates are going to stand up in parliament and claim all is well.
In the week before the debate there were still adverts for Woodcock shooting in October and November plainly advertised and some still are. Here are four current examples; this one from Scotland which also has an American Woodcock pictured (click here), this one from Wales (click here), this from Northern Ireland (click here) and another from Scotland (click here). Several websites have changed what they say (they’ve become rather coy about what they’ll sell you) but we cannot tell whether they have changed what happens on the ground. Here’s one example (click here).
It’s unclear how much change there has really been. We suspect, from what we are told, that there really has been some uptake of voluntary restraint in shooting dates, and that the GWCT has been responsible for much of that spread in good practice. Our campaign will have accelerated that spread. But it is clear that more is needed – if only so that those showing voluntary restraint don’t feel like mugs. Those MPs who claimed that all is well are wrong and are doing shooting a disservice.
If nobody ever shot a Woodcock in September- November then you could argue that such a change in shooting season were unnecessary – but they clearly do. And if not for limiting unsustainable shooting, what are open and close seasons for?
The shooting industry has looked shifty and evasive on this issue. It’s quite obvious that everyone thinks that we shouldn’t shoot Woodcock before 1 December – let’s update outdated shooting season to reflect that, please!
Comments Off on Woodcock see more clearly than some MPs
We received this rather fuzzy image of a Woodcock in a garden in London from a subscriber. What a great bird to see in your garden!
At first glance, it looks almost as if the bird has two eyes on the side of its head but that is because the bird moved and there is a double image.
But it did take us back to the recent Woodcock debate in Parliament where Conservative MP, Sir Bill Wiggin, said;
I am very fond of woodcock. They are the only birds with binocular vision, which means that when they fly, they can see where they are going, which is why they have an extraordinary flight pattern, particularly in the evening as the light fades.
Any Woodcock reading through the debate would be surprised to hear that other birds don’t have binocular vision and that he or she was unique. The truth is very different – see here. Most birds have some binocular vision – especially predatory species. Meet an eagle face-to-face and it will be looking back at you with both eyes. The same is true for owls, ostriches and many other species.
But birds do, generally, have their eyes on the sides of their heads which means that they have large areas of monocular vision and rather smaller areas of binocular vision.
Woodcock have very large visual fields – they can see around them all 360 degrees with a 5 degree binocular field in front of them and another similar-sized binocular field directly behind them. What must that feel like? But it’s almost the opposite of what Sir Bill Wiggin said – Woodcock actually have small binocular fields – and yet they manage to fly around perfectly adequately. They spend so much of their time sitting on the ground, not moving, that they need to have eyes in the backs of their heads to see whether a predator is approaching. We reckon they can see more clearly than many MPs.
Here ‘s a lovely Woodcock from Ronan Jackson – the eyes have it!
Woodcock by Ronan Jackson, aged 11 from Scotland – a keen Woodcock enthusiast
Comments Off on Wild Justice funding: helping to track down the raptor killers (guest blog, Guy Shorrock)
In 2020, Wild Justice initiated a Raptor Forensics Fund to help police forces across the UK to tackle wildlife crime. A £10K funding pot was established with donations from WJ, Northern England Raptor Forum, Tayside & Fife Raptor Study Group, Devon Birds, and a number of individuals who wish to remain anonymous.
This guest blog, written by Guy Shorrock (a member of the PAW Forensic Working Group and former RSPB Senior Investigator) provides an insight into how these funds were used recently to investigate and successfully convict a gamekeeper in Dorset.
EARLY DAYS
I spent some 38 years working in enforcement, just over 30 of these with RSPB Investigations. As former colleagues will testify, one of my favourite expressions was ‘You can’t beat a good clue‘; and it has to be said that some of the very best come from forensic examinations, often revealing things simply invisible to the human eye.
When I joined RSPB in 1991, they had just started their last private prosecution, involving the first UK wildlife case using DNA profiling which showed the captive breeding claims of a goshawk keeper were false as the three chicks had been taken from the wild and, unsurprisingly, were not related to the declared female parent. Despite the derisory £100 fine, it was a seminal moment in wildlife crime investigation. With my university background in science, I was keen to get involved and over the next few years initiated, or was involved with, several cases of raptor laundering, mainly peregrines and goshawks.
It was RSPB and the Department of the Environment (now Defra) who drove most of this work & supported police & CPS prosecutions. Two high profile cases, involving extensive peregrine laundering, led to two men receiving custodial sentences. I believe these cases were instrumental in the formation of the Partnership for Action against Wildlife Crime (PAW) in 1995. This led to many developments, most significantly the later formation of the NWCU, but also the PAW Forensic Working Group (FWG). I have been fortunate to have been involved with the FWG since it started in 1996, and the group has been blessed with a succession of dynamic and highly capable people from various professional backgrounds.
June 1991 – a blood sample being taken from a goshawk – the first time DNA testing was used in a UK wildlife crime case. Photo: RSPB
CURRENT SET UP
The FWG continues to promote the use of forensics in wildlife crime investigations and has set up a range of initiatives & projects. One of these was the Forensic Analysis Fund – which provides financial support where forensics or specialist examinations are needed during an investigation. However, one area which had always been a problem was initial funding for things like x-rays and post-mortems to confirm a crime had even taken place. Many WCOs have helpful arrangements with local vets and can get some work at little or no cost. However, in many potential raptor persecution cases, the RSPB had to cover costs to get things kick-started.
Helpfully, in 2020 Wild Justice made £10K available to help cover these initial costs in potential raptor persecution cases under a scheme administered by the FWG. Police can now get initial investigative costs of up to £200 quickly covered, and more funds are available on application. At later stages in the investigation, where normally the Forensic Analysis Fund provides police with match funding, the WJ Raptor Forensics Fund covers 100% of forensic costs for raptor persecution cases. This money has been very helpful in numerous cases, and in connection with four prosecutions.
CASE IN POINT
The most recent conviction of a gamekeeper in Dorset on 16 February 2023 for seven serious charges has been well reported in the media. This case provides a great illustration of the sequential use of forensics tests and how the Raptor Forensics Fund can be used effectively. In November 2020, local Johanna Dollerson was out for a walk on the Shaftesbury Estate when she came across a dead red kite. There was a dead rat lying nearby and, concerned something untoward may have happened, she called Dorset Police. The public remain the eyes and the ears in the countryside, and of the cases that do eventually get to court, many have relied on people being alert to unusual events and taking the trouble to report them.
The dead Red Kite poisoned by Bendiocarb found on the Shaftesbury Estate in Nov 2020. Photos: Johanna Dollerson
The following day an officer recovered both items and they were initially taken to a local vet. As poisoning was suspected, the red kite and a liver sample from the rat were submitted to the government’s Wildlife Incident Investigation Scheme (WIIS), this is overseen by HSE with the day-to-day work done by Natural England (NE).
Sure enough, following an initial post mortem at APHA to collect samples, the toxicology work by Fera confirmed abuse of the pesticide Bendiocarb in the red kite. The rat liver was negative. Bendiocarb has become a persistently abused pesticide for the killing of raptors, the product Ficam W being the most common source of this. This very toxic product is only for professional use, and people need to be appropriately trained and have a suitable and secure pesticide store. This product was actually banned just a few weeks after the red kite was found, though I have no doubt that the abuse of Ficam W to kill raptors and other wildlife will continue for many years. The kite also had an astonishing nine times the lethal level of the rodenticide Brodifacoum in its system so would no doubt have soon succumbed to this, had not also been exposed to Bendiocarb.
With it being an abuse case, it was referred to the Dorset Police Rural Crime Team and into the capable hands of WCO PC Claire Dinsdale (now with the NWCU). Police identified the gamekeeper running a private pheasant shoot being on the estate, and I assisted with the planning of the operation. Until June 2020 he had been employed for many years by the estate, but was now with a new employer, though remaining as a tenant at his long-term address. Further enquiries established he had purchased several sachets of Ficam W in 2018 – this extra information enabled the police to obtain a search warrant, allowing a search of his address as well as the land.
Many years ago, I had filmed a gamekeeper on this estate, retired but still doing some predator control, visit an illegal spring trap set in the open on the ground next to a dead pigeon bait inside a pheasant pen, most likely targeting buzzards. For reasons still unclear, no formal police action was taken, so I hoped this time things would go more smoothly.
On the 18 March 2021, Dorset Police led a multi-agency search supported by the NWCU, NE and RSPB. By a pen close to the rear of the gamekeeper’s home were the bodies of six dead buzzards, two lying next to the remains of a fire. The circumstances suggested the bodies were awaiting disposal by burning.
Four of the six buzzards found – all had been shot. Photo: Guy Shorrock/RSPB
A quick check of the ashes indicated the remains of at least one raptor and these were seized along with the buzzards.
Dorset Police CSI examining the fire site where the remains of three further buzzards were found. Photo: Guy Shorrock/RSPB
Nearby, under an old pond liner, were two tins of the fumigant pesticide Cymag. This gives off the very toxic hydrogen cyanide gas when brought into contact with moisture and storage like this is dangerous as well as illegal. Cymag was legally used to gas rats and rabbits until the end of 2004, though it also has a bad reputation for use in the illegal gassing of badgers and foxes. This particular brand was probably banned in the 1990s. In the rear yard were a number of insecure outbuildings and his 4×4 Mule vehicle. In a toolbox in the vehicle were three small pots containing a powder – later confirmed as Bendiocarb. The footwells of this vehicle were also swept by the CSI and traces of Bendiocarb were also detected in the dirt.
Three small pots of Ficam W (Bendiocarb) found inside a toolkit in the gamekeeper’s vehicle. Traces of this pesticide were also found in sweepings from the footwell. Photo: Guy Shorrock/RSPB
In an outbuilding was a part-used sachet of Ficam W (Bendiocarb), a product which had been banned three months earlier. Next to this was an old rodenticide container, and inside this were hidden two small bottles of Strychnine, another product banned since August 2006. In previous cases suspects have claimed no knowledge of any pesticides and stated they must had been languishing in outbuildings for many years before they arrived. I know of one case where this was probably true. A helpful clue in this case was an ‘01’ phone number on the old rodenticide container, this reflected the national ‘PhONEday’ number changes in 1995, which was after the gamekeeper had first taken up residence at the address. BT Archives kindly provided a statement to cover this point.
There was actually no appropriate pesticide store at his premises, so even an approved professional brand of rodenticide was insecurely and unlawfully stored. Guilty pleas were later entered to the keeping of the three banned pesticides.
An insecure store held a sachet of the recently banned Ficam W (Bendiocarb) and two bottles of strychnine hidden inside an old container.
THE FORENSIC TRAIL
Once the evidence had been seized, various forensic tests needed to be considered. Firstly, using the Raptor Forensics Fund, the six buzzards went for screening x-rays at a local vet which clearly indicated they had all been shot. With this information, the birds were sent for a post mortem examination at Scotland’s Rural College (SRUC) under the skilled hands of experienced pathologist Fiona Howie. In addition to confirming all had been shot, it also established one of the bodies was very fresh and probably shot within a day of us arriving at the address. Interestingly, this particular bird had survived two previous shooting incidents.
Two more of the six shot buzzards – the top bird probably shot within a day of the police raid. Photo: RSPBX-ray of this Buzzard shows its body peppered with shot, with multiple wing fractures. It contained pellets from two previous shooting incidents which it had survived (larger pellet from one of these in the neck). Photo: RSPB
We were obviously interested in what was in the fire remains and the Raptor Forensics Fund allowed us to submit these to Judith White, a Curator and avian specialist at the Natural History Museum. When I attended to collect them, they had been cleaned and neatly divided into 34 individual exhibit bags. The examination had confirmed there were the remains of at least three further buzzards from within the ashes. So, using nearly £900 from the Raptor Forensics Fund, these three examinations had produced some powerful evidence.
The grim remains from the fire, cleaned and sorted at the NHM. This confirmed the left tibiotarsus present from three different buzzards.
The preparation of the case file for the CPS was a huge amount of work, and Claire Dinsdale deserves great credit for her tenacity in completing this. As this was underway, myself and Dr Ed Blane, a highly experienced employee of Natural England, became aware that the original rat carcass had been described by the vet as being ‘cut open’. We were immediately concerned this was a potential bait which may have killed the red kite. Small prey items like these are not particularly common, and I couldn’t recall any previous cases using a rat bait. Back in 1999 I had found a couple of dead starlings laced with a banned pesticide right on the edge of the RSPB reserve at Geltsdale in Cumbria. A nearby breeding female hen harrier was later confirmed as poisoned with this product. In 2008, 32 pieces of meat laced with another banned pesticide were found placed on fenceposts on the Glenogil Estate in Scotland.
Thankfully, the body of the rat was still safely stored in the vet’s freezer and the Health & Safety Executive kindly agreed to submit it for further toxicology tests at FERA, which confirmed the presence of Bendiocarb. We also decided to try and identify the food contents found in the red kite and a sample was sent from FERA to the UK Wildlife DNA Forensics Laboratory at SASA. This laboratory, led by Dr Lucy Webster, has been doing some amazing work on wildlife genetics, and has provided vital evidence in many investigations and court cases. Police Scotland are fortunate to have any wildlife forensics done there free of charge. Other UK forces are not so lucky, so once again the Raptor Forensics Fund allowed this work to progress and SASA confirmed the tissue as being from brown rat. So there now seemed little doubt the red kite had been poisoned at the location where it was found. This additional evidence allowed the CPS to proceed with a charge of killing the red kite. Whilst this was ultimately one of three charges discontinued at court, I have little doubt it put the CPS in a very strong position and encouraged the seven guilty pleas that were entered.
All investigations are ultimately about seeking the truth as to what has taken place. This case provides a great example of how forensic testing can provide essential evidence in a wildlife crime investigation. The scientists undertaking this type of work (in this case at APHA, FERA, SASA, SRUC, and NHM) are often the unsung heroes of many successful court cases. It is their professionalism and attention to detail which provides police and prosecutors with the information to take matters forward. As technology continues to advance it will be interesting to see what other methods will allow some of the raptors killers to be brought to justice.
Last December we wrote about how nine-year-old artist and naturalist Benji Fallow had chosen to donate the proceeds from his fabulous artwork to Wild Justice (amongst others) – see here.
A few days ago Benji’s mum, Nish, got in touch to tell us that Benji has raised a £100 donation for Wild Justice from the sale of several of his wildlife-themed cards!
Thank you so much, Benji, what an absolute star!
All the artwork are prints of Benji’s own work, made by himself from scratch at ages 6 – 8yrs. They are printed on beautiful sustainably produced Mokawk paper with high quality inks. The packaging is all recycled and compostable.
You can view (and buy!) Benji’s artwork on his Etsy page:
Comments Off on Monday’s parliamentary debate on Woodcock shooting seasonWoodcock. Photo: Olly Smart
On Monday afternoon our petition calling for a change to the Woodcock shooting season was debated by MPs in Westminster Hall. This came about because nearly 108,000 people signed the petition – thank you all! The Defra minister, Trudy Harrison, broke the news that Defra has asked Natural England to look at the case for changing the shooting season. This was better news than we feared and we are optimistic that this modest change might be achieved. If it is, it is the 108,000 people who signed the petition who deserve most of the credit.
You can read the full transcript of the debate – click here.
Some thoughts from us:
the three of us, Chris, Ruth and Mark, attended the debate in person and we’d like to thank the House of Commons staff for facilitating that and making the whole process very easy
we’d like to thank Jonathan Gullis MP (Stoke-on-Trent North, and a member of the Petitions Committee) for talking to us online a week before the debate, listening to what we said and doing such an excellent job of summing up the issues. And we were delighted that he supported the aim of the petition.
all the MPs who spoke were polite and argued their positions with courtesy, and that is not what has always happened in such debates
we were very pleased to see the two MPs (Chris Loder (West Dorset) and Duncan Baker (North Norfolk)) whose constituencies were at the top of the list of signatures supporting the petition present to hear the debate. And that means that the constituents in those constituencies who signed the petition made a real difference. West Dorset provided 694 signatures and North Norfolk 602 signatures. If all the signatures had been spread evenly across the 650 Westminster constituencies each would have had around 166 signatures.
Chris Loder did not speak in the debate but he did attend (although he looked a bit grumpy perhaps) but Duncan Baker did and he also supported the aims of the petition (see the transcript).
Opposition MPs were thin on the ground so we are particularly grateful to Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) and Olivia Blake (Sheffield Hallam) for speaking and the Shadow Environment minister Alex Sobel, who had been in Ukraine the day before, made good points in favour of the petition.
the Defra minister, Trudy Harrison MP was receptive to the petition – which came as a pleasant surprise. Defra has asked Natural England to advise them on the merits of changing the shooting season. That’s fair enough. We had a very good chat with the minister after the debate, especially about lead ammunition and game meat. We will follow that up.
most of the other MPs present seemed to be reading out the briefs of the shooting industry – the industry that has tied itself up in knots on this issue. Since it is common ground that shooting Woodcock should not happen in October and November the only remaining issue is how to ensure that they aren’t shot then. If your position is that nobody shoots them then anyway (as several MPs claimed) then there can be no objection to introducing the change to the shooting season suggested by our petition. If nobody shoots then, nobody will be inconvenienced. However, if there is shooting at that time, then only those people who are going against the guidance will be inconvenienced, and so they should be! So there really oughtn’t to be an argument at all – the shooting industry position simply looks daft (and not for the first time).
there is plenty of evidence that there is shooting of Woodcock, across the UK, in October and November but we’ll come back to that at a later date.
We’d like to thank the RSPB, birding magazines and a whole host of bird clubs for supporting this petition and promoting it to their members. We haven’t yet secured a change in the shooting season but it is still on the cards and it is a live issue. It wasn’t before Wild Justice started this campaign almost exactly a year ago – click here for a campaign timeline.
We’d like to thank everyone who signed this petition. It is pretty obvious that a petition with three signatures won’t make much difference compared with one with 108,000 signatures. All of you made a difference. It is rare to have a debate in parliament of this sort and the issue still to be alive – usually government is very resistant to change. We have got further than we might have done because of your strong support. Woodcocks can’t start petitions, can’t sign petitions, and can’t write to their MPs – we have to do that, and a large number of people have come together to do that for a beautiful bird which needs a better deal from us. Thank you!
Comments Off on Woodcock petition timelineWoodcock. Photo: Tim Melling
2022
early March – we talk about Woodcock shooting
mid March – we talk to our lawyers about Woodcock shooting
21 March – we write to Defra and the Northern Ireland minister suggesting that the Woodcock shooting season should be shortened by two months in order to give the declining British population more protection – click here.
6 April – GWCT make the first of many shooting industry attempts to muddy the waters on Woodcock shooting seasons but their own website says (and still does say) don’t shoot Woodcock until 1 December- click here
8 April – we take the micky out of the nonsensical GWCT position – click here
12 July – our patience is exhausted with lack of Defra response to our letter so we launch a petition calling for a shortening of the Woodcock shooting season. We call for the shooting season to start on 1 December and not 1 October (England, Wales and Northern Ireland, 1 September in Scotland). On this very day the petition passes 10,000 signatures which triggers the need for a response from Defra – click here.
3 August – Defra responds to the petition, because of the 10,000 signatures having been achieved but the response is poor and we complain to the Petitions Committee about the quality of the response – click here.
7 September – the Petitions Committee agrees with our assessment of the Defra response and tells Defra to do better – click here
27 September – Defra changes direction and on his last day in his job as Secretary of State at Defra George Eustice signals that the department agrees to review the shooting season for Woodcock and impacts of shooting on other species – click here
30 September – petition passes 30,000 signatures – click here
10 October – petition passes 50,000 signatures – click here
12 November – petition passes 60,000 signatures – click here
31 December – petition passes 100,000 signatures and earns the opportunity to be debated in the Westminster parliament – click here
2023
25 January – petition closes on 107,916 signatures with West Dorset and North Norfolk being the top two constituencies – click here.
27 February – our petition is debated in Westminster Hall and receives a positive response from MPs and government – click here
Comments Off on Phasing out toxic lead voluntarily just isn’t working…
Today a study on the use of lead shot in Pheasant shooting has been released – it has some significant (but not necessarily surprising) results. We’re now three years into a five-year pledge completely to phase out lead shot in UK game hunting, made by nine major UK shooting and rural organisations. The Cambridge study has revealed that in the 2022-23 season 94% of pheasants being sold on supermarket shelves, in butchers and by game dealers were shot using lead.
This is quite clearly a very small decrease – an average of a 2% reduction per year of the pledge. At this rate of change, it would take the industry another 47 years to phase out the use of lead shot – just a little bit longer than the 5 years they committed to.
The study, undertaken by scientists at University of Cambridge and published in Conservation Evidence Journalcan be read here. A team of 17 volunteers scoured shops, butchers and game dealers for Pheasant in late 2022 and early 2023; they managed to round up 356 carcasses. Of these, 235 contained embedded shotgun pellets. These pellets were then analysed in a laboratory to determine the main metal present – in 94% of them, this was lead.
There has been a (very) small improvement in these figures; the same analysis carried out in 2020-21, and 2021-22 found that over 99% of pheasants were shot with lead. That said, a decrease of 6% goes to show that phasing out lead voluntarily simply isn’t working fast enough.
We’ve spoken about lead contamination of game meat, and it’s detrimental impact on human health, several times in the past few years. Lead is a known toxin which accumulates with repeated exposure; it can cause health issues in adults, and has neurological effects on babies and children.
The pledge to go lead-free was made back in 2020 by a consortium of organisations including Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT), British Association for Shooting and Conservation (BASC), Countryside Alliance and British Game Assurance (BGA) amongst others. It called on members, supporters and shooters to voluntarily switch to an alternative and non-toxic type of shot, such as steel or copper.
This transition should be an easy one. Alternative steel shot is practical, and can be used with most existing shotguns. There’s been plenty of guidance provided by the likes of GWCT and others, who’ve actively encouraged their community to adopt alternatives, since they made their commitment back in 2020. Other countries have had great success with a switch; Denmark’s shooting community have stopped using lead since it was banned back in 1996. It seems that the lacking factor here isn’t practicality – but a case of will by hunters and shooters.
The sector’s pledge was offered voluntarily, but in the face of mounting pressure from both the public and governing bodies concerned with lead ammunition. Last year the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) consulted on a proposed restriction, even ban, of lead ammunition – which we’re still waiting to hear back about.
The first author of the Cambridge study, Professor Rhys Green, agrees that the decrease is nowhere near on track to meet a 2025 deadline: “If UK game hunters are going to phase out lead shot voluntarily, they’re not doing very well so far,” he said.
It seems that the five-year pledge may have been an attempt by the industry to get a head-start on the transition, before it was strictly enforced. It seems so far, that head-start has turned into more of a false start.
Our newsletter is received by over 30,000 subscribers and shared around and read by very many more. We obviously know the email addresses and names of subscribers and we have just done an audit of the mammals who are subscribed – ‘bear’ with us, this is quite fun and also has a serious point.
There are 34 Foxes, 6 Hares (including O’Hares, which we assume are Irish Blue Hares), 2 Seals, 2 Badgers, 2 Squirrels, 2 Moles, 2 Wolfs but just one Deer and one Bear, and no Rabbits, Shrews, Voles, Beavers, Otters or Whales at all. Not the most balanced and sustainable mammal fauna perhaps.
We’d like to thank one of these mammals for a donation of £2000 on Thursday. The money appeared in our bank account and that’s all we know. Thank you very much!
The serious point is that when you donate to us by bank transfer, which is a very convenient way to do it, we see your name and the amount but that’s all – so we’d love to thank you individually but can only do so collectively like this. Many thanks to all who have donated to us by whatever means https://wildjustice.org.uk/wildlife-donations/
Comments Off on Send our Woodcock briefing to your MP before Monday lunchtime
Our petition to limit the Woodcock shooting season is being debated next week – at 4:30pm on Monday 27 February. You can watch it live here.
We think what we’re asking for is simple, necessary and noncontroversial. We believe shooting seasons are there for a purpose, and there is very clear reasoning to limit the Woodcock season to take place between December 1 and January 31 each year.
We hope you’ve considered writing to your MP, asking them to attend the debate – you’ve still got time to do this. You can find your MP’s name and email address here (make sure to include your name and address to speed up the process).
Below we have provided a briefing on Woodcock. Please consider sending this to your MP too – you can download a PDF at the end of the blog. This should summarise the issue, lay out the facts, and explain our justification for the proposed change – one that 107,916 of you supported.
Thank you once more for that support – we’ll update you soon!
Wild Justice – A briefing on Woodcock. ‘LIMIT THE SHOOTING SEASON OF WOODCOCK’ Petitions Committee Debate, Monday 27 February 2023.
Why the shooting season for Woodcock (Scolopax rusticola), should be shortened to run from December 1st – January 31st.
What’s a Woodcock?
Woodcock are a type of wading bird, found most often in woodland habitat. It has a long beak, big inky-black eye and beautiful mottled chestnut, brown and buff feathers, which help with its camouflage. They’re nocturnal, and probe soggy patches of earth for worms at night. Their breeding display in spring and summer is a sight and sound to behold – flying in big circles at dusk, creaking and grunting as they go.
Woodcock are also classified as game birds. They can be shot in England, Wales and Northern Ireland between October 1st and January 31st. They can be shot in Scotland from September 1st until January 31st.
What’s the issue with Woodcock in 100 words?
We have a resident population of Woodcock, and a migratory one; resident ones stay year round and breed here. This UK population is declining and Red-Listed – it’s thought to be ~55,000 pairs. Migratory Woodcock arrive here in early December from places like Scandinavia, Russia and Asia. They swell the population considerably – some 800,000 to 1.3million birds. Currently the shooting season allows Woodcock to be shot from October 1st (Sept 1st in Scotland). This means any birds shot in Sept/Oct/Nov are likely from our threatened breeding population. By moving the shooting season start to December 1st, we’re removing that risk.
FAQs:
Why should the season be shortened?
By shifting the start of the Woodcock shooting season to December 1st, this reduces the chances that any shot bird will belong to the threatened UK breeding population. It’s more likely that a bird shot in December will belong to the migrant population, coming from areas where Woodcock populations are not threatened like they are in the UK.
We say that the shooting seasons are there for a purpose (principally to protect breeding populations) and there is a very clear and agreed reason for changing the opening date of the Woodcock shooting season in this case.
Shooters say they’re already voluntarily refraining from shooting Woodcock before December, so what’s the point in changing the opening date of the Woodcock shooting season?
We think there are two reasons why the opening date of the Woodcock shooting season should still be changed:
Whilst many shooters abide by the guidance supplied, we know Woodcock are still being shot before December 1st. Evidence of this has been published in the Shooting Times as recently as November 2022, and web pages advertising shooting before December 1st are still online (see just three examples here, here and here). Changing the opening date of the Woodcock shooting season guarantees no Woodcock can be shot legally before the advised date.
We know the date is already supported by large shooting organisations and shooters – so it seems like a no-brainer. If lots of shooters are already abiding by guidance, why not change the open season?
What do involved parties think?
Parties from different organisations – both non-shooting and shooting communities – agree that shooting Woodcock before migrant populations arrive is a bad idea. Here’s what they have to say:
British Association for Shooting and Conservation (BASC) say to their members: “Refrain from shooting Woodcock until the migrant population arrives to reduce the chance of a resident bird being taken. As a guide, don’t shoot Woodcock until late November. Do allow migrant birds at least a week of good weather to recover from their journey before shooting.”
Game and Wildlife Conservation trust (GWCT) say to their supporters:
Woodcock should not be shot when:It’s too early in the season and the first migrants have just arrived. Whilst every shoot will be different, generally we recommend not shooting Woodcock before 1st December.
Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) have said:
“The RSPB supports the call for an alteration to the start of the Woodcock hunting season (to 1 December) as an emergency precautionary measure to reduce the probability that a shot Woodcock originates from the threatened UK breeding population, now that the species is Red-listed in Britain and Ireland. We see this as a proportionate measure in the context of the wider climate and nature emergency and declines in the UK breeding woodcock population.” We would review this position only if the conservation status of the UK breeding population improves.
Who would be affected by a change in the season?
As we’ve seen, GWCT and BASC guidance already asks supporters to refrain from shooting Woodcock before December 1st. We know lots of shooters abide by this. The only people who’d be affected by a change in the shooting season are people who choose to ignore the guidance set by their industry and by conservationists.
Wild Justice is calling for:
The shooting season for Woodcock in the UK to be shortened – starting on December 1st each year and ending on January 31st.
For more information, please contact admin@wildjustice.org.uk.
We’ve been doing this because many members of the shooting industry maintain that it isn’t necessary to impose a statutory shortening of the Woodcock-shooting season, which is what we and 107,916 petitioners have called for. Many in the shooting industry claim that nobody shoots the threatened Woodcock in November; instead they claim to be exercising voluntary restraint and don’t shoot Woodcock until after 1st December when the non-threatened migrant Woodcock have arrived in the UK.
Whilst we know this is true of some estates, it simply isn’t true for all of them. We’ve found many examples of Woodcock-shooting being offered to paying guests in the month of November, which is a risk to our threatened, red-listed resident Woodcock population.
In what appears to be a response to our campaign, one such estate, the Baronscourt Estate, home to the Duke and Duchess of Abercorn, has removed evidence from its website that if offers Woodcock-shooting in November.
Here’s what the estate’s website said on 7th December 2022:
And here’s what its website says today:
Interesting, isn’t it?
We wonder if the Baronscourt Estate has changed its Woodcock-shooting behaviour as well as the words on its website?
We’ll shortly be posting more information about Monday’s Westminster debate and how you can watch.
Comments Off on Wild Justice’s Raptor Forensics Fund helps secure 4th gamekeeper conviction
We’re delighted to report that our Raptor Forensics Fund, established in 2020 to help support police investigations into alleged raptor persecution crime, has played a part in the conviction of a criminal gamekeeper in Dorset.
54-year old Paul Allen, a member of the National Gamekeepers Organisation and employed as a gamekeeper for a privately-run pheasant shoot on the Shaftesbury Estate near Wimbourne, was convicted at Weymouth Magistrates Court in January 2023 of carrying out multiple wildlife, poisons and firearms offences on the estate in March 2021 (here).
Following the discovery of a poisoned red kite on the estate in November 2020, a multi-agency raid led by Dorset Police’s (now former) wildlife crime officer Claire Dinsdale took place in March 2021 (see here) where the corpses of six dead buzzards were found by a pen behind the gamekeeper’s house (tests later showed they had all been shot, including one that was was estimated to have been shot in the last 24hrs). Officers also found the remains (bones) of at least three more buzzards on a bonfire.
A loaded, unsecure shotgun was found propped up behind a kitchen door and 55 rounds of ammunition were found in a shed. Neither the shotgun or the ammunition were covered by Allen’s firearms certificate.
Officers also found a number of dangerous, and banned, chemicals, including two bottles of Strychnine, two containers of Cymag and a packet of Ficam W (Bendiocarb) in various locations, including in a vehicle used by Allen.
Allen was sentenced on 16th February 2023 to a 15-week custodial sentence, suspended for 12 months. He also received fines totalling £2,022 and a compensation order to the value of £844.70.
The compensation order for £844.70 refers to the amount Allen must repay to our Raptor Forensics Fund. This is in relation to three pieces of work, undertaken as part of the police investigation, that was paid for from our fund, including the initial screening x-rays by a vet to determine that six of the buzzards contained shot and later post mortem examinations to confirm the buzzards had all been shot. The fund was also used to pay for an expert examination of the bones found on the remnants of a bonfire. This was undertaken by a specialist from the Natural History Museum who confirmed the presence of bones from at least three more buzzards.
This is the fourth conviction that our Raptor Forensics Fund has helped secure. The first one was gamekeeper Hilton Prest who was found guilty in December 2021 of the unlawful use of a trap in Cheshire (see here). The second one was gamekeeper John Orrey who was convicted in January 2022 of beating to death two buzzards he’d caught in a trap in Nottinghamshire (here). The third one was gamekeeper Archie Watson who was convicted in June 2022 of multiple raptor persecution and firearms offences on a pheasant shoot in Wiltshire (see here).
Thank you to all those who contributed to our Raptor Forensics Fund* and thanks also to the PAW Forensic Working Group (a sub-group of the Partnership for Action Against Wildlife Crime) who administer our fund and ensure that police officers can access it without delay to help progress their investigations into raptor persecution crimes.
If you’d like to donate to our work, please click here.
*Contributors to the Raptor Forensics Fund include the Northern England Raptor Forum, Tayside & Fife Raptor Study Group, Devon Birds, and a number of individuals who wish to remain anonymous.
Comments Off on What you’ve told us about SSSIs (2)
Thank you for a flood of responses to our newsletter and recent blog on SSSIs. We’ve had a lot more comments about how pleased you are to have been told about how to find your nearest SSSI. Some of you live surrounded by SSSIs and very few of you, wherever you live, are more than 10km from your nearest SSSI.
However, many of you are concerned that your local SSSIs are not in good condition. Here are just a few examples:
I am fortunate to live very close to a SSSI. Sadly, it is assessed as in unfavourable condition and declining.
Hello I’m lucky enough to have an SSSI within a km. I used to be able to see hundreds of Brent Geese that landed nearby, they were so noisy it was lovely. But since the farm was sold and the new owners, a local business, released thousands of pheasants and partridges into the area, the Brent geese no longer appear.
You asked about living close to an SSSI. Well, I’m about 100yards from one and it’s also RAMSAR. I never knew. I did know it was mud flat and there are some interesting birds about. Unfortunately it’s a glaring shade of red on that website.
My nearest SSSIs are Mole Gap to Reigate escarpment and Reigate Heath. They’re both within about a mile of where I live and I’ve visited both – but hadn’t realised they both have quite large sections in unfavourable declining condition sadly.
My nearest SSSI is Eyemore Railway Cutting. Thousands of Pheasants, ducks and partridge are reared in Eyemore wood and the SSSI has high densities of game birds year-round.
I live 20 minutes from a SSSI, being Winterton dunes in Norfolk. I am a dog owner so please don’t take offence at this but the place has become a dog-walkers paradise, it is horrific! There can be literally hundreds of dogs running around off their leads! Since the local tourist promotion of “come to see the Seals”, those poor things are hounded during the winter season by hundreds of people, who mainly give no respect to them or nature full stop. It is a very nature depleted SSSI now, more akin to a city park. I’m all for encouraging people into nature, but in the right way.
A huge local issue is that raw sewage is discharged into the River Dee near Chester City Centre on a regular basis.
We are plagued with pheasants and can hear shoots often [an SSSI in North Wales]. XXXXXXXXX Estate is a popular shooting venue and is mere yards from the above SSSI.
South Thames Estuary & Marshes 3 miles. Riddled with off road bikes sadly 🙁
Having drilled down to one that is marked red, ‘Unfavourable declining’, (part of Blackwater Valley SSSI in Berks). it is unclear what action, if any is being taken to stop its decline, despite a fairly recent site survey.
One of the closest SSSI sites to us is the River Wye- according to your map, the Upper Wye Gorge , near Symonds Yat. Obviously this river has been in the news lately due to the poor state it is in -suffering greatly from the increase in poultry sheds and farming run off and uncontrolled sewage outfalls. It needs all the help it can get…
I have been surprised to discover, via your recent excellent email regarding SSSIs, that I live on the edge of quite a large SSSI area made up of several joined individually named areas. These include Foulden Common, Breckland Forest and Gooderstone Warren amongst others. Some of these areas are used for game shooting and in a normal year (not so much this year due to bird flu) the area is inundated with released pheasants and partridges which must upset the natural balance of these areas, it also upsets me and others that these beautiful birds are bred solely for the “entertainment” of amateur shooters.
Further to your email of 13 February my response is as follows, Southampton Common SSSI is my nearest SSSI and I live approximately 1.7 miles from it. It is where I do my patch birding. It is alarming to see that it is in a state of Unfavourable Recovering.
My nearest SSSI is Haddon Hill, part of the South Exmoor SSSI, which approximately 1km from my home as the crow flies. Between my home and Haddon Hill is a famous high-bird pheasant shoot called Haddeo Valley, which is currently run by the Loyton Estate. Thousands of pheasants are released on the Haddeo Valley shoot every year and they spill out everywhere, onto the SSSI, onto our reserve, and onto roads, where large numbers are squashed. Exmoor National Park Authority tell me that they are powerless to stop this abomination.
I live in Downton, Wilts very close to the Hampshire Avon SSSI and over the years I’ve witnessed just how much over abstraction has affected the river.
Comments Off on What you’ve told us about SSSIs (1)
Wow! We’ve already had over 500 responses to our Monday newsletter, and blog – click here – about SSSIs. And they have come from right across Great Britain. We have read every one, and they are still coming, and we will read every one of those too.
There are some very clear themes and we’ll come back to some of those, but the overwhelming reception to the information we provided on how to locate SSSIs has been that you are delighted to have it and surprised by how many SSSIs are close to where you live. The closest we have logged so far is 45 paces from one of our subscribers but an awful lot of people have discovered that there is an SSSI within walking distance of home.
Here is a tiny selection of comments:
Thank you for your timely piece on SSSIs. I am the chair of our local environment group and I am researching the status of a local wildlife site prior to doing some conservation work in it. I had received contradictory information about whether or not it was a SSSI. Following the links in your email I learn that it isn’t.
The nearest one to me is Plymbridge Lane and Estover road – a tiny parcel of land amongst housing and hospital buildings that is home to the only known wild population of the Plymouth pear tree. It’s about 2 miles from where I live and I had no idea it was an SSSI until your email prompted me to investigate.
I have been very surprised to learn of one near to me which I’d never known about. I have walked and driven along Bonhay Road in Exeter countless times without being aware that it has an SSSI designation.
My nearest SSSI is Richmond Park – whoever knew that! – and I live about ½ mile from it.
My nearest SSSI is XXXXXX in East Lancashire. About 3 miles away. I know it quite well and it’s a great spot for bird life. But I had no idea that it was a SSSI!
I live in London NW1 and my nearest SSSI is Hampstead heath woods. Didn’t know it was designated!
The closest SSSI to me is Killerton in Devon which I visit regularly. Ashamed to say I did not realise it was an SSSI!
I live 5 mins walk away near Chester & I was not fully aware that the River Dee is an SSSI.
I have 2 SSSI within 3Km neither of which I was aware of. Duckmanton Railway Cutting in a favourable condition and Doe Lea Stream Section in unfavourable recovering. [near Chesterfield]
I live in the large borough of Bromley in Greater London in southeast London. I knew about Ruxley Gravel Pits as I once got access to it through the local Bromley RSPB visit. However; I hadn’t realised that it straddles both sides of the road . It’s about 10 minutes drive from me. I didn’t know about Elmstead Pit which is even closer to me- 5 minutes in the car-if that! I also have Crofton Woods within around 15 minutes drive. I didn’t know about it.
Thank you for the information on helping find these sites. It’s great to be able to see where they are. There are two SSSI’s quite close to me that I wasn’t aware of. Ludworth Intake, which is about 2 miles away and Matley Moor Meadows, near Rowarth, which is about 4 or 5 miles away. Compstall Nature Reserve (also known as Etherow Country Park) I know well and is about 3 miles from me. [East of Manchester]
There is an SSSI approx 2km from where I live in Frome Somerset – Vallis Vale on the SSSI map. I knew of the area but not the fact is is a designated SSSI.
Hi, in response to your email this morning, I’ve discovered that I literally live over the road from an SSSI. It’s Whittlewood Forest in Northants.
My closest SSSI is Harries Ground, Rodbourne. I wasn’t aware of it. I’m also fairly close to some sites I did know about – various sites owned by Wiltshire Wildlife, eg Cloately Farm, Clattinger Farm, Distillery Farm. I was surprised to find that the M4 motorway cutting at junction 17 (the Chippenham one) is an SSSI!
The nearest SSSIs to me in Wales are New House Meadow and the River Wye just below it, in Rhayader. Approx 2 miles away. I didn’t know New House Meadow was a SSSI – I walk past it most days on my walks on the Wye Valley Trail. It’s not possible to access it, but it’s good to know it’s there as a SSSI. How interesting!
I find that my house is within 200m of two SSSIs here in Devon.
I’m about 450m from 2 SSSI’s one of which I wasn’t aware of!
My nearest SSSI is Tynet Burn, just WSW of Buckie, Moray, where I live. I didn’t even know about it before! It’s about 5km ? from where I live. I shall be going for a look!
Living on The Parade in Barry, South Wales, I find I’m actually over looking one! Known as Little Island – better known as Friar’s Point to us. Another one is on a frequent dog walk, that being Cliff Woods. It appears that Barry is surrounded by these sites. I’ll be researching these over the next few days to find out just what the scientific interest is!
I have discovered that I live less than 1km from The Wye SSSI in Derbyshire.
We have an SSSI about a mile away Called Coed Talon Marsh we regularly visit it for a walk but did not realise it is an SSSI.
Comments Off on Where is your nearest Site of Special Scientific Interest?
We’ve been struck by the strong response to our blog from last week which told you about a wildlife site, Dendles Wood, on the edge of Dartmoor – click here. We’re waiting for Natural England to respond to our list of questions about Dendles Wood. While we wait, we thought that we’d do something a bit different and tell you how you can find your nearest important wildlife site, your local Dendles Wood, on an interactive online map. Dendles Wood is a Site of Special Scientific Interest, which sounds terribly dull, but SSSIs (and ASSIs, Areas of Special Scientific Interest, in Northern Ireland) are a very important part of protecting nature across the UK. Here is some background information on SSSIs and ASSIs from Wikipedia – click here.
Finding the SSSIs near you
We’re going to concentrate on SSSIs now as there are thousands of them across Great Britain and they are all mapped on the same online system called MAGIC. If you visit the MAGIC site – https://magic.defra.gov.uk/MagicMap.aspx – you’ll find a familiar map of GB with a complicated-looking table of contents on its left hand side. Let’s imagine you live in Edinburgh and zoom in a bit on Scotland’s capital. You’ll see something like this:
That looks familiar, doesn’t it? There is Edinburgh with its ring road and airport, the three bridges across the Firth of Forth and places like Loch Leven, east of Kinross, near the top of the map.
But where are the SSSIs? They are just a few clicks away – in fact, five clicks away. Look at the Table of Contents on the left hand side. SSSIs are ‘Designations’ so click the small box with a ‘+’ in it. Then choose (by clicking another small box with a ‘+’) ‘Land-based designations’, and then ‘Statutory’ and then, because we are looking at Scotland, ‘Sites of Special Scientific Interest (Scotland)’ and then, last click, the box which will shade in the actual boundaries of the SSSIs around Edinburgh in green and you will see something like this:
Same map, but with the SSSIs shaded in green. And now you can see that Arthur’s Seat in the middle of Edinburgh is a geological SSSI and that the Firth of Forth shores are SSSI, and Loch Leven up at the top of the map is an SSSI and there are lots more with titles such ‘burn’, ‘loch’, ‘marsh’, ‘muir’, ‘wood’, ‘moss’ and ‘glen’ that hint at why these sites may have been notified in the first place.
Just remember, if you are in Wales or England you need to click on the relevant ‘Sites of Special Scientific Interest ([nation])’ option.
But with five clicks you can see all of the SSSIs in Great Britain – you can zoom in and out of the map and you can visit all parts of England, Scotland and Wales. Happy travels! You’ll discover that some SSSIs cover thousands of hectares and others small fractions of a hectare, that some are well-known names and others you’ve never heard of, but all have been selected for their wildlife (and/or geological) value. They are sometimes referred to as the conservation jewels in the crown and to a large extent if the right sites are chosen, and if they are protected and well-managed, then they form a vital wildlife conservation network.
What is the nearest SSSI to your home? Did you know about it already? Have you ever been there? The notification of an SSSI does not confer rights of entry to the public but there may be a footpath through the SSSI, it may be owned by a conservation body which permits public access or it may be designated as open access – normal rules apply.
Finding out more about SSSIs – starting with England
Now you have discovered that you live in a country with SSSIs dotted about all over it you may be curious to know more about your local SSSI. The following information is for England only because the systems differ in different UK nations and the English system is quite good and (to be honest) we understand it better than we do the Welsh or Scottish or Northern Irish systems.
There’s The Wash, which is a massive SSSI, and the North Norfolk coast and scattered around are a lot of smaller, but still very important, SSSIs such as Dersingham Bog and Roydon Common.
Each SSSI is made up of units and you can see the units, and, importantly, their condition with another couple of clicks;
See? Now all the SSSIs, but let’s look at The Wash, are shown with their units mapped and each unit is classified, by Natural England, as being in Favourable Condition or not. Obviously, it would be good if all the SSSI units were shaded in light green as Favourable Condition but the more you look closely the more you will find that there are SSSI units in Unfavourable Condition. Don’t be fooled by the areas classed as Unfavourable Recovering – it sounds good but often isn’t. Sometimes it just means there is a plan for recovery and there is a wide gulf between having a plan on paper and having the right action on the ground.
If you pop the name of the SSSI into the form (make sure it is the right name, let’s choose ‘The Wash’) and press ‘search’ you’ll get a screen like this one;
… then click on ‘View details’ and you’ll get this;
From this screen you can find out why The Wash was notified as an SSSI, what actions on site require Natural England’s permission, what Natural England thinks about how the site should be managed and information on the details behind the condition of all the SSSI units – in this case 60 of them that go to a couple of pages. If you do look at the unit condition assessments then you will find, just as was true for Dendles Wood, that the years on which some units were last assessed (according to this Natural England website) were a very long time ago. This isn’t news – lack of monitoring of SSSI condition is a well-known problem to professional nature conservationists. But if you live in England this system will allow you to check when your local SSSI was last assessed Was it ages ago? Have a look and see.
Comments Off on Pheasants camping out in Dartmoor woodsDarwall’s Guide to: ‘Do I allow it on my land?’
You might have heard about Dartmoor in the news quite a lot recently – see, for example, here. In January this year, the owner of a Dartmoor Estate, Mr Alexander Darwall, won the right to remove people found wild camping on his land.
Prior to this, it was assumed under local law that a right to wild camp existed without having to ask permission from the landowner. Whilst public outcry derided the decision, describing it as impairing people’s ability to spend time in nature, another issue came to our attention.
On trespasses undertaken by Right to Roam and the Stars Are for Everyone campaigners, it was noticed that a large number of Pheasants were wandering in and around protected areas of the Blachford Estate (Darwall’s Estate on Dartmoor). In particular, one rather beautiful National Nature Reserve called Dendles Wood.
Dendles Wood NNR is a protected area – it’s part of the larger Dendles Wood Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) and is also part of the much larger Dartmoor Special Area of Conservation (SAC). The NNR is owned mostly by Natural England, and partly by South West Water, but lies adjacent to Darwall’s Blachford Estate. The SSSI is an area of temperate rainforest with a ground flora of mosses and many lichens on the trees, and it is also home to the rare Blue Ground Beetle Carabus intricatus.
Following the reports of lots of Pheasants in and around Dendles Wood, we decided to do some digging. Inspecting the estate on Google Earth, it looks as though Pheasants are being released from at least one pen on the Blachford Estate in close proximity to Dendles Wood – only 225m away in fact. This raised a few questions for us…
It seems inevitable that free-roaming birds released at such proximity to Dendles Wood are going to enter the protected site. In studies reviewed for Natural England, Pheasants are increasingly recognised as being a threat to native flora and fauna. Pheasants can affect other (real) wildlife through direct predation of invertebrates, browsing or grazing of flora, direct scratching of ground vegetation and through nutrient deposition via faeces.
Natural England’s management plan for Dendles Wood, spanning 2015-2020 (no updated plan seems to be available), lists high Pheasant stocking rates as a potential threat to Blue Ground Beetle populations in the NNR/SSSI.
We’ve asked our lawyers to write to Natural England. We’re concerned that harm to biodiversity from Pheasants released close to Dendles Wood is quite likely – so we’ve asked Natural England lots of questions about local Pheasant releases, and what steps Natural England has taken to regulate gamebird releases since they identify Pheasant numbers as a potential threat to the site. Our 16 detailed questions are in the letter below.
This issue goes to the role of Natural England as a regulator of protected sites, and in this case as a landowner too. According to the Natural England website (click here), the latest assessments of the condition of the four SSSI units of Dendles Wood were in the years 2009-2011 – more than a decade ago – can that be right?
You can read our letter, which was sent to Natural England yesterday, below – and we’ll tell you how they reply.
Wild Justice is entirely dependent on donations. To support our work – click here. To hear more about our campaigns and legal cases subscribe to our free campaign newsletter – click here.
Comments Off on Our Woodcock petition finished on 107,916 signatures – here are the top constituencies
Our petition to limit the Woodcock shooting season closed last Wednesday – ending on a grand total of 107,916 signatures. We’re blown away, thank you!
We know now the petition will be debated in Parliament on February 27 this year – which you can read about here. We’ll be keeping you updated with developments in the run up to it.
Below is a final update on the leading constituencies – the top 20 for number of signatures. West Dorset, Mr Christopher Loder MP’s constituency, came out on top.
West Dorset, Chris Loder MP – 694 signatures
North Norfolk, Duncan Baker MP – 602 signatures
Torridge and West Devon, Geoffrey Cox MP – 564 signatures
Tiverton and Honiton, Richard Foord, MP – 409 signatures
North Devon, Selaine Saxby MP – 409 signatures
Somerton and Frome, David Warbuton, MP – 409 signatures
Here’s a map of signature distribution – you can see South West England and East Anglia are still particularly strong areas of support. Both are strong Pheasant shooting areas. It’s good to see that Therese Coffey’s constituents are still sending the Defra Secretary of State a strong message on what she should do.
Our action, supported by you, has already persuaded Defra to promise changes to licensing and for those to be discussed across the UK administrations. This would not have happened without our action – thank you for your brilliant support.
Wild Justice is entirely dependent on donations. To support our work – click here. To hear more about our campaigns and legal cases subscribe to our free newsletter – click here.
We are delighted to have won two awards, voted by the readers of Birdwatch, in the 2022 Birders’ Choice Awards.
Up against strong contenders, we won the Conservation Hero of the Year Award and our campaign to limit the Woodcock shooting season won the Campaign of the Year Award.
We’re enormously grateful to Birdwatch for nominating us for the short-list and humbled by the amount of Birdwatch readers who voted for us.
We wouldn’t be able to achieve anything without strong public support (both financial and moral) so these awards are for all of us.
We’re also indebted to our fantastic legal team at Leigh Day and Matrix Chambers for their incredible work on our behalf. We’re delighted that one of the team, Carol Day, has recently been named on the prestigious Lawyer Hot 100 2023 list (see here) – she richly deserves such recognition.
Wild Justice is entirely dependent on donations. To support our work – click here. To hear more about our campaigns and legal cases subscribe to our free campaign newsletter – click here.
Comments Off on Our petition to limit the Woodcock shooting season will be debated in Parliament in February
Our petition to limit the Woodcock shooting season has now closed, with over 107,000 signatures. Thank you all so much for your support! (Please click here for more detail about our Woodcock campaign).
Because the petition passed 100,000 signatures it will be debated by MPs and that will happen on Monday 27 February. You can attend the debate in person, though seats are limited and not very comfortable, or watch the debate on the UK Parliament YouTube channel.
We’ll give you details of how you can encourage your MP to take part in the debate. Westminster Hall debates are non-binding on the government but are opportunities to air the issues. Only back-bench MPs are allowed to speak except that an opposition shadow minister and a government minister speak at the end of the debate so it is an opportunity to judge the policies and engagement across the political spectrum.
Meanwhile, a letter published in this week’s edition of Shooting Times is a bit awkward for the shooting community. It describes the type of Woodcock shooting that we have been told by loads of shooters never happens!
This is why our petition to limit shooting by regulation is so much better an approach than leaving it to the good will of shooters as suggested by BASC and GWCT.
Just to re-cap, GWCT agree that it’s a bad idea to shoot woodcock before 1 December and BASC say something similar.
We argue that shooting seasons should protect quarry species – no shooting of Woodcock before 1 December!
We’re delighted that BirdWatch readers have voted our Woodcock campaign ‘Campaign of the Year’ in the recently announced Birders’ Choice Awards 2022. Thank you to everyone who voted!
Comments Off on Reward for info about 5 shot goshawks passes £14,000
On Monday (16th January 2023), Suffolk Police found five dead juvenile Goshawks dumped at the edge of the King’s Forest, just south of Thetford. X-rays revealed all five contained shotgun pellets (see here for details).
A £5,000 reward for information leading to a conviction was launched by the RSPB, swiftly followed by another £5,000 contributed by Wild Justice (here).
The following day the bird news service Rare Bird Alert launched a crowdfunder to increase the reward (here) and so far this has raised over £4,000, meaning the total reward on offer at the moment is £14,070.
If you’d like to contribute to the reward, please visit the crowdfunder here.
If you have any information about this appalling crime, please call Suffolk Police on 101 and quote crime reference 37/3027/23. Alternatively, you can provide anonymous information via the RSPB’s dedicated Raptor Crime Hotline on 0300 999 0101.
Comments Off on Five shot Goshawks found in Suffolk: Wild Justice offers £5k reward for information
On Monday (16th January 2023), Suffolk Police found five dead juvenile Goshawks dumped at the edge of the King’s Forest, just south of Thetford. X-rays revealed all five contained shotgun pellets (see here for details).
Earlier today, the RSPB offered a £5k reward for information leading to a conviction in this despicable case. It is the highest reward the charity has ever offered (see here).
Wild Justice will match the RSPB’s reward, which now stands at £10,000.
Wild Justice said: “We are sick to the back teeth of the relentless illegal persecution of birds of prey in the UK, which is mostly associated with land managed for gamebird shooting, be that Red Grouse, Pheasants or partridges. Indeed, it was our strength of feeling about raptor persecution, and our frustration at the failure of the Westminster and the devolved governments to tackle it effectively, that led to us founding Wild Justice in 2018. In partnership with the RSPB, we hope this substantial reward will encourage someone to come forward with information about whoever was responsible for this heinous crime, and that that information leads to a successful conviction“.
If you have any information, please call Suffolk Police on 101 and quote crime reference 37/3027/23. Alternatively, to get in touch anonymously, call the RSPB’s dedicated Raptor Crime Hotline on 0300 999 0101.
We’re disappointed to have to tell you that we lost our appeal for permission for judicial review of Ofwat’s regulation of sewage releases. This is a blow to us and we know it will be to many who supported us financially and/or morally. We’ve invested a lot of time in researching the issue and its legal background, and over £40,000 of your donations in legal fees taking the case and then taking it on to the Court of Appeal. We gave it our best shot but there is nowhere else to go.
Was it worth it?
Well, although we lost, we tried. Most judicial reviews fail but unless you take to the field you can’t win any victories. This one we lost. We lay out our scorecard overall below.
Frankly, we are surprised that we were not given permission to go to a full court hearing. We believed, and still do believe, that we had a strong and arguable case. We would have relished having a day in court to make that case.
We’d much rather win than lose – wouldn’t everyone? But we are often told, and often by those against whom we have taken legal action, that despite losing, the very act of taking a legal challenge changes the future behaviour of public bodies. We are now accustomed to being told that things would have happened, bad things, but someone said ‘What if Wild Justice got to hear of this? We’d be in court pretty quickly.’. So we guess our view is that if we keep throwing ourselves against the door then we will sometimes break through, and even when we don’t then we’ve rattled the windows as well as the doors and the residents know there is someone outside.
But we wish we could have won this case.
Our record:
This is the third challenge that we have lost at the ‘permission’ stage – and we have appealed all of them – unsuccessfully. The other two were cases on the Badger cull in England – click here – and the hopeless Defra burning regulations – click here.
There have been other cases where even just a legal letter has been enough to secure a positive change – most spectacularly in our first challenge over general licences in England back in 2019.
Some cases, where permission is granted, proceed towards a court hearing and then the other party caves in – examples include our challenge of gamebird releases in England – click here – and our challenge of Northern Ireland general licences – click here.
Our challenge of general licences in Wales went to court and the judge found against us – click here – but his remarks were so helpful (and to be fair, Natural Resources Wales were so sensible) that after a consultation NRW brought in a suite of changes that were pretty much what we had asked for – click here. Sticking in there, and making a strong case, won the day in the end.
This is a very strong record – and for that we have to thank our legal team at Leigh Day and Matrix Chambers.
The future:
We’ve already started some further investigations in relation to sewage discharges. We’ll let you know if anything comes of them. But we’d also like to wish others well in their actions on water quality; small organisations like Windrush Against Sewage Pollution with whom we worked closely, Surfers Against Sewage, River Action, Wild Fish and the incomparable Feargal Sharkey.
We’ll sit in a corner feeling down about this loss for a day or two and then we’ll be up again and looking for the next area where we can take legal action on behalf of wildlife. Thank you for your support.
We are awaiting the result of our challenge of the proposals for a Badger cull in Northern Ireland.
Comments Off on Northern Ireland’s new general licencesRook. Photo: Tim Melling
With the publication of new general licences for Northern Ireland – click here – we can draw a line under another chapter in Wild Justice’s campaign to reduce the casual and unlawful killing of wildlife under statutory licences. Following changes to general licences in England, Wales and Scotland, Northern Ireland has made a raft of positive changes following a successful Wild Justice legal challenge in 2021 – click here.
General licences are used by statutory agencies to authorise the killing of what might be called ‘pest’ species – although we object to that as a blanket term. All wild birds are protected by law but there are circumstances under which they can be killed legally – for example to protect human health, crops or endangered species. The general licences permit any of us, under certain circumstances and conditions, to kill specified species without applying for a specific licence which would involve a careful justification of the need for lethal control.
Since Wild Justice launched its first legal challenge, on general licences in England, in spring 2019, we have seen widespread reform of general licences. The licences still are not perfect but they have been improved, through our campaigning and legal challenges, by removal of a large number of inappropriate species from the licences, tightening up of the conditions applying to the licences and restriction of the times of year and the locations in which they can be used.
The Northern Ireland general licences were, frankly, awful until our actions – click here. The new Northern Ireland general licences affect very many fewer species: the ‘health and safety’ licence contains just two species whereas it used to include seven species; the ‘damage to crops’ licence now contains six species rather than nine species and the ‘conservation licence’ now is reduced to two species from four species. Use of the ‘conservation licence’ to kill Hooded Crow and Magpie is limited now from March – August inclusive.
The necessary and sensible changes for which we have argued and campaigned have been opposed by shooting organisations and in some cases by farmers. There has been a lot of bluster and bravado about how Wild Justice would not win, but we have. With the help and involvement of our supporters, and the deployment of great legal brains, we have, together, brought about the most significant reforms to general licences across the UK that have ever taken place. We have taken on the casual licensing of casual killing of wildlife and brought about very significant changes in the teeth of opposition from interest groups and initially indifference from the regulators.
Reform of general licences may seem like a rather small and niche aspect of wildlife law, and to some extent that is correct, but it involves the state allowing the killing of wildlife, and that is no small matter. Also, we have shown that legal challenges can be powerful tools in engineering change. We have not changed wildlife laws, we have made the regulators stick to the law. That sends a strong message to those same regulators, and others, that they must, more generally, consider carefully the legal basis of their actions.
We could not have made the progress we’ve made without great lawyers and great support from the public. Without your financial support we could not have taken a string of legal challenges, none of them cheap, across the UK – thank you. Your money has delivered real change. And many Wild Justice supporters have responded to consultations, including one in Northern Ireland this summer, which have shown that there is public appetite to tighten up these licences – thank you again.
And this work on general licences has in some ways established the Wild Justice approach – we will take legal challenges and deploy scientific arguments whether they are popular with others or not, and we will not be intimidated nor brushed off. We’ll see these challenges through to a conclusion. In the case of general licences, we have achieved a great deal in the last four years but there are still many other battles to fight on behalf of wildlife where the same approach will be needed. Thank you for your support.
Wild Justice is a not-for-profit organisation set up by Chris Packham, Ruth Tingay and Mark Avery. We are entirely dependent on donations. To support our work – click here. To hear more about our campaigns and legal cases subscribe to our free newsletter – click here.
Comments Off on Our Woodcock petition passes 100,000 signatures and there are three weeks to go
Our petition to limit the Woodcock shooting season passed 100,000 signatures on Friday. Thank you for such great support! And it is still attracting signatures, which is great.
Here is an update on the leading constituencies – 17 of them – all with more than 400 signatures, and West Dorset now way out in front with over 650;
Torridge and West Devon, Geoffrey Cox MP – 541 signatures
Central Devon, Mel Stride MP – 540 signatures
South Norfolk, Richard Bacon MP – 512 signatures
Derbyshire Dales, Sarah Dines MP – 493 signatures
North Dorset, Simon Hoare MP – 461 signatures
S Dorset, Richard Drax MP– 457 signatures
Broadland, Jerome Mayhew MP – 452 signatures
Mid Norfolk, George Freeman MP – 448 signatures
Totnes, Anthony Mangnall MP – 443 signatures
Norwich S, Clive Lewis MP – 431 signatures
Stroud, Siobhain Baillie MP – 426 signatures
High Peak, Robert Largan MP – 425 signatures
Isle of Wight, Bob Seeley MP – 408 signatures
East Devon, Simon Jupp MP – 401 signatures
Here’s a map of where the signatures come from – everywhere! But SW England and East Anglia are particularly strong areas of support. Both are strong Pheasant shooting areas. It’s good to see that Therese Coffey’s constituents are still sending the Defra Secretary of State a strong message on what she should do.
Our action, supported by you, has already persuaded Defra to promise changes to licensing and for those to be discussed across the UK administrations. This would not have happened without our action – thank you for your brilliant support.
Wild Justice is entirely dependent on donations. To support our work – click here. To hear more about our campaigns and legal cases subscribe to our free newsletter – click here.
Comments Off on Defra doesn’t know what it’s doing (not news) on catching up and bird flu
Defra really doesn’t like to rock the boat by reforming anything to do with recreational shooting in England. We suspect that this is because the boat was built, paid for and is populated by the supporters of the shooting industry who are mates with the current incumbents at Defra.
Examples include general licences (where change has been forced by legal action by Wild Justice), burning regulations (where change was forced by The Committee on Climate Change and almost every environmental NGO in the country), gamebird releases (where change was forced by legal action by Wild Justice) and lead ammunition where a consultation is happening which is largely driven by quicker changes in legislation in the EU which will affect the possibility of UK sales of game meat.
Often Defra does not act, when it does , it acts poorly (burning on peatlands is a good example), the changes are not policed (previous changes in ammunition regulations for shooting) and it always takes far too long to get things done.
A good example of these things – nothing done and decided very slowly – occurred this summer in a pathetic response to bird flu where from late spring onwards it was obvious that the situation with bird flu had changed and that, unusually for summer, there was a lot of it about. Under these circumstances it would be sensible to assess the risk attached to releasing millions of captive gamebirds into the countryside. This is not said with hindsight, many were saying this at the time, with the RSPB being particularly outspoken as we recall.
The Defra response was to do nothing for ages and then start a risk assessment very late and complete it so late that all releases had already occurred – and then only publish the risk assessment months later (last week). Our summary of the risk assessment is ‘for a whole bunch of reasons, it would be daft to release gamebirds into the countryside this summer’ but, of course, because this is Defra, this was pretending that you might close the stable (or release pen) door long after any horses (Pheasants or Red-legged Partridges) had bolted (see here).
Well that’s water under the bridge, or millions of birds into the bird flu reservoir population, but Defra now has another decision to make. Guess what? Defra is dragging its heels again and looks as though it won’t make it in time to have any impact on anything.
The decision is on catching up. Catching up refers to (have you guessed?) catching up female Pheasants – bringing them back into captivity before the end of the shooting season (end of January) to form a new breeding stock (although many birds are also imported later in the season). Our question to Defra was, having failed to stop all these birds being released, what is your position on catching up? We can see this is a difficult decision, but that’s what government exists to do. Defra appears incapable of putting its mind to anything to do with shooting until its too late to make a difference.
You can see there response to our information request – it’s as though they don’t have an answer and certainly don’t want to give one.
The National Game Dealers Association claims that its members decided last year not to sell game meat which was shot with lead (toxic) ammunition from July 2022. The wording admits of no ambiguity:
‘At the National Game Dealers Association (NGDA) annual general meeting, members voted to commit to sourcing all feather and fur game as well as venison and wild boar from lead free chains from 1st of July 2022.’.
This is a claim that is easily tested – so we have tested it. And for the three game suppliers for which we have data, the claim is untrue. The levels of lead in the meat are, on average, high. As high, slightly higher in fact, than other samples of game meat which have been tested by Wild Justice and others in the UK in recent years.
We asked the NGDA earlier in the year whether they were sticking to their lead-free promise but received no response (see here). they told us today that they didn’t get our email and they don’t ever look at social media (maybe they should?).
This is what was done (Methods):
In November and December 2022, 10 oven-ready pheasant carcasses were bought from each of three NGDA members (30 carcasses in all). Each carcass was dissected to remove most of the edible meat. The meat was diced and mixed and a sample of 30-50 g taken for analysis, bagged and frozen. Shotgun pellets found during dissection were stored for future analysis to determine their principal metallic element. This analysis has not been done yet. The meat sample from each bird was carefully searched to ensure that it contained no shotgun pellets. The sample was then dried and milled and a subsample analysed to determine the concentration of lead.
This is what was found (Results):
Arithmetic mean concentrations of lead in pheasant meat for the three NGDA suppliers were 2.717, 0.753 and 0.435 ppm (wet weight) for Peterborough Game, Turners Game and Willo Game respectively. The overall arithmetic mean was 1.302 ppm (w.w.). This compares with the EU maximum residue level (MRL) permitted for meat from domesticated animals of 0.1 ppm (w.w.), i.e. the mean lead level across these samples was 13 times higher than would be legal for non-game meat.
The EU maximum residue level (MRL) for lead does not apply, bizarrely, to game meat. However, the Food Standards Agency (click here) and NHS (click here) both warn of the health dangers of lead ingestion, particularly to children so it is educational to look at the proportion of samples that were above and below the EU MRL. Willo Game: 5/10 were below the EU MRL; Turners Game, 4/10 and Peterborough Game only 1/10 was below the EU MRL.
Concentration of lead (ppm w.w.) in meat from 10 pheasant carcasses supplied for human consumption by each of three members of the National Game Dealers Association in November/December 2022. Each symbol represents the concentration for one carcass. The dashed line shows the EU Maximum Residue Level for meat from domesticated animals, such as chickens, cattle, etc.. Note the scale of the vertical axis is logarithmic so that higher scores are much higher than lower ones.
Clearly, buying game meat on the basis of the NGDA claim would be unwise – you’d usually end up eating meat with very high lead levels, albeit legal levels for game meat.
It appears that the words on the NGDA website about lead ammunition were worthless as a guide to what you would be buying.
Discussion:
You can’t tell what the lead content of meat is by looking at it and so you have to trust the supply chain. This supply chain is not working because the umbrella body has made a misleading claim on its website. The claim may not have been intentionally misleading but it was certainly misleading.
This will come as a surprise to many, not least Richard Negus (a shooter who writes for Shooting Times and elsewhere) who was also under the impression that such sources were now lead-free (click here).
Wild Justice phoned all three outlets this morning, at about 1045, and asked two questions, as if we were simply people interested in buying game meat. First – were they NGDA members – all three confirmed they were. Second, was their game meat lead-free – none claimed it was, although one said they could probably source it if really needed. All appeared surprised that the NGDA website said that its members would be selling lead-free game meat from July this year. One agreed that was misleading.
So Wild Justice next phoned the NGDA who said that they had intended to go lead-free but Putin’s war and other things had made that difficult but they still wanted to go lead-free. They also said they had never received an email from Wild Justice asking about this. And that they didn’t look at social media and had not seen our blog on the subject. The NGDA said they would be changing their website and bringing it up to date.
When asked what customers should do if they had bought game meat on the basis that they thought it would be lead-free the NGDA representative didn’t know. Wild Justice suggests that such customers seek a refund.
Wild Justice will contact other NGDA members to ask them their position on lead in game meat. We’ll report our findings.
Government needs to regulate toxic lead out of the game meat food chain. This is simply an example of regulatory failure. Lead ammunition should be banned on environmental and human health grounds. You can’t leave it to an industry to act for the public good if that goes against its own commercial interests. Unfortunately, life rarely works like that.
Acknowledgements: The samples were analysed by Mark Taggart and co-workers in their laboratories at the Environmental Research Institute, University of the Highlands and Islands, Thurso, Scotland.
Comments Off on Young naturalist Benji Fallow donates artwork sales to Wild Justice
9-year-old Benjamin Fallow is a young artist and naturalist. He draws and paints from nature, and loves to draw out in the countryside – he’s been carrying paper and pens in his backpack since he was three! Benji loves studying the details and learning facts about each species. He calls himself Benjamin Fallow after fallow deer, because deer are his favourite animals. He’s passionate about protecting nature, and he hopes his artwork will encourage people to care for wildlife and for nature.
Benji says:
“We have to let nature be wild and not harm it. Nature is the most amazing thing to learn about, and we must look after it. All plants and animals and humans are connected, and we can’t survive without each other.
I hope people will see my artwork and remember to care for nature.”
Benji has very generously decided to donate the proceeds from some of his artwork to support Wild Justice. Thank you, Benji, what a star!
Benji drew this Hen Harrier especially for Hen Harrier Day 2022, and all the proceeds from sales of his Hen Harrier card and print, Goshawk card and print, Peregrine Falcon, Badger and Fox cards, will go to help Wild Justice.
All the artwork are prints of Benji’s own work, made by himself from scratch at ages 6 – 8. They are printed on beautiful sustainably produced Mokawk paper with high quality inks. The packaging is all recycled and compostable.
You can view (and buy!) Benji’s artwork on his Etsy page:
Comments Off on We write to Defra about gamebirds and avian flu
This summer has seen unprecedented levels of highly pathogenic avian flu in wild birds in the UK (and elsewhere). In recent years, this has been a winter disease, reaching the UK each autumn as migratory birds arrive but dying out in the warmer summer months. This year the deaths of wild birds have been much greater with many seabird species (eg Gannet and Great Skua) being seriously affected at their breeding colonies.
Much concern was expressed by a range of conservation bodies about the impacts of releasing captive-bred gamebirds (essentially Pheasants and Red-legged Partridges) into the countryside in very large numbers in late summer for the shooting industry. Might the captive-bred birds bring the virus with them, or might they create another large reservoir of the virus so that it was more difficult for the disease to peter out?
Defra decided that it wasn’t going to introduce any restrictions on gamebird releases at all – click here. There have been many more cases of bird flu in gamebirds this year, already, than in previous years – click here.
Having let the genie out of the bottle, or opened Pandora’s box, Defra will have to live with the consequences. But they face another dilemma now, completely of their own making.
Although many millions of gamebirds are imported into the UK from continental Europe each year (as eggs or chicks or sometimes as poults), some of the breeding stock comprises released gamebirds that have survived the shooting season and are caught up and taken back into captivity. This is part of the Schrodinger’s Pheasant (or Red-legged Partridge) paradox to which we have drawn attention in the past. Gamebirds can flip between being livestock and wild birds several times in their lives – mainly to suit the preferences of the shooting industry.
We are approaching the time when catching up happens – late December through to the end of the shooting season at the end of January. Is Defra happy to allow catching up (of gamebirds which may well have been infected with the avian flu virus) in a time of widespread avian flu outbreaks among commercial poultry farms, and strict restrictions which apply to commercial poultry industry? Or is Defra going to prevent catching up this year? Again, it’s a difficult call – but the difficulty was entirely predictable and is a consequence of ignoring a great deal of advice that gamebirds should not be released. Our guess will be that Defra will not impose any restrictions on the shooting industry – that’s so often the case.
Wild Justice wrote to Defra last week asking them what they are going to do. Maybe they haven’t given it any thought until now because we haven’t had a response yet.
Here’s our letter – we’ll tell you whether we get a reply.
Comments Off on New report on wildlife crime reveals lack of progress by Government
Wildlife & Countryside LINK, a coalition of 67 wildlife organisations, including Wild Justice, has today published its 6th annual report on wildlife crime.
The report, covering the year 2021, reveals that wildlife crime has soared and the Government has made little progress on tackling it. The wildlife crimes covered in this report cover a range of species including badgers, birds of prey, bats, amphibians and reptiles, hares, foxes, marine mammals plants and fungi, as well as crimes associated with hunting, fisheries and the international trade in wildlife.
Dr Richard Benwell, chief executive of the Wildlife and Countryside Link, said: “Wildlife crime soared during the pandemic and remained at record levels this year. Progress on convictions is positive, and we welcome Defra’s efforts to stiffen sentencing, but overall that is of little use while the rate of successful prosecutions remains so low.
The snapshot in our report is likely to be a significant under-estimate of all kinds of wildlife offences. To get to grips with these cruel crimes, the Home Office should make wildlife crime notifiable, to help target resources and action to deal with hotspots of criminality.
The Retained EU Law Bill threatens to be a serious distraction, and could even lead to important wildlife laws being lost. Instead, seven years on from its publication, the government should implement the Law Commission’s 2015 wildlife law report.
Surely it is better to spend time and money improving laws that are as much as two centuries old, than wasting time reviewing effective environmental laws under the REUL bill.”
Martin Sims, chair of Link’s wildlife crime working group, said: “We must empower police forces to act on wildlife crime.
We already see how, with proper resources and training, a real difference can be made in the work against awful crimes like hare coursing. It’s the counties with well-funded and resourced projects in place where we’re seeing the most positive progress.
Also essential to efforts to better protect our wildlife is making wildlife crime notifiable, and recorded in national statistics. This would better enable police forces to gauge the true extent of wildlife crime and to plan strategically to address it.”
The Wildlife & Countryside LINK 2021 wildlife crime report can be downloaded here
Chris Packham has been talking with Olivia Blake MP and Lord John Randall about this species, about our petition, and about other Wild Justice projects.
Comments Off on Our Woodcock petition passes 70,000, 71,000 and 72,000 signatures
Our petition to limit the Woodcock shooting season is going great guns – if you’ll pardon the expression. Yesterday it passed 70,000, 71,000 and 72,000 signatures!
Here again are the leading constituencies – 16 of them – all with more than 300 signatures, and West Dorset now way out in front with over 500;
Torridge and West Devon, Geoffrey Cox MP – 417 signatures
South Norfolk, Richard Bacon MP – 405 signatures
Derbyshire Dales, Sarah Dines MP – 401 signatures
North Dorset, Simon Hoare MP – 371 signatures
Broadland, Jerome Mayhew MP – 364 signatures
S Dorset, Richard Drax MP– 357 signatures
Norwich S, Clive Lewis MP – 349 signatures
Mid Norfolk, George Freeman MP – 343 signatures
Totnes, Anthony Mangnall MP – 342 signatures
High Peak, Robert Largan MP – 329 signatures
North Devon, Selaine Saxby MP – 321 signatures
Tiverton & Honiton, Richard Foord MP – 310 signatures
North West Norfolk, James Wild MP – 305 signatures
East Devon, Simon Juppy MP – 307 signatures
Here’s a map of where the signatures come from – everywhere! But SW England and East Anglia are particularly strong areas of support. It’s good to see that Therese Coffey’s constituents are still sending the Defra Secretary of State a strong message on what she should do.
For the last 58 days and for the next 3 days it is legal to shoot Woodcock in the UK – we are trying to change that. We want the shooting season curtailed to protect the declining UK breeding population. Our petition calls for shooting to cease in October and November and be limited to December and January. This is even what some shooters and shooting organisations want but they are prepared to leave it up to the good will of shooters to abstain from a legal activity whereas we want the shooting season to stipulate no shooting in October and November.
Westminster Parliament petitions run for 6 months, and we still have just under two months to go. We’re hopeful that we will reach 100,000. We need your help – not just in signing the petition yourself but in finding a few others to sign it too.
Every signature counts, whether it is the 13th in Foyle or the 560th in West Dorset.
Wild Justice is entirely dependent on donations. To support our work – click here. To hear more about our campaigns and legal cases subscribe to our free newsletter – click here.
Comments Off on Judicial review of Northern Ireland badger cull
Our legal challenge against the badger cull in Northern Ireland was heard at Belfast’s High Court on Monday 21st November 2022 with The Honourable Mr Justice Scoffield presiding.
Details of our case, run in partnership with the Northern Ireland Badger Group, can be found here.
At the hearing on Monday, Northern Ireland’s Department of Agriculture, Environment & Rural Affairs (DAERA) was given two weeks to submit further evidence. Our legal team will then be given a week to consider and respond, with a judgement expected “in due course”.
We are grateful to our brilliant legal team (Carol Day & Ricardo Gama from Leigh Day, and Blinne Ní Ghrálaigh & David Wolfe KC from Matrix Chambers) with Phoenix Law acting as agents in Northern Ireland.
This case was only possible thanks to the generosity of our supporters who contributed £45K to our crowdfunder earlier this year, enabling us to take on the legal challenge.
Comments Off on Our Woodcock petition passes 60,000 and 61,000 signatures
Our petition to limit the Woodcock shooting season is moving on again (after a little snooze). Yesterday it passed 60,000 signatures and 61,000 signatures – and Chris Packham is very happy about it!
We wonder whether Chris Loder, the MP for West Dorset, is as thrilled as Chris – his constituents are now a long way ahead in the list of constituencies.
Here are the leading 35 constituencies – all with more than 200 signatures;
Somerton and Frome, David Warburton MP – 233 signatures
North West Norfolk, James Wild MP – 232 signatures
Lewes, Maria Caulfield MP – 231 signatures
East Devon, Simon Jupp MP – 223 signatures
Isle of Wight, Bob Seely MP – 222 signatures
Brighton Pavilion, Caroline Lucas MP, 220 signatures
Brecon and Radnorshire, Fay Jones MP – 219 signatures
Thirsk and Malton, Kevin Hollinrake MP – 216 signatures
Bury St Edmunds, Jo Churchill MP– 214 signatures
Skipton and Ripon, Julian Smith MP – 208 signatures
South East Cambridgeshire, Lucy Fraser MP – 208 signatures
Ceredigion, Ben Lake MP – 207 signatures
Arundel and South Downs, Andrew Griffith MP – 206 signatures
Central Suffolk & N Ipswich, Dan Poulter MP– 202 signatures
S Suffolk, James Cartlidge MP– 202 signatures
SW Norfolk, Liz Truss MP – 200 signatures
Here’s a map of where the signatures come from – everywhere! But SW England and East Anglia are particularly strong areas of support. It’s good to see that Therese Coffey’s constituents are sending the Defra Secretary of State a strong message on what she should do.
For the last 53 days and for the next 8 days it is legal to shoot Woodcock in the UK – we are trying to change that. We want the shooting season curtailed to protect the declining UK breeding population. Our petition calls for shooting to cease in October and November and be limited to December and January. This is even what some shooters and shooting organisations want but they are prepared to leave it up to the good will of shooters to abstain from a legal activity whereas we want the shooting season to stipulate no shooting in October and November.
Westminster Parliament petitions run for 6 months, and we still have a little over two months to go. We think it will be a struggle to reach 100,000. We need your help – not just in signing the petition yourself but in finding a few others to sign it too.
Every signature counts, whether it is the 7th in Foyle or the 413th in West Dorset.
Comments Off on POSTPONED: Join us at the People’s Walk for Wildlife 2
PLEASE NOTE: THIS EVENT HAS BEEN POSTPONED DUE TO RAIL STRIKES. IT’LL NOW TAKE PLACE IN SPRING 2023.
On Sunday 27 November, we’ll be heading to London to take part in the People’s Walk for Wildlife 2. We hope to see you there! Read on for a bit of background about the walk, and please make sure to let the organisers know (link below) if you’re planning on coming along.
Who are the organisers? Well lots of people are involved and the walk is supported by many wildlife conservation organisations – including the RSPB, Wildlife Trusts, Badger Conservation and Butterfly Conservation, but our own Chris Packham is the main organiser, and of course Wild Justice supports the walk.
Walk Details:
Date: Sunday 27 November, 12pm – 4pm, London.
Timings: Gather from 12pm. Walk from 1pm. Speeches, music and infotainment from 2pm. 4pm finish and home.
Route: We’ll muster from 12pm at Portland Place, and walk down to Parliament Square.
Bring with you:
The style: Your wildest look – the walk will be fancy dress, so don your best wildlife outfit, be it a hen harrier, a hedgehog or a humble slug. Feel free to make wild signs and placards too – family-friendly of course.
The sound: Rather than chants and shouting, we’ll be letting birdsong do the talking. No instruments or drums please. Download the RSPB’s free Birdsong Radio App (Android or Apple) onto your phone, and fill the streets with birdsong on the day.
Important info: If you’re planning on coming along, please let us know so we can estimate numbers. Pledge to walk at peopleswalkforwildlife.org. Please also consider donating to the walk costs if you can.
Why walk?
You might have attended the first Walk for Wildlife in 2018. It was led by Chris Packham, and attended by 10,000 soggy wildlife lovers, conservationists and environmentalists, ecologists, students, families, scientists, ecologists, land managers and members of the public – all concerned about the state of nature.
So far, 2022 has been politically extraordinary (to say the least). In the midst of multiple waves of turmoil, several worrying threats have emerged – ones that could be disastrous for wildlife and the environment in the UK. Chaos in implementing the Environmental Land Management Scheme, threats to environmental laws under the Retained EU Law Bill, and the unknown impact of Investment Zones and development have all amounted to what many in the sector see as an Attack on Nature.
Nature’s already severely depleted, battered and bruised. This is death by 1000 cuts. Death by countless slashes, burns, persecutions, fells, chops and spillages. We’re asking you as Wild Justice supporters to join us in this walk in solidarity with wildlife and fellow nature lovers. We need politicians to do more for nature, not to mount attacks on it.
This is a peaceful, joyful and family friendly walk. There will be an atmosphere of urgency, and of joy. Wildlife will be celebrated, and our concern for its fate will be stressed.
Stewards, infrastructure, acquiring licences to shut roads and public areas for the duration of the walk – all of this costs money to do safely. These walks can only go ahead with your support – if you feel able to, you can donate at www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/walkforwildlife2
Every signature added before 25 January increases the pressure on DEFRA to limit the shooting season.
For the last 31 days and for the next 30 days it is legal to shoot Woodcock in the UK – we are trying to change that. We want the shooting season curtailed to protect the declining UK breeding population. Our petition calls for shooting to cease in October and November and be limited to December and January. This is even what some shooters and shooting organisations want but they are prepared to leave it up to the good will of shooters to abstain from a legal activity whereas we want the shooting season to stipulate no shooting in October and November.
Brighton Pavilion, Caroline Lucas MP, 214 signatures
Central Devon, Mel Stride MP – 209 signatures
Brecon and Radnorshire, Fay Jones MP – 209 signatures
Thirsk and Malton, Kevin Hollinrake MP – 207 signatures
Skipton and Ripon, Julian Smith MP – 201 signatures
Totnes, Anthony Mangnall MP – 201 signatures
Westminster Parliament petitions run for 6 months, and we still have just under three months to go. But we think it will be a struggle to reach 100,000. We need your help – not just in signing the petition yourself but in finding a few others to sign it too. Every signature counts, whether it is the 7th in Foyle or the 270th in West Dorset.
Comments Off on Very good news on Northern Ireland General Licences
Yesterday afternoon, and out of the blue, we received very good news on the future of general licences in Northern Ireland. This follows events of 10 months ago (see this blog) when the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs was forced by Wild Justice to revoke its general licences. There have been interim licences in place since that time and a consultation in the summer to which many Wild Justice supporters responded (see our blog on the subject). It has seemed to us that DAERA have been dragging their feet but their proposals have now been revealed and are good (though we await sight of the finished licences).
The letter we received yesterday demonstrates that the species which can be killed under the proposed new Northern Ireland General Licences are pretty much in line with those already in force in Scotland, Wales and England – all of which have been considerably modified since Wild Justice first took action on the English licences in spring 2019. Here is the letter:
DAERA have omitted (presumably by accident) Carrion Crow from the list but you can see that the large area of black type in the table shows that many species have simply been removed from each of the three proposed general licences – that is excellent. We also note with pleasure that the ‘conservation’ licence is limited to just some months.
We regard this as a great victory – not just for Wild Justice but also for the other organisations who supported change and most notably those Wild Justice supporters who responded to the consultation. And most of all it is a victory for wildlife.
Almost 2000 responses were made to the consultation and although we do not accurately know how many Wild Justice supporters contributed views, we do know that hundreds of you responded – because you told us so! And many of you thanked us for the guidance we provided and said that you had never responded to a government consultation before. Well, now you have, and you must have made a difference. Take a look at the simple breakdown of number of responses and what people said:
Government departments and agencies usually react to both the weight of opinion in consultations, and the quality of those opinions in terms of being informed and soundly based. It’s not all about numbers – but you’d be foolish to discount the impact of a strong response. That means that everyone, on either side of the issues at debate in this consultation, had some impact on the result. Thank you if you did respond but don’t worry if you didn’t as there will be, for sure, other opportunities in future.
We will look closely at the details of the licences when they are published but this feels like a very good result. Thank you for your support.
Wild Justice is entirely dependent on donations. To support our work – click here. To hear more about our campaigns and legal cases subscribe to our free campaign newsletter – click here.
Comments Off on New, poor, response from Defra on Woodcock shooting seasonWoodcock. Photo: Tim Melling
The story so far:
21 March, Wild Justice writes to Defra asking for a change to the shooting season for Woodcock –see here
5 July, after no response from Defra, despite reminders, Wild Justice submits a parliamentary petition calling for a change to the open season dates for Woodcock shooting in the UK
Below we reproduce Defra’s new, poor, response to our petition on Woodcock shooting seasons. The words in black type are Defra’s words (some of which we have deleted with strikethroughs) and the red words are ones that Defra should have, and could have, written in an honest response.
You will see that Defra still ignores the case made by shooting organisations, as well as by Wild Justice, and now supported by the RSPB too (see here), that shooting before 1 December each year is a threat to the UK breeding population. It would have done Defra no harm at all, to spell this out and to say that has persuaded them to act.
But instead, the new, poor, Defra response claims that future unimplemented and unknown measures will make a difference. It’s always vague promises of future action from this government.
We welcome the promise of a review of shooting seasons but note that there is no promise of change to that of Woodcock and there is no indication of when this review will take place. Another vague promise of jam tomorrow…
See what you think:
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“Defra intends to review the list of species, including woodcock, on Schedule 2 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 including the benefits of altering the close season.”
“All wild birds are protected in accordance with the provisions set out in the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. Some species of birds, including the woodcock, are listed on Schedule 2 of the Act and may be hunted during the open season. In England,and Wales and Northern Ireland, the open season for woodcock is from 1 October to 31 January. Outside of this period, the close season helps to make sure that woodcocks are able to breed successfully and move between breeding and wintering grounds. The first breeding woodcock survey was undertaken in 2003 and estimated a breeding population of 78,000 pairs in Britain. A further survey in 2013 estimated 55,000 pairs, representing a decline of 29%. As a result, the woodcock has been on the Red List of Birds of Conservation Concern in the UK since 2015.
Concern has been expressed by BASC and GWCT that shooting of woodcock within the current open season months of October and November (and September in Scotland), may contribute to a decline of the UK breeding population. For this reason, shooting organisations have asked recreational shooters not to shoot woodcock during this period. It is hoped that as a result, shooting pressure on the declining resident UK woodcock population may have decreased but in the absence of recent and robust estimates of both breeding population numbers and numbers of birds shot then it cannot be certain that it has decreased and, even if it has, that it has decreased sufficiently. Furthermore, since this petition was posted a scientific study has highlighted woodcock as a species for which there is concern over the impact of shooting on the population (An initial assessment of the sustainability of waterbird harvest in the United Kingdom – Ellis – Journal of Applied Ecology – Wiley Online Library). The current petition asks us to recognise the concerns which have led to calls for voluntary shooting restraint and formalise them in the statutory shooting seasons.
Defra is committed to reviewing the protection we afford to wild birds listed on Schedule 2 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, in particular establishing the evidence underpinning the listing of species such as the woodcock, so we can ensure that recreational shooting is sustainable and does not undermine species recovery. This might include amending the close season for native species such as the woodcock. Defra will complete this review by ?????
During winter, our resident birds are joined by migrants from breeding populations in Northern Europe, and Western Russia and central Asia, increasing the Great Britain non-breeding population to 1.4 million individuals.
The reasons for the decline of the breeding population of woodcock in Great Britain are not fully understood but are likely tomay also include: disturbance; habitat loss as a result of land drainage; the drying out of natural woodlands; changes in surrounding woodland management; the maturation of new plantations; and overgrazing by deer. Further work is needed to fully understand the causes of its decline.
Whilst the Department undertakes this review, the woodcock will continue to be supported bymay benefit froma number of measures already in trainfuture policy developments. We are committed to species recovery in England, and that is why, within the Environment Act 2021, we have set a new legally binding target to halt the decline in species abundance by 2030. Furthermore, Defra published a Nature Recovery Green Paper consultation on proposals to support our ambitions to restore nature and halt the decline in species abundance by 2030. We are considering the responses to the now closed consultation and the Government will publish its response in due course.
The woodcock willmay benefit from a number of woodland grant schemes funded by both the Countryside Stewardship scheme and the Nature for Climate Fund, some of which specifically target management for declining woodland birds. These grants include the Woods into Management Forestry Innovation Funds, which aim to restore vulnerable woodland habitats, improve biodiversity and conserve threatened species, as well as the England Woodland Creation Offer.
More broadly, environmentally sustainable farming is fundamental to our agricultural transition outside of the EU. We aremay be introducing three environmental land management schemes: the Sustainable Farming Incentive, Local Nature Recovery, and Landscape Recovery although our position on these is under review. These schemes willmay pay for activities to create, manage and restore habitats such as woodland, connecting isolated habitats to form networks, and species management, all of which willmay benefit some woodland bird species, perhaps such as the woodcock.
Comments Off on Our Woodcock petition passes 51,000 signatures
Our Woodcock petition has passed 50,000 signatures (and 51,000) so we’re over half of the way to gaining a Westminster Hall debate on the subject. And every signature increases the pressure on DEFRA to do something sensible.
We don’t assume that we will get to 100,000 signatures – but that is definitely our aim. Thank you for your support so far.
And we now have the RSPB supporting this petition too – see their blog today – click here. Thank you RSPB!
We’ve been listing leading constituencies here now and again. We’ve listed those constituencies with more than 100 signatures – but that is now a very long list indeed (over 180 constiuencies) so we are changing tack. This time we are listing those constituencies with 154+ signatures. Why at least 154? Seems an odd number? Well, 100,000 signatures, divided across 650 constituencies means that the average constituency has to produce 154 signatures.
Truro and Falmouth, Cherilyn Mackrory MP – 159 signatures
Monmouth, David Davies MP – 159 signatures
North Cornwall, Scott Mann MP – 157 signatures
Penrith and the Border, Neil Hudson MP – 157 signatures
Forest of Dean, Mark Harper MP – 157 signatures
Chichester, Gillian Keegan MP – 156 signatures
North Somerset, Liam Fox MP – 156 signatures
Westminster Parliament petitions run for 6 months, and we still have three and a half months to go – and we’re over half way there. But we think it will be a struggle to reach 100,000. We need your help – not just in signing the petition yourself but in finding a few others to sign it too. Every signature counts, whether it is the 7th in Tyrone or the 249th in North Norfolk.
The leading constituencies for support, so far, are as follows (all those with 100+ signatures). As expected, they are mostly Conservative rural constituencies, but signatures are very welcome from anywhere and anyone. The number of constituencies in this list is now well over 100.
The leading constituencies for support, so far, are as follows (all those with 100+ signatures). As expected, they are mostly Conservative rural constituencies, but signatures are very welcome from anywhere and anyone. The number of constituencies in this list has almost doubled since Friday.
Comments Off on Our Woodcock petition passes 30,000 signatures
Our Woodcock petition has passed 30,000 signatures on the day before the shooting season opens in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Please share the petition link – https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/619615 – you can help move things along even faster. Thank you.
The leading constituencies for support, so far, are as follows (all those with 100+ signatures). As expected, they are mostly Conservative rural constituencies, but signatures are very welcome from anywhere and anyone.
At Tuesday’s in-person hearing in front of Mr Justice Bourne to decide whether Wild Justice will be given permission to proceed to a substantive hearing for judicial review of Ofwat’s failure to regulate discharges of sewage into rivers, the relationship between judicial review and environmental review by the new Office for Environmental Protection (OEP) was raised.
Ofwat suggested (only days before the hearing) that the commencement of an OEP investigation (prompted by a complaint by WildFish (formerly Salmon and Trout Conservation)(click here for details of the complaint)) should undermine the case for permission being granted for examination of Wild Justice’s legal challenge. The OEP wrote to the court in response to Ofwat’s skeleton argument and Charles Morgan (representing the OEP) appeared at the hearing to confirm that the functions of an OEP investigation, and any subsequent enforcement action, are quite distinct from the pursuit of a remedy via judicial review.
This will be a comfort to claimants who may otherwise have been deterred from pursuing judicial review on the basis that a future complaint to the OEP could be used by defendant public bodies as a way of preventing their claim from going ahead and pursuing the remedies available through judicial review.
Wild Justice is grateful to the OEP for taking immediate steps to clarify the relationship between the two parallel processes.
In our view, Ofwat is casting around somewhat desperately to try to avoid public scrutiny of its actions.
Comments Off on Defra to review impacts of shooting – including Woodcock
On his last day in the job George Eustice wrote to Wild Justice in what amounts to a massive U-turn on his department’s previous responses to us on the Woodcock shooting season. Today’s Times carries a piece on this news (DEFRA shooting rethink offers lifeline to endangered Woodcock).
Here is the letter, which commits DEFRA (including his successor Ranil Jayarwardena as Secretary of State) to consult the administrations in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland and review the impacts of shooting on species which can legally be shot.
We’re in court today. Our legal team will be making the case that Ofwat has failed to meet their responsibilities to regulate discharges of raw sewage and Mr Justice Bourne will decide whether or not our challenge can go to a full legal hearing at a later date.
We wrote to Ofwat about this matter in April and launched a crowdfunder when we filed detailed legal papers in June (see here for more details).
We are certain that we have a strong case, and we know that this subject is one that attracts considerable attention from the general public – which is why our crowdfunder was so successful. Thank you for getting us this far, and we hope that we can take the challenge further. Fingers crossed!
Comments Off on Wild Justice granted permission for judicial review of badger cull in Northern Ireland
Our legal challenge against the badger cull in Northern Ireland took a step forward last Friday when we were granted permission for judicial review in the High Court.
Judicial review is a type of court proceeding where a judge reviews the lawfulness of a decision or action made by a public body, in this case DAERA, Northern Ireland’s Department of Agriculture, Environment & Rural Affairs. The first stage of a judicial review is to apply to the court for ‘permission’ to proceed. The test for obtaining permission is that the judge considers there is an arguable case.
Our legal challenge, in partnership with the Northern Ireland Badger Group and supported by the Born Free Foundation, is that the consultation by DAERA on options to control the badger population to tackle bovine tuberculosis (bTB) did not meet the requirements for a lawful consultation. Therefore the resulting decision to choose to control the badger population by allowing farmer-led groups to shoot the free-roaming animals with rifles was also unlawful.
The presiding judge at Belfast’s High Court last Friday, The Honourable Mr Justice Scoffield, agreed that these were arguable and our judicial review challenge will be heard in court on 21st November 2022.
We also argue that DAERA Minister Edwin Poots’ decision, announced in March 2022, to allow farmers to use rifles to kill up to 4,000 badgers a year, is unlawful because he issued the Article 13 (power to destroy wildlife) order under the Diseases of Animals 1981 Order without making sure that there is no reasonably practicable alternative way of dealing with bTB in Northern Ireland.
Mr Justice Scoffield ‘stayed’ a decision on this legal point, in other words it was neither rejected nor accepted but will be considered at a later date, perhaps when the first two grounds are decided.
We are grateful to our brilliant legal team (Carol Day & Ricardo Gama from Leigh Day, and Blinne Ní Ghrálaigh & David Wolfe KC from Matrix Chambers) with Phoenix Law acting as agents in Northern Ireland.
This case was only possible thanks to the generosity of our supporters who contributed £45K to our crowdfunder earlier this year, enabling us to take on the legal challenge.
Comments Off on Northern Ireland to extend unlawful General Licences for killing wild birds after failing to complete consultation review
Press release from Leigh Day (8 September 2022)
Environmental group Wild Justice has protested delays by the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) in reviewing responses to a consultation on Northern Ireland’s General Licences for the killing of wild birds.
The delay means that current licences already conceded to be unlawful will be extended for use until 17th October 2022.
DAERA admitted its general licences are unlawful in a landmark victory for Wild Justice last year when the department promised a consultation and to publish amended general licences.
However, after an initial delay that was put down to elections in Northern Ireland, DAERA now says it will not meet its own extended deadline to complete the review of consultation responses and will not be able to share new draft general licences with stakeholders until 19 September 2022.
DAERA then provided written assurances that its flawed general licences would be replaced by interim licences and that a full consultation would be launched. The interim licences were intended to be in place until 10 September 2022 to give plenty of time for the consultation and for draft general licences to be shared with interested parties before their final publication on 11 September 2022.
However, DAERA has written to Wild Justice saying it will not be able to complete its consultation review and will need to once again extend the interim general licences. They are expected to be extended by five weeks to 17 October and the new general licences are not expected to be provided until 19 September.
Wild Justice first raised concerns with DAERA about its approach to general licences for bird killings in May 2019, following a successful legal challenge to Natural England’s 2019 general licences. Wild Justice wrote again to DAERA last year regarding serious flaws in its 2020 general licences, and called on DAERA to revise the licence replacements which were due to be issued in September 2021. DAERA’s response, which was provided only after protracted delay and after Wild Justice sought the intervention of the Information Commissioner’s Office, made clear that DAERA had failed to comply with the Wildlife (Northern Ireland) Order 1985 when issuing the 2020 general licences. DAERA subsequently launched a mini consultation but withdrew it just days later, stating only that it contained “errors”. A full consultation was eventually launched in 2022.
According to DAERA, 1882 responses were received to the latest consultation. While DAERA has yet to indicate what revisions it may make to its general licences, Wild Justice considers that DAERA’s current licences are overly permissive and stand in stark contrast to those in other countries such as Wales where licences have already been revised in response to Wild Justice’s concerns.
Wild Justice, led by Dr Mark Avery, Dr Ruth Tingay and Chris Packham CBE, have urged DAERA to withdraw the unlawful 2021 general licences.
Commenting in response to the latest delays, Wild Justice said:
“DAERA are dragging their feet on this issue and it’s simply not good administration. This seems to be a systemic failure as we have found DAERA to be slow and unfocused on other matters such as Badger culls and Woodcock shooting. The Northern Ireland public, and wildlife, deserve a better response from the department which has Environment in its name.”
Wild Justice is represented by Leigh Day lawyers Tom Short and Carol Day acting through their agent in Northern Ireland Phoenix Law, and barrister David Wolfe QC at Matrix Chambers.
Leigh Day solicitor Tom Short said:
“Our client has long been concerned that DAERA’s approach to wildlife licensing is not fit for purpose and this latest delay is further evidence that DAERA is struggling to get on top of the issue. After conceding in late 2021 that its general licences are flawed, it is unacceptable that DAERA is now proposing to once again extend interim general licences on the same terms. Last year our client welcomed DAERA’s commitment to reform the general licences. We urge DAERA to do all it can to ensure that there are no further delays to that process, particularly in circumstances where the current interim licences do meet statutory requirements and any reliance on them may place shooters at risk of criminal liability.”
Comments Off on Defra rapped on knuckles by Petitions Committee – an update on our Woodcock PetitionWoodcock by Olly Smart
This morning we received an update from the Petitions Committee, in relation to our petition to limit the shooting season for Woodcock. It seems they were, like us, dissatisfied with the response we received from the Government when the petition reached 10,000 signatures earlier this summer.
The Petitions Committee (the group of MPs who oversee the petitions system) have considered the Government’s response to this petition. They felt that the response did not directly address the request of petition and have therefore written back to the Government to ask them to provide a revised response.
When the Committee have received a revised response from the Government, this will be published on the website and you will receive an email. If you would not like to receive further updates about this petition, you can unsubscribe below.
Thanks, The Petitions team UK Government and Parliament
We’ll of course publish the revised response as soon as we receive it. In the meantime, please add your name to our petition if you’ve not already, and spread the word!
Comments Off on Press Release: Wildlife groups’ court hearing challenge to Northern Ireland badger cull by shooting
Campaigners have a hearing on Friday 9 September at the High Court in Belfast to challenge a cull of badgers in Northern Ireland by shooting.
Wild Justice and Northern Ireland Badger Group (NIBG) say a decision announced in March 2022 by Minister for Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs, Edwin Poots to allow farmers to use rifles to kill up to 4,000 badgers a year is unlawful.
Wild Justice and NIBG, supported by the Born Free Foundation, argue that the consultation by the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) on options to control the badger population to tackle bovine tuberculosis (bTB) did not meet the requirements for a lawful consultation. Therefore the resulting decision to choose to control the badger population by allowing farmer-led groups to shoot the free-roaming animals with rifles was also unlawful.
The campaigners will also argue that Mr Poots’ decision is unlawful because he issued the Article 13 (power to destroy wildlife) order under the Diseases of Animals 1981 Order without making sure that there is no reasonably practicable alternative way of dealing with bTB in Northern Ireland.
The consultation proposed a badger cull as the preferred option for addressing bTB, based on a “business case” which was not disclosed as part of the consultation documents. This meant that the consultation was not procedurally fair, because consultees could not make a properly informed response to the proposal for a cull without seeing the business case which underpinned it.
The arguments will be made at a judicial review hearing to be held at the Royal Courts of Justice in Belfast on Friday morning. Wild Justice and NIBG are represented by law firm Leigh Day.
They will argue that Mr Poots’ consultation on controlling the badger population in Northern Ireland gave them inadequate and insufficient information to allow them to engage with it properly and that he failed to consider the responses they were able to make.
The consultation, held in summer 2021, was the second of three initiated by DAERA. The first was held in 2017 and the third was in 2022. NIBG responded to all three. The paper set out DAERA’s long term aim to control bTB by vaccination, but stated that first the infection load in the badger population must be reduced by culling.
The several options to achieve that goal referred to “the business case underpinning the bTB eradication strategy” but it lacked the necessary detail for a meaningful response. Detail about the business case was also refused in response to a Freedom of Information request. Wild Justice and NIBG argue that without information on assumptions made by the business case it was impossible to properly respond to the consultation exercise.
DAERA singled out Option 8 – culling by shooting of roaming badgers by farmer-led companies – as its preferred option and asked its consultees if they agreed. But without the business case, Wild Justice and NIBG say it could not understand or properly respond to Option 8.
They argue that the humaneness of the options available does not appear to have been factored into considerations. The possibility that informed consultation responses could have affected the outcome is clear because when the options were scored, the most humane option (a selective cull via test, vaccinate, remove (TVR)) scored only 10 per cent lower than the least humane option chosen.
Wild Justice said:
“We’re on the side of badgers, and we also expect governments to stick by the rules. DAERA cut corners in their consultation and that disadvantaged those who responded to make the case for badgers. This cull should not go ahead.”
Mike Rendle of NIBG said:
“Consultees were not given sufficient information to allow them to make an informed decision about the proposed badger intervention. The consultation was clearly not fit for purpose, yet the Minister chose to carry on regardless. The Minister went on to announce the cruellest possible badger intervention open to him, despite the large consensus of expert opinion that badger culling is inhumane and ineffective.”
Dr Mark Jones of the Born Free Foundation said:
“DAERA’s refusal to disclose the full details of its Business Case during the consultation process on its policy made it impossible for consultees to scrutinise the financial and other arguments it had in mind in proposing to introduce badger culling. The introduction of an England-style badger cull, when the latest peer-reviewed science from England clearly demonstrates the failure of this approach to reduce bovine TB in cattle, should be immediately withdrawn. Born Free has long opposed the culling of badgers as a means of controlling bovine TB in cattle on the basis that it is unscientific, inhumane, ineffective, and unnecessary.”
Wild Justice and NIBG are represented by Carol Day and Ricardo Gama at Leigh Day, with Phoenix Law as agents in Northern Ireland.
Leigh Day environmental law specialist, solicitor Ricardo Gama said:
“The Northern Ireland executive failed to provide consultees with the information that they needed to have any hope of providing informed responses to their suggestion of a badger cull. They have also failed to show that there aren’t other reasonably practicable alternatives to culling, which is what is needed in order for the executive to allow, and even encourage, the killing of this protected species.”
Comments Off on Court hearing this week to challenge the badger cull in Northern Ireland
Press release from Leigh Day:
Wildlife groups’ court hearing challenge to Northern Ireland badger cull by shooting
Campaigners have a hearing on Friday 9th September 2022 at the High Court in Belfast to challenge a cull of badgers in Northern Ireland by shooting.
Wild Justice and the Northern Ireland Badger Group (NIBG) say a decision announced in March 2022 by Minister for Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs, Edwin Poots, to allow farmers to use rifles to kill up to 4,000 badgers a year is unlawful.
Wild Justice and NIBG, supported by the Born Free Foundation, argue that the consultation by the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) on options to control the badger population to tackle bovine tuberculosis (bTB) did not meet the requirements for a lawful consultation. Therefore the resulting decision to choose to control the badger population by allowing farmer-led groups to shoot the free-roaming animals with rifles was also unlawful.
The campaigners will also argue that Mr Poots’ decision is unlawful because he issued the Article 13 (power to destroy wildlife) order under the Diseases of Animals 1981 Order without making sure that there is no reasonably practicable alternative way of dealing with bTB in Northern Ireland.
The consultation proposed a badger cull as the preferred option for addressing bTB, based on a “business case” which was not disclosed as part of the consultation documents. This meant that the consultation was not procedurally fair, because consultees could not make a properly informed response to the proposal for a cull without seeing the business case which underpinned it.
The arguments will be made at a judicial review hearing to be held at the Royal Courts of Justice in Belfast on Friday morning. Wild Justice and NIBG are represented by law firm Leigh Day.
They will argue that Mr Poots’ consultation on controlling the badger population in Northern Ireland gave them inadequate and insufficient information to allow them to engage with it properly and that he failed to consider the responses they were able to make.
The consultation, held in summer 2021, was the second of three initiated by DAERA. The first was held in 2017 and the third was in 2022. NIBG responded to all three. The paper set out DAERA’s long term aim to control bTB by vaccination, but stated that first the infection load in the badger population must be reduced by culling.
The several options to achieve that goal referred to “the business case underpinning the bTB eradication strategy” but it lacked the necessary detail for a meaningful response. Detail about the business case was also refused in response to a Freedom of Information request. Wild Justice and NIBG argue that without information on assumptions made by the business case it was impossible to properly respond to the consultation exercise.
DAERA singled out Option 8 – culling by shooting of roaming badgers by farmer-led companies – as its preferred option and asked its consultees if they agreed. But without the business case, Wild Justice and NIBG say it could not understand or properly respond to Option 8.
They argue that the humaneness of the options available does not appear to have been factored into considerations. The possibility that informed consultation responses could have affected the outcome is clear because when the options were scored, the most humane option (a selective cull via test, vaccinate, remove (TVR)) scored only 10 per cent lower than the least humane option chosen.
Wild Justice said:
“We’re on the side of badgers, and we also expect governments to stick by the rules. DAERA cut corners in their consultation and that disadvantaged those who responded to make the case for badgers. This cull should not go ahead.”
Mike Rendle of NIBG said:
“Consultees were not given sufficient information to allow them to make an informed decision about the proposed badger intervention. The consultation was clearly not fit for purpose, yet the Minister chose to carry on regardless. The Minister went on to announce the cruellest possible badger intervention open to him, despite the large consensus of expert opinion that badger culling is inhumane and ineffective.”
Dr Mark Jones of the Born Free Foundation said:
“DAERA’s refusal to disclose the full details of its Business Case during the consultation process on its policy made it impossible for consultees to scrutinise the financial and other arguments it had in mind in proposing to introduce badger culling. The introduction of an England-style badger cull, when the latest peer-reviewed science from England clearly demonstrates the failure of this approach to reduce bovine TB in cattle, should be immediately withdrawn. Born Free has long opposed the culling of badgers as a means of controlling bovine TB in cattle on the basis that it is unscientific, inhumane, ineffective, and unnecessary.”
Wild Justice and NIBG are represented by Carol Day and Ricardo Gama at Leigh Day, with Phoenix Law as agents in Northern Ireland.
Leigh Day environmental law specialist, solicitor Ricardo Gama said:
“The Northern Ireland executive failed to provide consultees with the information that they needed to have any hope of providing informed responses to their suggestion of a badger cull. They have also failed to show that there aren’t other reasonably practicable alternatives to culling, which is what is needed in order for the executive to allow, and even encourage, the killing of this protected species.”
Comments Off on Lead-free promise – we ask the NGDA
We wrote to the National Game Dealers Association over 10 days ago but have not yet had a response to our enquiry:
Wild Justice understood that NGDA were going to go lead-free from 1 July 2022 and that game supplied by your members would only have been shot with non-toxic ammunition. Now we are led to understand that decision has been reversed. Please let us know your current position.
Are Red Grouse shot this season and sold through NGDA members killed with non-toxic ammunition?
Will partridges (Grey and Red-legged) shot from 1 September 2022 be lead-free or not?
How about Pheasants from the 2022 shooting season?
We’ll let you know whether we get a reply, and what it says, but if you are interested in this subject and would like to enquire yourselves then try here Contact Us | National Game Dealers Association
Wild Justice is also writing to supermarkets and others asking them about their plans to sell lead-free or lead-heavy game meat this autumn. Watch this space.
Our Woodcock petition is approaching 24,000 signatures and we have a range of things lined up that we are sure will give it a decent boost up to the end of this month (and beyond!). Please share the petition link – https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/619615- you can help move things along even faster. Thank you.
The leading constituencies for support, so far, are as follows (all those with 90+ signatures). As expected, they are mostly Conservative rural constituencies (with one former Conservative now sitting as an Independent), the semi-rural Labour constituency of Sheffield Hallam and the very rural LibDem constituency of Westmorland and Lonsdale.
Skipton and Ripon, Julian Smith MP – 99 signatures
Wells, James Heappey MP – 98 signatures
Westmorland and Lonsdale, Tim Farron MP – 92 signatures
Brecon and Radnorshire, Fay Jones MP – 92 signatures
North Herefordshire, Bill Wiggin MP – 91 signatures
Lewes, Maria Caulfield MP – 90 signatures
And, Birmingham Ladywood now has a signature, meaning that all 650 UK Westminster parliamentary constituencies have contributed to the total – that’s good.
Comments Off on Leading constituencies for our Woodcock petition
The leading constituencies supporting our Woodcock petition, so far, are as follows. As expected, they are mostly Conservative rural constituencies (with one former Conservative now sitting as an Independent) and the semi-rural Labour constituency of Sheffield Hallam.
Skipton and Ripon, Julian Smith MP – 92 signatures
Stroud, Siobhan Baillie MP – 91 signatures
And bottom of the list still, with not a single signature so far, still, is Birmingham, Ladywood, Shabana Mahmood MP.
We’re on 20,600 signatures, nearly (tomorrow) a month into the six-month life of this petition, and just over a fifth of the way to 100,000 signatures – but it’s a long road to a parliamentary debate. We’ll keep you updated on progress.
The leading constituencies supporting our Woodcock petition, so far, are as follows. As expected, they are mostly Conservative rural constituencies (with one former Conservative now sitting as an Independent) and the semi-rural Labour constituency of Sheffield Hallam.
Derbyshire Dales, Sarah Dines MP – 102 signatures
Thirsk and Molton, Kevin Hollinrake MP – 99 signatures
North Norfolk, Duncan Baker MP – 96 signatures
Somerton and Frome, David Warburton MP – 95 signatures
Sheffield Hallam, Olivia Blake MP – 90 signatures
Torridge and West Devon, Geoffrey Cox MP – 87 signatures
Dumfries and Galloway, Alistair Jack MP – 84 signatures
Skipton and Ripon, Julian Smith MP – 81 signatures
And bottom of the list still, with not a single signature so far, is Birmingham, Ladywood, Shabana Mahmood MP.
We’re on 17,500 signatures, not yet a month into the six-month life of this petition, and over a sixth of the way to 100,000 signatures – but it’s a long road to a parliamentary debate. We’ll keep you updated on progress.
Comments Off on Defra’s vague and evasive response to our Woodcock petition
Our petition seeking an important change to the Woodcock shooting season has received a response from DEFRA – it’s a poor response which is pasted below in seven numbered paragraphs but it amounts to 25 words highlighted in red.
We’re not satisfied with this as a response and Chris Packham has written to the Petitions Committee asking them to exercise their power to seek a proper response from DEFRA.
We’ll also now be seeking further signatures to the petition to increase the pressure and we ask you for your help in promoting the petition widely to gain more signatures.
There is still time for DEFRA to act before the shooting season opens, prematurely, on 1 October. We still want that date pushed back to 1 December as has been recommended by the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust of all people.
Here’s what Chris Packham wrote to the Petitions Committee:
The DEFRA response is not a proper response to our petition – most of it is just faff and padding. It is the type of response that will turn the public off engaging in the petitions process because it treats their request with disdain and entirely avoids addressing its key issue. Actually it’s insulting. So could I respectfully ask the Petitions Committee to solicit a proper response from DEFRA and ask for it to be provided as a matter of urgency because as it stands there is still time for DEFRA to adjust this year’s shooting season for this seriously threatened bird.
DEFRA’s response amounts to the 25 words highlighted in red below. It says that it doesn’t think that shooting is relevant but gives absolutely no science or evidence to back up this view. Nothing. This is unsatisfactory . . . it implies that Government could write down any old unjustified stuff to brush off petitions that are hugely supported by the public . . . and this would render the whole petition process pointless. It’s lazy, counterproductive, undemocratic and betrays a lack of accountability. But DEFRA are accountable to the public, the public who signed this petition. They need to get out of bed, summon some respect and prepare a proper reply.
In fact, as DEFRA must well know, and as spelled out in the link provided in our petition, the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust recommend (on the basis of their own research) just what we suggest – that shooting of Woodcock should not start until 1 December rather than the current 1 October. Our petition asks that this is made a legal condition of shooting by changing the opening of the shooting season. This has not been in any way addressed by their response . . . Instead their response blathers on about grants, plans and schemes which are not yet running, may never run, and have not been practically tested in any regard for positive conservation outcomes and certainly not for Woodcock. Whereas what our petitioners request could be actioned now, for nothing, and the science says it would help.
Thus our petition is specific and scientifically well-informed whereas DEFRA’s response is vague and evasive – we ask for a specific well-justified government action, DEFRA waffles on about lots of other things it is doing or might possibly do. Thus this response is not adequate, like I said , it’s insulting and inadequate.
If this is how DEFRA responds to well justified conservation measures that can so easily, very cheaply and certainly quickly be implemented then we stand absolutely no chance of meeting the legally binding target of stopping wildlife decline by 2030.
I append the Defra response with further comments on its shortcomings below.
Best wishes
Chris Packham
In brief, paragraph by paragraph of DEFRA’s response: para 1, true but not a response to the petition and not specific to it, and promising nothing concrete; para 2, true but forms the background to our petition and is not a response to it; para 3, true, and is relevant to our petition but is not a response to it; para 4, DEFRA claims that many factors may be at play, they might be, but we have pointed to one simple government action that would address one factor and DEFRA has not ruled it out with any evidence, in fact it ignores the evidence that has led GWCT and ourselves to want shooting not to start until 1 December, therefore this is an inadequate response; paras 5-7, these all relate to aspirations to create or restore priority habitat in general (not necessarily habitat for Woodcock in particular) and planting trees won’t create habitat for woodcock until those trees are woodlands. This is an inadequate response and is not specific to our petition. They amount to saying ‘We’re doing some general stuff, or at least we might do in future, so we can’t do this very easy and simple thing that will help this species now’.
The DEFRA response:
Defra published a Nature Recovery Green Paper considering options for reforming protection to better support the recovery of species, such as woodcock.
All wild birds are protected in accordance with the provisions set out in the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. Some species of birds, including the woodcock, are listed in Schedule 2 of the Act, and may be hunted during the open season. In England and Wales, the open season for woodcock is from 1 October to 31 January. Outside of this period, the close season helps to make sure that woodcocks are able to breed successfully and move between breeding and wintering grounds.
The first breeding woodcock survey was undertaken in 2003 and estimated a breeding population of 78,000 pairs in Britain. A further survey in 2013 estimated 55,000 pairs, representing a decline of 29%. As a result, the woodcock has been on the red list of Birds of Conservation Concern in the UK since 2015. During winter, our resident birds are joined by migrants from breeding populations in northern Europe and western Russia, increasing the Great Britain non-breeding population to 1.4 million individuals.
The reasons for the decline of the breeding population of woodcock in Great Britain are not fully understood but are likely to include: disturbance; habitat loss as a result of land drainage; the drying out of natural woodlands; changes in surrounding woodland management; the maturation of new plantations; and overgrazing (reduction of the field layer) by deer. While further work is needed to enhance our understanding, the Government’s current view is that the woodcock population is more likely to be influenced by the extent and quality of habitat, rather than shooting. We will continue to keep this evidence under review.
Woodcock will be supported by a number of measures already in train. We are committed to the recovery of species in England, and that is why within the Environment Act 2021 we have set a new legally binding target to halt the decline in species abundance by 2030. Since 2010, 364,803 football pitches of new priority habitat has been created or restored and we will continue to build on this as we develop the Nature Recovery Network. Furthermore, Defra published a Nature Recovery Green Paper consultation on proposals to support our ambitions to restore nature and halt the decline in species abundance by 2030. The consultation has now closed. We are considering the responses to the consultation and the Government will publish its response in due course.
The woodcock will benefit from a number of woodland grant schemes funded by both the Countryside Stewardship scheme and the Nature for Climate Fund, some of which specifically target management for declining woodland birds. These grants include the Woods into Management Forestry Innovation Funds, which aim to restore vulnerable woodland habitats, improve biodiversity and conserve threatened species, as well as the England Woodland Creation Offer.
More broadly, environmentally sustainable farming is fundamental to our agricultural transition outside of the EU. We are introducing three environmental land management schemes: the Sustainable Farming Incentive, Local Nature Recovery, and Landscape Recovery. These schemes will pay for activities to create, manage and restore habitats such as woodland, connecting isolated habitats to form networks, and species management, all of which will benefit woodland bird species, such as the woodcock.
Comments Off on Hen Harrier Fest – Thank you for coming!Photo by Hugh Warwick
A big thank you! To the hundreds of you who turned out in the rain, stood in the rain, listened in the rain and cheered… in the rain! Hen Harrier Fest was a day of inspiration, shared joy, collaboration and hope – as well as just a little bit of sogginess.
Hen Harrier Fest took place this Sunday. The gates opened shortly before the heavens, and an anorak-sporting crowd descended upon the beautiful grounds of Adlington Hall and Gardens in Cheshire. Our fantastic host, Camilla Legh, welcomed us to the Hall which proved to be a brilliant venue for the day – we’re really grateful to Camilla and her team for having us!
Throughout the day a suite of passionate, knowledgeable and articulate speakers took to the stage – covering everything from the right to roam, to beavers; from the plight of Hen Harriers to inspiring nature poetry. We’d like to say a big thank you to lots of people who brought the day together.
Thank you to all of our speakers for their time and dedication:Jenny Shelton (RSPB), Indy Kiemel Greene, Dr Cathleen Thomas (Hen Harrier Action), Natalie Bennett, Brittany Maxted (Poole Harbour Ospreys), Guy Shrubsole (Right to Roam), Sandra King (Beavers Trust), Olivia Blake (Labour Party), Hugh Warwick, Gill Lewis (Hen Harrier Action), Megan McCubbin and Carol Day (Leigh Day).
Thank you also to our superstar team of volunteers – whether it was helping cars park, making children’s crafts or building make-shift rain shelters, your support made the day such a success!
And a big thank you to all of the organisations, charities, groups and caterers who brought their stalls and tasty treats to keep the crows entertained.
To those of you who came – thank you! We hope you had a great day and have managed to dry off. We’ll leave you with some photos of the day, kindly taken by Guy Shorrock and Hugh Warwick. Scroll through our gallery below (click the little arrows either side of the image), and please share yours with us on social media!
There’s a remarkable amount of ignorance about Woodcock shooting – even among shooters. We’ve been told several times since we started our petition to shorten the Woodcock shooting season that nobody shoots Woodcock these days. Well that must be news to this shoot in North Devon advertising Woodcock shooting starting from 1 October even though the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust advice is;
You’ll note that this is a Woodcock shoot, specifically targetting (literally) Woodcock, and from 1 October. It also claims to be ‘a very popular shoot and days go quick’.
Here’s another one which states that the best time to shoot is November-January. It’s specifically a driven Woodcock shoot with access to a ‘tailor-made Woodcock estate’ where 70-100 Woodcock can be killed in a day – that’s what they are selling here;
Woodcock shooting in England opens in 75 days time on 1 October, that’s 61 days earlier than the science says is sensible, unless Defra acts now to change the shooting season.
Please sign our petition to put back the Woodcock shooting season until 1 December as recommended by the science – click here.
Comments Off on Our new petition – thank you for such great support
On Tuesday morning we launched our newest petition, to the Westminster government, asking for a shortening of the Woodcock shooting season. By Tuesday bedtime the petition had far surpassed the 10,000 signatures needed to trigger a response from the Westminster government. We’re keen to see what our environment department, responsible for wildlife conservation, says about our very modest, cost-free and science-led proposal. We wrote to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Northern Ireland Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs on 21 March on this subject and they have both been dragging their heels so this petition is a sharp nudge in the ribs to make them address this need.
Even the pro-shooting Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust favour a delay in shooting but their rather quiet pleas to shooters have not been heeded, and now, it seems that GWCT is resiling on their advice for non-scientific reasons – their position is comical.
This is a UK issue and is highly appropriate for a UK petition. Our letter was copied to the politicians in Wales and Scotland with responsibility for these issues and for there to be progress in Britain we assume that discussions would need to take place between Westminster, Cardiff and Edinburgh.
We’ve been asked why we aren’t asking for an outright ban of shooting – this Twitter thread is relevant to that question – click here.
Seven weeks today, on 1 September, the Woodcock shooting season will open in Scotland, and a month later in England, Northern Ireland and Wales. Whereas the best scientific advice is for shooting not to start until 1 December. This can be remedied very easily, just about at the stroke of a pen if politicians act. We want them to act.
And so do you, as the reception to our petition shows. 648 out of 650 UK parliamentary constituencies have contributed signatures to this petition (only West Tyrone and Birmingham Ladywood are missing) and here are the current leading constituencies:
Comments Off on Please respond to Northern Ireland consultation on General Licences
We’d like to invite you to take c20 minutes to respond to a consultation on general licences in Northern Ireland. It is important that you do (please) respond because otherwise improvements to the licences that we have achieved through our successful legal challenge – see here – might be lost. Also, we feel there is more to be gained if we can secure a strong response. Anyone, living anywhere in the UK can respond to the consultation but if you do live in Northern Ireland then your response will probably be even more valuable.
There are 45 questions but not all of them need to be answered and some require only a choice between YES and NO although a few words of explanation would probably be useful too.
Here is the link to the consultation – click here – and the closing date is Thursday 21 July which gives you 13 days, including two weekends, to find the time please.
The questions are grouped in four sections; one for each of the three general licences and a few general questions at the end. Wild Justice is most concerned that the so-called conservation licence is reformed properly – if you are strapped for time then please at least answer questions 30-38.
OK. Deep breath! Let’s go!
Q1-5 – these are simple and about you.
Q6-17General Licence TPG1 – preserving public health or safety.
These 12 questions relate to 12 species of bird and ask whether each should be included on this general licence. The answer for each, we suggest, is NO. [Feral Pigeon is the only species listed on the equivalent licences for Scotland and Wales, Feral Pigeon and Jackdaw are listed for the England equivalent licence. Northern Ireland is suggesting removing 3 gull species, Rook and Wood Pigeon from the licence but we believe that House Sparrow, Starling, Hooded Crow, Carrion Crow, Jackdaw and Magpie, as well as Feral Pigeon, should also be removed].
So please tick the box NO for every species and, if minded to, add the following words in the boxes for the following species:
Feral Pigeon ‘An individual licence could be issued if there were a good enough case.‘
All other 11 species ‘An individual licence could be issued if there were a good enough case. General licences for this species for this purpose do not exist anywhere else in the UK.‘
Q18-29General Licence TPG2 – protection of livestock, crops etc
These 12 questions relate to the same 12 species of birds and ask whether you think that a general licence should exist to enable them to be controlled to protect crops and livestock etc.
Wild Justice would, at this stage, live with general licences for 5 of these species and would tick the box YES (but you may disagree and should go with whatever you think). For the other 7 species we suggest the following words to go in the boxes.
YES Hooded Crow, Carrion Crow, Rook, Wood Pigeon and Feral Pigeon – as we believe they can cause damage to crops (pigeons and Rooks) or can attack livestock (the crows).
NO Great Black-backed Gull, Lesser Black-backed Gull, Herring Gull, with the words ‘An individual licence could be issued if there were a good enough case.’
NO Magpies and Jackdaw with the words ‘No evidence of such an impact. An individual licence could be issued if there were a good enough case.‘
NO House Sparrow and Starling with the words ‘An individual licence could be issued if there were a good enough case. General licences for this purpose do not exist anywhere else in the UK. No evidence for such an impact. This is a Red-listed UK species.‘
Q30-38 General Licence TPG3 – the ‘conservation’ licence
These questions relate to just 9 of the species.
Wild Justice would, at this stage, live with general licences for just 2 of these species and would tick the box YES (but you may disagree and should go with whatever you think). For the other 7 species we suggest the following words to go in the boxes.
YES Hooded Crow and Carrion Crow – as we believe that they can have serious impacts on some endangered breeding waders such as Curlew.
NO Great and Lesser Black-backed Gulls with the words ‘An individual licence could be issued if there were a good enough case. General licences for this purpose do not exist anywhere else in the UK.‘
NO Jackdaw with the words ‘An individual licence could be issued if there were a good enough case. Jackdaw has been removed from similar general licences in England and Wales recently – Northern Ireland should do the same.‘
NO Magpie with the words ‘An individual licence could be issued if there were a good enough case. Magpie was removed from the Welsh general licence this year – Northern Ireland should do the same‘
NO Rook, Wood Pigeon and Feral Pigeon with the words ‘No evidence of any conservation impact whatsoever. General licences for this purpose do not exist anywhere else in the UK.’
Q39 – 44 Some general questions
Q39-40 Skip, unless you have any particular expertise or views
Q41 YES with the words ‘That is what the law requires. Lethal methods should only be used as a last resort.‘
Q42 NO with the words ‘Northern Ireland should follow the same process as in other UK nations. Designated sites are extra special and should not be places where unregulated, unmonitored, unjustified and unlimited killing of wildlife can take place.‘
Q43 NO
Q44 ‘Yes. Follow Wales and limit use of conservation general licence to breeding season and only to protect a published list of species of conservation concern.’
Q45 Over to you.
And you’re done so you can submit your response. Closing date midnight 21 July. Thank you.
Such consultations are a bit tedious but we know that vested interests such as shooters will respond to the consultation and put pressure on the Northern Ireland authorities to go backwards rather than forwards.
Comments Off on Our ‘right of reply’ letter in The Field magazine
In April this year, The Field magazine published an inaccurate and unpleasant article about Wild Justice, authored by Tim Bonner, CEO of the Countryside Alliance.
We asked the editor for a right of reply, either as our own comment piece or as a letter. The editor allowed us to submit a letter as a right of reply, limited to 500 words and subject to editing.
That letter has now appeared in the July 2022 edition of The Field:
The endless attacks on Wild Justice, either as an entity or on its three Directors as individuals, are what we’ve come to expect (e.g. see here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here). The level of abuse over many, many years reflects the impact of our campaigning and legal challenges and we won’t be deterred by what is quite obviously a widespread attempt to undermine our integrity and standing.
Judging by the speed with which our most recent legal challenge was crowdfunded (over £40K raised in a single day), neither will our supporters.
Thank you all for your continued backing and encouragement.
Comments Off on Your comments when donating to yesterday’s crowdfunder
Thank you!
Yesterday, between 0530 and 2030, 1519 people donated over £40,000 to ensure that we can pay our brilliant legal team (and court costs and, if we lose, adverse costs against us) for the work they’ve done so far on this challenge. That has involved legal research, talking to experts, preparing a formal legal letter (see here – it’s not just a friendly note!) and filing a much more detailed legal case which sets out a statement of facts and grounds for judicial review.
Thank you to all who have made that possible – and we loved the comments that you made. Here are just a few examples:
Sheila – Thank goodness for Wild Justice. I would be in complete despair if you were not here to defend our beautiful wildlife & environment. I am so worried for our flora & fauna. Thank you for all that you do. You are heroes.
Judi – Long awaited action and from people who get results! Bravo, wish I could give more.
Chris – Great work I think for many reasons this is the most important fight you are taking on.
Colin – Fully supportive. Enforcement seems to have been sacrificed on the altar of low taxes! Regulators must do their jobs effectively.
Anon – So important, the profits need to go to upgrading the sewerage system and not to shareholders. Increased population demands it.
Jacqui – I live close to the Thames at Maidenhead and can often see discharges floating down it. It needs to be much cleaner to protect local people and wildlife.
Mark – I am a kayaker, wild swimmer and love to see our waterways from the water. With its rich and varied wildlife both in and living from the water all this is at risk because of sewerage plants up and down the country. Thank you for fighting for our beautiful waterways.
Mark – Thank you for your good work – which should be unnecessary if government did its job properly.
Michael – I expect every other angler in Britain to support this action, with their cash.
Linda – Water is the life blood of this planet and imperative that we keep it clean.
Carol – Good luck! We need a clean up!
Andrew – I am proud to be associated with the good work that you do.
Richard – Good luck, team. Stop regulators becoming Government stooges.
Joanna – Excellent work as usual. Love what you are doing and will always chip in if I can. Thank you so much.
Sarah – Thank you for taking on this challenge – it is essential work to call the regulatory bodies to account.
Brian – Live by the Wye, which has virtually died in last few years.
Gwenllian – I am so glad that I read the article in the Guardian this morning and followed the crowdfunding link.
Steve – The UK’s record on environmental security and preserving biodiversity is bad enough as it is without Ofwat failing to do its job.
Colin – Thank goodness someone is holding the dysfunctional Government Agency Ofwat to account for their fecklessness.
Vivian – Time to link Shareholders dividend to the amount of sewage discharge each company makes. The more discharges the less money available for Shareholders. That would soon put a stop to such practice.
Anon – Good luck fighting this. Its disgusting how much is being pumped into waterways.
Janet – Thank you for speaking on behalf of all of us who deplore the dumping of sewage in our waterways. Disgusting acts of vandalism. This has to stop.
Andrew – I make this donation because I know that Wild Justice’s campaigns are effective and powerful.
Susan – So sorry I can’t donate more x
Anon – Isn’t it ironic that citizens have to mobilise and self-fund to challenge and make accountable a government body, funded with tax payers’ money, that should make companies that are getting away with environmental murder accountable but doesn’t.
Anon – From the Guardian 22 May 2022, about the rivers where I live. “Only one popular river spot for bathing and water sports in and around Oxford has bacteria within safe levels, a survey by a campaign group has found”.
Liz – I really applaud your efforts and get up and go to challenge Ofwat on this. Hats off to you. Amazing job and thank you. As an open water swim in both lakes and the sea, the work you’re doing is so important trying to maintain our biodiversity and health.
You don’t need to be an expert to know that dumping raw sewage into rivers, lakes and the sea is bad news for those who use our waterways – from fish to those who want to take a dip in the water. And yet untreated sewage was discharged into watercourses over 350,000 times in each of the last two years.
We wrote to Ofwat (the water services regulator for England and Wales) back in April telling them that we believed they were failing to meet their responsibilities to regulate discharges of raw sewage – this was our formal legal letter click here. Their response didn’t convince us and so we have now filed detailed legal papers with the high court asking for permission for a judicial review of Ofwat’s inactivity.
Ofwat – where are you?
Water quality matters to all of us whether we are anglers, wildlife watchers, wild swimmers, kayakers or any other type of water lover. How crazy is it that raw sewage is so often dumped into watercourses?
We aim to get Ofwat to face up to its legal responsibilities and the only way to do that is to go to court. Please support the crowdfunder we have launched today – we’ve stuck our necks out to bring the case this far without fundraising so we definitely need your help in raising the funds to carry this challenge all the way.
To learn more about this legal challenge – pleaseclick here.
Comments Off on Wild Justice’s Raptor Forensics Fund helps secure 3rd gamekeeper conviction
We’re delighted to learn that our Raptor Forensics Fund, established in 2020 to help support police investigations into alleged raptor persecution crime, has played a part in the conviction of a criminal gamekeeper in Wiltshire.
The corpses of at least 15 birds of prey (11 buzzards and 4 red kites) were found decomposing at the bottom of a well on the estate in 2020, and Watson was caught on a secret camera tossing corpses inside. Experts at the Natural History Museum at Tring, Hertfordshire, were asked to identify and verify the corpses, many of which were in an advanced state of decomposition. This was funded by our Raptor Forensics Fund.
Watson pleaded guilty to possessing three red kites and four buzzards, but denied killing them. He claimed he had ‘found’ them on the estate. He received a 12-month community order to carry out 180 hours unpaid work and was ordered to pay £393 costs and £95 surcharge. The court ordered the forensics costs (£288) to be reimbursed to the Raptor Forensics Fund.
This is the third conviction that our Raptor Forensics Fund has helped secure. The first one was gamekeeper Hilton Prest who was found guilty in December 2021 of the unlawful use of a trap in Cheshire (see here). The second one was gamekeeper John Orrey who was convicted in January 2022 of beating to death two buzzards he’d caught in a trap in Nottinghamshire (here).
Thank you to all those who contributed to our Raptor Forensics Fund and thanks also to the PAW Forensic Working Group (a sub-group of the Partnership for Action Against Wildlife Crime) who administer our fund and ensure that police officers can access it without delay to help progress their investigations into raptor persecution crimes.
If you’d like to donate to our work, please click here.
Comments Off on Conservationists seek explanations from Dorset & Sussex police forces re: investigations into poisoned white-tailed eagles
In recent months, at least two young white-tailed eagles from the Isle of Wight Reintroduction Project have been found poisoned on game-shooting estates in southern England – one in Dorset and one in West Sussex.
The police handling of the two investigations has caused serious concern amongst both the public and conservationists. Dorset Police has closed, prematurely, its investigation and Sussex Police has failed to comment on its investigation, seven months after the dead eagle was discovered (October 2021).
This week, Wildlife & Countryside LINK, the largest environment and wildlife coalition in England, has written letters to the Chief Constables of Dorset and Sussex Police to express concern about the handling of these investigations. In the case of the poisoned eagle in Dorset, LINK has asked for a full explanation of why the investigation was closed so abruptly before even a search had been conducted.
These letters have been written by LINK’s Wildlife Crime Working Group, of which Wild Justice is a member.
Comments Off on Chris Packham in conversation with Wild Justice lawyers
As many of you already know, we are privileged to be able to work with some brilliant environmental lawyers at Leigh Day and barristers from Matrix Chambers.
A few weeks ago, Tessa Gregory (partner at Leigh Day) hosted an exclusive interview with leading silk David Wolfe QC (Matrix) and Chris Packham for a broad discussion on environmental legal challenges and a bit of an insight in to some of Wild Justice’s cases. Chris also talks about why he took the decision to take libel action against a number of individuals, in a case that is currently in progress in the High Court.
The interview is now available to watch on You Tube:
You’ve probably seen water pollution mentioned a lot in the news recently. Cases of sewage discharge and run-off from farming being released into rivers (like the River Wye), lakes (like Windermere) and into the sea (like in Kent) have hit the headlines repeatedly.
These incidents have rightly caused outrage and concern. Campaigning groups like WASP and petitions like Matt Staniek’s have drawn attention to the problem and are calling for change.
The problem is widespread and it’s a big one – but who actually is responsible for sorting it out? Why is nobody being held accountable? As far as we can see, nobody wants to own up to being responsible for monitoring and enforcement when it comes to the issue of water quality and sewage pollution.
Whilst water companies are responsible for what actually flows into our rivers, it’s not very clear who has the responsibility for monitoring and regulating planned and unplanned sewage discharges. We asked questions of three public bodies about their roles: the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), The Water Services Regulation Authority (Ofwat) and the Environment Agency (EA).
The responses to our Environmental Information Regulations requests reveal a confused tangle of finger-pointing; each body suggesting another bears the responsibility for monitoring and dealing with this issue. We’ve had a look at what the law says and we believe Ofwat is ducking its responsibilities and we’ve written a Pre-action Protocol letter to them, to which we expect a response next week. You can read our letter below; section 6 lays out the case most clearly and section 6.30 describes the unlawfulness, we claim, of Ofwat’s approach:
PS yesterday we heard from Ofwat that they need another two weeks to respond to our letter – they are clearly finding it difficult to explain their position. We’ll keep you posted and we’ll keep Ofwat on their toes.
Comments Off on More high lead levels in Waitrose game meat
The story so far: Lead is a poison and has been removed from many formerly common uses such as for water pipes and fishing weights, and in petrol and paints. But it is still legal to use lead ammunition to shoot gamebirds such as Pheasant, Red-legged Partridge, Grey Partridge and Red Grouse (amongst others). Maximum lead levels are set for meats such as beef, pork, chicken etc but not, utterly bizarrely, for game meat. The maximum legal lead level for most meats in the UK is 0.1mg of lead per kg of meat, measured as wet weight.
It is well known these days that lead ammunition which passes through a bird or mammal leaves tiny fragments of lead in the flesh of the shot animal. Most of these are too small to be noticed in food preparation or consumption. Non-toxic ammunition for shotguns, primarily steel, is available at similar prices to lead ammunition. Some jurisidictions (eg some US states, Denmark) have banned the use of lead ammunition in many contexts. The UK is thinking about controls on the use of lead ammunition which might come in in 2025 or so.
If you go into a supermarket or a game dealer or a butcher and buy, say, Pheasants for human consumption it is perfectly legal for that meat to contain very high levels of lead – much higher than the maximum legal level for non-game meat. We see this as a serious failure of regulation by the authorities.
Waitrose stuck its head above the parapet in 2019 and said that it was going lead-free for game meat, and received considerable praise for taking this stance (see here). However, testing of game meat on sale in Waitrose stores in 2020 and 2021 showed that this promise had not been met. Our tests published in December 2021, and covered in The Times, showed high levels of lead in Waitrose Pheasant meat. At the time Waitrose’s position was that these high lead levels must have been acquired from the environment. That seems to us, and all the experts we have spoken to, to be ridiculous. We don’t believe it, we don’t know anyone else who believes it, and we don’t really think that Waitrose can believe it.
The Waitrose results for lead in their game meat are pretty similar to those found in Sainsbury’s and Harrods game meat – it would be very difficult to make a case that they are much better or much worse.
So we decided to test some more game meat from Waitrose and collected Pheasant breasts and Woodpigeon breasts from Waitrose stores in north London and Essex in late January 2022, sent them off to a laboratory in the north of Scotland and received the results at the end of March.
Here are the results of those tests, and tests of farmed duck samples from Waitrose, highlighted in yellow and set in the context of our previous findings;
Our samples are quite small – the shelves weren’t packed with game meat when we sampled them – but they are worth reporting. First, farmed duck on sale in Waitrose had low lead levels as expected, as all samples of chicken and pork we have tested have had, and as is required by law. The Woodpigeon and Partridge (we don’t know which species of partridge they were) samples had lead levels that would be illegal to sell in other meats – 15/16 of the samples had levels higher than the maximum legal levels for non-game meats.
These samples were from the same shooting season, 2021/22, as our previous samples reported before Christmas so it’s not surprising that Waitrose haven’t had time to fix this issue yet. But they do have an issue if they are going to live up to their ‘going lead-free’ promise.
Talking to Waitrose: after Waitrose came out with its incredible ‘explanation’ that the high lead levels in their game meat were due to environmental contamination we asked to meet with Waitrose and that meeting finally happened on 30 March, a few days after we received our latest test results reported here.
We had a good meeting with Waitrose’s John Gregson and we indicated the headline results of our further sampling. Wild Justice believes that Waitrose has performed poorly after being praised by us and others for their ‘lead-free’ promise. We suggested that Waitrose must have been let down by its supply chain but that if Wild Justice could test Waitrose game for lead levels then surely a company that made £7.5bn sales in the year ending January 2022 might spare a few quid to test the standards of its food. We understand from Waitrose that they are seriously considering testing their game meat for lead levels next season. We intend to continue testing game meat from Waitrose and other stores next season.
Wild Justice is a not-for-profit organisation set up by Chris Packham, Ruth Tingay and Mark Avery. We are entirely dependent on donations. To support our work – click here. To hear more about our campaigns and legal cases subscribe to our free newsletter – click here.
Notes:
One sample of Waitrose duck, the first of a batch, was excluded from these results because its high lead levels were suspected to be due to contamination by an earlier sample. So we have followed the advice of the laboratory and discounted its value. For the record, it was 0.21mg/kg WW.
One sample of Waitrose Woodpigeon meat returned very high lead levels, >2500 mg/kg WW, and this sample was thought to have contained a lead pellet that was missed in the preparation of samples as all whole or large pellet fragments were removed before testing. Obviously, the lead levels in Woodpigeon meat would be much higher if this sample were included but again, we discount it on the advice of the testing laboratory.
Comments Off on Glyphosate levels in human urine – preliminary results
We asked you, in late January whether you would take part in a study of glyphosate levels in human urine – our taking the p*ss study. As always, you responded brilliantly and from 9 February until last week the results gradually rolled in. Thank you.
We received 120 results and if you were one of the participants you will have received, or will soon receive, an email thanking you for taking part and giving you the option of adding to our knowledge later in the year.
The range of glyphosate levels was from ‘below detectable levels’ to 3.4ng/ml with a median value of 0.9ng/ml, and 84% of participants had detectable levels of glyphosate in their urine.
How do these results compare with other studies? Our results are very much in line with previous results obtained in the UK, Europe and North America but more detailed comparisons are difficult since many previous studies were of small sample sizes (whereas our study, thanks to you, is a very decent size) and previous studies, and ours, are not representative samples of the population as a whole. Our participants are middle-aged and older with few under-40s in the sample and we have noticeably more females than males in our sample. None of this is surprising and doesn’t affect the value of what we are investigating.
To see previous results from across Europe, including from the UK, but from self-selected samples of people, have a look at this website – click here.
The next stage of this study will be to ask most of the current participants to repeat the process of taking a urine sample, sending it off for analysis and reporting the results to us later in the year. If we get enough repeat measures then we will find out more about two things: do people with higher/lower measured urine glyphosate levels from our first sample have higher/lower urine glyphosate levels when measured a second time? In other words, are there consistent differences between individuals? And, do measured urine glyphosate levels differ between different times of year? Is there seasonal variation. The answers to these questions are helpful in pinning down what influences glyphosate levels. And to look at potential correlates of urine glyphosate levels we will be asking participants in the next stage to fill in a short questionnaire about their age, gender, lifestyle, location, diet etc.
This first stage of our study has produced a large sample of interesting results which seem very consistent with previous studies. The next stage of our study is much more ground-breaking and may (who knows? it depends on what we find) take knowledge of factors affecting glyphosate levels in human urine further forward. Thank you to everyone who has answered the call to action and we hope that you will be able to carry on being a part of this study.
Wild Justice is entirely dependent on donations. To support our work – click here. To hear more about our campaigns and legal cases subscribe to our free newsletter – click here.
Comments Off on Call for UK Government to timetable plans for tackling wildlife crime
Wild Justice is a member of Wildlife & Countryside LINK, which is the largest environment and wildlife coalition in England, bringing together 65 organisations to use their strong joint voice for the protection of nature.
LINK covers many policy areas and Wild Justice is represented on a number of committees, including the very active Wildlife Crime Group.
The Wildlife Crime Group is calling for the Westminster Government to commit to a detailed timetable for the progression of a number of recommendations made in a recent United Nations Office on Drugs & Crime report on how to tackle wildlife crime in the UK, including recommendations covering legislation, enforcement, prosecution, sentencing and monitoring.
A detailed blog outlining some of these recommendations has been written by the LINK Wildlife Crime Group Chair, Martin Sims, and can be read here.
Comments Off on GWCT – ‘I’m only a simple farmer but…’
Dear Teresa
I trust you are well, but I wonder whether you may have been on holiday recently as I’ve received a rather strange letter from one of your staff. It’s about the request, by Wild Justice, that I change the shooting season for Woodcock in England, Wales and Scotland to protect the declining UK breeding population. Your letter doesn’t really seem to add anything to this matter.
Let me deal with the three points in your letter after making a more important point first.
First, and fundamentally, the Wild Justice request asks for the open season for Woodcock shooting only to start on 1 December so that the declining UK population is, shall we say, shielded, by the much larger numbers of continental birds which arrive in late autumn/early winter. Wild Justice correctly cites a GWCT paper published in British Birds less than two years ago which says that shooting should not start until that date. Moreover, that advice is currently on your website, today, I’ve just been looking at it. If you have forgotten it then you can check it here – click here. Now I know I am only a simple farmer but it seems pretty clear to me that GWCT is recommending that shooting of Woodcock does not start until 1 December. Your letter doesn’t withdraw that view, your website still states it, and your recently published paper said that. If you are now resiling from that view then you’d better explain why and on what grounds, please, and put the science on your website. Can you tell me that you are sure that doing what Wild Justice has asked would definitely not help the UK breeding Woodcock population? I’m guessing not, partly on the basis of what is on your website, right now, today, visible to all.
And now to turn to your three ‘points’:
You say that there is an ‘indication’ that shooting pressure has declined but your letter does not provide any evidence or figures to support that view. I’ve got plenty of boffins here in the department and when they say ‘indication’ they usually mean ‘just a hint’ or ‘not very reliable evidence’ – is that what your letter meant? We are in a difficult position here because the UK does not require hunters to report on their shooting totals and so there are no official data on this matter at all. I understand that GWCT has good contacts in the shooting industry but your data are self-reported, non-verified numbers from shooters – nobody would regard those as being highly reliable. They are also very unlikely to be representative of all shooting since your supporters, many of whom are my friends, tend to be at the slightly wealthier end of the scale and may not represent what other shooters do. This point is made much better than I could make it, as a simple farmer, by the highly respected Nicholas Aebischer of your staff in his paper Fifty-year trends in UK hunting bags of birds and mammals, and calibrated estimation of national bag size, using GWCT’s National Gamebag Census where he states ‘In an ideal world, sites would be selected at random from among the pool of available sites, as is the case with, for instance, the Breeding Birds Survey (Gregory et al. 2000; Harris et al. 2018). In a situation where the collection of bag statistics depends on the good will and cooperation of shoots and shooters, and where the pool of available sites is un-known, this is not possible‘. That is the same point that I have made above, is it not? That paper states that ‘…woodcock Scolopax rusticola bags increased by 50% during the first 25 years, but stabilised or slightly declined since‘ – is that what the ‘indication’ is based upon? I don’t think we can rely on that very strongly, can we? And, of course, it does not distinguish betweeen pre-December and post-November shooting so fails to illuminate the point with which I am wrestling.
Your letter argues that any restraint in shooting Woodcock will reduce the chance that suitable habitat measures will be carried out. Really? This is contradicted in your next point when you say that lots of Woodcock are shot in places where they don’t breed – sooooo, which do you really mean? Your letter states that ‘importance of … ‘enlightened self-interest’ in delivering practical, privately funded conservation should not be underestimated‘ but I think we’d both have to admit in private, if not in public, that the importance of ‘enlightened self-interest’ shouldn’t be overestimated either and that there are many examples, in shooting but in other areas too (I have to deal with fisheries remember!) where enlightened self-interest is completely obscured by actions based on short-term selfish gain.
Your third point is that some areas don’t have breeding Woodcock so the birds shot there, at any time of year, must be continental birds. Are you sure? This seems to me, as a simple farmer, to ignore two important points. First, you have stated, and still state, that not shooting Woodcock until after the end of November is a good thing to protect the UK breeding population. So how, all of a sudden, has it become OK to shoot earlier in the year? Second, even with my knowledge of birds, I know that birds can breed in one part of the UK and winter in another part of the UK – indeed I believe this is commonplace. So how do you know, indeed do you know, that birds present in early autumn are not UK breeding birds? If you had tagged a great number of these birds, in non-breeding areas, early in the season, and followed them back to their breeding grounds then there might be something in this but my reading of your excellent study is that the sample size of such birds would be vanishingly small and would not provide me with any confidence that what is conjectured in your letter is, in fact, true.
I wish you had written to me privately because then these matters would just have been between us but you’ve slapped this letter on your website, followed by a request for donations, and so everyone can see it. I’m afraid that it looks such a poorly argued case that it doesn’t make it easy for me to accept it at all. It’s rather difficult to get past the fact that GWCT said (and still says) ‘Don’t shoot Woodcock until December‘ but that when someone else takes notice of that, and let’s be clear, most shooters haven’t taken any notice at all, then you say you didn’t really mean it. People will wonder what else you say when it suits you but then repudiate when anyone takes notice of it, won’t they?
In this case, I will probably come under pressure from Wales and Scotland to act and I will have to have a pretty good case to ignore the case for action. In fact, I wonder if this is a subject on which I ought to give the pesky Wild Justice a win – their case is perfectly fair, based on science (your science, the advice that is on your website still) and is pretty moderate. No-one can argue that shooting Woodcock is of great importance financially and no-one can argue that the UK breeding population of Woodcock is not falling. No-one would argue that shooting can’t be having an impact, and you yourselves suggest that it really might be. Whereas it was easy for us to brush off a petition calling for a complete ban on shooting this Red-listed UK species (see here), it is much more difficult to ignore Wild Justice’s call without looking as though I am pretty uninterested in taking modest measures that could lead to a recovery of declining species and am actually more interested in maintaining outdated, scientifically unjustified shooting practices. I’ll be thinking hard about these matters.
with warm best wishes as always, and I hope you did enjoy your holiday,
Comments Off on Badgers in Northern Ireland: Update 1.4.22
Over the last month, we’ve been getting ready for a potential challenge of a proposed Badger cull in Northern Ireland. Thanks to your generous support, this morning we’ve surpassed £30,000 towards our legal costs in our Crowdfunder – thank you to every one of you who has donated.
Last week, we heard some news – news of a Badger cull was formally announced by Edwin Poots,
Minister for Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs, Northern Ireland. This proposed cull will likely see around 4,000 Badgers killed in one year, largely using the inhumane method of shooting.
Wild Justice is challenging this decision in the courts alongside our friends and partners in the Northern Ireland Badger Group (NIBG). We’re hitting the ground running; a cull could start as early as July this year so we need to act fast. On Tuesday we filed an application for judicial review of this decision at the Royal Courts of Justice in Northern Ireland, asking for an early hearing.
We say the consultation about whether to go ahead with the controversial programme of shooting Badgers withheld vital information so that contributors were not able to participate effectively. Our legal team have been working hard so far, but we’ve still a long way to go.
Comments Off on We ask for changes to the Woodcock shooting season.Woodcock. Photo: Tim Melling
The Woodcock is a wading bird, a bit like a large Snipe, which generally roosts in the day, often in woodland, and feeds by probing for invertebrates in soggy areas at night. It is also a gamebird and some 160,000 Woodcock are shot in the UK, in recreational shooting, each year.
Last week, Wild Justice wrote to George Eustice, the Secretary of State at DEFRA, and to Edwin Poots, the Minister for Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs in Northern Ireland, asking them to exercise their powers to change the seasons for Woodcock shooting across the UK. Slightly surprisingly, it seems that Mr Eustice still has the power to vary the shooting seasons in Wales and Scotland as well as in England but we assume this would be done in consultation with the Welsh Minister, Leslie Griffiths, and Scottish Cabinet Secretary, Mairi Gougeon.
The UK Woodcock breeding population is in decline and that is not in doubt. It has been moved from the UK Amber list to Red list because of this ongoing, well-documented population decline. Under those circumstances there is an argument that all Woodcock shooting should be halted but our suggestion is more modest than that – it is for the shooting season to open not on 1 October (1 September in Scotland) but on 1 December.
The rationale for such a change has been set out by the pro-shooting Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust and rests on the fact that the UK Woodcock population is swelled by large numbers of migrants from Europe and Asia in winter, and in mid winter the continental birds outnumber the UK birds by about 10:1. The arrival of Woodcock in late autumn is well known to naturalists and gives rise to the full moon in November often being known, to shooters and conservationists alike, as the Woodcock moon (for examples see here, here, here).
GWCT have asked shooters to show restraint and not to shoot Woodcock until 1 December but we are asking Mr Eustice and Mr Poots to make that suggestion a matter of law by a small but significant change to the shooting season.
A change to the shooting season is a simple matter and does not require primary legislation. It could be done, at no cost and with no delay in the next few weeks and be in place for next autumn’s shooting season. There is ample evidence from advertisements offering Woodcock shooting that the call for voluntary restraint has not been heeded.
This simple and precautionary change in order to reduce the pressure on a declining species of conservation concern is a modest request of politicians. We see it as a test of their commitment to wildlife conservation. If the decline of UK biodiversity is to be halted and reversed then much more expensive and radical action will be needed in many other areas of wildlife policy. Our proposal is simple, is based on science, is administratively easy and has trivial financial implications. If politicians cannot take action like this, then we cannot trust them to make good their promises to deliver a better future for wildlife.
Wild Justice is entirely dependent on donations. To support our work – click here. To hear more about our campaigns and legal cases subscribe to our free newsletter – click here.
Westminster Parliamentary petitions: Wild Justice supports the use of parliamentary petitions across the UK parliaments. They are a valuable way of bringing matters to the attention of politicians that might otherwise be avoided. All UK residents and citizens living abroad are entitled to sign such petitions. A Petitions Committee exists to run the process in the Wetminster parliament and acts as a gatekeeper to which petitions can go ahead and if and when they are debated. Almost always, a petition that receives 100,000 signatures in a 6-month period is subsequently debated in Westminster Hall, primarily by backbench MPs but with closing remarks from Opposition Shadow Ministers and Government ministers. Any petition which reaches 10,000 signatures receives a response from the government department responsible for that matter in England. Relatively few petitions reach 10,000 signatures, very few of those started get anywhere near 100,000 signatures.
Petition 333693 on how Badgers are killed in England: this petition was initiated by Wild Justice. Since someone has to submit the petition, in this case it was submitted by Mark Avery and the parliamentary process regards him as ‘the petitioner’. We regard ‘Wild Justice’ as the petitioner but that is of little importance since this petition was signed by 106,108 people and they all have an equal share in it. Thank you to all who signed the petition.
This petition was very clearly about how Badgers are culled in the DEFRA-sponsored Badger cull which purports to be a key means of eradicating bovine tuberculosis (bTB) in cattle. Here is the complete text of the short petition;
Shooting of Badgers is licensed by Natural England as part of the DEFRA Badger cull. 24,000+ Badgers were shot in 2019.
Shooting is poorly monitored and Wild Justice believes it has never met the animal welfare standards recommended by a 2014 Independent Expert Panel, whose recommendations were accepted by DEFRA. This method of culling is inhumane and should be banned immediately.
This petition was submitted by Wild Justice on 3 August 2020, immediately received the half a dozen signatures that each petition needs to jump the first hurdle but was not considered by the petitions team until late September (let’s put it down to covid). There was initial pushback from them saying that this petition was very similar to an existing petition until we pointed out that our petition was quite clearly about shooting, and about whether shooting was humane, and did not even mention vaccination. Our petition was published on 24 September 2020 and closed 6 months later on 24 March 2021 having passed 100,000 signatures. It took almost a year, until 21 March this year, for this successful petition to be debated (let’s put it down to covid although many petitions which reached 100,000 signatures after ours have been debated in the interim).
Support for this petition came from across the UK, but unsurprisingly primarily from England, and unsurprisingly, mainly from rural areas many of which are experiencing Badger culls.
At the time when this petition started Wild Justice pursued a legal challenge to the lawfulness of this method of culling – that challenge was unsuccessful (which doesn’t, of course, mean that shooting Badgers is acceptable).
In the run up to the debate many Wild Justice supporters drew the debate to the attention of their MPs (thank you for doing that), Mark Avery met, virtually, Nick Fletcher MP from the Petitions Committee to brief him on the petition and our thoughts, and we and other organisations, particularly the Badger Trust (many thanks!) briefed MPs on the issues.
The debate: and so, at 4:30pm on Monday afternoon, a small number of MPs met to debate this petition and in the public gallery Mark Avery and the Executive Director of the Badger Trust, Peter Hambley, attended in person. You can read the transcript of the debate – click here – or watch the video of it – click here and move to 10 minutes into the video for the start of the debate.
Here are our initial thoughts on the debate.
Nick Fletcher MP’s introduction: we are grateful to Mr Fletcher (Conservative, Don Valley) for the time and care he took to get briefed on the subject. His introduction was polite and fair. He stressed that ‘I have spoken to the petitioner, Mark Avery, and his main request is whether, should the Government continue with culling, it can be carried out more humanely. The Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill has just gone through Parliament. Surely that attitude to improving animal welfare should be reflected in our approach to TB reduction. Trapping and then killing is far better than wounding a badger and then letting it die a slow, painful death.‘. He might have added that the British Veterinary Association withdrew support for shooting free-running Badgers because this method is not humane as long ago as 2015. He might have pointed out that government did not adopt the welfare standards (fewer than 5% of badgers should take >5minutes to die) recommended by an expert panel and that monitoring of shooting shows that those standards have not been met in any subsequent year of Badger culls involving over 100,000 animals being shot.
Mike Amesbury MP (Labour, Weaver Vale): Mike didn’t say much, but it was good to hear ‘Not only does culling not respect animal welfare…’
Chris Loder MP (Conservative, Dorset West): if this name sounds familiar to you then it might be because Mr Loder went out on a limb, and has not been supported by fellow Conservative MPs when he said that White-tailed Eagles weren’t welcome in his constituency. Mr Loder comes from a farming family. It is unclear that Mr Loder actually read or thought about the petition and he certainly didn’t address the point made by his colleague Mr Fletcher in opening the debate, that this is about how to cull (if such a cull is to continue, as Mr Loder clearly thinks it should). Mr Loder failed to address the choice in front of this government about the method of culling – should it continue with the current less humane method or ensure that all Badgers culled (if the cull is to continue) should be culled by the most humane method available. If this were an exam question then Mr Loder failed to read the question carefully and deserves to get low marks.
Jim Shannon MP (Strangford, DUP): Mr Shannon agrees with Mr Loder, and owns a farm and is a member of the Ulster Farmers Union. He is also the treasurer of the All Party Group on shooting. Mr Shannon said that he supported the culling of badgers but failed to address the issue of the petition, pointed out by Mr Fletcher at the start, of whether he supported the less humane method of shooting at free living Badgers (though we can infer that he does). Although he uttered the rather empty words that Badgers ‘must be handled compassionately’ he did not say whether he thought shooting at Badgers in the dark was compassionate or whether he would favour a move to a more humane method. If this were an exam question then, like Mr Loder, Mr Shannon failed to read the question carefully and deserves to get low marks.
Sir Bill Wiggin (Conservative, North Herefordshire): Sir Bill is a farmer too, and a shooter too, funny that. Sir Bill regards, it seems, gassing as the only alternative to shooting in the dark with rifles – it clearly is not. Sir Bill, like Mr Loder and Mr Shannon, failed to read the question carefully and deserves to get low marks.
Daniel Zeichner (Labour, Cambridge): spoke for the Opposition EFRA team. He was well-briefed and on top of the subject to a large degree. Labour’s position would, in theory, avoid these welfare issues by switching to Badger vaccination, biosecurity and movement controls. Mr Zeichner made these points of direct relevance to the petition ‘The petition has a significant number of signatures. It focuses on the killing of badgers rather than the bovine TB issue, which I shall return to. The view expressed is that the shooting of badgers is poorly monitored and inhumane. Anecdotally, one is certainly told of cases where badgers are not shot cleanly and are left with injuries. According to Natural England’s compliance monitoring report for 2020, badgers were shot at but not retrieved in 11.4% of cases, but only one case of a badger being shot at but wounded and lost was reported; presumably some of the rest may not have been found. As with all such figures, the situation is not clear. I suggest that there is some cause for concern.‘ and ‘Can the Minister say why the number of badgers culled through free shooting rather than cage-trapping has changed so dramatically? According to the figures in the very good briefing prepared by the House of Commons Library, those numbers have increased from rough parity in 2014 to around four in five in 2020, creating a greater risk of inhumane culling. What is the reason for that? It seems that that is directly relevant to the question raised by the petitioners.‘. Mr Zeichner had read the exam question and scored high marks from us as a result.
Dr Lisa Cameron MP (Scottish National Party, East Kilbride): made a useful short intervention on vaccination.
Sir Robert Goodwill MP (Conservative, Scarborough and Whitby): made short interventions in favour of continued culling but failed to differentiate between shooting free running Badgers in the dark and the welfare issues it poses and cage-trapping. Sir Robert, like Sir Bill, Mr Loder and Mr Shannon, failed to read the question carefully and deserves to get low marks. That’s a clean sweep of back-bench MPs who favour continued culling who swerved the welfare issues associated with shooting in the dark – it’s almost as if they cannot face up to the issue even though they come from rural constituencies, claim to be farmers or know about farming and are largely supporters of fieldsports. Hmm.
Jo Churchill MP, (Conservative, Bury St Edmunds), Parliamentary under Secretary of State, DEFRA: the Minister, briefed by all those officials in DEFRA did not address the question of the welfare issues associated with the current and planned methods of Badger culling. The closest she came was to say, very briefly ‘we need to approach this issue in the most humane way possible‘ without giving any indication of what that is, despite the recommendations of an expert committee in the early years of this large-scale cull which her department have neglected to implement. Like Sir Robert, Sir Bill, Mr Loder and Mr Shannon, all those who spoke in favour of culling, the minister of the very department responsible for the cull and the way it is carried out could not bring herself to address the welfare issues involved.
It would be possible to read into this failure to address the welfare issues associated with a government-led massive cull of wildlife; that the Department responsible for it does not really care about the suffering its policy is imposing on our wildlife.
Wild Justice will be writing to DEFRA for clarification of their views on the welfare issues associated with shooting of free-running Badgers.
Yesterday afternoon, parliament debated our petition from last year, signed by over 106,000 of you. MPs gathered to discuss the issue of culling, following our call to ban the shooting of badgers immediately.
The discussion was generally civilised, with points presented from both sides of the debate. Some MPs, like Daniel Zeichner, spoke to defend badgers, and for his party’s support of a TB vaccination programme. Other MPs spoke in favour of continued culling, despite recent new research questioning its effectiveness.
You can watch the full debate back here, or if you prefer you can read the whole transcript here. We’ll be analysing the discussion in full, and will report back with some of our thoughts very soon…
Comments Off on Update: DAERA and delays, delays delays…
It seems we’ve encountered yet another delay with the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs’ (DAERA) promised consultation on General Licenses in Northern Ireland. The consultation, which was promised by 21 March 2022, has yet to materialise on DAERA’s website.
In December last year, Wild Justice were successful in a legal challenge to Northern Ireland’s general licences for the killing of wild birds.
At the time, DAERA conceded that their general licences were flawed and unlawful. They also said they’d replace them with interim licences, and reassured us that a full public consultation would be launched in due course. After several delays, we were told the consultation would finally launch on March 21.
Once again we’re left waiting, and once again we’ll keep you updated as things develop…
Comments Off on More progress on general licences in WalesA Jackdaw – should soon be better protected in Wales
UPDATE: THESE RECOMMENDATIONS WERE APPROVED BY THE NRW BOARD ON THURSDAY 24 MARCH
At their Board meeting next week, Natural Resources Wales is expected to approve further improvements to their general licences in line with what Wild Justice has argued both in consultation responses and in the courts. And many Wild Justice supporters can take credit for their responses to the consultation being a part of that process– thank you!
The board paper (Review of NRW’s approach to regulating the shooting and trapping of Wild Birds: General Licences 22-03-15 – click here – paragraphs 31 and 32) takes on board Wild Justice’s arguments about the ‘conservation licence GL004’ by:
restricting the scope of the protected species to those which actually nest in Wales (see our blog on this subject almost two whole years ago – click here)
restricting the period under which the conservation licence can be used (see the judgment of Justice Jarman – click here)
removing Magpie, Jackdaw and Jay (see previous Wild Justice blog on Jackdaws, and Mark Avery’s several blogs on Jays) from GL004 (leaving only one species, namely Carrion Crow).
NRW is being too modest about its proposals. They will, if approved, mean that Wales has by far the best, the most scientifically robust, conservation general licence across the UK (see this comparison – click here).
We’ll have to see what the NRW Board says about the paper but given that NRW has done an evidence review, carried out a public consultation and told a judge what the limits on their licence GL004 are, it would be an exceptional slap in the face for the science, the public, the courts and NRW staff if the Board were not to approve these recommendations.
We note that elsewhere in the paper (paragraph 30) NRW proposes to ‘define in the general licence the particular species-to-purpose combinations where lethal control is authorised’. That sounds sensible if it means, as we believe it does, that it will be made clear that you can’t kill a Woodpigeon because it might attack a lamb nor a Magpie because it might eat your Oil Seed Rape crop. We’ll look closely when more detail is available but on the face of it, this too reduces the casual licensing of casual killing of birds. We recommend this approach to other nations.
Well done, NRW staff! Let’s hope your Board follows through on these sensible measures. You will be leading the way across the four UK nations…
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Comments Off on Important new study on Badger culling
Today an important paper on Badger culling has been published in the journal Veterinary Record. The paper reports on new and detailed analysis, and concludes that Badger culling has been ineffective in reducing bovine Tuberculosis in cattle herds.
It is significant because it is is the largest examination of Government data on Badger culls, which have seen over 140,000 Badgers killed, to date.
Authored by biologist Thomas Langton, and vets Dr Mark Jones and Dr Iain McGill, the study compares both the incidence and prevalence of bovine TB in areas where Badger culls have taken place, and those where they haven’t. Over the duration of the study, incidences of TB peaked and began to decline; however there was no statistical evidence showing any difference in the rate and nature of decline between culling and no-culling areas. You can read the full study here; we’ve shared the abstract from it below.
To us, this looks like yet another reason to be highly sceptical about whether culling works – whether it reduces bTB levels. Looking at the evidence, it seems killing large numbers of Badgers isn’t beneficial for farmers and their industry. It certainly isn’t good for Badgers, and it’s often carried out in an inhumane way.
Wild Justice will review this study carefully in the coming days, and we’ll of course update you with any developments from here…
Analysis of the impact of badger culling on bovine tuberculosis in cattle in the high-risk area of England, 2009–2020 Thomas E. S. Langton, Mark W. Jones, Iain McGill
Abstract Background Since 2013, badger culling has been part of the UK Government’s strategy for controlling bovine tuberculosis (bTB) within a high-risk area (HRA) in England. Government surveillance data now enables an examination of bTB herd incidence and prevalence, its headline indicators, within and outside cull areas over the period 2009–2020.
Methods Analysis compared herd incidence and prevalence data from within and outside badger culling areas. A range of models (GLMs, GLMMs, GAMs and GAMMs) were used to analyse incidence and prevalence in culled and unculled areas using frequentist and Bayesian approaches. Change in incidence across ten county areas within the HRA for the period 2010–2020 was also compared.
Results Analyses based on Defra published data using a variety of statistical methodologies did not suggest that badger culling affected herd bTB incidence or prevalence over the study period. In 9 of 10 counties, bTB incidence peaked and began to fall before badger culling commenced.
Limitations There are limitations around the data available on culling location, temporal information and other confounding factors. As such, further analysis of any future datasets that may be released on bTB levels in areas where badger culling has been implemented is warranted.
Conclusion This examination of government data obtained over a wide area and a long time period failed to identify a meaningful effect of badger culling on bTB in English cattle herds. These findings may have implications for the use of badger culling in current and future bTB control policy.
Comments Off on Link Guest Blog: Ask your MP to end Badger cull cruelty on 21 March
Today the Wildlife and Countryside Link have hosted a blog from Wild Justice on their website. You can read what we said below:
In 2020 Wild Justice launched a Parliamentary Petition calling for an immediate ban on the licensing of the shooting of Badgers by Natural England. When it closed in March 2021, the petition had gathered 106,108 signatures from the public.
After almost a year’s wait, we’ve finally got a date for the petition to be debated in the Westminster Parliament; Monday 21 March 2022 [NOTE, previously advertised as 14 March but rescheduled by the Petitions Committee]. We’re asking the public to encourage their MPs to attend on that day and make the case for Badgers.
Since the first Badger culls were proposed in England in 2010, an estimated 140,000 badgers have been killed in England, for which shooting was the preferred method. Earlier in 2020, Wild Justice challenged the legality of free shooting of Badgers. We argued that Badger shooting is inhumane and that in licensing it Natural England is not taking account of the recommendations made to government by an expert panel on the animal welfare aspects of culling. In June 2021, we heard our challenge had been unsuccessful.
In 2014, an Independent Expert Panel, chaired by Sir Ranald Munro, delivered a report to the Government following the first year of culling. The report concluded that shooting Badgers was likely to cause suffering in a significant proportion of cases. Between 7.4% and 22.8% of Badgers that had been shot took more than five minutes to die from blood loss, bullet wounds and organ failure. After the following year of pilot culls, the Independent Expert Panel was disbanded by DEFRA Secretary of State Owen Paterson. Since then, independent monitoring of cull contractors has reduced, and shooting has remained the primary method of killing Badgers in cull areas.
Support for this method of culling has continued to dwindle; in 2015, the British Veterinary Association stated that they “can no longer support the use of controlled shooting as the pilot culls have failed to demonstrate that this method can be used effectively and humanely”.
The coming debate is another opportunity to register public concern about the Badger cull which has grown in projected scale since it first started. The number of signatures demonstrated that this is an important public issue.
When the date for the Parliamentary debate was announced, we in turn asked our supporters to consider writing to their MP. The more Badger-friendly voices we can encourage to attend, the better. There is still time to do this; if you live in England, consider sending an email to your MP and ask them if they’ll attend on Monday 21 March. We’ve included some suggested wording on our blog, but feel free to use your own words too.
Comments Off on What’s happening with Badgers in Northern Ireland?
Our Crowdfunder for a legal challenge of a proposed Badger cull in Northern Ireland has just passed £25,000 in donations. Thank you to everyone for your support and contributions!
So, where are we at with news of this proposed cull? Wild Justice have been in detailed correspondence with the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) about our challenge. Throughout this correspondence, DAERA have repeatedly told us they believe our challenge, should it be launched at the moment, would be premature. We’ve still had no formal statement from DAERA on whether they intend to go ahead with their proposed cull or not.
In the meantime, the news and comment in the wider political and farming sector suggests very strongly that DAERA are in fact intending to implement a Badger cull. An article in Irish Farmers Journal last week mentioned the proposed cull and that DAERA’s officials are working ‘at pace’ to finalise their new TB Strategy which remains one of DAERA’s ‘top priorities’. That doesn’t sound like the decision to implement a cull is in the balance to us.
Wild Justice have also heard that DAERA will be reporting on this strategy, and their plans for a cull, to the Committee for Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs on Wednesday morning, at 10am. We’ll be watching this with interest, and you can too.
So, whilst DAERA may be telling us that filing the next set of legal papers would be premature, we’re still actively preparing, with our friends in the Northern Ireland Badger Group, to challenge any plans to cull Badgers in Northern Ireland and to take that challenge through the courts.
Comments Off on Allegations about Chris Packham are defamatory, High Court rules
Wild Justice co-director Chris Packham is suing three defendants for libel after a series of articles, videos and tweets, published in 2020 and 2021 accused Chris of mis-using his role as a BBC presenter to ‘defraud’ the public.
A preliminary hearing took place at the High Court in February 2022 and yesterday the judgement was published.
Chris, partner Charlotte and some of his legal team at the High Court in February
The following is a press statement from Chris’s lawyers, Leigh Day:
Country Squire articles, videos and tweets about Chris Packham were defamatory.
A series of nine articles in Country Squire magazine, two videos on YouTube and eight tweets about Chris Packham were defamatory, according to a judgement handed down today.
An initial trial of preliminary issues about the meaning of the articles, videos and tweets rejected the contention that all were expressing an opinion.
The defendants claimed that when they contended that Mr Packham misused his role as a BBC presenter to defraud the public into making charitable donations on the false pretext that tigers had been mistreated by a circus and rescued by a zoo, they were expressing an opinion.
They relied on question marks, reference to the need for clarifications, an invitation to the reader to “make up your own mind” as part of their case.
However Mr Justice Johnson held that the meaning of each article is defamatory of Mr Packham at common law and amounts to a statement of fact.
He rejected arguments that serious allegations of fraud were mitigated. References to the police and other investigating bodies “were not presented in a way to suggest that the reader should keep an open mind. They again reinforce the central theme of the publications that the claimant has perpetrated a fraud on the public”.
He said the parts of the publications that express opinions were ancillary to the defamatory meanings that the articles convey.
Following the determination of the meanings of the publications, it is expected that a substantive trial will be held towards the end of the year.
Mr Packham began proceedings following repeated allegations in Country Squire magazine that he defrauded the public into donating funds for the Wildheart Trust, where he is a trustee, by falsely claiming that it had rescued emotionally and physically broken tigers from European circuses.
The claims were independently investigated by the Fundraising Regulator and found to be unsupported, but the defendants refused to remove the articles, tweets and videos from the public domain and since the proceedings were issued, repeated the allegations.
Following the judgment, Chris Packham said:
“Truth and love, and a love of truth are things we cherish. They give us the ability to proceed, to become better people. They give us a chance of making a better world. So we must protect them, sometimes at great personal cost. And that is why I have no choice but pursue this course of litigation. “In this case the three defendants have proactively sought to damage my reputation. There is a line in the sand and it’s been crossed and I aim to ensure that they and any others who seek to employ such methods cross back again. And stay there.”
Chris Packham is represented by Leigh Day partner Tessa Gregory and solicitor Carol Day, who said:
“Our client is pleased the judge has recognised these very serious allegations are defamatory at common law. The burden of proof is now on the defendants to show a lawful defence to these claims in a substantive trial.”
Comments Off on Update: The Schrodinger’s Pheasant conundrum.
You might remember our recent head-scratcher involving gamebirds; when is a Pheasant livestock, and when is it wildlife? Today news of our legal challenge to DEFRA was reported in the Guardian online – we expect it’ll be in the print edition tomorrow.
Updates to the English General Licence GL42, earlier this year, meant gamebirds, such as Pheasants and Red-legged Partridges, were classified as livestock if they were ‘dependent’ on food, water or shelter provided by gamekeepers even after they had left their release pens in the countryside. By being classified as livestock, this opened the door for gamekeepers to shoot other wild birds, like Rooks, Jackdaws, Crows and Magpies in order to ‘protect’ the gamebirds for a longer period, and under wider circumstances, than had previously been the case.
The article in the Guardian reports on today’s news of a U-turn by Defra brought about by Wild Justice’s threat of legal action (not simply public outcry, as the article suggests). DEFRA conceded that only food, water or shelter provided ‘by or within the release pen’ is relevant when assessing if a gamebird is wild, or livestock.
Defra agreed to revise the definition, telling Wild Justice’s lawyers: “The secretary of state does not consider pheasants to be livestock within the meaning of the WCA 81 [Wildlife and Countryside Act, 1981] once they cease to be kept”.
We consider this to be good news. Wild Justice are, however, still deeply sceptical about whether the whole General Licence system is the best way to regulate activity in the murky field of ‘pest control’. We’ll be keeping an eye on things, as always…
Comments Off on Update: DAERA delays again on Consultation on General Licences…
Back in December, Wild Justice were successful in a legal challenge to Northern Ireland’s general licences for the killing of wild birds.
The Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) conceded that their general licences were flawed and unlawful. At the time they said they’d replace them with interim licences, and reassured us that a full public consultation would be launched in due course.
Initially we were told the consultation would begin in early February. Early February came and went. Following some prodding, DAERA then promised the consultation would happen sometime between late February and early March – but definitely no later than March 7 2022.
March 7 has now passed. Yesterday, we heard from DAERA that they’re aiming for the consultation to go public on 21 March 2022. The reason given for multiple delays was a vague one; “Officials are awaiting final clearance from the Minister.”
Will we see the consultation appear on the 21st? We will wait and find out, and of course keep you updated as we go…
Comments Off on Please write to your MP about Badgers
Last year, over 106,000 of you signed our petition asking for a ban on shooting Badgers in England. Yesterday, we finally heard that our petition will be debated in Parliament very soon – Monday 14th March at 16:30.Update: The debate on Shooting Badgers in England has been postponed to Monday 21st March, at 4:30.
Once again, we need your help. We’d like to make sure we have as much impact as possible in this debate, arguing in defence of these charismatic animals and pushing to enact the ban we called for.
Write to your MP, and ask them to attend the debate in person.
Writing to your MP.
Please write to your MP, informing them about the debate and asking them to attend. We’ve provided some suggested wording below, and here is some introductory guidance:
Where you live: Writing to your MP about this debate is particularly useful if you live in England, as this was the remit of our petition – however, please still consider writing if you live in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland. This debate could have repercussions across the four nations. For example, we’re currently fundraising for a legal challenge to a proposed Badger cull in Northern Ireland, which would use shooting as the method of killing Badgers.
Who exactly your MP is: If your MP is a Government or Shadow Minister, it is unlikely they’d attend. Do still ask – and perhaps ask them to share your views with their backbench colleagues who may be able to attend instead. You can find your MP’s contact details here.
Your details: Don’t forget to include information about yourself – MPs often require an address, and even telephone number, in order for them to respond to a constituent’s email.
Your signature: If you signed our petition in 2020 – don’t forget to mention it!
Dear_____
I am writing to you as one of your constituents, to ask you to stand up for a wildlife issue that is very important to me. Last year a petition calling for an immediate ban on shooting Badgers in England gathered over 106,000 signatures.
The petition is being debated in Westminster Hall, on Monday March 21st at 16:30. As your constituent, I am asking you to attend this debate, and support the call for a ban on the inhumane practice of shooting Badgers.
I feel that this is an important and timely debate, coming at a crucial time for Britain’s wildlife. As you know, the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill (2021-22) is currently making its way through the House of Commons, drawing attention to animal welfare issues and recognising animals as sentient beings. In England, the Environment Act has set in stone targets to end the decline of species by 2030.
It seems to me that in the midst of a biodiversity crisis, we should not be pursuing massive culls of a native species. These types of interventions should only be considered if there’s robust scientific evidence to show they’re the only way to address a problem and they can be carried out humanely. I don’t believe either of these factors is true in the case of the culling of Badgers.
May I please ask you to attend the debate on shooting Badgers on Monday 21st March at 16:30?
Yours sincerely,
Provide name (including surname) and address and telephone number (to show that you really are a constituent and therefore deserve a proper response)
Comments Off on Breaking News: Date confirmed for Badger-shooting debatePhoto credit: Vincent Van-Zalinge
Breaking news: you may remember our petition calling for a ban on shooting Badgers in England. You might have been one of the the 106,108 people who signed it back in 2020.
At the time, we argued that shooting is poorly monitored and is a method of culling that is inhumane. We said we believe it has never met the animal welfare standards recommended by a 2014 Independent Expert Panel, whose recommendations were accepted by DEFRA. We therefore called for a ban on shooting Badgers in England.
Today we’ve heard our petition will be debated by MPs in Westminster Hall at 16:30 on Monday March 14th. Update: The debate on Shooting Badgers in England has been postponed to Monday 21st March, at 16:30. This is rather short notice, so we’d like your help in making sure Badgers get a fair debate on the day. Nick Fletcher MP, a member of the Petitions Committee, will open the debate.
If you live in England, please consider writing to your MP and asking them to attend the debate on the 21st. By speaking up, you’ll demonstrate there is a widespread support of this ban across the country.
We’ll be updating shortly on the time and full details of the debate [updated 17:10, 2 March], and will also share some suggested wording for contacting your MP in due course and initially through our newsletter. For now, please add the date to your diaries, and consider watching live on the day.
Comments Off on Chris Loder MP and the eagles (3) – Poll Results & MP Responses
Recently Chris Loder MP ruffled feathers after declaring that his constituency county of Dorset ‘is not the place for eagles to be reintroduced’. Following the news of two White-tailed Eagles found dead under suspicious circumstances, one of which was on a shooting estate in Dorset, Mr Loder’s views highlighted the frustrating and far-too-frequently seen culture of intolerance towards birds of prey in the UK.
We wanted to see if this feeling was shared widely– so we launched a simple Twitter poll asking if birds of prey, like White-tailed Eagles, are welcome where you are.
Twitter Poll: 99.3% of respondents said ‘birds of prey welcome’, 0.3% said ‘birds of prey, no thanks!’.
We’re pleased to say of the nearly 4,000 of you who responded, the overwhelming majority (97.3%) welcome birds of prey. The tiny minority (0.3%) saying ‘no thanks’ to birds of prey represented less than 30 people. This is quite a clear-cut result, even if we know our audience is generally a wildlife-friendly one.
We were also interested to see if this anti-eagle sentiment was shared by other MPs and elected representatives across the UK – so we asked you to write to them. Thank you to those who did; we’ve now started hearing some responses back. They’re mixed, and interesting.
Some, like this response from, are generally supportive of the reintroductions and welcomed an investigation into the two recently reported deaths:
Dear ________
Thank you for contacting me about White-Tailed Eagles.
I would like to assure you that my ministerial colleagues are committed to the recovery of species, including wild birds. I welcome that the Environment Act 2021 includes a new legally binding target to halt the decline in species abundance by 2030. I know that ministers continue to provide opportunities for successful reintroductions such as white-tailed eagle to the Isle of Wight, pine marten in the Forest of Dean, and restoring populations of hen harrier and curlew.
I am aware that several schemes to reintroduce white-tailed eagles have been working across the UK. Like you, I was very concerned to hear that two of these eagles have recently been found dead. I welcome that police are investigating these deaths, with post-mortem and toxicological examinations being conducted.
Thank you again for contacting me on this issue.
Others were more aligned to Mr Loder’s views – sharing a similar scaremongering rhetoric about the risk of White-tailed Eagle reintroduction to people’s pets:
Thank you for your email concerning the potential reintroduction of white-tailed eagles to Herefordshire.
I am not against the reintroduction of certain species in principle.
However, I am reluctant to support the reintroduction of large predators and raptors due to their impact on livestock and people’s pets.
As a resident of Herefordshire, I am sure that you can appreciate the stress and misery which is caused to farmers by dogs which attack or worry their livestock.
However, in the case of dogs worrying livestock, there is at least an owner that is legally responsible for the behaviour of their pet.
Eagles of course have no owner, and there would therefore be no way of compensating farmers affected when they attack sheep.
That is not even to mention the potential anguish which could be caused when eagles kill or carry away beloved family pets.
The cost of these reintroduction programmes cannot be ignored.
I believe that the money spent on these could be used better in other areas of conservation.
Thank you again for writing to me.
Yours sincerely
Then some were short but sweet – like this one:
Thanks. Mr Loder’s views are his own and he is not accountable to me. I support the Eagles!
Whilst only a tiny sample, it goes to show opinions are divided. These three responses were all from Conservative MPs, so attitudes differs even within political parties. The fact that misinformed opinions and inaccuracies about wildlife are shared quite widely is a worrying thing. As always, we’ll be working to correct and challenge this.
Comments Off on New research: lead levels in pheasant meat haven’t reduced two years on from voluntary transition to non-toxic shot.
Two years ago a group of shooting organisations, including BASC and the Countryside alliance, announced a five-year, voluntary transition away from using toxic lead shot in the UK.
New research, reported yesterday in The Guardian, has shown that to date, this voluntary phase-out has had no measurable effect in reducing the levels of lead in pheasant meat. Of 215 birds found to containing pellets or pellet fragments, 99.5% were shown to have been shot using lead.
In response to the news, Wild Justice said: “Another 12 months of zero progress from the shooting industry. All talk and no action. UK governments should simply ban the use of lead ammunition rather than let this charade continue.”
Comments Off on Please help us defend Badgers in Northern Ireland
This morning Wild Justice launched a new fundraising appeal. Once again we are looking to challenge a proposed cull of Badgers – this time in Northern Ireland.
So far, over 500 of you have backed our fundraiser, donating over £12,000 towards our challenge. Thank you to everyone who’s donated!
So, what’s this about?
Back in 2021, the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) proposed a cull of Badgers that could commence as early as July 2022.
Working closely with our friends, the Northern Ireland Badger Group (NIBG), we looked into the legality of DAERA’s proposal, and we spotted an issue. In their proposal, DAERA made repeated references to there being a ‘business case’ for culling badgers. Despite multiple requests being made, neither Wild Justice nor NIBG have been granted access to this ‘business case’, nor the evidence used to make it. For this reason, we believe that DAERA’s proposition to carry out a cull of Badgers has not been subject to lawful consultation with the public.
Wild Justice are now seeking a Judicial Review of the lawfulness of DAERA’s proposed Badger cull and have sent DAERA a formal legal letter as the first step in this process. Now comes the part when we ask for your help!
The first stage of the challenge will cost £50,000; these funds will go towards paying our lawyers, court costs, the costs of research and costs awarded against us if our challenge is unsuccessful. Wild Justice is meeting the costs of the NIBG in this case. Some of this money has already been spent from our savings but we can’t take the challenge all the way without raising more funds.
This is just the latest attempt to cull Badgers in the UK; it’s a topic Wild Justice have campaigned on a lot in the past, particularly relating to culls in England. This time we’re taking the fight to Northern Ireland, and we’d really appreciate your support.
Comments Off on Chris Loder MP and the eagles (2) – what does your elected representative think?
Chris Loder MP’s views (see preceding blog post) don’t seem to be getting much support on social media – our little poll has passed 2000 votes and there are fewer than 1% of responses saying ‘No thanks’ to birds of prey.
But given the continuing unremitting news of illegal killing of birds of prey, and persecution of other wildlife and general lack of respect for wildlife, this seems like an opportune moment to check in with our elected representatives and speak up for birds of prey as iconic and threatened wildlife.
So, Wild Justice is asking you to write to your MP or MSP, MS or MLA (England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland) along the following lines, just as a guide;
TEXT TO CONSIDER SENDING TO YOUR ELECTED REPRESENTATIVE:
Dear ______
I am writing to you as a constituent, to ask for your opinion on a wildlife issue that is very important to me. I was saddened to hear the recent news that two White-tailed Eagles have been found dead in Southern England, but I was dismayed to read Chris Loder MP’s view that ‘Dorset is not the place for eagles to be reintroduced’ and that eagles are ‘killing our lambs and plaguing our farmers’.
White-tailed Eagles are a native UK species; they belong here. Dedicated conservation organisations, such as the Roy Dennis Foundation, have worked hard to reintroduce this remarkable bird, which was previously driven to extinction in the UK through a range of factors but mainly the type of human persecution that is now, rightly, illegal.
White-tailed Eagles have been successfully reintroduced to Scotland, thanks to a lengthy and expensive, but very successful, project by many individual conservationists and conservation organisations. Since the recent releases on the Isle of Wight, members of the public have been thrilled to spot White-tailed Eagles soaring in skies across the UK; from Scotland to the Midlands, and even over Westminster. On Mull the reintroduced White-tailed Eagles draw people to the island to see the birds, enjoy the scenery and spend their tourist money in the local community. Whichever way you look at it, they are an asset.
Birds of prey, including eagles, have suffered centuries of persecution in the UK. It’s disheartening to see outdated, anti-bird-of-prey sentiments being expressed by elected political representatives. Raptor persecution is still a problem today, despite it being a wildlife crime, and perpetuating these antiquated opinions is not what we need in the midst of today’s biodiversity crisis.
I hope to see the UK become a place that White-tailed Eagles, and indeed all native birds of prey, are both welcome and able to thrive in a healthy natural environment, free from persecution.
Can I ask if you would welcome White-tailed Eagles and other birds of prey in your constituency?
Yours sincerely,
Provide name (including surname) and address (to show that you really are a constituent and therefore deserve a proper response)
We’d be interested to see any responses you get. There will be some Wild Justice supporters who are constituents of Chris Loder himself – please do write to him politely but firmly if you disagree with his views.
It seems very strange that when UK wildlife is in such a poor state, that elected representatives can speak out against restoring wildlife to its former areas, and when so often the reason for wildlife lossses is criminal behaviour, that elected representatives can act as though that criminality is a low priority. We need a re-boot of the political consciousness so that all that talk about restoring wildlife and stopping its decline is translated into action. Please send that message today.
Comments Off on Chris Loder MP and the eagles (1) – a quick poll
Last week, following the news that two White-tailed Eagles from the Isle of Wight reintroduction project had been found dead, and an appeal from Dorset Police for information, Chris Loder MP took to Twitter to declare that ‘Dorset is not the place for eagles to be reintroduced’. He also stated that he’d prefer Dorset Police to focus on issues other than potential wildlife crime. Following widespread public criticism, Mr Loder doubled-down on his viewpoint, going on to accuse eagles of ‘killing our lambs and plaguing our farmers’.
Mr Loder is entitled to have whatever views he wants on the matter of White-tailed Eagles (although his statements included inaccuracies which should have been checked) but his remarks exemplify the intolerance which is shown all too often to wildlife in our country. Whenever conservationists seek to restore lost wildlife there seems to be an uproar, whether it be White-tailed Eagles, Pine Martens, Beavers or even restoring woodlands or wetlands. Mr Loder is not alone in his views and, in a strange way, he has done us all a favour by voicing them so publicly.
So here is a quick and easy way you can voice your views. Yesterday evening we launched a simple poll on Twitter asking whether you welcome White-tailed Eagles or not – over 1000 responses have been received overnight with overwhelming support for eagles – please add your voice in their favour here – the more the better. Thank you!
We’ll come back to this issue later today.
Wild Justice is entirely dependent on donations. To support our work – click here. To hear more about our campaigns and legal cases subscribe to our free newsletter – click here.
Comments Off on Update: Consultation on General Licences in Northern Ireland
Back in December, Wild Justice were successful in a legal challenge to Northern Ireland’s general licences for the killing of wild birds.
At the time, the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) conceded our claim that the decision to issue three general licences on 10 September 2021 that permit the killing of birds in the province is unlawful.
DAERA also stated they’d be replacing their flawed general licences with interim licences, and promised that a full public consultation would be launched in due course. We’ve been waiting patiently.
So far in 2022, Wild Justice have pressed DAERA on when it will be consulting on general licences. Last week, we received a reply, saying the consultation will start in late February or early March. This is later than DAERA promised, but as least we have an idea of timelines.
We will be keeping a close eye on this, and will update as things develop…
Three years ago Wild Justice had its public launch. We’re still very much new kids on the conservation block and yet, with your support, we’ve made some progress on a wide range of issues. We’ve had some successes, and some disappointments, but we’ve made waves and made public bodies sit up and pay attention – and begin to raise their game in some areas. That’s not bad for an organisation which is essentially three mates and is only in its infancy.
As a birthday present we’d ask you to spend a moment thinking of whether you have some friends, relatives or colleagues who would be interested in Wild Justice’s campaigns and legal challenges. If so, please tell them about this website and our free newsletter and then maybe they’ll help us celebrate our fourth birthday and the achievements of the year to come. Thank you!
We’ve learned, since our public launch on 13 February 2019, that public bodies almost always try to delay any legal challenge against them, despite the procedures set out for judicial review proceedings. We’ve decided to push back harder on these requests as below. The procedure in England requires all the relevant steps of a legal challenge to be carried out in a timely manner. If more time is sought then good reasons should be given.
Comments Off on Our legal letter challenging Defra’s General Licence GL42
We recently blogged about our initial steps to challenge Defra on the lawfulness of General Licence GL42. Whilst we wait for a response, here is the letter setting out the legal issues which DEFRA has to address.
Unless we receive a legally watertight and convincing response to that letter by 4pm a week today we will proceed to seek permission for judicial review of DEFRA’s decision.
Comments Off on Wild Justice starts legal challenge of DEFRA’s general licence GL42.
Our infographic above captures the absurdity of DEFRA’s position on whether birds such as Pheasants and Red-legged Partridges are or are not livestock. It seems they are whenever it suits the shooting industry but not when it doesn’t.
On 1 January, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) issued a new general licence, GL42, which authorises the killing of certain species of birds (mostly of the crow family), in England, to protect livestock from serious damage. Changes to the wording in that licence, that Wild Justice understands were introduced after pressure from shooting and farming interest groups, attracted public concern (see this article in The Guardian and this from George Monbiot). Last week, after receiving legal advice, Wild Justice sent a formal legal letter to DEFRA as the first stage of a challenge of the lawfulness of GL42. Unless we receive a legally watertight and convincing response to that letter we will proceed to seek permission for judicial review of DEFRA’s decision.
The context for this legal challenge is that all wild birds in the UK are protected by law with two main exceptions, both of which are in play in this case: gamebirds and species listed on general licences.
Gamebirds, which include the non-native Pheasant and Red-legged Partridge, can be killed in the open seasons. Around 50 million Pheasants and 11 million Red-legged Partridges are released into the UK countryside every year (Covid, Brexit and Wild Justice’s legal action will have reduced numbers in the last couple of years) and around 30% of these birds are shot while the rest die of disease, starvation and are taken by predators, most notably mammalian predators such as foxes.
General licences permit the killing of certain specified bird species, such as species of crow, under certain specified circumstances with certain specified conditions attached. If you meet the conditions and are acting in the specified circumstances then you are covered by the general licence to kill listed species. You don’t have to apply for your own licence, you are covered by the general licences which are published on government websites.
The 2022-23 version of GL42 appears to broaden the circumstances under which gamebirds can be considered livestock and therefore can be protected from corvids. It does so by introducing the concept that gamebirds can be ‘dependent’ on their human owners or keepers even after they are released into the countryside, at any time in the future and at any distance from their release site.
Wild Justice said: Any licence authorising killing of wildlife should be clear about when it can be used. DEFRA’s GL42 fails that test. In any case, why is DEFRA fiddling with definitions of livestock while wildlife declines?
Coverage of this story in the Guardian – click here.
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Comments Off on Wild Justice Raptor Forensic Fund helps secure conviction of buzzard-killing gamekeeper John Orrey
Gamekeeper John Orrey, 63, of Hall Farm, Kneeton, Nottinghamshire was sentenced today at Nottingham Magistrates Court (see here) after being convicted of the following 5 x wildlife crime and 4 x firearms charges:
• Possession of two dead stock doves.
• Intentionally killing a common buzzard on 8/1/21
• Intentionally killing a common buzzard on 9/1/21
• Using a cage trap to kill or take a wild bird
• Possession of an article (slash hook) capable of being used to commit an offence
• Failure to comply with condition of shotgun certificate (weapon not securely stored)
• Failure to comply with condition of firearms certificate (ammunition not securely stored)
• Failure to comply with condition of firearms certificate (weapons and ammunition not securely stored)
• Possessing ammunition for a firearm without a certificate
Photo of John Orrey from BBC News
In relation to the killing of the buzzards, for each bird he received an 18-week suspended sentence to run concurrently and a £500 fine for each bird. He was also ordered to pay £650 costs and £50 victim surcharge, and £180 compensation to the Raptor Forensics Fund established by Wild Justice in 2020.
Our fund was used to pay for the cost of two post mortems on the Stock Doves found dead inside Orrey’s trap – they had both been shot (this is illegal as they’re a protected species). We’re delighted that Nottinghamshire Police were able to access this fund to help during the preliminary investigation into Orrey’s crimes and we’re even more delighted to hear that the District Judge ordered Orrey to pay a compensation fee covering the full amount. This money will go directly to the Raptor Forensic Fund to be recycled on another case.
This is the second conviction that our Raptor Forensics Fund has helped secure. The first one was gamekeeper Hilton Prest who was found guilty in December 2021 of the unlawful use of a trap (see here).
Thank you to all those who contributed to our Raptor Forensics Fund and thanks also to the PAW Forensic Working Group (a sub-group of the Partnership for Action Against Wildlife Crime) who administer our fund and ensure that police officers can access it without delay to help progress their investigations into raptor persecution crimes.
Comments Off on An open letter to the statutory conservation sector
Wild Justice is one of a very large number of NGO signatories to this open letter to the statutory conservation sector in England, Wales and Scotland. It’s pretty strong wording for a letter of this type and that is because the NGO cosnervation community is losiong patience with the statutory sector as it continues to fail our wildlife despite warm words from politicians.
Yesterday the Judicial Review and Courts Bill was debated in Committee. The Opposition were trying to get rid of Clause 1 which would allow, under some circumstances, judges to impose Suspended or Prospective-only Quashing Orders when a party, perhaps a party such as Wild Justice, wins a Judicial Review of a decision by a statutory body. This could mean, as we understand it, that you or we could take a legal challenge, at considerable expense, win it by persuading the courts that the public body had behaved unlawfully, but instead of getting a rapid change to matters on the ground such resolution of an unlawful state of affairs would be postponed. So you win, but nothing changes for ages.
As the coalition of countryside and environmental organisations, Wildlife and Countryside Link, say:
Judicial Review is an important tool for securing remedies for unlawful decisions which will or could harm the environment.
Clause 1 of the Judicial Review Bill introduces changes to JR that could make it impossible for claimants to secure effective remedies for unlawful decisions.
As currently drafted, clause 1 would … introduc[e] the possibility (through suspended and prospective quashing orders) that the decision could be found unlawful, but the remedy denied or delayed and harmful consequences allowed to continue.
Claimants faced with this potential outcome will be significantly less likely to invest time and money overcoming the considerable JR hurdles, for fear of wasted effort and expense. The knowledge that winning might not actually prevent the damage that prompted litigation could prevent many potential claimants from starting proceedings.
The Justice Minister, James Cartlidge MP, did his job in opposing the amendment on this subject, thus:
Amendment 1 and amendments 2 and 3, which are consequential on amendment 1, would remove one of the new tools we are proposing—namely, prospective-only quashing or quashing with limited retrospective effect. Let me remind the House of an example I have used previously of a real situation where the existence of the remedy could have been useful. It occurred when Natural England, in response to a threatened judicial review, decided to revoke general licences enabling farmers, landowners and gamekeepers to shoot pest birds. The revocation created immediate chaos for licence holders. I do not seek to re-litigate this case in the Chamber, but as I have said before, had the proposed remedies been available, Natural England may have been more willing to contest the judicial review, knowing that even if the existing licensing scheme was found to be unlawful, the court had the ability to protect past reliance on old licences. Such cases provide a tangible example of how more flexible remedies will allow courts to respond pragmatically and assist our constituents, rather than detract from their interests.
Read the last sentence of the Minister’s words. He’s saying that the fact that the general licences were unlawful is very inconvenient to his constituents but what he might really mean is that it is a bit inconvenient to a tiny proportion of his constituents who were using those unlawful general licences but with whom he tended to associate himself. Or, that even if the licences were unlawful then it should be possible, under the government’s proposals, to carry on the behaviours unlawfully permitted to save some gamekeepers any inconvenience. It’s a very strange example to choose, but it’s interesting that it was the best he could do, and may not be the wisest line to take for a government mired in controversy over whether laws are meant for everyone except themselves.
It’s interesting that the Justice minister suggests that in future Natural England might have taken the case to court – really? Knowing, as they did, on the basis of the strongest and clearest legal advice that their licences were unlawful? Really? And at public expense fight a doomed case? Really?
What does this government really mean by the courts ‘responding pragmatically’? It should not mean turning a blind eye to unlawfulness and allowing it to persist. But that is the message we take from the minister’s own words on why Clause 1 is such a good thing. Why is a Justice Minister arguing for continued unlawfulness rather than a rapid adoption of the law? Mr Cartlidge, are you in the right job?
Maybe the Minister should have a chat with his fellow Conservative and former Cabinet minister, David Davies MP, who said;
Judicial review is a cornerstone of British democracy. It empowers everyday people to challenge decisions made by public bodies. Whether it be central government or local authorities, rule makers are held accountable by ordinary people. This is a small, but important, check on the balance of powers in our democracy.
This new ‘guidance’ from Natural England looks very worrying to us.
The whole drift of this guidance is to allow developers to do less for wildlife.
This is a particularly striking example:
Oh good oh! This is written by England’s statutory nature conservation body. Who’d have known?
Natural England used to be a nature conservation body of repute – no longer.
Wild Justice is seeking legal advice on this guidance. We would be interested to hear the opinions of experts on the ramifications of the policy shifts signalled in this paper. It might even be that Natural England staff are pretty uncomfortable with this. Please let us know at admin@wildjustice.org.uk All communications will be treated sensitively.
Wild Justice is interested in the use of the powerful pesticide glyphosate in the environment – as are many others. With your help – click here for details – we have contacted local authorities across the UK to ask about their compliance with the requirements of pesticide legislation and simply asking questions is nudging local authorities to make further reductions in use. Glyphosate, is also used in gardens and on farmland.
There are concerns, hotly disputed, that glyphosate may be a carcinogen. UK authorities do test some foods for glyphosate levels.
The renowned entomologist, Prof Dave Goulson, is campaigning for a ban on the use of glyphosate in gardens – see his petition here.
Based on fairly small sample sizes there is an indication, no more than that, that levels of glyphosate in UK residents are higher than the average in Europe. You probably have glyphosate in your body – over 70% of Europeans do, and the UK figures are slightly higher than average. Would you like to find out? If so, and if you would consider participating in a future Wild Justice investigation of glyphosate levels in UK citizens, then read on.
How to discover your own glyphosate levels: this website will send you a glyphosate testing kit that you can use in your own home and send off a urine sample to a laboratory in Germany which will send you your results. The cost of the testing and postage is about £40 (depending on the £/euro exchange rate) so it is a significant investment. And all you’ll get for it is a figure for the glyphosate level in your urine that you can compare with averages for other European countries. However, if you share your results with us at Wild Justice, we will ask you whether you would like to take part in a study of glyphosate levels in UK citizens that will track glyphosate levels in individuals to discover more about their trends through the year and any links with lifestyle etc. We will pay for all the test kits of those invited to participate in the study. What we can study will depend on the number of you who are interested in participating.
Mark Avery sent off for a urine testing kit last autumn, followed its instructions and got his results by email a couple of weeks later. Mark’s glyphosate levels were 2.5nm/ml – a bit higher than both the European and UK averages. Mark said ‘The process was pretty straightforward and I was interested to find that my levels were higher than average. I wonder why. We don’t use pesticides in the garden but I live in an arable farming area where glyphosate is used, and my local authority uses glyphosate too. Perhaps I am picking up glyphosate from the food I eat. I’m interested to know more but that would need a bigger sample of people. Will you join me in taking the p*ss?’.
So, the offer on the table to you is to find out your own glyphosate levels through buying a test kit and sending off your urine to be tested. When you get your results then if you’d like to share them with us please forward them to Wild Justice at admin@wildjustice.org.uk . Depending on the response, we may invite you to become part of a study to investigate glyphosate levels and their variability and lifestyle correlates. Wild Justice will then reimburse the costs of testing kits.
Do consider this: you will probably find that you have glyphosate in your urine – 70% of people across Europe who have done similar tests do find that. Levels vary and there are no levels yet set by governments that indicate dangerous levels. There is some evidence that glyphosate is a carcinogen but opinions differ, and the levels at which it has any human health impact, if any at all, are not well known. So it is just possible that you will find that you have ‘high’ levels of glyphosate in your urine and you might find that worrying. It is very likely that you will find that you have some glyphosate in your urine which will mean that you are like most other people living in Europe. If you would rather not know how much glyphosate you have in your urine then please don’t send off for a test kit. If you are interested to learn what your glyphosate levels are and feel pretty confident that you can cope with any results that come through, then that is your choice. Give it some thought before doing anything please.
Wild Justice is entirely dependent on donations. To support our work – click here. To hear more about our campaigns and legal cases subscribe to our free newsletter – click here.
Comments Off on A disappointment on burning regulations
Earlier this week, we had a disappointment when the Court of Appeal did not give us permission to appeal the refusal of our case against the Westminster government on its feeble burning regulations.
We have taken this challenge as far as we can and we are very disappointed that, in this case, the courts have not been helpful in holding DEFRA to account. We still believe that we had a strong case (otherwise we would not have persevered with it) and that the decision that DEFRA made on limiting burning on blanket bogs was not only cowardly and feeble in its scope but unlawful in the way that it was made. But we haven’t persuaded the courts of our case.
Protecting upland habitats from damage, and protecting the carbon stored in peatlands, will remain an area of importance and interest to Wild Justice, as it is to many other environmental organisations. Greater limits to burning on peatland soils should be brought in, and we’ll be working with others to bring this about as soon as possible.
Comments Off on Top recognition for Wild Justice lawyer
Huge congratulations to David Wolfe QC, who has featured in The Lawyer’s Hot 100 list published today.
David is a barrister at Matrix Chambers in London and here is what they had to say:
The prestigious list – from the leading UK legal magazine The Lawyer – celebrates the work of the top 100 lawyers in the UK from private practice, in-house and the Bar. The list, which is published annually, recognises extraordinary lawyers who have completed ground-breaking work in the past 12 months.
The Lawyerrecognised David for his work on a number of significant environmental cases in 2021 including Save Stonehenge World Heritage Site and Wild Justice.
The Lawyercommented:
“…on many occasions Wolfe’s presence has resulted in real change in the battles for climate and social justice. His work is increasingly strategic in nature as he manages ever-larger teams, and helps equip the next generation of barristers with the skills to carry on the fight.”
Photo of David talking with Chris Packham during a Wild Justice gathering last year (photo copyright Wild Justice)
We are privileged to be able to work with a team of exceptional lawyers from Leigh Day and Matrix Chambers who have been with us right from the start; indeed they encouraged us to form Wild Justice as a legal entity. Without their expertise and encouragement, we simply wouldn’t be making the progress we’ve achieved over the last few years.
David has been central to our work and not only is he an intellectual dynamo, he’s also a thoroughly lovely guy. We’re delighted to see this richly-deserved recognition from his peers.
Comments Off on The Bunker Podcast features Mark Avery explaining the ills of driven grouse shooting
The Bunker is an independent political podcast examining the big issues of the UK.
In this week’s episode, Wild Justice Co-Director Mark Avery discusses driven grouse shooting with host Arthur Snell, with a particular focus on the illegal killing of birds of prey that takes place on many driven grouse moors.
Comments Off on Wild Justice’s Raptor Forensics Fund helps secure 2nd gamekeeper conviction
We’re delighted to learn that our Raptor Forensics Fund, established in 2020 to help support police investigations into alleged raptor persecution crime, has played a part in the conviction of a criminal gamekeeper in Nottinghamshire.
The full details of this conviction will be made public after a sentencing hearing later this month but for now, a summary article can be read here.
This is the second conviction that our Raptor Forensics Fund has helped secure. The first one was gamekeeper Hilton Prest who was found guilty in December 2021 of the unlawful use of a trap (see here).
Thank you to all those who contributed to our Raptor Forensics Fund and thanks also to the PAW Forensic Working Group (a sub-group of the Partnership for Action Against Wildlife Crime) who administer our fund and ensure that police officers can access it without delay to help progress their investigations into raptor persecution crimes.
Comments Off on What are regulators for? Wye, Wye, Wye?
There have been a few local media reports about Wild Justice taking legal action on the shocking state of environmental protection on the River Wye but we haven’t said anything about this case until today when we talked to the respected ENDS report.
This just happens, a complete coincidence, to follow a long and good piece about the River Wye on the BBC R4 Today programme yesterday. Have a listen to it – click here (1:35 – 1:45) – it’s a good summary and well worth listening all the way through to the remarks of Jesse Norman MP, where he said he was much less confident about progress than the report made everything seem, and ‘I do not think it is right at this stage to strike a note of confidence of any kind‘ , and ‘The agencies involved, Natural Resources Wales, Natural England and the Environment Agency have, in my view, done a deplorable job, so far, in their failure to come together with an all-river action plan‘.
That sounds about right to us, which is why we have been in legal correspondence with all three agencies for the past couple of months. Previous spokespeople in the piece seemed to be happy with the progress that had been made – we don’t think they should be. The trouble is that the progress made is a bit like a debtor paying off their massive debts at the rate of a pound a month – you can call it progress if you like, it’s marginally better than nothing, but it really doesn’t do the job, and never will.
The Wye is a Special Area of Conservation (see here) and should have, in theory does have, the highest environmental protection that the UK can hand out, but as the radio piece said, last year it turned lime green because of pollution. That doesn’t sound very protected to us, and it doesn’t sound much like progress.
Wild Justice has given the three agencies the chance to get things right, but we haven’t gone away and we will be monitoring the situation closely over the next few months.
Wild Justice told ENDS: ‘Statutory agencies exist to regulate damaging activities. The Wye is a test case. Wild Justice is watching things closely.‘
Comments Off on New legislation proposed by Westminster government on hare coursingPhoto via shutterstock
Yesterday the Westminster government announced its intentions to crack down on cruel and illegal hare coursing. Wild Justice welcomes these proposals.
The main points are:
Increasing the maximum penalty for trespassing in pursuit of game under the Game Acts (the Game Act 1831 and the Night Poaching Act 1828) to an unlimited fine and introducing – for the first time – the possibility of up to six months’ imprisonment.
Two new criminal offences: firstly, trespass with the intention of using a dog to search for or pursue a hare; and secondly, being equipped to trespass with the intention of using a dog to search for or pursue a hare both punishable on conviction by an unlimited fine and/or up to six months’ imprisonment.
New powers for the courts to order, on conviction, the reimbursement of costs incurred by the police in kennelling dogs seized in connection with a hare coursing-related offence.
New powers for the courts to make an order, on conviction, disqualifying an offender from owning or keeping a dog.
Wild Justice has played a small part in helping government to get to this point. This is what we’ve done:
met senior police officers to learn what they thought was the way forward
worked as part of Wildlife and Countryside Link to recommend some of the changes that have now been accepted by government
As we say, we’ve only played a small role in this issue because it’s quite a crowded field (as it were). Hunting and farming organisations have largely worked on their own and separately from conservation and animal welfare organisations who have approached the issue from a different perspective. Wild Justice is obviously interested in the legal aspects of this issue, and the fact that this is one of the many wildlife crimes that need sorting out in the countryside. We look forward to seeing some action taken on wildlife crimes by government and landowners in other areas, particularly upland areas. There are clear parallels – crimes against wildlife, motivated by killing for entertainment and profit, occurring in remote rural areas.
You may be interested to listen tothis piece on yesterday’s Today programme(from 52.48 to 57.00) where Chief Inspector Phil Vickers describes some of the facts behind hare coursing. The strange part of the interview is that landowners are seen as the victims of this illegal activity and Brown Hares, who certainly are victims, hardly get a mention…
The law hasn’t changed, despite the Guardian headline; what has changed (back to a previous version) is the wording of the conditions of the licences. And they have changed to being two-year licences rather than annual ones. Talking of changes, it’s good to see that the Guardian has changed their original image of two Rooks to one of two Carrion Crows – Rooks are not really predators of gamebirds at any stage of the gamebirds’ lives.
Pheasants and Red-legged Partridges (RLPs) are not native UK species. RLPs are native to Europe but Pheasants are primarily Asian species. The reason that Pheasants are common sights in the countryside is that 51 million of them are reared in captivity and released into the countyside in summer for shooting in autumn/winter (see a previous blog here). They may not be native but they are certainly beautiful.
Pheasant. Photo: Andrew Parkinson
So, Pheasants and RLPs are ‘livestock’ when they are being hatched and reared in captivity – there’s no doubt about that – they are just like chickens. The captive-reared birds are then transferred into the countryside to release pens from which they are, you guessed it, released in July-September ahead of the shooting season (starts 1 September for RLPs and 1 October for Pheasants). Are they livestock then? Well, we think they probably are, but in very large pens without roofs are they really in captivity because some time in this period they will become able to fly. What the Guardian piece refers to is the situation after the birds are ‘released’ and they are free to roam the countryside – are they still livestock then? Well, at some stage they become wild birds and they are out of the control of their ‘owners’. How do you recognise this transition? In Wild Justice we refer to this dilemma as Schrodinger’s Pheasant – can a Pheasant which occasionally nips back to a release pen to have a look around but spends most of its time dodging Foxes and cars still be livestock?
Once a Pheasant or RLP is a wild bird then it is unlawful to kill bird species listed on the general licences to protect them – because they are simply wild birds (that’s the law). In fact, this is perhaps an interesting dilemma but an almost entirely pointless discussion because well-grown Pheasants (and RLPs) are not predated by any of the species listed on the general licences – they are too big for species like Carrion Crow to tackle. They aren’t called Carrion Crows for nothing.
Wild Justice is very interested in DEFRA’s definition and we have explored this issue with them before. We will take legal advice again. If any old Pheasant wandering around the countryside is livestock when it suits shooting interests then it may be livestock when it doesn’t suit them. Pheasants cause many road traffic accidents each year, including some of human fatalities – do shooting organisations really want their members to be liable for insurance claims because their livestock are running wild? How about the many, many gardens that are visited by large numbers of released gamebirds which damage vegetables and flowers? It seems to us, but we will seek advice, that there are quite considerable disbenefits to shooting interests of the route down which DEFRA has gone (we’re guessing at the behest of shooting organisations).
We get hundreds of emails a week and all of them are read. We can’t possibly reply to them all but we do read them. Our free newsletter is our main means of communicating with people interested in our work and we’re always pleased to have new subscribers – click here.
Our latest newsletter prompted many of you to respond to it wishing us a happy new year – thank you.
Here are some of your comments:
Wishing you all the best and strength to continue this important campaign for the good of all.
Bless you all & thank you for your amazing work this year. Love you Chris!! Please keep up yr valuable efforts which Nature the environment & all of us depend .
Just donated, thank you for everything you do for animals. I am furious that we still have to fight the same battles at the start of 2022 but I think that despite all the horrendous things happening there are still more good people around than bad and together we can all make a difference. The bullies don’t like that so let’s keep doing it!
Happy New Year to you all. What fantastic things you have achieved.
As ever I find the news coming from your actions really heartening. It gives me hope. Thank you. Please continue in your great work with every effort, as I am trying in my small way.
I would just like to say how much I appreciate the work of everyone involved in this work. It’s great and really cheers me up. Much love and happy new year to everyone.
Thank you for all you do.
Thank you …all of you….for committing to all that you do. I donate when I can…as a 78 year old Great Grandmother…..I wish that Wild Justice Existed many years ago. I respect and admire the founders and all the volunteers. Thank you, all of you. A Healthy, Productive, successful, truthful 2022 are my sincere wishes.
Comments Off on A quick review of Wild Justice’s 2021
Here’s a quick run through our work in 2021 – for more details see individual blog posts:
January: our challenge of the legality of general licences in Wales elicits very useful clarification of the system including the highlighting of the need for there to be a ‘present danger’ to species of conservation concern for lethal control to be authorised.
February: DEFRA launches gamebird release consultation as a result of Wild Justice’s legal challenge – hundreds and hundreds Wild Justice supporters take the opportunity to respond. Our petition to the Westminster government on Badgers passes 100,000 signatures (but still awaits a Westminster Hall debate)
March: Wild Justice is a member of the Wildlife and Countryside Link partnership which launches a petition calling for legally binding targets in the Environment Bill – great response from Wild Justice supporters. We write to DAERA in Northern Ireland to point out flaws in their general licences which open them up for legal action, We write to Natural Resources Wales about their lack of response to the legal judgment in January on general licences.
April: as part of Wildlife and Countryside Link, Wild Justice supports the End Wildlife Crime campaign ahead of the May elections for Police and Crime Commissioners.
May: tests of Sainsbury’s game meat show that they have high levels of lead but we give Waitrose the benefit of the doubt in showing some signs of improvement in line with what they had told their customers. We highlight a potential breach of the general licences described in the pages of a shooting magazine.
June: Wild Justice writes to Natural England about the very poor quality of their IUCN assessment for their Hen Harrier reintroduction project. WCL petition on Environment Bill passes 200,000 signatures. Wild Justice’s Ban driven grouse shooting petition is debated in Westminster Hall. Despite appeals, we lost our challenge on the humaneness of Badger culling in England.
July: Wild Justice starts a legal challenge over the DEFRA feeble Heather and Grass Burning regulations. In Northern Ireland, DAERA issue a consultation on changes to their general licences in response to Wild Justice’s concerns over their scientific and legal flaws. Shooting Times columnist changes his story and says that what he wrote in the magazine was untrue.
August: Wild Justice broadcasts a Hen Harrier Day programme highlighting the importance of the uplands for people, for the climate and for wildlife. NRW consults on general licences in Wales following our legal challenge. Wild Justice writes to several local authorities in England and Wales about their use of glyphosate .
September: The Pheasant-shooting season approaches with, in England, restrictions on numbers that can be released thanks to Wild Justice’s legal challenge on gamebird release numbers.
October: Scotland-based Trees for Life win an important legal challenge over Beaver protection which Wild Justice supported financially. As the COP26 starts in Glasgow our e-action, for people, for the climate and for wildlife passes 37,000 emails sent to every elected politician in the four UK national legislative bodies.
November: the Environment Act becomes law and includes a legally binding target on species abundance thanks to the WCL campaign in which Wild Justice played a very active role.
December: DAERA, finally, concede the unlawfulness of their general licences, issue new improved interim general licences and commit to consulting on the way forward. Wild Justice highlights continuing high lead levels in Sainsbury’s, Waitrose and Harrods game meat.
Wild Justice is entirely dependent on donations. To support our work – click here. To hear more about our campaigns and legal cases subscribe to our free newsletter – click here.
Comments Off on Glyphosate use by local authorities – updated
Since we asked you to contact your local authority about their use of glyphosate, Wild Justice supporters have contacted over 275 local authorities across the UK.
This is the template letter that many of you have used – click here.
And here is the list (recent additions in red):
Aberdeen City Council; Aberdeenshire Council; Adur & Worthing Councils; Allerdale Borough Council; Amber Valley Borough Council; Angus Council; Antrim and Newtonabbey Borough Council; Ards and North Down Borough Council; Argyll and Bute Council; Armagh, Banbridge and Craigavon Council; Arun District Council; Ashford Borough Council;
Babergh District Council; Banes Council; Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council; Basildon Council; Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council; Bassetlaw District Council; Bath and North East Somerset; Bedford Borough Council; Bedfordshire Borough Council; Belfast City Council; Blaby District Council; Blackpool Council; Bolton Council; Bolton Metropolitan Borough Council; Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council; Bracknell Forest Council; Bradford Council; Braintree District Council; Breckland Council; Brentwood Council; Bristol City Council; Broadland District Council; Bromley Council; Buckinghamshire County Council; Burnley Borough Council; Bury Council;
Caerphilly County Borough Council; Calderdale Council; Cambridgeshire County Council; Cannock Chase Council; Cardiff Council; Carlisle City Council; Carmarthenshire County Council; Central Bedfordshire Council; Ceredigion County Council; Charnwood Borough Council; Cheltenham Borough Council; Cherwell District Council; Cheshire East Council; Cheshire West and Chester Council; City of Edinburgh Council; City of York Council; Colchester Borough Council; Conwy County Council; Copeland Council in West Cumbria; Cornwall County Council; Cotswold District Council; Coventry City Council; Craven District Council; Crawley Borough Council; Crowborough Town Council; Croydon Council; Cumbria County Council;
Dacorum Borough Council; Dartford Borough Council; Daventry Council; Derby City Council; Derbyshire County Council; Derbyshire Dales District Council; Derry City & Strabane District Council; Devizes Town Council; Devon County Council; Doncaster Council; Dorset Council; Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council; Dumfries and Galloway Council; Durham County Council;
East Ayrshire Council; East Cambridgeshire District Council; East Devon District Council; East Dunbartonshire Council; East Hampshire District Council; East Hertfordshire Council; East Lindsey District Council; East Riding of Yorkshire; East Staffordshire Borough Council; East Sussex County Council; Eastleigh Borough Council; Elmbridge Borough Council; Erewash Borough Council; Essex County Council; Exeter City Council; Exmouth Town Council; Fareham Borough Council; Fenland District Council; Fermanagh & Omagh District Council; Fife Council; Filton Town Council;
Flintshire County Council; Forest of Dean District Council;
Gateshead Council; Glasgow City Council; Goudhurst Parish Council; Gravesham Borough Council; Great Yarmouth Borough Council; Gwent Council;
Hackney Council; Hampshire County Council; Harborough District Council; Harrogate Borough Council; Harrow Council; Hart District Council; Hartlepool Borough Council; Havant Borough Council; Havering Borough Council; Herefordshire Council; High Peak Borough Council; Horsham District Council; Hull City Council; Hyndburn Borough Council;
Ipswich Borough Council; Isle of Anglesey County Council; Isle of Wight Council;
Kent County Council; Kings Llyn and West Norfolk Borough Council; Kirklees Council;
Lambeth Council; Lancashire County Council; Lancaster City Council; Leeds City Council; Leicester City Council; Lincolnshire County Council; Liverpool City Council; London Borough of Barnet; London Borough of Bexley; London Borough of Camden; London Borough of Greenwich; London Borough of Hammersmith; London Borough of Haringey; London Borough of Hounslow; London Borough of Islington; London Borough of Merton Council; London Borough of Newham; London Borough of Redbridge; London Borough of Richmond upon Thames; London Borough of Sutton; London Borough of Tower Hamlets; Luton Council;
Malvern Hills District Council; Manchester City Council; Medway Council; Mendip District Council; Mid Devon District Council; Mid Suffolk District Council; Milton Keynes Council; Mole Valley District Council; Monmouthshire County Council;
New Forest District Council; Newark & Sherwood District Council; Newcastle – Under Lyme Borough Council; Newcastle City Council; Newcastle Under Lyme Borough Council; Newry, Mourne & Down District Council; North Ayrshire Council; North Devon County Council; North East Derbyshire District Council; North Hertfordshire District Council; North Lincolnshire Council; North Lincolnshire Council; North Norfolk District Council; North Northamptonshire Council; North Tyneside Local Council; North Yorkshire County Council; Northumberland Council; Northumberland County Council; Norwich City Council; Nottinghamshire County Council;
Orkney Islands Council; Oxfordshire County Council;
Pembrokeshire County Council; Pendle Borough Council; Perth and Kinross Council; Perthshire Council; Powys County Council;
Reading Borough Council; Redbridge Council; Reigate & Banstead Borough Council; Rhondda-Cynon-Taf County Borough Council; Ribble Valley Borough Council; Richmond Council; Rochdale Borough Council; Rossendale Borough Council; Rother District Council; Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council; Royal Borough of Greenwich; Rushcliffe Borough Council; Rushmoor Borough Council, Rutland County Council;
Sandwell Council; Scarborough Borough Council; Scottish Borders Council; Sedgemoor District Council; Selby District Council; Sevenoaks District Council; Sheffield City Council; Shepton Mallet Town Council; Sherwood District Council; Skipton Town Council; Somerset County Council; South Cambridgeshire District Council; South Derbyshire District Council; South Gloucestershire Council; South Hams District Council; South Kesteven District Council; South Lakeland District Council; South Lanarkshire Council; South Norfolk Council; South Oxfordshire District Council; South Ribble Borough Council; South Somerset District Council; South Staffordshire Council; Southampton City Council; St Albans District Council; Stafford Borough Council; Staffordshire County Council; Stockport Council; Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council; Stratford-upon-Avon District Council; Stroud District Council; Suffolk County Council; Sunderland City Council; Surrey County Council; Swale Borough Council; Swansea Council; Swindon Borough Council;
Teignbridge District Council; Telford and Wrekin Council; Telford Town Council; Tendring District Council; Tewkesbury Borough Council; Thanet Council; Thurrock Council; Torbay Council; Trafford Council; Trending District Council; Tunbridge Wells Borough Council;
Uttlesford District Council;
Vale of Glamorgan; Vale of White Horse District Council;
Wakefield City Council; Wakefield Metropolitan District Council; Waltham Forest; Warrington Borough Council; Warwick District Council; Waverley Borough Council; Wealden District Council; Welwyn Hatfield Borough Council; West Berkshire Council; West Devon Borough Council; West Lindsey District Council; West Lothian Council; West Norfolk; West Northamptonshire Council; West Oxfordshire District Council; West Sussex County Council; Westminster City Council; Whitehall Town Council; Wigan Metropolitan Borough Council; Wiltshire Council; Winchester City Council; Wirral Borough Council; Wokingham Borough Council; Wokingham Council; Wolverhampton City Council; Worcestershire County Council; Wyre Forest District Council;
Receiving a whopping 42.5 per cent of the public vote, conservationist Chris Packham was widely respected by TGO readers for his “passion” and “tireless championing of the environment”, even in the face of adversity. As one voter eloquently put it: “‘Dedication to the cause doesn’t go far enough for Chris Packham – he is relentless in his determination to protect and conserve our wildlife and habitats. Chris experiences personal attacks on his home and abuse through social media for standing up for his beliefs and still remains focused, determined and resolute. We must protect our planet. Who wouldn’t admire that?”
Comments Off on Hampshire Police release CCTV image of man they’d like to question in relation to arson attack at Chris Packham’s home
Hampshire Constabulary have released a CCTV image of a man they believe may hold key information about an arson attack at Wild Justice co-director Chris Packham’s home in October.
Just after midnight on Friday 8th October 2021, two masked men were caught on security cameras driving a Land Rover up to the gates of Chris’s house before setting it alight and then fleeing in a second vehicle.
The Land Rover exploded and the fire spread to Chris’s gates and fence, causing significant damage.
The attack was an escalation in a long-running hate campaign against Chris, believed to be linked to his campaign work against raptor persecution and fox-hunting.
Police have been continuing to explore lines of enquiry to identify those responsible and now believe that the man pictured may hold key information to their investigation.
Do you know who this man is?
Any information, no matter how small or insignificant you feel it might be, could help aid the police investigation and identify those who are responsible for this crime.
If anyone has any information in relation to this incident, please call 101 quoting incident reference 44210403698.
Comments Off on The state of general licences across the UK nations
Wild Justice’s first legal challenge was of general licences in England. General licences are used by statutory agencies to authorise the killing of what might be called ‘pest’ species – although we object to that as a blanket term.
All wild birds are protected by law but there are circumstances under which they can be killed – for example to protect human health, crops or endangered species. If you think that a particular Robin, to take a daft example, is a threat to nature conservation interests then you can apply for a specific licence to kill it. However, you will have to explain the problem that you claim is caused by this Robin and say why non-lethal means of solving the problem won’t work.
The general licences streamline, or circumvent, that process for a small number of species which really can cause such problems, for which non-lethal solutions might not work and, let’s be honest, the licensing authorities don’t want to have to deal with lots of individual applications, they’d rather issue a general licence on their website. It is easy to see that a general licence published on a website may be less well scrutinised by its users than a piece of paper sent to them personally in the post.
Wild Justice has described the general licensing system as being too often ‘the casual licensing of casual killing’ of birds. Our legal challenges, supported by you, have led to rapid reform of the general licences across the UK with Northern Ireland making the most recent changes in reaction to a Wild Justice legal challenge. Here are some headline changes to the licensing system since we started our challenges:
the species that can be killed have been reduced in number – for example all gull species are now removed from these licences
the species that can be killed for alleged conservation purposes have been greatly reduced
the species which are alleged to benefit from the use of the conservation licences have, in some areas, been better defined and listed for the first time – the lists are pretty bizarre but the task now is to make them better
in Wales, the circumstances under which the killing of some species to conserve certain other species can be lawful is only to protect eggs and chicks which theoretically limits the time of year duruing which the licence can be relied
the places the licences apply now exclude SSSIs etc where special permission is needed
the killing of species to protect gamebirds has been limited
the wording has improved (but not enough)
Here are three tables which set out the current position for the three different categories of general licence in each of the four UK nations.
Table 1 – human health and safety
Species listed on general licences as potential threats to human health or safety
Northern Ireland is clearly out of line with the other UK nations in listing so many native species. We think Scotland (NatureScot) and Wales (NRW) have probably got it about right.
Table 2 – serious damage to crops/livestock
Species listed on general licences as potentially causing serious damage to crops or livestock
Northern Ireland is again out of line – we’d like to see House Sparrow and Starling removed from the Northern Ireland list as they have been from those of other UK nations. We’re pretty unconvinced of the necessity of having general licences which authorise the killing of Magpies or Jackdaws, in particular, to protect crops or livestock.
Table 3 – nature conservation
Species listed on general licences as potential threats to nature conservation
We have concentrated our actions on the conservation lists so far. Once Jay, Jackdaw and Magpie are removed from these lists across the UK then we will take a breath and regard these lists as almost fit for purpose. We know of no conservation organisations which routinely kill these three species for conservation reasons, and the science does not support their inclusion in such lists. Remember, removing them from the general licences merely means that an individual must apply, with details, for a specific licence, which may be granted or refused after the application has been scrutinised, it isn’t an end to all lethal control.
Why does Wild Justice care about the general licences?
we care about all wildlife and these are wildlife-killing licences
we believe that the licences have been largely the product of prejudice and not science
the conditions which restrict the use of these licences are often flouted
the licences are not enforced or monitored by the authorities
they aren’t even understood by those who think they are using them properly
the licences allow, in theory, unlimited killing of species which are natural parts of our countryside
sometimes the methods used to kill birds under these licences are not humane
These general licences have been a neglected area of wildlife law and policy for too long – we’re proud of the fact that we have shone a bright light on them, and that greater scrutiny, backed by legal action, has resulted in rapid change and improvement. Though there’s still some way to go…
Wild Justice is a not-for-profit organisation set up by Chris Packham, Ruth Tingay and Mark Avery. We are entirely dependent on donations. To support our work – click here. To hear more about our campaigns and legal cases subscribe to our free newsletter – click here.
Last week, we told you about the high levels of lead in Sainsbury’s game meat, now we have the results of similar tests of game meat purchased from Waitrose and Harrods. Both stores are selling game meat with high lead levels too.
It is particularly disappointing that Waitrose’s game has high lead levels as they have promised to go lead-free – there is no indication from our results that they have made any progress with this at all. Waitrose Pheasant fillets bought in stores in Essex and London in late November, and tested for lead content at the University of the Highlands and Islands, had high lead levels – higher even than the results from the samples that we had analysed from last year’s shooting season.
Other meats, such as beef, chicken, pork, have Maximum Levels of lead set by regulations. The MLs for these meats are 0.1mg of lead per kg of wet weight of the meat. No such MLs are set for game meat despite there being high levels of lead in game meat which mostly derive from contamination by lead ammunition.
Our tests, from last shooting season and this season show that chicken and pork samples have low lead levels (as expected), but game meat samples from Waitrose, Sainsbury’s and Harrods all have high levels of lead. In all cases the samples of game meat had levels of lead that would be illegal if they were found in other meats. See table below.
The median levels of lead are probably the fairest comparisons as they are not so influenced by the occasional very high sample; Waitrose’s Pheasant fillets from this year had the highest median lead levels of any of our samples from this or last shooting season.
Lead is a poison – that’s why it has been removed from paints, fishing weights, water pipes and petrol – but it is still shot into wild birds such as Pheasants whose meat then goes into the human food chain. As lead shotgun pellets pass through the flesh of a bird or mammal tiny fragments fly off the pellet and are distributed through the animal. These are too small to see or remove and they give the game meat high lead levels.
The Food Standards Agency and NHS England warn against eating game shot with lead, especially by pregnant women, women trying to become pregnant and young children.
Waitrose told The Times that they believe that these results were caused by environmental residues and not by lead shot. Wild Justice believes that this is overwhelmingly unlikely. Dr Mark Taggart, whose laboratory analysed our game meat samples, told The Times that it was unlikely that the very high lead levels were caused by birds consuming lead in the countryside.
Wild Justice said: Two years ago Waitrose promised that their game meat would be lead-free by now – it isn’t. Their game meat has high levels of lead in it. Lead is a poison. These lead levels would be illegal in other meats. The most overwhelmingly likely explanation for such very high lead levels is contamination by fragments of lead shot. There is no Lead Fairy sprinkling lead into Waitrose game meat.
Waitrose have not apologised for, or explained, their failure. Why is a small organisation like Wild Justice having to test the levels of poison in meat sold by a major retailer? These tests cost a few hundred quid – why didn’t Waitrose test their own game meat?
Waitrose have agreed to meet Wild Justice for a chat about lead in game meat.
DEFRA received an expert report in 2015 that recommended the phasing out of lead ammunition for environmental and food safety reasons. DEFRA is still thinking about banning the use of lead ammunition some time in the future. It is long past the time when government, retailers and the shooting industry should have got rid of lead from game meat in the human food chain and from contaminating the environment through the use of lead shot.
Wild Justice is a not-for-profit organisation set up by Chris Packham, Ruth Tingay and Mark Avery. We are entirely dependent on donations. To support our work – click here. To hear more about our campaigns and legal cases subscribe to our free newsletter – click here.
Comments Off on Wild Justice Raptor Forensics Fund helps secure gamekeeper conviction
We’re delighted to learn that our Raptor Forensics Fund, established last year to help support police investigations into alleged raptor persecution crime, has played a part in the conviction of a criminal gamekeeper in Cheshire.
Our fund was utilised by Cheshire Police this year to undertake a post mortem of a sparrowhawk that had been found dead inside an illegally-operated trap in February 2021. A veterinary pathologist confirmed the sparrowhawk had died of starvation and would have experienced considerable unnecessary suffering inside the trap.
At Manchester Magistrates’ court today (16 December 2021), gamekeeper Hilton Prest pleaded guilty to unlawfully using a trap on or before 10/2/21 contrary to Sec 5(1)(b) of the Wildlife and Countryside Act. He was fined £800 (plus £85 costs and £80 victim surcharge).
Thank you to all those who contributed to our Raptor Forensics Fund and thanks also to the PAW Forensic Working Group (a sub-group of the Partnership for Action Against Wildlife Crime) who administer our fund and ensure that police officers can access it without delay to help progress their investigations into raptor persecution crimes.
Comments Off on Our Northern Ireland victory – some more thoughts
The news that Wild Justice has toppled three Northern Ireland general licences is good for wildlife, good for those who respect the rule of law and bad news for the Northern Ireland administration. It is also a case study in the failure of UK authorities to do their jobs properly even when it comes to sticking to the law.
Wild Justice has been in regular contact with DAERA pointing out the unlawfulness, and biological error, of their general licences. Our first contact with them was in Spring 2019 but from March 2021 we pointed out the legal flaws in the licences which would expire in September 2021 and made very clear the certainty of a legal challenge if they persisted with them. But they did. So we took a legal challenge which DAERA largely brushed aside with evasion until the very last minute thus costing the taxpayer money and probably causing general licence users unnecessary confusion. DAERA have acted in an unprofessional way, in our opinion.
This is the latest reform of general licences that Wild Justice has achieved in the UK. Since our first and successful legal challenge of the Natural England general licences which applied in England in 2019, and a further challenge to the Welsh general licences, we have seen considerable reform of these long-standing licences which allow unlimited widespread killing of a small number of species that would otherwise be fully protected by law. We note that general licences in England and Scotland will be published in the New Year – we’ll be taking a close look at them.
The changes that have come about since our first legal challenge are important. The necessity to comply with the circumstances in which the licences are valid, and the necessity for non-lethal methods to be the first approach have been accompanied by stricter measures being introduced for wildlife sites and a big reduction in the list of species for which the general licences can be relied on as cover for lethal control. Our campaigns and legal challenges haven’t changed the laws – they are forcing statutory agancies to implement existing laws properly. There is more progress to be made on this issue.
It comes to something when statutory agencies who have the responsibility for implementing the law of the land in their policies are found to be acting unlawfully.
And it comes to something when protracted and expensive legal challenges are needed to force public bodies to act lawfully and sensibly. But Wild Justice is happy to take on that task given the high level of public support that we are receiving and the fact that this area has been neglected by other wildlife organsisations.
There is an argument that the whole process of using general licences to authorise killing of wild birds, which can only be legal under quite specific conditions and circumstances, is a hopeless way of allowing properly authorised and lawful limited control of some species. Unless statutory agencies can show that the effect of their general licences is to limit lethal killing of so-called pests only to what is necessary and legal then the whole system of general licences should be replaced by users having to apply for specific licences as is the case with all other wild bird species.
We look forward to a speedy revocation of these licences, the publication of lawful interim licences which are fit for purpose and news of a renewed consultation on this matter.
Comments Off on DAERA concedes unlawfulness of Northern Ireland general licences – another Wild Justice win.
Wild Justice, represented by Leigh Day acting through their agent Phoenix Law, has secured a landmark victory in a legal challenge to Northern Ireland’s general licences for the killing of wild birds.
The Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) yesterday conceded Wild Justice’s claim that the decision to issue three general licences on 10 September 2021 that permit the killing of birds in the province is unlawful.
DAERA has now provided written assurance that its flawed general licences will be replaced by interim licences and that a full consultation will be launched in due course.
In our pre-action letter, Wild Justice set out that the 2021 General Licences were unlawful and breached the Wildlife (Northern Ireland) Order 1985 for these reasons:
DAERA had not satisfied itself that there was no other satisfactory solution in relation to the killing being authorised for the respective purposes for which the 2021 General licences were issued.
DAERA did not comply with Section 18(6) of the 1985 Order in that it failed to specify the circumstances and conditions subject to which birds may be killed or the “Area of Use” for the 2021 General Licences.
There was no evidence to justify the inclusion of certain species in the 2021 General Licences.
DAERA failed to seek out the relevant information required to make a decision to grant the 2021 General Licences at all.
DAERA failed to complete any consultation prior to issuing the 2021 General Licences.
In response to this further Wild Justice legal victory, which reforms general licences and reduces the scale of casual licensing of casual killing of wild birds:
Wild Justice said:
“The DAERA General Licences we challenged were not fit for purpose and were unlawful to boot. DAERA seemed to think that Woodpigeons and Feral Pigeons threatened conservation interests in Northern Ireland – a totally bizarre idea. And yet it took a tiny organisation, supported by thousands of people, to raise the money and to hire brilliant lawyers to bring these flawed licences down. We look forward to seeing lawful replacement licences in the very near future. DAERA must do better and Wild Justice remains ready, willing and able to take further legal challenges on behalf of wildlife in the UK.”
Leigh Day Associate Tom Short said:
“Our client welcomes DAERA’s belated concession that its 2021 general licences are not fit for purpose. DAERA had blatantly, as in previous years, failed to follow the process it is required to, and had issued the licences absent any evidence to support them. That is not how a licensing system permitting the killing of otherwise protected wild birds should operate, and it is astonishing that DAERA has failed to engage with the problem since it was first raised by Wild Justice in May 2019. Our client welcomes DAERA’s commitment to now reform its licensing and move to full consultation on the issue.”
Wild Justice is a not-for-profit organisation set up by Chris Packham, Ruth Tingay and Mark Avery. We are entirely dependent on donations. To support our work – click here. To hear more about our campaigns and legal cases subscribe to our free newsletter – click here.
Comments Off on Lead-contaminated game meat found for sale on Sainsbury’s shelves
British supermarket shelves are still stocked with potentially toxic game meat in the run up to Christmas, recent research by Wild Justice has found.
· Tests on packets of pheasant breast and mixed game meat from Sainsbury’s found lead levels at up to 76 times higher than the legal limit set for beef, pork, chicken etc.
· 100% of samples of mixed game meat tested positive for potentially dangerous amounts of lead.
· Findings indicate the voluntary phasing out of lead shot by the shooting industry hasn’t prevented lead contamination of meat nearly two years after its announcement.
Wild Justice, a not-for-profit organisation campaigning on British wildlife issues, bought 32 samples of pheasant breast and mixed game meat from Sainsbury’s stores (supplied by game dealer Holme Farmed Venison in Yorkshire) and had them tested for lead levels in November 2021. Ten samples of chicken meat were purchased and tested as controls.
Out of 16 samples of pheasant breast, 11 contained lead levels over the legal limit set for livestock meat. All 16 portions of the ‘Diced Game Casserole Mix’, containing venison, pheasant and partridge, exceeded the same level.
Currently (and inexplicably) there is no legal limit for lead levels in wild game meat such as pheasant, partridges, grouse and venison. The Maximum Level (ML) of lead for most types of farmed meat, such as chicken and beef, is set at 0.1 milligram per kilogram of wet weight of meat. The portions of mixed game meat sold by Sainsbury’s exceeded these by an average of 17 times, with some samples testing as high as 4.7mg/kg. Of the 11 pheasant breast samples that exceeded the threshold for other meats, the average was 32.5 times higher at 3.25mg/kg WW. The samples of chicken had uniformly low levels of lead, as expected, which were all well below the ML set for such meat.
Consumption of lead is detrimental to human health, being especially harmful to developing brains and the nervous system. Children, pregnant women and those trying to become pregnant are advised by the Food Standards Agency and NHS England against eating game shot with lead.
Although warnings about lead shot have been added to some of the packaging at Sainsbury’s this year, it was often not displayed clearly. Statements to the opposite effect, such as ‘Ideal for a healthy casserole or game pie’, are placed prominently on the products’ front. Wild Justice says this raises the question of how informed consumers of these products are about the risks of lead contamination. Both products were ‘kite-marked’ by the British Game Alliance which claims to be the ‘official marketing board for the UK game industry’ offering ‘traceability and credibility’, although this has been questioned repeatedly.
Lead shot is a type of ammunition normally used for shooting pheasants, partridges and grouse. The small lead pellets are malleable and when shot into an animal they fragment, dispersing tiny pieces of lead through the animal’s flesh. It’s impossible to remove all of these tiny fragments, leading to lead contamination of the meat. Lead bullets used for shooting deer cause similar problems, with fragmentation of the bullet distributing small pieces of lead in the venison meat. Non-toxic ammunition such as steel is widely available at comparable prices to lead ammunition.
Wild Justice said: “The presence of lead-contaminated meat on supermarket shelves is disgraceful. It’s a clear failure of the regulatory system that government allows the sale of lead-contaminated meat, without prominent health warnings, when the FSA and NHS England warn of the dangers of eating such food. Sainsbury’s know their game meat has high lead levels but appear to be putting profit ahead of safety because of a regulatory loophole.
“In the run up to Christmas, when people are thinking about festive dishes for the family table, it’s outrageous that products like this can be sold under the guise of being healthy due to failures of government and retailers to act in the public interest.”
In 2020 a voluntary five-year phase out of lead shot was announced by prominent organisations within the shooting industry. Wild Justice says this move is ineffective and calls for an outright ban on use of lead shot. “There’s no point leaving this matter to the shooting industry – they have failed to act for years“, said Wild Justice.
Wild Justice analysed similar samples of game meat from Sainsbury’s stores shot in the 2020/21 shooting season and found high levels of lead in them; Sainsbury’s appears to have done nothing to reduce the levels of lead in game meat sold in its stores in the interim.
Waitrose is the leading supermarket which has recognised the need for change, and introduced labelling of game meat, warning of lead levels, in 2019/20 and is aiming to source lead-free game meat as soon as possible. Wild Justice has collected samples from Waitrose stores this year (and a number of other shops) and these are currently undergoing analysis.
Wild Justice is a not-for-profit organisation set up by Chris Packham, Ruth Tingay and Mark Avery. We are entirely dependent on donations. To support our work – click here. To hear more about our campaigns and legal cases subscribe to our free newsletter – click here.
We’d like to thank our legal team who have worked very hard on this case. We’d also like to thank our supporters whose generosity made it possible for us to take the case this far without a specific fundraising appeal.
We will go away and consider options – for one thing, there are other possible legal challenges in the pipeline.
Comments Off on Rising reports of wildlife crimes during the pandemic
Wild Justice is a member of Wildlife & Countryside LINK and today the consortium has published its latest annual report on wildlife crime (covering 2020).
Here is the press release:
Rising reports of wildlife crimes during the pandemic spark fresh fears for beloved species
A new report published today (25 Nov) by nature experts has revealed a worrying increase in reporting of wildlife crimes against badgers, fish, birds of prey, and marine mammals during the pandemic. While a sharp decline in convictions for wildlife crimes including hunting, illegal wildlife trade, and fishing crime was also seen in 2020.
Reports of likely crimes against badgers rose by 36% in 2020, compared to 2019, with reports of potential fishing crimes up by more than a third (35%) and marine mammal incident reports (in Cornwall alone) rising 90%, according to data gathered by the NGOs. The number of confirmed raptor crimes in England & Wales in 2020 was almost double that in 2019, rising from 54 to 104 (the worst year for bird-crime ever as detailed by the RSPB in October).
At the same time fishing crime convictions fell by almost two-thirds from 2037 in 2019 to 679 in 2020, and illegal wildlife trade convictions halved to just 4 convictions. Hunting prosecutions also more than halved, from 49 in 2019 to 22 in 2020, with only 8 convictions. Hunting conviction rates have in fact steadily decreased for the last five years, falling from 54% of prosecutions being successful in 2016 to less than a third (32%) of prosecutions achieving conviction in 2020.
Martin Sims, Director of Investigations at the League Against Cruel Sports and Chair of Wildlife and Countryside Link’s Wildlife Crime group, said: ‘‘Wildlife crime is something that should concern everyone – it inflicts pain, harm and loss for much-loved wildlife and fuels wider criminality against people and property. Despite this the police still don’t gather centralised data on these serious crimes, leaving an incomplete picture from charities, which could be just a drop in the ocean of wildlife crimes. It is high time the Government steps in to treat wildlife crime with the seriousness it deserves. Making key crimes notifiable would enable police forces to better target resources, and track repeat offenders. While better police and prosecutor training and resources would help raise the pitiful 32% conviction rate for hunting prosecutions alone. The system must change to crack down on offences against nature once and for all.”
Dawn Varley, Acting CEO of the Badger Trust, said: “Badger crime has been a UK Wildlife Crime Priority for more than a decade, due to the scale of persecution – but sadly this persecution shows no sign of letting up. 2020 saw reports of badger crime rise, driven in large part by a shocking 220% increase in reports of developers interfering with badger setts. A small minority seem to see badger habitat protections as an inconvenience to be quietly bulldozed over, rather than a legal requirement to conserve an iconic British mammal. 2022 must see renewed work by police forces and the Crown Prosecution Service to bring offenders to justice. This must be supported by better monitoring, new training to enable officers and prosecutors to demonstrate criminal intent, and consistently tougher sentencing to deter these crimes.”
Mark Thomas, RSPB Head of Investigations UK, said: “In the wake of an emergency climate conference and with all life on earth facing an uncertain future, there has never been a more important time for urgent action to end the illegal killing of wildlife. Wildlife declines are already being felt, and species can ill afford to face the additional pressure of being brutally shot, trapped or poisoned; nor should the public have to put up with these crimes taking place in the wild places they go to for refuge.
“Bird of prey persecution reached unprecedented heights in 2020, particularly where land was managed for gamebird shooting. And it is certain that more crimes will have been committed and simply gone undetected and unreported. We urge the public to report dead or injured birds of prey in suspicious circumstances to the police and the RSPB, or pass on any information which may help lead to a conviction.”
One of two illegally poisoned peregrines found near Tadcaster, North Yorkshire, in 2020. Photo by RSPB:
The lockdowns and restrictions of 2020 appear to have contributed to rises in reporting of wildlife crimes and falls in convictions in several ways. Opportunistic offenders may have felt that with the police busy enforcing social restrictions that wildlife could be harmed with relative impunity. With increased use of the countryside in the pandemic more members of the public were also present to witness and report incidents of concern. COVID-19 pressures around social restrictions and staff absences appear also to have unfortunately reduced the capacity of police forces and the Crown Prosecution Service, and their ability to both bring hunting and fishing cases to trial and achieve convictions.
While today’s report reveals worrying figures, with impacts for treasured species like badgers, buzzards, kestrels, seals, dolphins and bluebells, it gives an incomplete picture. These organisations all collect data in different ways, with many only holding figures on reporting and convictions for incidents where members of the public have directly contacted them. There is a huge lack of information on wildlife crimes due to police not being required to officially record wildlife offences. Most wildlife crimes are recorded as ‘miscellaneous’ offences and are therefore invisible in police records, with no duty to be reported upon. The scale of wildlife crime is therefore likely to be far greater than the data collected by NGOs suggests.
The 16 wildlife organisations behind today’s report are warning that the way wildlife crimes are handled by both the police and Crown Prosecution Service must be reviewed and improved, if offences against treasured British wildlife are to be tackled. In particular, the new report highlights that the continued absence of dedicated recording for wildlife crimes means that resources cannot be effectively assessed and targeted. A lack of expertise and resource for police and prosecutors, and deficiency of sentencing guidelines, is also leading to failures in convicting criminals and inadequate penalties for crimes.
Nature experts and conservationists are calling for several key actions to better tackle wildlife crimes:
Make wildlife crimes recordable – A shortlist of wildlife offences (compiled by the National Wildlife Crime Unit) is being considered by the Home Office for notifiable status. This must be approved in 2022 to bridge the crippling wildlife crime data gap and help target resources effectively.
Ensure effective police & prosecutor action – Staff with expert training on wildlife crimes are critical to effectively building and prosecuting a case against these criminals. Also key is early coordination between the CPS and police on cases, and ensuring prosecutors have adequate preparation time for cases. Ensuring police and CPS training and process reflects this is vital.
Produce sentencing guidelines – Unlike most other crimes, the Sentencing Council provides no sentencing guidelines for wildlife crimes. This must be rectified to ensure sentencing consistently reflects the seriousness of these crimes and acts as a deterrent to criminal activity.
Comments Off on DEFRA under increasing pressure to stop burning on peatlandsPhoto: Sarah Hanson
Remember COP26 – it was only 10 days ago. Nations were castigated for not doing enough to combat climate change.
We have a classic example of government being weak in the face of intransigence from vested interests in England. Whereas some nations can argue that they have to cause pollution for the benefit of their population, it seems that DEFRA is allowing damaging burning on peatland soils simply for the recreation of shooting Red Grouse. DEFRA is allowing burning of vegetation on peatland soils, despite saying themselves that ‘There is a consensus that burning of vegetation on blanket bog is damaging to peatland formation and habitat condition. It makes it more difficult or impossible to restore these habitats to their natural state and to restore their hydrology‘. And yet the measures DEFRA introduced in the end protect less than half of the peatlands from such damage.
Local councils in the uplands are calling on DEFRA to clamp down on the damaging practice of moorland burning. Wild Moors say that 13 councils including Calderdale, Sheffield, Redcar and Clevelandand High Peak have called for greater restrictions on burning of moorlands.
Rightly, Wild Justice supporters were shocked that supermarkets were selling meat with high levels of a poison in them – and levels of lead are high enough for the Food Standards Agency to recommend that young children, pregnant women and women trying to get pregnant should avoid eating lead shot game meat.
We said that we’d be testing meat samples again this winter. We already have Sainsbury’s game meat collected and being analysed for their lead levels – watch this space for the results in the next few weeks. We are also collecting samples from other high profile vendors.
Waitrose is the only supermarket, in our view, to have taken a more responsible approach. Waitrose have said that they are phasing out all game meat shot with lead and will only sell game meat shot with non-toxic ammunition. We will monitor their progress with this promise – and we wish them well.
However, we wonder whether Waitrose is finding it tough to live up to its promise. Many Waitrose stores have little game meat in them. We have visited over a dozen supermarkets where the stores have no whole Pheasants for sale. Online, Waitrose claim to be selling Pheasants but we know of several customers who have ordered Pheasants from Waitrose, been told that they would be ready for collection from stores and then, at the last moment, have been told that they are unavailable. This is a phenomenon which has occurred in several parts of the UK and seems the norm.
Go into a store, like the one pictured above, and many of the game meat options are ‘temporarily unavailable’ – even though the labels claiming this don’t look very temporary. In chats with Waitrose staff in stores, Wild Justice supporters have been told that there are big problems in supply this year.
We will be asking Waitrose what their problems are and when they think that they will be able to supply lead-free game meat as promised. You could ask your local supermarket what is their policy on selling game meat shot with lead ammunition – we’d like to know what a range of supermarkets are saying. And remember, we are collecting more samples for analysis from several supermarkets.
We wish Waitrose well with their responsible move to lead-free game meat, and look forward to being able to report that their gamemeat is low-lead or, hopefully, lead-free in due course. We wonder whether they are being let down by the shooting industry? At the moment it seems that Waitrose is struggling to fill its shelves with gamemeat – that’s one way to seel less lead to the public.
An article in this week’s The ENDS Report highlights the ecological illiteracy of the British Association for Shooting & Conservation (BASC).
The ENDS Report article is based around the contents of a BASC blog attributed to BASC’s new Head of Environmental Research, Dr Marnie Lovejoy. It’s apparent from the blog that BASC is pushing for a review of the Habitats Regulations to allow more shooting on protected sites.
The ENDS Report highlights a section of the BASC blog as follows, and then goes on to include Wild Justice’s response to it:
Lovejoy gives the example of curlews being in decline in large part because of increased pressures from generalist predators, such as corvids, writing that “the regulator prefers that precious curlew eggs are being devoured by a rook [rather] than allowing landowners the legal ability to prevent attacks before they happen or to act immediately to shoot or trap rooks as problems arise”.
However, BASC’s position has been slammed by Wild Justice, a campaign group founded by TV presenter Chris Packham, and environmentalists Mark Avery and Ruth Tingay. A spokesperson for the group told ENDS that BASC was “confusing rooks with carrion crows”, adding that “with gross errors like this, BASC show themselves to be ecologically illiterate”.
Continuing, the spokesperson said: “Brexit was the preferred option for many who wanted environmental protection to be weakened. Single issue pressure groups like BASC want conservation to be shot to pieces. You won’t find a real nature conservation organisation in the UK who wants the protection of the Birds and Habitats directives to be dismantled in the way that shooters, grouse moor owners, and some farmers do.”
While rooks do predate curlew eggs in small numbers, they are considered by regulatory bodies and conservation groups to be a significantly smaller threat than carrion crows.
To read the full article in the ENDS Report click here (but beware, it sits behind a paywall so you’ll need to subscribe to read it).
Here are more comments we made that didn’t make it into the published ENDS Report article. The journalist asked us:
‘In what exact sense are they confusing rooks and carrion crows – do rooks not eat curlew eggs/predate curlews at all, or just not to the same extent as crows?‘
Our response:
‘Hardly at all. The RSPB kills zero Rooks a year to protect waders, they kill scores of Carrion Crows. The Wildlife Trusts kill zero Rooks a year to protect wildlife, they kill some Carrion Crows.
Is it likely that real conservation organisations and the statutory nature conservation agencies for England, Wales and Scotland are wrong whilst BASC is right? With gross errors like this, BASC show themselves to be ecologically illiterate’.
Comments Off on Have Pheasant releases decreased in England?Seven week old pheasant poults, after just being released into a gamekeepers release pen on an English shooting estate
Last autumn, just over a year ago, Wild Justice wona very significant victoryby challenging the lawfulness of the massive scale of releases of non-native Pheasants and Red-legged Partridges for the purpose of recreational shooting. Our challenge caused DEFRA to list the two species on Schedule 9 of the WildlIfe and Countryside Act which makes it an offence to release these birds into the wild in England without a licence, but at the same time they issued a general licence that exempted all areas away from designated wildlife sites from these restrictions. We criticised the new regulations as being too weak, although they are a start. The regulations currently apply to England but not to Wales, Northern Ireland or Scotland.
How have the new regulations affected the number of non-native gamebirds released into the countryside? It’s very difficult to tell. We know that Natural England has refused permission to release gamebirds on many SSSIs and we hear from some people (but not from all) that gamebird numbers were noticeably lower in the fields and running about on the roads in the run-up to the opening of the Pheasant-shooting season just over a month ago. But it’s very hard to tell.
So we decided to do a simple piece of analysis using birdwatchers’ data submitted to a scheme called BirdTrack .
We examined the reporting rates of Pheasants (the proportion of full lists of birds seen by birdwatchers which include Pheasants) in England, Scotland and Wales, derived as weekly measures of overall national reporting rate from the BirdTrack scheme. Data from Northern Ireland were obtained but samples sizes were too small to be included. We didn’t include Red-legged Partridges in this analysis.
Analysis focussed on the period between the first week of June (week 23) and the third week of October (week 42), since the regulations came into force in week 23 of 2021 and the data ran to week 42 in 2021. This encompasses the main period of gamebirds releases.
Because mean weekly reporting rates differed systematically between the three countries, the percentage difference in weekly reporting rates between years was assessed, comparing the mean values for weeks 23 to 42 for 2015 to 2020 inclusive (pre-regulation) with the equivalent values for the same weeks in 2021 (post-regulation).
Reporting rates in England were generally lower post-regulation than the average over the years 2015-20 pre-regulation, whereas in Scotland and Wales they were generally higher (Fig. 1). In England, most weekly reporting rates post-regulation fell between the pre-regulation average (a value of zero in Fig. 1) and 20% below it. In Scotland and Wales, weekly reporting rates were generally, but not quite always, higher in 2021 than the 2015-2020 average
Figure 1. Percentage differences between weekly reporting rates in June – October (weeks 23 to 42) in 2021 and the average for the same weeks in 2015-2020.
The same pattern was apparent when post-regulation reporting rates were compared with pre-regulation reporting rates using ranks (to account for the fact the pre-regulation average might have been unduly influenced by extreme values). Fig. 2 shows that for England, weekly reporting rates post-regulation were generally among the lowest recorded in the period 2015-2021 (mean rank = 2.0), whereas in Scotland and Wales they tended to be above the median rank (mean ranks of 4.4 and 4.9 respectively).
Figure 2. 2021 weekly reporting rates as rank of reporting rates in 2015-2021. A value of 1 indicates that the 2021 reporting rate was the lowest reporting rate for that week across the six years, a value of 6 indicates that it was the highest.
Formal statistical tests of differences are problematic due to the non-independence of reporting rates across consecutive weeks (serial autocorrelation – a low reporting rate in one week is likely to be followed by a low reporting rate the following week). This means that the effective sample size is likely to be closer to 18 (6 years * 3 countries), than to 360 (6 years * 3 countries * 20 weeks).
Conclusions
There was a strong indication from the data that in the 20 weeks following the introduction of the new regulations in England, reporting rates of Pheasants in England were lower than the recent average, whereas in Scotland and Wales they were higher. This is consistent with, but not conclusive evidence for, an impact of the new regulations in reducing Pheasant releases in England. The higher than average reporting rates in Scotland and Wales in autumn 2021 suggest that the lower rates in England are unlikely to be explained by a systematic effect that applies across the whole of the UK (e.g. related to weather, Brexit, Covid etc). However, whether the lower reporting rates in England can be explained by a new regulation that applies to only a small part of the country is questionable.
This analysis is a bit more than a quick-and-dirty analysis but it’s not ideal. There are more complicated and expensive analyses that could be carried out and we’ll keep them in mind for the future. We plan to repeat this analysis next year to see whether the indications for the first year of regulation are replicated in a second year.
What do you, Natural England and DEFRA think has happened?
We’d be interested to hear of your observations of Pheasants and Red-legged Partridges and whether you think their numbers are higher or lower than in previous years. Our email address is at the foot of this page.
We’ll make this simple analysis available to Natural England and ask them what they think lie behind the apparent findings.
We’ll make these results available to DEFRA and ask them what impacts they think their new regulatory regime may have had.
Acknowledgements
We thank the BTO for providing the data for this analysis.
Comments Off on Glyphosate use by local authorities
Since we asked you to contact your local authority about their use of glyphosate, Wild Justice supporters have contacted over 200 local authorities across the UK.
This is the template letter that many of you have used – click here.
And here is the list of the first 200.
Aberdeen City Council
Aberdeenshire Council
Allerdale Borough Council
Angus Council
Argyll and Bute Council
Arun District Council
Babergh District Council Mid Suffolk District Council
Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council
Basildon Council
Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council
Bassetlaw District Council
Bedford Borough Council
Bedfordshire Borough Council
Blaby District Council
Blackpool Council
Bolton Council
Bolton Metropolitan Borough Council
Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council
Bracknell Forest Council
Bradford Council
Breckland Council
Bristol City Council
Broadland District Council
Bromley Council
Buckinghamshire County Council
Bury Council
Caerphilly County Borough Council
Calderdale Council
Cardiff Council
Carlisle City Council
Carmarthenshire County Council
Charnwood Borough Council
Cheshire East Council
Cheshire West and Chester Council
City of Edinburgh Council
Colchester Council
Conwy County Council
Cornwall Council
Cotswold District Council
Craven District Council
Crowborough Town Council
Croydon Council
Cumbria County Council
Dacorum Borough Council
Dartford Borough Council
Derby City Council
Derbyshire County Council
Derbyshire Dales District Council
Devizes Town Council
Devon County Council
Doncaster Council
Dorset Council
Dumfries and Galloway Council
Durham County Council
East Cambridgeshire District Council
East Devon District Council
East Dunbartonshire Council
East Hampshire District Council
East Hertfordshire Council
East Riding of Yorkshire
East Staffordshire Borough Council
East Sussex County Council
Elmbridge Borough Council
Essex County Council
Exeter City Council
Exmouth Town Council
Fareham Borough Council
Fife Council
Filton Town Council
Gateshead Council
Glasgow City Council
Goudhurst Parish Council
Great Yarmouth Borough Council
Hackney Council
Harborough District Council
Harrogate Borough Council
Havant Borough Council
Herefordshire Council
High Peak Borough Council
Isle of Anglesey County Council
Isle of Wight Council
Kings Llyn and West Norfolk Borough Council
Lambeth Council
Lancashire County Council
Lancaster City Council
Leeds City Council
Leicester City Council
Lincolnshire County Council
Liverpool City Council
London Borough of Barnet
London Borough of Bexley
London Borough of Camden
London Borough of Greenwich
London Borough of Hammersmith
London Borough of Islington
London Borough of Redbridge
London Borough of Richmond upon Thames
London Borough of Tower Hamlets
Malvern Hills District Council
Medway Council
Mendip District Council
Mid Devon District Council
Milton Keynes Council
Mole Valley District Council
Monmouthshire County Council
New Forest District Council
Newark & Sherwood District Council
Newcastle – Under Lyme Borough Council
Newcastle City Council
Newry, Mourne & Down District Council
North Ayrshire Council
North Devon County Council
North East Derbyshire District Council
North Hertfordshire District Council
North Lincolnshire Council
North Tyneside Local Council
North Yorkshire County Council
Northumberland Council
Norwich City Council
Nottinghamshire County Council
Orkney Islands Council
Oxfordshire County Council
Pembrokeshire County Council
Pendle Borough Council
Perth and Kinross Council
Powys County Council
Reading Borough Council
Redbridge Council
Rhondda-Cynon-Taf County Borough Council
Ribble Valley Borough Council
Richmond Council
Rochdale Borough Council
Rossendale Borough Council
Rother District Council
Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council
Royal Borough of Greenwich
Rushcliffe Borough Council
Rushmoor Borough Council,
Rutland County Council
Scarborough Borough Council
Scottish Borders Council
Selby District Council
Sevenoaks District Council
Sheffield City Council
Shepton Mallet Town Council
Skipton Town Council
South Cambridgeshire District Council
South Derbyshire District Council
South Gloucestershire Council
South Hams District Council
South Kesteven District Council
South Lakeland District Council
South Norfolk Council
South Ribble Borough Council
South Somerset District Council
South Staffordshire Council
Southampton City Council
St Albans District Council
Staffordshire County Council
Stockport Council
Stratford-upon-Avon District Council
Stroud District Council
Suffolk County Council
Sunderland City Council
Surrey County Council
Swale Borough Council
Teignbridge District Council
Telford and Wrekin Council
Telford Town Council
Tendring District Council
Tewkesbury Borough Council
Thurrock Council
Torbay Council
Trafford Council
Trending District Council
Uttlesford District Council
Vale of White Horse and South Oxfordshire District Council
Wakefield City Council
Wakefield Metropolitan District Council
Waltham Forest
Warwick District Council
Waverley Borough Council
Wealden District Council
Welwyn Hatfield Borough Council
West Berkshire Council
West Devon Borough Council
West Lindsey District Council
West Lothian Council
West Norfolk
West Oxfordshire District Council
West Sussex County Council
Westminster City Council
Whitehall Town Council
Wiltshire Council
Wirral Council
Wokingham Borough Council
Wolverhampton City Council
Worcestershire County Council
Wyre Forest District Council
That’s an amazing response from Wild Justice supporters – thank you! We are working our way through these replies, and more are coming in all the time, so it may take quite a while before we can classify authorities as being good, bad or ugly…
Wild Justice’s legal challenge to the previous Welsh general licences was clearly a major factor in shaping the proposals that are now on offer in this consultation. But the places where we have moved NRW are not yet secure – that’s where you can help. We need hundreds of responses to the consultation to flood in to NRW. You should make whatever points you wish to, but here we give you suggestions. The consultation closes this coming Thursday – 11 November.
Here are our thoughts which cover most, but not all, of the consultation questions;
Questions 1-6 – only you can fill these in, they are about you.
7. Do you agree with the principles we are proposing to apply for deciding whether to grant a general licence?
YES
Yes and No. You have set out 7 principles – how likely is it that anyone will agree 100% with all of them?
Principle 1: There is an apparent and genuine need to allow the killing or taking of the species of wild bird in question, or to take or destroy their eggs or nests, in order to further one or more of the purposes outlined in section 16 of the Act.
‘Apparent and genuine’ should be ‘genuine and scientifically proven’. It is clear from the current NRW general licences that this is not always true and therefore that NRW is licensing unlimited, unnecessary and unlawful killing.
Principle 2: Allowing the lethal control of birds of the species concerned under general licence can reasonably be expected to contribute to resolving the problem or meeting the need.
Insert ‘on the basis of the science’ between ‘be expected’ and ‘to contribute’.
Principle 3: There are no satisfactory solutions that would resolve that problem or address the need in question, other than to grant a general licence allowing the killing or taking of the wild bird species concerned.
There is always the option of issuing specific licences rather than general licences.
Principle 4: Allowing lethal control of the species in question under general licence, rather than only under specific licences subject to individual applications, is a proportionate response, given the frequency, scale and severity of the problem or need.
This is not so much a principle as a craven lack of principle. NRW is not fulfilling its duties as a regulator by allowing such casual killing of birds in Wales. There are many things that lots of people want to do, not all of them should be allowed. NRW has allowed rural myths to be the basis for general licences and it’s time to change.
Principle 5: Allowing lethal control of a ‘target’ species under a general licence will not risk putting it into an unfavourable conservation status.
Unlimited general licences will always risk putting species into unfavourable conservation status because NRW hasn’t a clue how the licences are used, geographically, temporally or on what scale.
Principle 6: No action authorised by a general licence will adversely affect the conservation status of any species other than the target species.
That seems good to me.
Principle 7: The general licence can be framed in terms which are clear to all users, compliant with all relevant legal requirements, and enforceable.
Seems sensible, but the consequence is that there should be separate general licences for each target species – the general licence for the Jay (which I don’t think should be on a general licence anyway) cannot have the same details as that for a Carrion Crow.
8. Skip this question
9. Do you think that magpie is suitable for inclusion on general licences in Wales in light of evidence of decline in their population in Wales?
NO
I don’t think that the Magpie is suitable for inclusion on the conservation general licence because the science does not back up the case for such a wide-ranging reduction in species protection.
SELECT option ‘Not include magpie…’
Because this is what NRW should have been doing for years. You can still consider specific licences.
10. Do you think there are other species which may be suitable for inclusion on a general licence?
NO
11. Do you agree that general licences should be subject to regular review?
YES
Because they apparently authorise (unlawfully, I reckon) the large-scale and widespread killing of birds across Wales. Of course they should be regularly reviewed and should have to justify their details every year.
12. Do you agree with the way in which we propose to carry out a regular review of general licences?
NO
Reviews should be annual, unless you implement all my suggestions, in which case every few years would be OK.
13. Do you agree that general licences should continue to be issued for one year, and run from January to December?
YES
Yes for one year; No to January-December. The licences should be valid only at the time of need. For conservation purposes (there are few examples) this should be in the spring/summer when species are nesting.
14. Skip this question
15. Do you have any comments on the format of general licences or any suggestions on how we could improve them in terms of presentation?
YES
If you persist with general licences then they ought to be very lengthy in order properly to specify the circumstances and conditions of lawful use.
16. Do you agree that a person authorised by a land owner or occupier to carry out actions under a general licence, should be authorised in writing by the land owner or occupier?
YES
17. Do you agree that general licences should include a condition requiring users to first try to address the problem using alternative non-lethal methods, and to continue to make reasonable efforts to do so?
YES
I believe this is a legal requirement.
18. Do you agree that general licence users should be advised to keep records of the actions they have taken under the licences?
NO
No, they should be required to keep records. NRW hasn’t a clue how many birds are killed in Wales under these licences and has no way of finding out.
19. Do you agree with our proposed approach to addressing protected site requirements when granting general licences?
YES
NRW is just catching up with DEFRA/NE here.
20. Do you agree with the list of sites and buffer zones where we are proposing that general licences should not apply?
Skip this question unless you have specific knowledge of the sites.
Questions 21-27 – skip all of these.
28. Do you agree that NRW general and specific licences should specify the types of cage trap that may be used?
YES
This will restrict the use of traps that may otherwise be unsuitable for the welfare of any trapped birds.
29. Do you agree with the types and specifications of cage trap which we propose to authorise for use under any general licences we grant?
YES
It is particularly important to include a requirement that Larsen Mate & Larsen Pod traps are secured to mitigate the risk of them being dragged away and also that the closing edges are sufficiently rounded so as not to trap/damage the raised wings of a non-target raptor.
30. Do you agree with the proposal not to allow the use of meat-based baits under any general licences granted by NRW?
YES
Research in Scotland, commissioned by SNH, has demonstrated that the use of meat baits encourages birds of prey (non-target species) to enter traps.
31. Do you agree that continuing to allow the use of diced meat as feed for decoy birds achieves the right balance between mitigating the risk of catching non-target species and the welfare of decoy birds?
YES
Although would like to see evidence-based research on the use of diced meat for decoy birds. If it is shown that this still encourages raptors to enter the trap then the use of diced meat should not be permitted.
32. Do you agree that licences should include a condition requiring captured birds of the target species to be killed out of sight of other captured birds and decoys, except in relation to multi-catch traps?
YES
Although this provision needs to be considered alongside consultation question #34 (should trap users be required to kill trapped birds (of the target species) as soon as reasonably practicable after discovery?). For example, it would not be acceptable for a trap user to take trapped birds to a distant location (far from the original trap) and hold them for several hours before killing them.
33. Do you agree with the proposal to allow users of multi-catch traps discretion to kill trapped birds within sight of other birds where they consider that the additional delay and handling caused by moving out of sight to kill each bird would cause more distress?
NEITHER YES OR NO
There needs to be much more thought about the method of killing multiple birds from one trap. For example, covert footage in Scotland has shown a trap operator swinging wildly with a baseball bat inside a cage trap full of crows, wounding some and then battering them to death in a corner, causing considerable distress to the other birds in the cage.
34. Do you agree that trap users should be required to kill trapped birds (of the target species) as soon as reasonably practicable after discovery?
YES
35. Do you agree that NRW licences should specify, as a licence condition, the matters that must be addressed at each cage trap inspection?
YES
There is evidence that some trap operators ‘check’ their cage traps from a distance (e.g. with binoculars from a vehicle) rather than physically attending the trap. There is also at least one company promoting the use of a ‘remote’ trap checking system, whereby a camera installed at the trap sends pictures to a mobile phone in lieu of the trap operator physically visiting the trap. Neither of these systems is satisfactory, especially when the trap operator needs to assess the welfare of the decoy and any trapped birds, e.g. any evidence, physical or behavioural, of injury and/or distress.
36. Do you agree with our proposal to specify a maximum interval between inspections of 25 hours?
YES and NO
The proposal to specify a maximum interval between inspections is essential but the justification for choosing this interval to be 25 hours is unacceptable. It has not been selected with the decoy/trapped birds’ welfare to the fore; rather it has been chosen to streamline various licence conditions. NRW should undertake some research on the welfare impacts of checking live traps at 6, 12, 18 and 24 hour intervals so that the timing of trap checks can be based on evidence of welfare impacts. Large multi-catch traps may be suitable to hold a bird for up to 25 hours (if there is adequate and suitable food, water, perches and shelter) but the same cannot be said for most clam traps, which are considerably smaller.
37. Do you agree with our proposal to include a condition prohibiting the use of wing-clipped birds as cage trap decoys?
YES
The condition should go further and specify that decoy birds may not be wing-clipped, blinded, tethered or maimed in any way.
38. Do you agree that we should introduce a dedicated general licence containing standard terms and conditions for the use of cage traps?
YES
39. Do you have any views on whether a mandatory scheme of trap registration and tagging in Wales would be beneficial?
YES
NRW says that previously there has been ‘very little demand’ for trap registration by trap users – of course there hasn’t! Trap operators are not going to request more regulatory hoops to jump through, are they?! It is a massive missed opportunity for NRW not to impose a mandatory trap registration scheme. Without trap registration, which identifies the actual trap operator, enforcement of the trap regulations becomes virtually impossible on land where more than one potential trap operator is employed. For example, if a cage trap offence has been discovered (e.g. a trapped raptor that has not been released within 24hrs and has died of its injuries), any attending police officer will be met with ‘no comment’ answers from the potential trap operators and therefore the police officer will be unable to identify the actual trap operator, and thus charges cannot be laid. This has happened time and time again on large shooting estates in Scotland, where multiple gamekeepers are employed, which is why SNH (now NatureScot) introduced the trap registration scheme, to enable the enforcement authorities to identify the individual trap operator. And it must be registered to the individual operator, not to an estate for example, for exactly the same reasons as above.
40. Do you have any additional views on the approach that NRW should take towards regulating the use of cage traps for lethal control of wild birds?
YES
Although the proposed licences permit actions that are sometimes justified and necessary, NRW needs to introduce far more accountability into the use of cage traps to kill birds. The new proposals still do not include any requirement for licence returns, e.g. how many birds are killed or what species they are. NRW is effectively still licensing the ‘casual killing’ of potentially millions of birds with absolutely no idea of the numbers involved or the impact on local populations. NRW also needs to consider the seasonal use of cage traps. For example, at present they are operational year-round, but what justification is there for running a multi-capture trap during the summer, autumn and winter? NRW also needs to consider the type of habitat in which cage traps are set. For example, at present they can be deployed in every habitat, but what justification is there for setting a multi-catch trap in woodland or on open moorland, where the risk of trapping birds of prey is highest? NRW should also be considering restrictions to the entrance sizes on funnel and ladder traps. Some of these entrances are disproportionately large, some might argue deliberately so to allow large raptors to enter the traps. NRW should also introduce a competency test for trap operators. Given the rigorous and robust licensing requirements for those who handle birds for scientific monitoring (e.g. ringing), it is inexplicable that those handling birds with a responsibility for the humane destruction of a sentient animal are not individually qualified and repeatedly-re-tested and licensed.
47. Do you agree with our proposed principles for licensing the lethal control of wild birds for conservation purposes?
NO
You’ve done it again – listed 5 complicated principles and asked for a yes or no answer – that’s silly.
48 – skip this question
49. Do you think we should: (1) retain a general licence for conservation of wild birds where the evidence indicates that a general licence is appropriate; (2) not grant a general licence for conservation of wild birds; (3) gather evidence on the extent to which GL004 is used before making that decision; (4) adopt another approach?
Not grant a general licence for conservation purposes
Jays eating Blackbird eggs is a very different circumstance to Carrion Crows eating Curlew eggs. The current licences are spectacularly unclear and give the impression that anything goes – exactly what the law does not allow.
50. Do you agree that the most appropriate basis for identifying the beneficiary species of a general licence for conservation of wild birds is: red or amber listed species which regularly breed in Wales and which are considered vulnerable to predation by one or more of the corvid species concerned?
YES
But that consideration of vulnerability to predation must be science based and not on the basis of rural myths or prejudice.
51. Do you agree that a general licence for the purpose of conserving wild birds should continue to be limited to conserving only the chicks or eggs of the beneficiary species?
YES
The species listed are not predators of adult birds to any important degree.
52. Do you think that a general licence for the purpose of conserving wild birds should include restrictions on the time of year when the licence can be relied upon?
YES
Breeding season only.
53. Do you agree that carrion crow should continue to be included on a general licence for the purpose of conserving wild birds?
NO
Well, perhaps. But only a general licence which specifies the species being protected, the months in which killing is authorised and the geographic location in which it applies – not walking down a street in Cardiff in the autumn for a vague unspecified purpose.
54. Do you agree that jay should continue be included on a general licence for the purpose of conserving wild birds, but only in relation to the conservation of woodland bird species?
NO.
No serious conservation organisation is calling for this – it’s casual unjustified killing.
55. Do you agree that jackdaw should no longer be included on a general licence for the purpose of conserving wild birds?
YES
I agree with NRW – no need for it.
56. Do you think that Magpie is suitable for inclusion on a general licence for the purpose of conserving wild birds in light of the evidence of its impact?
NO
Which species does NRW claim will be protected by this? You don’t name any – probably because there aren’t any.
As the #COP26 meeting starts in Glasgow, Wild Justice supporters have sent messages to all elected UK parliamentarians, at Westminster, Holyrood, Cardiff and Belfast, asking for Uplands for people, for the climate and for wildlife. Thank you for raising your voices with 38,000+ messages being sent to decision-makers.
Comments Off on Challenging the Northern Ireland general licencesRook. Photo: Tim Melling
Today we launch a legal challenge to Northern Ireland’s general licences and we’re asking for your financial support, please.
We need to raise £45,000 to take this case all the way through the courts and we are more than half way there already.
We’re very determined to make a difference.
See ourcrowdfunder for more details of the case and for an easy way to donate. Please help if you can.
Aren’t Rooks rather haughty looking birds? Why should DAERA have put them on a general licence where they can be killed in unlimited numbers for ‘conservation purposes’ – when there is no need to kill any at all as a conservation measure?
Three years ago today, Wild Justice was incorporated as a not-for-profit company limited by guarantee. We think of 13 February 2019 as our day of birth, because that was when we launched ourselves to the public, we’re not sure what that makes today…
It’s only three years, but we’ve come a long way. What have we achieved? Here are some examples;
We’ve done the dull but important things of setting ourselves up, having a website (with content), having a bank account (with some money in it), havinga newsletter with c50,000 subscribers (slightly fewer right now, the number fluctuates), doing our accounts, paying our taxes etc.
We’ve got involved in issues such as general licences, release of non-native gamebirds, Badger culls, Beaver reintroductions, illegal persecution of Hen Harriers and other raptors, the Environment Bill in England, lead ammunition, glyphosate use by local authorities and a few more. In all cases we’ve made a difference – sometimes a small difference and sometimes a bigger difference. We are often told that our presence has created an atmosphere where governments and agencies are more careful about what they do because, for the first time for ages, they may face legal challenges from a determined group.
We’ve stayed friends, the three of us, and we’ve made more friends in the outside world, and we’ve irked some people too. We think that all the irked people are people we don’t mind irking. We’ve worked with other organisations in joint campaigns, often through Wildlife and Countryside Link, and we’re happy to muck in with others if we can make a real difference.
We’ve attracted a lot of public support from those who want non-governmental organisations to take a more active and robust approach. We think we’ve identified a niche and helped to fill it.
It’s a start, but what of the future? Here are some things we’ve decided and some things we are thinking about:
we’re going to employ our first staff member fairly soon – a part-time post helping us with the mundane running of things but also with setting up new campaigns and new legal cases.
we’re not going to move from being a not-for-profit company to a charity in the near future – there would be some financial benefits, but not huge ones, and there would be higher administrative costs and restrictions on the types of things we could say.
we’re not going to sell you merchandise – the world is full of stuff, and that’s one of the problems with it. We retain the right to change our minds on this in the future!
we’re going to continue with a mixture of campaigning and legal challenge – bringing them together to help nature is what we’re about.
Why Wild Justice is different:
we don’t have members who pay us a subscription – we depend on public donations exclusively. If you don’t like what we are doing then you won’t donate, and then we’ll fizzle out. It’s a very pure funding strategy.
we promote the work and campaigns of other organisations – you don’t see that very often in the world of wildlife non-governmental organisations
we are robust – we’ll take anyone on, and we’re not that bothered what the Establishment thinks of us
we’re making challenges that wildlife would make if they had a voice
We told you last week that we had been refused permission for judicial review of the DEFRA regulations on burning on peatlands. Today we can tell you that we have appealed this judgment – it’s actually called a renewal. It’s quite a short document, see below, and basically says that the judge got it wrong and can another judge have another think about it please.
At the foot of the renewal is the short phrase ‘…the claimant will, by 29 October 2021, serve notice of objection as to the Interested parties’ costs‘. We are not arguing that we should pay lower costs, we are quite happy to pay the £10k that the process demands under the Aarhus Convention for an environmental case. In such cases, costs are capped, it’s a very sensible system to allow proper challenge of the decisions of statutory bodies where the claimant is acting for the public good and will make no personal gain from the case. We are objecting because we think that the Interested Parties (BASC, Countryside Alliance, National Gamekeepers’ Organisation and the Moorland Association) 1) added nothing to the legal argument 2) want to give the money away anyway and 3) we would much rather the taxpayer were reimbursed when we lose. Basically, the Interested Parties butted in and are now collaring some of DEFRA’s cost entitlement (in our view).
Thestatement by the Interested Parties is classic grandstanding. It cannot possibly be maintained that our legal challenge sought to disrupt the DEFRA regulations – it seeks to improve them because, as DEFRA themselves said when they were introduced;
There is a consensus that burning of vegetation on blanket bog is damaging to peatland formation and habitat condition. It makes it more difficult or impossible to restore these habitats to their natural state and to restore their hydrology.
We do not think that the Interested Parties are part of the consensus to which DEFRA referred whereas Wild Justice clearly is.
DEFRA, despte its word, did not go anywhere far enough and left more than half of the relevant area unprotected. Pointing that out is not ‘disrupting’ the regulations, it is attempting to ‘make them fit for purpose’ (see here and here).
The Interested Parties in this case are vested interested parties outside of the consensus of the need for habitat protection and climate protection. they are, look at them, a bunch of recreational shooters who are defending a worthless hobby which involves shooting birds for fun, and causing environmental damage as a consequence.
We wonder why DEFRA came up with such bizarrely worded and ineffective regulations – perhaps they were influenced by the Interested Parties. Let’s be clear, we believe that the Interested Parties want burning on peatlands and on protected blanket bogs to continue as much as possible for as long as possible. That’s what they are interested in.
In para 73 of the consultation DEFRA says ‘We intend to make beavers a European Protected Species by listing them in Schedule 2 of the Conservation of Habitats and Species Regulations 2017. This change is to implement legal obligations under the Bern Convention and does not form part of the proposed approach that is being consulted upon.‘. Wild Justice wishes to comment on those two sentences even though they are not part of the consultation.
We welcome DEFRA’s intention to make Beaver a European Protected Species by listing this species in Schedule 2 of the Conservation of Habitats and Species regulations 2017. This is long overdue – more than a decade overdue – and is now a matter of urgency. England needs to catch up with Scotland in this regard.
We believe it is accepted that Beavers were resident in England, Wales and Scotland until 1790, and perhaps later.
We believe it is accepted that Beavers have been reintroduced in England for at least 19 years: starting at Ham Fen in 2002. Beavers now live unenclosed in the wild in numerous river catchments, particularly in the south west of England. Beavers are also present in Scotland with populations resulting both from an official trial reintroduction and unlicensed introductions.
In England the Beaver is still listed as an animal ‘no longer normally present’ on Schedule 9 (Part 1B) of the Wildlife & Countryside Act 1981 despite it living in the wild in numerous river catchments across the UK and in England.
As DEFRA must be aware, changes to Schedule 9 Part 1 of the WCA were made by the Infrastructure Act 2015 (“IA 2015”). Section 24 IA 2015 removed a number of species from Part 1 and inserted them into a new Part 1A (“Native animals”). Section 24 IA 2015 also created a new Part 1B (“Animals no longer normally present”) into which the Wild Boar was inserted, along with the Beaver (which had not previously been listed in Part 1) as the only two species listed.
And as DEFRA should be aware, during the passage of the Infrastructure Bill, the Minister for Transport, Baroness Kramer confirmed that the purpose of the creation of Part 1B Schedule 9 was to “clarify that former native species—species which were once present in this country but which are or have been absent for a period—should be categorised differently from non-native species for the purposes of these provisions … We recognise that in some circumstances reintroductions can be merited and desirable. Our amendments will mean that where these animals have been reintroduced lawfully following full consideration of their likely impacts by the licensing authority, those animals are out of scope of these powers”.
The Secretary of State has the power to add species to, or remove species from, Schedule 9 as the need arises under section 22(5) WCA 1981.
The inclusion of the Beaver in Part 1B was vigorously opposed by a number of MPs and NGOs, including Friends of the Earth, on the grounds that the Beaver was even by that time reestablished in the wild and therefore ‘normally present’ in part due to deliberate and planned reintroductions.
We welcome the fact that the Secretary of State will review the legal status of the Beaver and intends to recognise Beavers as a European Protected Species. The Secretary of State should also review the listing of this species on Schedule 9 Part 1B of WCA. Should he fail to review the legal status of the Beaver or decide not to amend its status following a review, that decision may be subject to a challenge by way of judicial review. The potential grounds for such a challenge could include the argument that the Secretary of State has failed to have regard to a relevant matter (the existence of healthy wild populations in England).
We thought we ought to mention our views at this stage to encourage the Secretary of State to make an overdue decision as rapidly as possible.
We’re pretty sure we could put the Secretary of State in touch with some people who could show him some wild Beavers in England if he remains of the view that they are ‘animals no longer normally present’.
We were delighted to hear yesterday that the excellent Scottish-based group, Trees for Life, have won their legal challenge against NatureScot on the issuing of licences to kill Beavers. In her judgment, Lady Carmichael said the killing of Beavers authorised by NatureScot had been unlawful and the agency must in future set out its reasons for approving lethal control of this protected species. This is an important decision for Beavers, and may have implications for other licensing action by this agency.
Wild Justice was contacted directly by Trees for Life yesterday with the news as we contributed £5000 to the costs of the legal challenge and publicised their crowdfunder to our supporters through our newsletter. We were very happy to help in this way, win or lose, but this result is very welcome indeed. Congratulations to Trees for Life, their legal team and to Scottish Beavers!
We can reveal now that Wild Justice started a legal challenge on this subject back in 2019 and then, for various reasons, called a halt to it. We’ve heard that NatureScot staff have boasted that they saw off Wild Justice, and to some extent they did. We’ve always somewhat regretted that outcome. This is a very significant success for Trees for Life, we are glad to have played a very small part in the outcome and we take great pleasure in seeing this result.
Trees for Life press release:
Legal win offers hope of new era for beavers and farmers
Licensed beaver killings must halt and all previous beaver killings authorised by NatureScot have been unlawful, judge rules
Trees for Life’s successful court challenge to the Scottish Government’s beaver killing policy offers hope for a new era that benefits nature, climate action and farmers, says the rewilding charity.
As Scotland prepares to host the UN’s COP26 climate summit in 10 days time, today’s ruling by Lady Carmichael confirms that all previous licensed killings of beavers authorised by the Scottish Government’s nature agency NatureScot have been unlawful and have been revoked, and that all official beaver culling must halt until NatureScot has rebuilt its approach.
The ruling confirms that from now on NatureScot must set out openly and fully the reasons why it believes any future licence to kill beavers should be granted.
“With Scotland hosting what could be the most important summit on climate breakdown in our lifetimes, this result offers a better future for Scotland’s beavers. The Scottish Government must take this ruling seriously, and it means that from here on in there can be no more rubber-stamping of licensed killing of beavers,” said Alan McDonnell, Trees for Life Conservation Manager.
“This is an important victory for accountability and transparency, which will benefit everyone including conservationists and farmers.”
Lady Carmichael’s ruling applies to all European protected species in the UK, and so has wide-ranging implications for wildlife.
Now that beavers cannot be killed under license without a full explanation of the reasons, NatureScot needs to rethink its approach to beaver management. Trees for Life says the killing of beavers should only ever a last resort, and is calling for beavers to be relocated to areas of Scotland where they have been missing for centuries, instead of being shot.
“By moving rather than shooting beavers, we can help them get to work boosting biodiversity, tackling climate breakdown and creating wildlife tourism opportunities,’ said Alan McDonnell.
“The Scottish Government has been blocking relocation of beavers to areas of Scotland where they belong but are missing, but today’s ruling creates hope that this will change so that farmers will no longer be put in a position where they have no choice but to shoot much-loved animals.”
Beavers create wetlands that benefit other wildlife, soak up carbon dioxide, purify water and reduce flooding, but the animals sometimes need managing if they cause damage to farmland.
Since the Government legally protected beavers in 2019, its nature agency NatureScot has allowed over 200 beavers to be killed under license – despite laws under which beavers are a protected species which should not be killed unless there is no satisfactory alternative.
The Government’s refusal to allow beavers to be relocated to new areas of Scotland, even though NatureScot has identified over 100,000 hectares of habitat, had left Tayside farmers whose crops are damaged by beavers with little option but to apply for a culling licence. Today’sruling means that from now on, more suitable management alternatives can be considered.
NatureScot’s failure to make the licensed killing of beavers a last resort was challenged by Trees for Life’s judicial review heard by the Court of Session in June. The charity’s crowdfunder for the case was supported by more than 1,500 people and raised over £60,000.
In 2020, Trees for Life’s petition to the Scottish Parliament – calling for the Scottish Government to relocate rather than shoot beavers – was signed by almost 17,000 people in what was the most successful petition to the Parliament in over a decade.
Trees for Life says NatureScot must now ensure beaver management is farmer-friendly and within the law. The Government should ensure practical and financial support for farmers – including a beaver relocation service, and access to timely and efficient advice and resources.
Adam Eagle, Chief Executive Officer of legal specialist rewilding charity The Lifescape Project, which spearheaded the litigation with Trees for Life, said: “This judgment means that all licences for killing beavers which had been in force are unlawful and killing must stop today. It also means that all killing to date has been illegal.
“This decision is wonderful news for Scotland’s biodiversity. But why it took a legal challenge to ensure NatureScot follow its legal obligations to protect beavers, remains a worrying question.”
Trees for Life is dedicated to rewilding the Scottish Highlands. See treesforlife.org.uk.
Comments Off on Natural England – let’s call the whole thing off!
Photo: Gordon Yates
You may remember that Natural England has been thinking about reintroducing Hen Harriers into southern England for years – huge amounts of time have been spent on this controversial project.
Wild Justice wrote to Natural England in mid June questioning the scientific basis for their plans for a reintroduction project – see here. Tomorrow, Natural England’s Scientific Advisory Committee will consider this project and our comments. But Natural England has told us that tomorrow’s meeting ‘…will help inform the next steps for the Project, including timescales for importing and releasing birds and communications about that.’.
Natural England has told Wild Justice that it ‘… intends to transfer rescued young hen harriers from France later in 2021 or early 2022’ and that it ‘ … is negotiating the transfer of rehabilitated adult hen harriers from Spain later in 2021 or early 2022.’.
This project is controversial for five main reasons:
Natural England has struggled to find a release site that will welcome Hen harriers – this isn’t a very promising situation for a bird that will wanderwidely in its early years.
Many, not all, UK conservationists regard this project as a distraction from Natural England’s real duties to solve the in situ conservation problems facing Hen Harriers in their current English range ie illegal persecution on grouse moors
Many, not all, UK conservationists don’t think the reintroduction has a high enough chance of success to make the risks and effort worthwhile
Natural England has struggled to find collaborators abroad, in the wide range of the Hen Harrier in continental Europe, who are willing to be associated with this project.
The Secretary of Ste for DEFRA, Mr Eustice,announced in May that an England Reintroduction Taskforce is to be set up to set standards and priorities for reintroduction projects – Naural England should not jump the gun.
Natural England has many more important things to do than continue to pursue this vanity project. We hope they’ll just call the whole thing off (and why not call off their equally controversial brood-meddling trial too?).
You have sent 37,000 emails to UK parliamentarians through our e-action, Uplands for people, for the climate and for wildlife. Thank you!
All elected parliamentarian in England (MPs), Scotland (MSPs), Wales (MSs) and Northern Ireland (MLAs) has received an email from at least one of their constituents calling for action on Uplands for people, for the climate and for wildlife.
The top-ranking English constituencies
All constituencies across England have supported our e-action, but the MPs receiving the highest number of emails are Conservative MPs, in rural constituencies, many of them with grouse moors:
High Peak, Robert Largan MP, 128 emails
Skipton and Ripon, Julian Smith MP, 119 emails
Sheffield Hallam, Olivia Blake MP, 108 emails
Derbyshire Dales, Sarah Dines MP, 107 emails
Totnes, Anthony Mangnall MP, 104 emails
Calder Valley, Craig Whittaker MP, 99 emails
Hexham, Guy Opperman MP, 99 emails
Stroud, Siobhan Baillie MP, 91 emails
Westmorland and Lonsdale, Tim Farron MP, 91 emails
Suffolk Coastal, Therese Coffey MP, 83 emails
Somerton and Frome, David Warburton MP, 83 emails
West Dorset, Chris Loder MP, 82 emails
Wealden, Nus Ghani MP, 82 emails
The Cotswolds, Geoffrey Clifton-Brown MP, 80 emails
North Devon, Selaine Saxby MP, 79 emails
Torridge and West Devon, Geoffrey CoxMP, 78 emails
St Ives, Derek Thomas MP, 78 emails
Wells, James HeappeyMP, 78 emails
Arundel and South Downs, Andrew Griffith MP, 78 emails
Bexhill and Battle, Huw Merriman MP, 77 emails
The top-ranking Scottish constituencies
iParl
MSPs representing all Holyrood constituencies have been sent emails – the number received by individual MSPs in each constituency and region varies, but the five strongest-supporting constituencies all have upland areas within their boundaries:
Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch
2. Perthshire North
3. East Lothian
4. Midlothian South, Tweeddale and Lauderdale
5. Inverness and Nairn
The constituencies with the least support are all in the lowland and urban central belt of Scotland: Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse; Cumbernauld and Kilsyth; Glasgow Anniesland; Airdrie and Shotts; Glasgow Provan.
If you have signed the e-action and sent a message to your elected representative(s) – thank you! Now please ask your friends to do the same. This e-action closes on 28 October.
We heard yesterday, Friday, afternoon that we have been refused permission for judicial review of the much criticised and frankly grossly inadequate regulations brought in by DEFRA to limit vegetation burning on peatland soils in the uplands of England. This is disappointing but we remain of the view that the case is arguable and the reasoning behind it is correct. We shall be conferring with our lawyers on this matter later this week.
Wild Justice believes that the DEFRA measures are inadequate; they do not protect all peatland areas, only those with peat above a certain depth and which are notified as SSSIs and designated as SPAs and/or SACs. It is accepted by all that this protection amounts to less than half of the area of upland peat that could have been protected with better, tighter, more appropriate, wording. The Hon Justice Dove has decided that we cannot go to court to argue these points and states that DEFRA has considerable latitude in framing such regulations. We wonder how little DEFRA could do and get away with it. We shall consider an appeal.
In the run up to the COP26 meeting, the Westminster government is allowing damaging climate-harming activities in the English uplands. It is not taking the steps that are needed, even easy ones like limiting burning of vegetation (usually for the largely irrelevant hobby of grouse shooting), when it is hosting a hugely important international climate change meeting.
In this case, so far, the law has not come to the aid of the environment.
We need a better future for the uplands across the UK. Thank you for sending 35,000 messages to your elected parliamentarians across the UK asking for a better future for uplands for people, for the climate and for wildlife. If you haven’t sent that message yet thenplease click here to participate. The e-action will close in 12 days time.
To donate to Wild Justice’s work by bank transfer, PayPal or a cheque in the post – click here
We will monitor how best to protect our native wildlife
Pheasant shooting started on October 1. Did you know that 51 million pheasants are captive-bred and released to provide targets for people to shoot at for recreation?
Pheasants are not native to the UK and, thanks to legal challenges from Wild Justice, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has, this year, introduced some restrictions on release numbers in order to protect native wildlife. We’ll be monitoring how that goes.
Some pheasants end up in the human food chain and most are shot with lead ammunition. Lead is a poison and the Food Standards Agency recommends that pregnant women and young children avoid eating game meat shot with lead.
Wild Justice is pressing the FSA to introduce proper health warnings on game meat and proper testing of lead levels in such meat.
Chris Packham, Ruth Tingay & Mark Avery (Wild Justice)
Our e-action, Uplands for people, for the climate and for wildlife has passed the 25,000 emails milestone.
Almost every elected parliamentarian in England (MPs), Scotland (MSPs), Wales (MSs) and Northern Ireland (MLAs) has received an email from at least one of their constituents calling for action on Uplands for people, for the climate and for wildlife.
The national breakdown
Wales 40 of 60 MSs have been contacted (67%)
Northern Ireland 85 of 90 MLAs have been contacted (94%)
Scotland all 129 MSPs have been contacted (100%)
England 530 of 533 MPs have been contacted (99%)
UK parliamentarians 97%!!
The top-ranking English constituencies
The seven top English constituencies in responding to our e-action are, or are immediately adjacent to, upland areas:
High Peak, Robert Largan MP, 91 emails
Skipton and Ripon, Julian Smith MP, 90 emails
Sheffield Hallam, Olivia Blake MP, 82 emails
Derbyshire Dales, Sarah Dines MP, 76 emails
Hexham, Guy Opperman MP, 74 emails
Calder Valley, Craig Whitaker MP, 70 emails
Westmorland and Lonsdale, Tim Farron MP, 66 emails
Stroud, Siobhan Baillie MP, 62 emails
Arundel and South Downs, Andrew Griffith MP, 59 emails
Suffolk Coastal, Therese Coffey MP, 59 emails
The missing English constituencies
There are just three English constituency MPs who have not yet had an email asking for Uplands for people, for the climate and for wildlife. One of them is easy – it is Chris Packham’s MP, Julian Lewis, who won’t accept email correspondence! The others are in London; Erith and Thamesmead, and West Ham.
The top-ranking Scottish constituencies
MSPs representing all Holyrood constituencies have been sent emails – the number received by individual MSPs in each constituency and region varies, but the five strongest-supporting constituencies all have upland areas within their boundaries:
Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch
2. Perthshire North
3. East Lothian
4. Inverness and Nairn
5. Midlothian South, Tweeddale and Lauderdale
The constituencies with the least support are all in the lowland and urban central belt of Scotland: Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse; Cumbernauld and Kilsyth; Glasgow Anniesland; Airdrie and Shotts; Glasgow Provan.
From now we will bring you occasional updates on progress but if you have signed the e-action and sent a message to your elected representative(s) – thank you! Now please ask your friends to do the same.
Comments Off on Today is the opening day of the Pheasant-shooting seasonSeven week old pheasant chicks, often known as poults, after just being released into a gamekeepers release pen on an English shooting estate
Today is the first day of the Pheasant-shooting season.
Pheasants are not native to the UK, they were brought here by the Romans, but the Romans didn’t breed 50 million Pheasants in captivity and release them into the countryside for recreational shooting, did they?
Legal action by Wild Justice, which started in summer 2019, led to DEFRA agreeing (in autumn 2020) to introduce restrictions on the release of Pheasants (and Red-legged Partridges – 12 million of them are released for shooting too). Pheasants have been added to Schedule 9 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act in England which means that it is illegal to release them into the countryside except under licence. DEFRA have issued licences which will allow many of the previous releases to go ahead but not all of them. In particular, sites of nature conservation importance should be better protected from the direct impacts of gamebirds eating invertebrates, vegetation, reptiles and scratching around and pooing in such vast numbers.
We’re unconvinced that these regulations are tight enough and will be watching carefully what happens (and the situation is complicated by Brexit and coronavirus – isn’t everything?).
But make no mistake about it – the changes brought in as a result of Wild Justice’s legal challenge represent a massive reform of gamebird shooting in the UK. Pheasant and Red-legged Partridge are now listed along with Grey Squirrel, American Crayfish and Japanese Knotweed as species that cause harm and whose releases must be controlled. About 15 million of those 50 million Pheasants are shot for fun, and some of those find their way into the human food chain, although far too many are discarded and buried or dumped in the countryside.
Most Pheasants which are shot in the UK are shot with lead ammunition. Lead is a poison – that’s why we’ve got rid of it from petrol, water pipes, paint, fishing weights and other sources. And yet we shoot lead pellets into birds that enter the human food chain. The Food Standards Agency adviseeveryone to reduce their intake of lead in food but especially that women trying to get pregnant, pregnant women, toddlers and young children should avoid eating game meat shot with lead. Did you know that? No? Well, we don’t expect that many people do because when you buy lead-shot game in supermarkets, from butchers or at market stalls there are no warnings or labels.
the weight of captive-bred, released non-native gamebirds is the same as all the native birds in the UK put together
the scientific name for Pheasant is Phasianus colchicus – the ancient land of Colchis in present-day Georgia is just about the closest to here that truly wild Pheasants live, and most of their natural range is from the Black Sea east to China and Japan
Pheasants are omnivores and eat everything from reptiles – including lizards and even snakes – to invertebrates and many plants. The ecological impact, of such huge numbers, and of their droppings, is of concern to conservationists.
nearly half the Pheasants in the European countryside are found in the UK alone.
about a fifth of the Pheasants released each year for shooting are eaten by Foxes before the shooting season starts – predator populations are thought to be artificially high in the UK partly because of this ‘free meat’, and that might well have impacts on other native wildlife such as ground-nesting birds such as waders.
Makes you think doesn’t it?
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Comments Off on Ask your local authority questions about their pesticide use – a template
Photo credit: Jurgis Mankauskas/Shutterstock
This is a template that you can use (simply copy and paste the text below, and fill in a few details) to ask your local authority about their use of the pesticide glyphosate (more information about glyphosate –click here). When you get a reply we would love to see it – please forward to admin@wild justice.org.uk and we’ll assess it and add it to the list of local authorities that have been contacted. Thank you.
By email to information team of local authority
Dear [Local Authority name]
Re: Herbicide Use – Requests for information under the Environmental Information Regulations 2004 and/or the Freedom of Information Act 2000
I am a resident of [village/town/city] in [Local Authority’s name]. I write regarding [Local Authority’s name]’s use of glyphosate-based herbicides, about which I would like to know more.
In this letter I set out a request for environmental information, which I make in accordance with the Environmental Information Regulations 2004 (the “EIR 2004”) and/or the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (the “FOIA 2000”). Where the Information Sought is available online, I am happy to receive that information by way of link to the respective online source.
Information Sought
I request the following information:
Which glyphosate-based herbicides[1] are currently used by or on behalf of the Council and/or on land owned by, managed by, or under the control of, the Council?
For the most recent 12-month period for which information is available, please could you tell me the amount and brand of each glyphosate-based herbicide in question, as well as the size of the area over which they were used.
Please could you explain the basis for (i) the Council’s choice of particular product(s), and (ii) the Council’s decision to use glyphosate-based herbicides rather than alternative methods. Please could you provide me with copies of any policy or other document which informs that decision-making.
I understand that, if the Council uses, or instructs other to use, plant protection products (including glyphosate-based herbicides) then the Council is required by law[2] to ensure that[3]:
all reasonable precautions are taken to protect human health and the environment;
the application of the plant protection product is confined to the crop, land, produce, buildings, contents of buildings, materials or other areas intended to be treated;
and when the product is used in places of heightened concern (which includes, among others, areas used by the public or vulnerable groups[4], areas in the close vicinity of healthcare facilities, and on or along roads, railway lines, very permeable surfaces, or other infrastructure close to surface water or groundwater) that the amount used and the frequency of use are as low as reasonably practicable.
5. Please explain how the Council ensures that it complies with the requirements set out above in paragraph 4, particularly in terms of operational decision-making by the Council?
6. Please provide me with copies of any policy or other document which informs the Council’s decision-making in relation to compliance with the legal requirements set out in paragraph 4 above. Please also provide copies of evidence of the Council’s decision-making over the past 12 months relating to the records of decisions taken to ensure the amount of plant protection products used and the frequency of use are as low as reasonably practicable.
Time for a response
I should be grateful for a response as soon as possible and no later than 20 working days in accordance with section 5(2) of the EIR 2004, or, if the information is not environmental information, promptly and no later than 20 working days in accordance with section 10 of the FOIA 2000.
Yours faithfully
[Signature]
[Name]
[1] Defined to include products containing glyphosate
[4] Defined to include “persons needing specific consideration when assessing the acute and chronic health effects of plant protection products. These include pregnant and nursing women, the unborn, infants and children, the elderly and workers and residents subject to high pesticide exposure over the long term”.
Comments Off on Northern Ireland General Licences expire today
The three Northern Ireland general licences, TPG1, TPG2and TPG3 which purport to authorise the killing of specific listed bird species to protect human health, to prevent serious damage to crops and for alleged conservation purposes expire today. The Northern Ireland Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) seems to have no plan to reissue them any time soon and has got itself into a mess.
The wording of the three ‘current’ licences is explicit:
As things stand, as from darkness tonight it will be illegal to kill Magpies, House Sparrows, Woodpigeons and a range of other species in Northern Ireland because these licences will have expired.
What are General Licences? All wild birds are protected by law – that is the very sensible starting point for wild bird protection. There are two relatively small classes of bird for which there are legally defined exceptions to that rule. One exception relates to gamebirds (yes, an ugly term) meaning those species that society has deemed suitable for killing for recreational purposes, and sometimes for consumption as food, such as Pheasants, many ducks, and some waders such as Snipe. the other exception is a range of species that cause us, people, problems and which can be killed under specific circumstances and conditions. Those are the species covered by these three licences until darkness today.
Wild Justice and General Licences. Wild Justice has, since our launch in February 2019, challenged the rationality and legality of the general licences which exist in their slightly different forms in all four UK nations. We have been successful in reducing the species covered and tightening up the conditions of their use. These licences exist on government websites – you don’t have to apply for them and you aren’t sent a bit of paper that shows you can use them – they are generally available to all and sundry, but they do have conditions of use which are widely ignored or simply aren’t understood well enough by people with guns in the countryside.
Wild Justice and the Northern Ireland General Licences. Wild Justice first wrote to DAERA in May 2019 pointing out our success in getting the general licences in England temporarily revoked. This year we have been in regular correspondence with DAERA pointing out that their General Licences TPG1, TPG2 and TPG3, which expire today, are not fit for purpose. We have told DAERA that their general licences are the worst of those in place in the four UK nations and that they would face a legal challenge from us if they persisted with issuing seriously flawed general licences. Earlier this year DAERA issued a consultation on their general licences, which they then withdrew. We welcomed the consultation and would have supported many of the measures it contained. But now we have reached the point when the current licences expire.
What happens next? The three general licences expire today. Tomorrow, our understanding is that there is no legal cover for anyone killing the species listed on those expired licences in Northern Ireland. Saturday 11 September will mark the beginning of a period of unprecedented protection for the species listed on the general licences. The roof will not fall in on rural life in Northern Ireland.
It is possible that DAERA may seek to extend their general licences but if so they have not told Wild Justice that is the case. And if they do, and if the licences are as error-strewn and have the same legal flaws as the expiring licences Wild Justice will mount a legal challenge to them – of that DAERA can be in no doubt given our correspondence with them over the recent months.
Wild Justice calls on DAERA to announce that the species covered by their general licences are now protected, like almost all other wild birds, and that killing them will be unlawful until new general licences are issued. DAERA should make clear, immediately, how they intend to proceed.Wild Justice would welcome a public consultation on the terms and details of new general licences for Northern Ireland.
Wild Justice depends on donations to carry out our campaigning and legal work (and to pay our running costs). If you like what we do then please consider making a donation through PayPal, bank transfer or a cheque in the post – see details here.
Our e-action, Uplands for people, for the climate and for wildlife was launched over a month ago. Almost every MP in England, MSP in Scotland, MS in Wales and MLA in Northern Ireland has received an email from at least one of their constituents calling for action on Uplands for people, for the climate and for wildlife. We have plans to make the e-action whizz along now that parliamentarians are back in their parliaments after the summer break. Watch this space.
The headline number
Over 16,500 emails have been sent to elected parliamentarians across the UK already – asking them to deliver Uplands for people, for the climate and for wildlife. That equates to over 20 emails to the average elected parliamentarian across each of the four UK parliaments. Thank you!
A national breakdown
Wales 40 of 60 MSs have been contacted (67%)
Northern Ireland 85 of 90 MLAs have been contacted (94%)
Scotland 127 of 129 MSPs have been contacted (98%)
England 529 of 533 MPs have been contacted (99%)
The top-ranking English constituencies
All of the 10 top English constituencies in responding to our e-action are, or are immediately adjacent to, upland areas:
Skipton and Ripon, Julian Smith MP, 71 emails
High Peak, Robert Largan MP, 71 emails
Sheffield Hallam, Olivia Blake MP, 65 emails
Derbyshire Dales, Sarah Dines MP, 62 emails
Hexham, Guy Opperman MP, 58 emails
Sheffield Central, Paul Blomfield MP, 47 emails
Thirsk and Malton, Kevin Hollinrake MP, 45 emails
Westmorland and Lonsdale, Tim Farron MP, 44 emails
Richmond, Rishi Sunak MP, 44 emails
Berwick upon Tweed, Ann-Marie Trevelyan MP, 43 emails
The missing English constituencies
There are just four English constituency MPs who have not yet had a single email asking for Uplands for people, for the climate and for wildlife. One of them is easy – it is Chris Packham’s MP, Julian Lewis, who won’t accept email correspondence! The others are all in London; Erith and Thamesmead, Harrow East and West Ham.
The missing Scottish constituencies
The two Holyrood constituencies from which emails have not been sent to their MSPs are: Aidrie and Shotts and Glasgow Provan. If you live in either of those constituencies, or have a friend you can nudge, we’d be pleased to see the full set achieved as soon as possible – thanks!
Wales and Northern Ireland
The software system we use for this e-action has some wrinkles in it and it’s less good at providing us with fine-scale information about Wales and Northern Ireland. However, it’s clear, particularly in Wales, that support for the e-action is especially high in upland areas themselves.
We will continue to bring you occasional updates on progress throughout September and October.
If you have signed the e-action and sent a message to your elected representative(s) – thank you! Now please ask your friends to do the same.
If you haven’t yet participated, then please have a look athttps://bit.ly/3CAzFQJand see whether you can take part. Many thanks!
Comments Off on Response to e-action from Westminster Liberal Party
Thank you for email. I appreciate you taking the time to share your further thoughts.
I recognise that grouse shooting is an issue on which strong views are held on both sides, and I am aware that we have corresponded previously on this issue. I still believe that a tightening of the rules is needed and that partnership working between conservationists and the shooting industry should be explored and encouraged. I appreciate, however, that we may have to agree to disagree on this issue.
I would like to assure you that both my Liberal Democrat colleagues and I take the twin crises of the Climate and Ecological Emergencies extremely seriously and are committed to taking the immediate action which you rightly say is needed. Never has this been more urgent and necessary, with the stark warnings issued in the IPPC report this week, and extreme weather events that we have seen causing widespread destruction and devastation to so many, from the wildfires in Greece and Turkey to the severe flooding in Germany.
This includes a commitment to introduce a Nature Act to restore the natural environment through large scale restorations of peatlands, woodlands and marshlands, and setting legally binding near-term and long-term targets for improving water, air, soil and biodiversity, and supported by funding streams of at least £18 billion over five years.
We are living in one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world and are currently only meeting 3 out of 20 of our UN biodiversity targets. We need a strategy to double nature, which I believe is best done by devolving powers to local authorities.
The Liberal Democrats are campaigning to expand the Local Nature Resource Strategies to all local authorities. These strategies map the most valuable sites and habitats for wildlife in their area and identify where nature can be restored. We would then ensure that these areas were included in all planning decisions and that destruction of the natural environment in these areas would be an offence under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981.
Most recently, I co-sponsored a debate in July regarding COP26 which, if the government gets its house in order, provides the greatest opportunity for climate action since the 2015 Paris Agreement. As I said last month, “COP26 must be a COP of global solidarity. It is time for the Government to put their money where their mouth is. The world is watching to see whether the UK will step up to the plate.”
I appreciate that we may not agree on all of these issues, but I hope that this has helped to demonstrate my and my party’s commitment to tackling the Climate and Nature Emergencies.
Comments Off on Response to e-action from Scottish Conservative Party
Thank you for your email in relation to Scotland’s uplands.
My party and I believe that our natural environment is Scotland’s greatest asset, and we must do everything we can to protect and nurture it.
However, in recent decades we have experienced catastrophic loss of species and their habitats, accelerated by climate change. We have heard warm words from the SNP Government on climate change, but that must be backed up by urgent action. They have failed to meet their own critical emission reduction targets for the last three years running, which is simply unacceptable.
In our recent manifesto we proposed a Nature Bill to strengthen environmental protections on land, in our rivers and at sea – so that we can reverse the decline in native species.
This included a commitment to ending the extraction of peat for use in compost and increasing peatland restoration to 20,000 hectares annually by 2024. As you know, peatland is a vital carbon sink, sequestering more tonnes of CO2 a year than all other types of vegetation in the world combined.
Also included was a commitment to increase new tree planting in Scotland to 18,000 hectares annually by 2024. We believe that trees are nature’s carbon capture technology and the basis of many natural habitats, however quality and biodiversity are also important, so we would increase the proportion of new planting that are of native species, while ensuring that Scotland’s forests are productive.
We also put forward plans to create Scotland’s third national park in Galloway, which would protect the environment, encourage tourism and provide benefits for health and wellbeing, as a beautiful place to relax and enjoy the scenery and wildlife, as you suggest.
The Scottish Conservatives want to see Scotland’s natural ecosystem thrive, so it can be enjoyed by future generations.
Comments Off on Response to e-action from Westminster Labour Party
Thank you for contacting me about the protection of uplands.
I support investment in the restoration of a variety of habitats. The Conservatives have said uplands are precious, but I am concerned they are not doing enough to protect native species and wildlife and that they lack a serious plan to deliver a recovery for nature.
Protecting biodiversity, halting the decline of nature and restoring habitats and wildlife should be priorities as the keys to tackling the climate emergency through rapid carbon storage and biodiversity gain. It is intrinsically important to protect species and ensure that wildlife can be enjoyed by everyone.
We need ambitious biodiversity targets. The Government plans to introduce a target for halting the decline of nature in England by 2030 to the Environment Bill. However, I do not think it is acting quickly enough and should set this target urgently and ahead of COP26 to meet the significant challenge of the nature emergency. It should also seek to reverse the decline in nature with a dramatic incline in species abundance.
I am also concerned about the continued persecution of birds. Species conservation plays a vital role in restoring biodiversity and enabling nature’s recovery and, in my view, the Conservative Government is lacking a strategic approach to conservation through the protection, restoration and creation of habitats over a wide area to meet the needs of individual species under protection.
We also need ambition on reforesting and rewilding. I supported a Labour amendment to the Environment Bill for a bold, ambitious tree planting strategy in England, as we need more trees and better protections to restore our most vulnerable habitats. However, the Conservatives voted this down.
More widely, there is an urgent need for a coherent response to the climate and ecological emergency at COP26 in November. Worldwide, unusual weather events show dystopia is here today. The collective ambition to limit the rise in global temperature to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels must be translated into concrete action with an unequivocal promise to deliver. The world is looking to Britain, as host of the summit, to deliver, but I am concerned the Government lacks sufficient action to meet this ambition.
Rest assured that myself and Labour colleagues will continue to battle for nature and environmental protection.
I hope this is helpful, but if you have any further concerns or queries then please do not hesitate to get back in touch.
Comments Off on Response to e-action from Northern Ireland Alliance Party
Thank you for your e-mail and for raising your concerns with me.
I totally agree that we face a climate and ecological crisis, and Northern Ireland’s unique natural environment is under significant threat.
The Alliance Party firmly believe that the upcoming UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) must be a turning point in our efforts to tackle this crisis. We urgently need ambitious, long term plans and concrete actions to restore our damaged ecosystems.
The Alliance Party is committed to playing our part in relation to this challenge. We have developed our own Green New Deal tailored to Northern Ireland. The policies in this document show how we plan to simultaneously combat the climate emergency and inequality through investment, radical change and breaking down the barriers of division. The document also includes our detailed plans for protecting and enhancing our natural environment, and can be accessed via the following link: www.allianceparty.org/greennewdeal.
I can assure you that landscape management and the restoration of our natural resources will remain at the forefront of the Alliance Party’s agenda and we will continue to advocate for further governance and regulation to protect our environment for generations to come.
On the particular issue of Hen Harriers, I raised this issue with the AERA Minister last year. I am attaching his response for your perusal.
If you have any queries on any of the above or in relation to any other matter, please do not hesitate to come back to me.
Comments Off on Response to e-action from Welsh Conservative Party
Thank you for contacting **** **** regarding your concerns about the Welsh uplands.
I strongly believe in the importance of using Wales’s natural resources in a responsible manner, and believe that we all have a vital part to play in the protection of the Welsh countryside, as well as supporting our rural economy. Welsh Conservatives therefore support better education on the Countryside Code, so that all visitors to our rural areas are respectful and well-informed.
As tourism and agriculture are the main sources of income for Wales’s rural economy, we believe that, not only is diversification key through better infrastructure such as broadband, but those who tend and live in rural Wales should be given more support. However, after 22 years of Labour and Labour-led Governments, our rural communities’ needs have been routinely neglected. Rest assured, my colleagues and I in the Welsh Conservatives will continue to stand up for Welsh rural communities and custodians of our land at every opportunity.
I also wholeheartedly agree that Wales’s uplands must be protected, well-managed and enhanced. Where upland peatlands are left undisturbed, I know they play an important role in storing carbon, maintaining biodiversity and protecting against flooding. Sadly, many of Wales’s uplands and peatlands are also not in good condition, with some bogs even releasing CO2. Welsh Conservatives have therefore welcomed the National Peatlands Action programme in Wales, which is intended to help lock in carbon and reinvigorate vital habitats. However, I am concerned that the funding provided by the Welsh Labour Government – £5.75m over five years – lacks ambition. By comparison, in England, the UK Conservative Government is investing £640m to restore 35,000 hectares by 2025. I assure you that my colleagues and I in the Welsh Conservatives will press the Welsh Government to take similar action.
Finally, I also believe that it is vital to strengthen enforcement against the killing of raptors, as these birds play a crucial role in Wales’s ecosystem and must therefore be protected. While all wild birds are protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 and there are strong penalties already in place, raptor persecution should be identified as a wildlife crime priority. Therefore, my colleagues and I will continue to push the Welsh Government to work with the Home Office and establish a National Rural Crime Taskforce for Wales, which would support the reduction in wildlife crime.
I hope this reassures you and thank you again for taking the time to contact me.
Comments Off on Response to e-action from Scottish National Party
Thank you for your email – I share your concerns regarding preservation and biodiversification of uplands in Scotland.
In regard to this autumns international meetings on climate and biodiversity, at COP 26 in Glasgow the UK Government Prime Minister Boris Johnson will be representing the whole of the UK on this matter. I understand that the First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon MSP has expressed her wish to represent Scotland at such a crucial international meeting on a devolved matter.
However, I understand the Prime Minister has made comments to suggest that he does not want the First Minister of Scotland in attendance. It is disappointing as the Scottish Government have pioneered world leading climate change legislation that has set a target date for net zero emissions by 2045.
Irrespective of this, I understand that the Minister for Environment, Biodiversity and Land Reform Mairi McAllan MSP has been working hard to ensure that uplands are a top priority for the Scottish Government.
This includes guidance from the Scottish Forestry that will use less disruptive techniques when preparing ground for woodland creation. It will ensure that approval for new applications will no longer be given on any peat soils over 10cm in depth after 1st October. It will only be less intensive cultivation techniques that are approved. This will help preserve peatlands which are a rich natural resource for promoting biodiversity and achieving net zero targets through its natural carbon capture.
Additionally, I understand that the Minister is supporting restoration of peatlands across Scotland in an aim to prevent flooding, promote safe habitat for wildlife and catching carbon from the atmosphere.
Yesterday, Natural Resources Wales launched a consultation on their general licences. The consultation is lengthy but that is because it is asking a wide range of sensible questions and seeking answers. We will review the consultation carefully and consult with others but Wild Justice welcomes the existence of this consultation. The consultation closes on 11 November, so there is plenty of time to think about the answers. We will provide advice to our supporters on points that it would be useful to make, on this blog but also through our free newsletter – subscribe here.
Wild Justice is not the only conservation organisation that has been seeking reform to these licences but we are the only one to have taken a legal challenge against them, and that challenge, and those we have taken against similar licences in England, have driven reform. Our legal challenge to NRW’s general licences (see here, here, here) made NRW clarify and consider its position in the face of legal scrutiny, and the outcome of our challenge feeds directly into some of the more helpful parts of this consultation.
Our subsequent letter to NRW on general licences and their duties as a regulator, coupled with enquiries from Wild Justice’s supporters have clearly had an impact on NRW’s position. Thank you for your support – you have made a difference already.
Wild Justice has always been concerned with the principle of wide-ranging general licences and with the details of their application. Our main concern has been the badly operated so-called ‘conservation’ licences but we shall be carefully scrutinising NRW’s proposals for all their general licences. NRW’s ‘conservation’ licence GL004 does not reflect the current state of knowledge of impacts of predation by corvids and do not reflect the actions of conservation organisations in Wales or eleswhere in the UK. So we are pleased to see that NRW is consulting on:
the very necessity of general licences (which they call a light-touch approach – we would call them a heavy-handed approach) when the alternative of specific licences is available – we made this pont strongly in our legal challenge
the temporal restrictions that should apply to any such killing if they are designed to protect eggs and chicks of specific species – we made this point in our legal challenge
It’s one thing to consult on these matters, but it’s another thing entirely to act. We welcome the consultation and we hope that NRW will act – we think they will on some of these measures. But there is more likely to be action if NRW receives many responses to its consultation. We will provide advice to our supporters on points that it would be useful to make, on this blog but also through our free newsletter – subscribe here.
We’d like to thank Wild Justice’s supporters for their help in getting this promising-looking consultation to happen. You funded our legal challenge that has been influential in framing the issues and you wrote in your hundreds to NRW asking them to act. You are a part of this growing climate of reform.
Comments Off on Glyphosate use by local authorities
Last summer we wrote to 43 local authorities in England and Wales about their use of glyphosate-based herbicides. Although herbicide use is in theory regulated, we found a very wide and worrying range of approaches by local authorities, all of whom were acting under the very same regulatory regime. Some appeared to be paying scant attention to their legal responsibilities.
Here we describe what we have done so far, we highlight some local authorities who have taken good action, and highlight some progress we have made in persuading others to move in the right direction. We also will be giving you the information on which you can act with your own local authority in due course.
We aren’t telling you here and now about the local authorities who need to up their game as we are still in correspondence with some of them, but we will certainly be prepared to shine a light on those authorites who are doing the least on this matter.
Glyphosate– why are we concerned?
Glyphosate (you may know it as Roundup) is one of the most-used individual pesticides in the world. It is used in agriculture, in public spaces (such as parks but also in the streets) and in private spaces such as gardens.
This is of course an issue about which others raised concerns, and organisations such as Pesticides Action Network have documented the problem over time. In March 2015, the International Agency for Research on Cancer classified glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic to humans”. There is a live debate about glyphosate’s environmental impacts and use in gardens (eg see here). Some countries and many cities across the world have banned or strongly regulated the use of glyphosate. Prof Dave Goulson’s new book Silent Earth highlights this issue and his petition, which Wild Justice supports, aims to limit use of glyphosate in built up areas – click here.
Wild Justice is not an expert in pesticides, but we recognise that there are concerns about the use of such products which include human health and environmental issues. Does the law recognise these issues too?
The law– what are localauthorities required to do?
The regulatory regime in the UK arises from the Sustainable Use of Pesticides Directive 2009/128/EC, and Regulation (EC) No 1107/2009 on the sustainable use of pesticides sets out the requirements of public bodies using (or permitting the use of) Plant Protection Products, which include glyphosate-based herbicides. Article 14 of the Directive requires Member States to:
“take all necessary measures to promote low pesticide-input pest management, giving wherever possible priority to non-chemical methods, so that professional users of pesticides switch to practices and products with the lowest risk to human health and the environment among those available for the same pest problem. Low pesticide-input pest management includes integrated pest management.”
The Directive was transposed into UK law by the Plant Protection Products (Sustainable Use) Regulations 2012 which came into force from 18 July 2012. The transposed domestic regime requires public bodies using (or causing or permitting other to use) plant protection products, including glyphosate-based herbicides, to ensure that:
all reasonable precautions are taken to protect human health and the environment
the application of the plant protection product is confined to the crop, land, produce, buildings, contents of buildings, materials or other areas intended to be treated
when the product is used in places of heightened concern (which includes, among others, areas used by the public or vulnerable groups, areas in the close vicinity of healthcare facilities, and on or along roads, railway lines, very permeable surfaces, or other infrastructure close to surface water or groundwater) that the amount used and the frequency of use are as low as reasonably practicable.
It is clear that the regulatory regime in place in the UK recognises that there are risks to the use of herbicides such as glyphosate and has set in place, for nearly a decade, measures which should limit use of such products. But are local authorities paying attention to the regulations?
The EIR responses
Wild Justice is accustomed to working in areas where the authorities will say that ‘There are laws that cover this – don’t you worry about it’ and where the relevant industry, interest group or government agency will say ‘It’s not really a problem, but if it is, it is well regulated anyway’. Our experience, for example in raptor persecution, welfare issues in the Badger cull and compliance with general licences, is that regulations are poorly enforced, and advice on best practice rarely heeded, therefore the existing laws do not really work anything well enough. We wondered whether pesticide use would be another such issue.
We wanted to get an up-to-date detailed picture of how much glyphosate-based herbicides local authorities are using, what steps are they taking to ensure the adverse impact on nature and people is reduced, and what have they done to reduce use of glyphosate and develop the use of alternatives? We set out these questions and others in a series of requests made under theEnvironmental Information Regulations 2004 (EIR).
After much to-ing and fro-ing we received the local authorities’ responses and our lawyers set about assessing them against what the law requires. There was significant and startling variation in how local authorities approach the issue in practice. There were several local authorities who are taking commendable approaches to reduce their use of glyphosate and who have thorough and coherent policies in place. And then there are those who appear to have given the issue no thought, do not have in place any policies, or who hide behind the facts that glyphosate use per se is not banned outright and they contract its use on their land out to third parties. So who are the good and who could do better?
Good local authorities
We’d like to give a shout-out to five local authorities who seem to us to be doing a very good job, and a much better job than most others. They are:
Glastonbury – banned use of glyphosate in 2015
Frome – banned use of glyphosate in 2016
Croydon – no glyphosate used on Council-owned or -managed land
Brighton-Hove – good pesticide reduction plan and decided top phase out glyphosate use from 2019
Lewes-Eastbourne – no glyphosate used on Council-owned land
Reforming authorities
For a number of other authorities, the responses were much less promising, and so we wrote again, highlighting what the law requires and asking for a more detailed response. We can report that several authorities have now agreed to look again at their use of glyphosate, and we commend them for that approach.
Denbighshire County Council – “will imminently be seeking approval of an overarching policy which will seek to set out the information set out above on a corporate level for the whole of the council”. That’s good news and we’re looking forward to reviewing the policy when ready.
Milton Keynes Council – has managed a significant reduction in glyphosate in the period 2015 to 2021 and has a pesticides position statement. But in practice, the use remains high. They have offered to meet with us to discuss how they can improve, and that is an offer we are keen to take up.
Norfolk County Council – At more than 5300 litres/12 months, NCCs use of glyphosate-based herbicide is among the highest of any local authority. Norfolk has agreed to put in place an overarching policy which is being prepared and we have asked to be shared with us.
Redcar & Cleveland Borough Council – Redcar & Cleveland reported to us that they’ve used 2120 litres of glyphosate-based herbicide over a 12 month period. but has, however, pledged to factor Wild Justice’s concerns into a current review of its Biodiversity Strategy. We look forward to considering that in detail, and hope that Redcar & Cleveland will now take steps to develop a coherent policy to phase out its use of glyphosate.
Too many other authorities
Many local authorities simply don’t have a pesticide reduction strategy nor any active policies to minimise use. They tend to say that glyphosate use is legal (which it is) and that that is an end to it (which it isn’t).
For more details of the good guys and the reforming authoritiesand a list of the authorities contacted – see this more detailed blog.
Next steps
Follow-up
Having considered the responses, there are many local authorities that appear not to be doing enough to make sure their use of glyphosate-based products is safe and/or to reduce the amount of glyphosate they are using. So, Wild Justice is now writing to them to set out in detail the ways in which they are not complying with the relevant legislative scheme and how their use of glyphosate-based herbicides may be unlawful.
To give a flavour of the problems we’ll be looking at, one local authority has a strikingly high use of three products at over 6500 litres over 12 months, but does not appear to have any written policy on their use. Another local authority recognises the efficacy of alternatives but has not explored the viability of adopting them, or taken any steps in that direction. Others have tried to offload all responsibility for the issue out to third party contractors, relying on contractual assurances and certifications, but saying nothing about taking steps towards minimising use in the longer-term.
Scotland and Northern Ireland
We’ll be writing to more local authorities in these nations – who do you suggest might be good authorities to contact, either because they are particularly good or particularly bad?
What you can do
If your local authority has not already been contacted (see list here) then you may wish to contact them yourself. We have produced a template that you can use to get the type of information we have collected – click here. We’d like to hear how you are getting on and we’ll publicise good and bad practice.
Glyphosate testing
We’re planning glyphosate testing of food – a bit like we tested lead levels in supermarket game meat (see here – and we will be doing more of this in the autumn). Watch this space and sign up to our free newsletter to get the news first – click here.
Conclusion
As we outlined above, glyphosate-based products have the potential to cause significant damage to human health and to the environment and, in theory, their use is regulated because of those risks.
Our guess was right – in many local authorities the regulations have very little impact at all – the regulations are not enforced by the authorities whose job it is to enforce them and to comply with them in their own activities.
Wild Justice wants to work with those local authorities who are willing to improve, but, after years of complacency by some authorities, will now begin the next steps to take action against those who are turning a blind eye to the issue.
To donate to Wild Justice’s work by bank transfer, PayPal or a cheque in the post – click here
Comments Off on Glyphosate – recognition for local authority action
Wild Justice has contacted a range of local authorities to quiz them about their use of, and policies on, the herbicide glyphosate (list updated on 27 September);
Brighton
Bristol
Camden
Carmarthenshire CC
Ceredigion CC
City of London
Conwy County Borough Council
Cornwall CC
Croydon
Denbighshire CC
Dudley
Eastbourne
Erewash
Frome
Glastonbury
Hackney
Hammersmith & Fulham
Hampshire CC
Ipswich
Lewes
Manchester
Medway
Merthyr Tydfil
Milton Keynes
Monmouthshire CC
New Forest
Norfolk CC
Northamptonshire CC
Redcar & Cleveland
Rother
Rushmoor
Saffron Walden
South Tyneside
Southwark
Surrey CC
Teignbridge
Telford & Wrekin
Torfaen County Borough Council
Vale of Glamorgan
Wandsworth
Wirral
Mendip District Council
Somerset CC
We are following up with several of these councils, particularly those whom we feel are failing in their duties to protect the public and the environment.
Here we will list local authorites who are doing well in our opinion, those who are undertaking substantial action to reform and those who aren’t doing nearly enough. This list will be updated as new information is collected.
The good local authorities: Frome, Glastonbury, Croydon, Lewes-Eastbourne, Brighton and Hove
Making some progress: Denbighshire, Milton Keynes, Norfolk, Redcar and Cleveland
Not doing nearly enough: to be updated
More details
The good local authorities:
Glastonbury – In Glastonbury a Motion was agreed in 2015 to cease the use of glyphosate as a means of treating any weeds. Glastonbury have been particularly progressive in their weed management approach by using alternatives such as Foamstream, power washers and hand-picking.
Frome – In Frome, the town council passed a Motion to ban the use of glyphosate in 2016 and they are aiming to push this ban further by way of discussions with Mendip District Council and Somerset County Council.
Croydon – Croydon don’t use glyphosate on any Council-owned or -managed land.
Lewes-Eastbourne – Lewes-Eastbourne Council doesn’t use glyphosate on its own land, except on rare occasions for certain species such as Japanese Knotweed. Their policy on pesticides was impressive, with a whole section dedicated to the use of glyphosate and alternatives, and they plan to have all public parks largely or completely free of pesticides.
Brighton-Hove – Brighton and Hove Council have implemented a Pesticide Reduction Plan and decided to phase out glyphosate back in November 2019
If you live in any of the five council areas above then why not contact your local council and say ‘Well done!’ – they won’t get many communications like that.
The reforming councils:
Denbighshire – Denbighshire uses 3 products at what we consider moderately high volume, some 940 litres over 12 months. Like some other authorities, Denbighshire places significant emphasis on its compliance with certifications and health & safety standards (such as COSHH), and, like some others, notes that glyphosate-based herbicides are approved for use in UK, and that there is therefore nothing unlawful per se about using them in Wales. It is encouraging to learn that the use of pesticides, including the herbicide glyphosate, has been called-in annually over the previous two years by Denbighshire’s Partnerships Scrutiny Committee. But the absence of an overarching policy and an absence of effort to reduce use and consider alternatives is concerning. So it is heartening to be told that Denbighshire has introduced a new Weed Spraying Policy and a Corporate Health, Safety and Welfare policy, and “will imminently be seeking approval of an overarching policy which will seek to set out the information set out above on a corporate level for the whole of the council”. That’s good news and we’re looking forward to reviewing the policy when ready.
Milton Keynes – From Milton Keynes response, it appears they have no real policy on the use of glyphosate. They instead rely significantly on their third party contractors doing the right thing. Their response revealed a lack of proper consideration of alternatives or reduction of use. We recognise that Milton Keynes has managed a significant reduction in glyphosate in the period 2015 to 2021 and that they have a pesticides position statement. But in practice, their use remains high. They have offered to meet with us to discuss how they can improve, and that is an offer we are keen to take up.
Norfolk – At more than 5300 litres/12 months, Norfolk County Council’s use of glyphosate-based herbicide is among the highest of any local authority. Unfortunately, Norfolk also lacks adequate policies for use of the 3 products they have opted for – there is no consistent policy across 7 departments that use glyphosate, no specific consideration of vulnerable groups, and, it appears, no thought has been given to the use of alternatives. Despite all this, Norfolk has agreed to put in place an overarching policy which is being prepared and we have asked to be shared with us.
Redcar and Cleveland – Another authority with a fairly high use of glyphosate, Redcar & Cleveland reported to us that they’ve used 2120 litres of glyphosate-based herbicide over a 12 month period. Redcar & Cleveland referred extensively to their reliance on certifications and licence compliance in their use of glyphosate, but that of course is to comply with the basic requires for the use of these dangerous products; it says nothing about what policy the local authority has adopted to work towards minimising use and exploring alternatives. Redcar & Cleveland has however pledged to factor Wild Justice’s concerns into a current review of its Biodiversity Strategy. We look forward to considering that in detail, and hope that Redcar & Cleveland will now take steps to develop a coherent policy to phase out its use of glyphosate.
If you live in any of the four council areas above then why not contact your local council and say ‘Please do more – I see you’re doing something’ – they won’t get many communications like that.
Comments Off on Response to e-action from Westminster Conservative Party
Thank you for your email about our upland areas. I would like to assure you that I am committed to protecting our uplands, the wildlife that thrives there, and the people who live there too. I agree that restoring nature is crucial and I am pleased that the Prime Minister has committed to protecting 30 per cent of the UK’s land by 2030 and will be making nature a key focus of COP26. As well as this, the Environment Bill has been amended in the House of Lords to require a historic, new legally binding target on species abundance for 2030 with the aim of halting the decline of nature in England.
As you may know, the UK is moving to a new agricultural system which will reward farmers and land managers for the work that they do to enhance the environment. The environmental land management schemes being introduced will pay for sustainable farming practices, the creation and restoration of habitats, natural flood management, species management, and making landscape-scale environmental changes, among other things. I know that the uplands provide rich opportunities for the provision of environmental public goods and will be well placed to participate in these schemes.
Peatlands are our biggest terrestrial carbon store and it is welcome that ministers have published an England Peat Plan which provides an ambitious framework to improve the management of these areas. Alongside this, a Trees Action Plan sets out the long-term vision for the planting and management of woodlands and trees. These plans are underpinned by the £640 million Nature for Climate Fund which will support a trebling of tree planting across England by the end of this Parliament and help to restore 35,000ha of peatland by the end of this Parliament.
Finally, I would like to assure you that raptor persecution is one of six national wildlife crime priorities. The Raptor Persecution Priority Delivery Group considers what action should be taken to prevent crime, gather intelligence on offences and enforce against. The National Wildlife Crime Unit also gathers intelligence on illegal activities and provides assistance to police forces when required.
Thank you again for taking the time to contact me.
Comments Off on Response to e-action from Scottish Labour Party
Thank you for your email highlighting your concerns over the climate and nature emergency we face and the importance of Scotland’s uplands.
As someone who represents a rural area and as Scottish Labour’s spokesperson on Rural Affairs, the future of Scotland’s uplands is incredibly important to me. Around half of Scotland is upland, and although they remain renowned for their wildness, there is no doubt that they have borne the often adverse impact of centuries of increasing human activity. More than ever they need our support to protect and restore them.
One of the most important actions we need to take is better protection of raptors as you highlight. This is an issue I’ve raised in Parliament in the past and will continue to do so. We need to see more effective monitoring of raptor conservation, tougher penalties for those who persecute our raptors and crimes that impact on raptors being more vigorously investigated and given a higher priority. There have been too many cases in our South Scotland region where it’s clear there has been raptor persecutions, but such crimes have not been as vigorously pursued as they should be.
We also need to see a far fairer distribution of our land including more community ownership. I have supported a number of community land buyouts locally and I am confident they will be as successful as previous ones in the region. But to really achieve that fairer distribution of land ownership we need more resources for community buyouts including increased funding for the Scottish Land Fund and direct intervention when land is not used in ways that serve the public interest.
In our manifesto for the recent Scottish Parliament election, Scottish Labour also called for legislation to ensure that no one individual can acquire large swathes of Scotland’s land and prevent land ownership via offshore tax-havens.
We also argued that public sector organisations should be allowed to participate in land markets with the aim of transferring the land into local sustainable ownership, as a basis for wealth building and income retention in communities.
I also very much agree with you about the importance that needs to be placed on the return of natural woodlands and bogs. Scottish Labour supports planting at least 15,000 hectares of trees a year and increasing peatland restoration to 20,000 hectares each year, alongside measures to end commercial peat extraction. We also fully support at least 50% of all woodland expansion being planted with native species and at least 10% delivered through natural regeneration, issues that I have pursued in Parliament. We cannot afford to see a repeat of the same mistakes made in the past, especially in our area, where huge sways of our land are planted with repetitive non-native species.
These actions would help create employment in our area in a sector which does provide good opportunities in our area. That’s one of the reasons Scottish Labour has also called for the establishment of a Scottish Conservation Corps, modelled on the Civilian Conservation Corps of the New Deal, dedicated to restoring Scotland’s natural environment and we estimate this could create up to 10,000 jobs across Scotland.
There is no doubt that much needs to be done to restore and enhance Scotland’s uplands but with the right policies and leadership, we can ensure we not only begin to tackle the climate and nature emergency we face, but do so in a way that creates sustainable employment and that is what I will continue to a argue for as one of your local MSPs.
In the meantime, thank you once again for your email and please do get in touch if you would like to discuss this or any other matters further.
Comments Off on Response to e-action from Scottish Green Party
Many thanks for writing to me on the protection of Scotland’s uplands for people, climate, and wildlife.
The Scottish Greens manifesto for the recent election contained the commitment to delivering the system change needed to tackle the climate and nature emergencies, as well as the bold and urgent measures we need to protect and enhance our uplands now and for future generations. Our manifesto includes strengthening and establishing new protected areas, introducing legally binding nature-recovery targets, supporting community-led rewilding, creating a nature network for Scotland, and creating more woodland for people, climate, and wildlife. You can read the full manifesto chapter on Restoring Scotland’s Environment here.
We recognise the impacts of the twin emergencies of climate breakdown and a collapse in biodiversity on our uplands. As valuable carbon sinks and homes to a wealth of important wildlife and ecosystems, our uplands are a crucial part of our response to the climate and nature emergencies. We want to see our upland communities thrive and will take the bold action needed to protect, restore, and manage our uplands while stopping unsustainable land management and ending the persecution of raptors.
We are currently exploring ways to take forward our manifesto commitments in the coming parliamentary session, and pursuing protection for Scotland’s uplands will be a high priority. The Scottish Greens’ Spokesperson for the Environment, Climate, and Transport, Mark Ruskell MSP, has already been in contact with organisations working toward tackling raptor persecution and reforming our uplands (incl. Revive , Scottish Raptor Study Group, Scottish Environment LINK, and RSPB Scotland) to deliver rapid action on these issues. The Scottish Greens have created a £10m Nature Restoration Fund in the previous session, and are planning to invest a further £150m in the fund over the next five years. Mark Ruskell MSP alongside fellow Scottish Greens, are committed to scrutinising the government’s responses to unsustainable land management and raptor persecution, while putting pressure on Ministers to make faster progress toward extending the powers of the SSPCA to investigate wildlife crime.
This is an extremely important issue and I would like to thank you for continuing to bring it to the attention of politicians and keeping the pressure on.
Comments Off on Response to e-action from Welsh Labour Party
The Welsh Government is committed to accelerating work on the National Forest for Wales in this Senedd term. This includes improving existing woodland and supporting communities across Wales, including in our uplands, to create 30 new woodlands and to connect habitat areas.
Current guidance around the planting of trees is too complicated; it is not easy for those who want to create new woodland to navigate regulatory and funding systems. The Welsh Government will therefore soon publish new, simpler guidance written from a citizen’s perspective and is exploring how the employment of new woodland officers can help communities across Wales to navigate interactions with local authorities and Natural Resources Wales (NRW).
The Welsh Government will also introduce a new woodland creation funding offer. This will include separate funding for creating new woodland, to develop a regular stream of new projects and enable more agile decision-making in allocating funding to tree planting. A pilot of this system will be launched later this year, making support available for at least 500 hectares of future woodland plans. Further detail will be set out in a new Woodland for Wales Action Plan which will be published later this year.
Like woodlands, peatlands play an important dual role in absorbing vast quantities of carbon emissions and supporting a rich suite of habitats and species. And as you will be aware, peat is most extensive in the uplands where there is widespread blanket bog. Last year the Welsh Government launched Wales’ first National Peatlands Action Program with the ambition to restore 5,000 hectares of the most modified areas of peatland and to bring all peatlands with semi-natural vegetation, a further 30,000 hectares, into favourable management. £1m was invested in 2020-21 to deliver the first year of the restoration program leading to more than 1,000 hectares being restored. You can find out more about the scope of coordinated actions over the next few years to re-wet and restore our peatlands by going to https://cdn.cyfoethnaturiol.cymru/media/692535/national-peatlands-action-programme-annexb-accessible.pdf.
The Welsh Government is serious about addressing biodiversity loss across Wales. It has put significant new resources into maintaining and enhancing biodiversity in its budget for this year and has also refreshed its national Nature Recovery Action Plan (NRAP) to take into account the growing evidence around the scale of biodiversity loss and ecosystem damage. The aim of the NRAP is to build resilient ecological networks across our landscapes and sea to safeguard species and habitats and the benefits they provide, address the root causes of biodiversity loss, and target interventions to help species recovery.
As part of the effort to support the creation of more habitats rich in biodiversity, the Welsh Government is committed to creating or significantly enhancing green spaces which will be accessible to and valued by local communities. This includes 2,000 pollinator habitat sites, 100 ‘Tiny Forests’ (small but dense and diverse woodlands) and a number of habitat creation schemes at rail stations and transport interchanges.
NRW also has a major part to play to halting and reversing the decline in nature. NRW are expected to make strides to restore its own Natura 2000 sites and to take forward the planned programme for restoration of woodland and degraded peatlands to create healthy functioning wet bogs. This will be an important component of wider efforts to bring wildlife back into the uplands.
On the issue of flood prevention, this year in Wales over £65 million is being invested in flood risk management in Wales – the largest amount invested in Wales in a single year. What’s more, the Welsh Government’s Programme for Government commits to delivering nature-based flood management in all major river catchments which will not only reduce flood risk to homes but also help to reduce pollution and restore natural habitats. The Welsh Government is also committed to expanding wetland and woodland habitats and to improving their resilience at the same time as relieving pressure on hard flood defences. Welsh Labour in government will also legislate in this Senedd term to strengthen the requirements for the use of sustainable drainage systems that provide wildlife habitat.
I fully agree that the decline in populations of raptors such as hen harriers is deeply alarming and that we need to do everything possible to clamp down on wildlife crime, and raptor persecution in particular. Tackling raptor persecution is a priority for the Welsh Government. Together with the RSPB, it has jointly funded a new Raptor Fieldworker in Wales who started work in April of last year to establish the extent of illegal killing of birds of prey in key areas of Wales through proactive presence in areas of risk. The fieldworkers is also supporting the police and Welsh Government officers in following up reports of persecution incidents from the public.
In terms of the specific concerns around hen harriers, the Welsh Government has fully funded the continuation of the RSPB Hen Harrier tagging, which started in 2015 as part of an EU LIFE project. This is enabling the RSPB to continue to fit satellite tags to Welsh hen harrier chicks to understand more about their post-fledging dispersal, to aid with management plans for the Special Protection Areas and implement further protection measures for this species.
Partnership working between the Welsh Government, Natural Resources Wales (NRW), the Police, Fire Service, Government Agency Intelligence Network and the Crown Prosecution Service plays a fundamental role in detecting, preventing, investigating and enforcing wildlife and rural crime, both at a national strategic level and a regional operational level. Welsh Government officials work closely with the four Welsh Police Forces, NRW and other enforcement bodies through the Wales Wildlife and Rural Crime Group. The Group identifies regional wildlife and rural crime priorities as well as ensuring Welsh interests are represented at UK Priority Delivery Groups, including the Raptor Persecution Priority Delivery Group.
I hope that my response demonstrates both my and the Welsh Labour Government’s strong commitment to speaking up for our uplands and for nature, and tackling the climate and nature emergencies. I will continue to take an active interest in developments in this area and will raise the points you have made in all relevant discussions.
Comments Off on Response to e-action from Plaid Cymru
Thank you for getting in touch to raise awareness for such an important issue.
Wales is often defined by its uplands- a country marked by mountains, moorlands, and upland heaths. Uplands play a crucial societal role in Wales: as noted by the 2020 State of Natural Resources Report, our uplands provide us with food and fibre, soil carbon storage, climate change mitigation, drinking water, water regulation, flood alleviation, energy production, recreation and tourism opportunities, along with scientific, educational, historical and archaeological services- the list goes on.
Despite the importance of upland habitats in Wales, they are indeed under threat, but this need not be the case. In advance of COP26 and COP15- this autumn’s international meetings on climate and biodiversity- Wales has an opportunity to lead the way in the sustainable management of its uplands, for nature, for climate, and of course, for people.
Rest assured, Plaid Cymru is absolutely committed to ensuring the Senedd and Welsh Government play their role in protecting and improving our natural environments. Indeed, following a Plaid Cymru motion and the ensuing debate, the Senedd and the Welsh Government voted to declare a nature emergency, to introduce legally-binding nature recovery targets, for habitats and for species, and to establish an environmental governance body to police environmental crime.
As your elected representative, I’d be glad to commit to this new vision for the uplands of Wales: for people, for the climate and for wildlife. This vision must be an absolute priority for the Welsh Government and for the Senedd, and I will do my upmost to ensure this vision is realised.
Our e-action, Uplands for people, for the climate and for wildlife was launched a week ago and already almost every MP in England, MSP in Scotland, MS in Wales and MLA in Northern Ireland has received an email from at least one of their constituents calling for action on Uplands for people, for the climate and for wildlife.
The headline number
Over 14,000 emails have been sent to elected parliamentarians across the UK since last Saturday – asking for them to deliver Uplands for people, for the climate and for wildlife. Thank you!
A national breakdown
Wales 40 of 60 MSs have been contacted (67%)
Northern Ireland 85 of 90 MLAs have been contacted (94%)
Scotland 126 of 129 MSPs have been contacted (98%)
England 526 of 533 MPs have been contacted (99%)
The top-ranking English constituencies
Nine of the 10 top English constituencies in responding to our e-action are, or are immediately adjacent to, upland areas:
Skipton and Ripon, Julian Smith MP, 67 emails
High Peak, Robert Largan MP, 62 emails
Sheffield Hallam, Olivia Blake MP, 60 emails
Derbyshire Dales, Sarah Dines MP, 54 emails
Hexham, Guy Opperman MP, 47 emails
Westmorland and Lonsdale, Tim Farron MP, 44 emails
Thirsk and Malton, Kevin Hollinrake MP, 42 emails
Richmond, Rishi Sunak MP, 39 emails
Sheffield Central, Paul Blomfield MP, 39 emails
Cotswolds, Geoffrey Clifton-Brown MP, 38 emails
Berwick upon Tweed, Ann-Marie Trevelyan MP, 37 emails
The missing English constituencies
There are just seven English constituency MPs who have not yet had a single email asking for Uplands for people, for the climate and for wildlife. One of them is easy – it is Chris Packham’s MP, Julian Lewis, who won’t accept email correspondence! The others are: five in London (Edmonton, Erith and Thamesmead, Harrow East, Old Bexley and Sidcup and West Ham) and Redcar.
The missing Scottish constituencies
The three Holyrood constituencies from which emails have not been sent to their MSPs are: Aidrie and Shotts, Glasgow Provan and Linlithgow. It you live in any of those constituencies, or have a friend you can nudge, we’d be pleased to see the full set achieved as soon as possible – thanks!
From now we will bring you occasional updates on progress but if you have signed the e-action and sent a message to your elected representative(s) – thank you! Now please ask your friends to do the same.
Someone sent us a Postal Order – haven’t seen one for years. Thank you – it made us feel quite nostalgic.
Our beautiful birds of prey deserve all the help they can get
Having just watched Hen Harrier Day, we were compelled to send you this to help with the fight. Thank you for all the information, imparted so well. We understood parts of the story, but weren’t aware of the whole picture. Now we are.
A big thank you and a small contribution. HHDay broadcast was excellent, we were riveted. So much info and so much relevance to our climate emergency.
Thanks for the Hen Harrier 21 morning. The size of the problems facing the uplands & moors is daunting but we mustn’t give up as you so comprehensively showed us.
To watch the Wild Justice Hen Harrier Day broadcast – click here for the running order and a link to the video.
To sign our e-action asking your elected parliamentarian to enable Uplands for people, for the climate and for wildlife (over 12,000 emails sent so far) – click here
Our e-action, Uplands for people, for the climate and for wildlife was launched on Saturday.
The headline number
According to our records over 8000 emails have been sent to elected parliamentarians across the UK since Saturday morning – asking for them to deliver Uplands for people, for the climate and for wildlife. Thank you! (The counter on our webpage says just over 7000 but we think that there is a slight glitch there which we will try to fix).
A national breakdown
Wales 38 of 60 MSs have been contacted (63%)
Northern Ireland 50 of 90 MLAs have been contacted (55%)
Scotland 120 of 129 MSPs have been contacted (93%)
England 513 of 533 MPs have been contacted (96%)
The top-ranking English constituences
The top-10 English constituencies in responding to our e-action are all, or are immediately adjacent to, upland areas:
Derbyshire Dales, Sarah Dines MP, 45 emails
Skipton and Ripon, Julian Smith MP, 44 emails
Sheffield Hallam, Olivia Blake MP, 42 emails
High Peak, Robert Largan MP, 41 emails
Hexham, Guy Opperman MP, 36 emails
Westmorland and Lonsdale, Tim Farron MP, 31 emails
Berwick upon Tweed, Ann-Marie Trevelyan MP, 31 emails
Sheffield Central, Paul Blomfield MP, 28 emails
Calder Valley, Craig Whittaker MP, 28 emails
Richmond, Rishi Sunak MP, 26 emails
The missing English constituencies
There are 20 English MPs who have not yet had a single email asking for Uplands for people, for the climate and for wildlife and we think we know who 18 of them are (the process of locating them is trickier than you’d think!). One is easy – it is Chris Packham’s MP, Julian Lewis MP, who won’t accept email correspondence! Please tell us if you have written to him on this subject. Of the rest, 8 are London constituencies (mostly north of the river), 3 are West Midland constituencies, 2 are Liverpool constituencies, and then there are Redcar, Ashton-under-Lyne, Wigan and Gillingham and Rainham and the 2 that we haven’t spotted yet). These are mostly inner-city built up constituencies at some distance from any upland areas and so that makes some sense. But we’re sure they’ll all respond eventually.
We will bring you regular updates on progress but if you have signed the e-action and sent a message to your elected representative(s) – thank you! Now please ask your friends to do the same.
Comments Off on Our e-action – uplands for people, the climate and wildlife
We’re asking you, please, to send this message to all politicians elected in each of the four UK parliaments. Just pop your postcode and details in here and your message will be sent automatically to the right person (or persons) – click here.
I am writing to you to ask you to speak up for our uplands.
In the face of a nature and climate emergency, we need uplands that work for people, for the climate and for wildlife.
Ahead of this autumn’s international meetings on climate and biodiversity, I would like to ask you to make a new commitment to the precious upland landscapes of Britain.
As the person who speaks for me in parliament, can I ask you to stand up for uplands that work for:
People: We need a better deal for residents, workers, landowners, visitors and taxpayers. Our hills should provide benefits for all. We need to see more sustainable economic activity, reduced flood risk and responsible land ownership. They should benefit our health and wellbeing, as beautiful places to relax and enjoy the scenery and wildlife.
Climate: We need you to help uplands reach their potential as huge, natural carbon stores; they are key to helping us tackle climate change in a sustainable way. The return of natural woodlands and bogs in prime condition will deliver that vision and bring wildlife back. The uplands are our largest carbon bank – let’s invest in them.
Wildlife: We need to reverse decades of de-wilding and put the wildlife back into the uplands. We need to diversify landscapes, restore a mix of habitats and shift away from over-burning, over-draining and overgrazing.
At the heart of this, we must see an end to the persecution of our raptors. The brutal killing of Hen Harriers must stop. The killing of Golden Eagles, Peregrines, Buzzards and Goshawks must stop. Our uplands are not uplands without raptors thriving alongside a wealth of wildlife in a functioning ecosystem.
The absence of Hen Harriers from so many of our upland landscapes, including many of our National Parks, symbolises how wrong the current situation is. Protected wildlife is being removed by criminals engaged in unsustainable land management. We cannot be proud of the uplands whilst wildlife crime is rife.
I am asking you as my political representative to commit to this new vision for the uplands of Britain: for people, for the climate and for wildlife.
Thank you! Now please spread the word and ask your friends to sign too.Here’s the link again – click here.
29 mins: Guy Shrubsole of Rewilding Britain on land ownership
37:20: Chris and Megan talk to Max Wisniewski from Revive Coalition about their approach
43:30: Richard Lindsay on peatlands and burning
53 mins: Chris talks to Bob Berzins from Sheffield about being nice
1hr 3mins: Martin Simpson’s wonderful song, Sky Dancers
1hr 10 mins: Julia Newth from WWT on lead ammunition
1hr 17mins: Darren Rees’s painting of a male Hen Harrier in the New Forest – you can buy the original
1hr 19min 50sec: Chris talks to Alex Lees about upland biodiversity
1hr 27min 45secs: Darren Woodhead talks about Hen Harriers and drawing them
1hr 33min 50secs: Mark talks to Olivia Blake MP talks about licensing of grouse shooting, which is the Labour Party’s proposal for the future
1hr 38min 40secs: Gus Routledge from SCOTLAND: the Big Picture talks about their work
1hr 48mins: Jim Moir (Vic Reeves) talks about his painting of a Hen Harrier food pass – you can buy the original
1hr 50mins: a compilation of Matt Hagen from N. Yorks Police, Jenny Shelton from RSPB Investigations and Steve Downing from North of England Raptor Forum with their views about raptor persecution
2hr 5mins: Ruth talks to Duncan Orr-Ewing and Ian Thomson from RSPB Scotland and Dave Anderson about the tale of a young Golden Eagle
2hr 19min: a recap of the words of our e-action spoken by Lucy Lapwing, Lizzie Daly, Ajay Tegala, Hannah Stitfall, Jamey Redway, Gus Routledge, Mya Bambrick, Joshua Styles, Kabir Kaul, Indy Kiemel Greene, Arjun Dutta, Dara McAnulty
for the next few weeks – please sign our e-action – click here.
Comments Off on Yet another ‘report’ coming from, presumably, the grouse shooting industry
‘New reports’ come along every year at this time from the grouse shooting industry. In 2016 Ian Botham was using a BTO report to bolster his claim that grouse moors are fantastically rich in birds (but there was no such report). Then in 2017 there was another report, also promoted by Ian Botham, and that study has never seen the light of day either – despite one of us (in the days before Wild Justice) having asked to see the paper when it is published. Last year there was a study that apparently showed that shooting birds makes you happy – but we’ve never seen that report either.
Today we’ve been asked, by a newspaper, to comment on the findings of ‘a report’ that we aren’t allowed to see, with an authorship we aren’t allowed to know and a title we aren’t allowed to be given.
Our response was:
Our answers to your questions are:
your first question is so unspecific that we can’t really answer it
yes we recognise that grouse shooting brings some economic benefits but these are wiped out by the costs it imposes through increased flooding, damage to protected habitats, water treatment costs, greenhouse gas emissions and, of course, the illegal persecution of protected wildlife especially birds of prey.
Comments Off on Natural England’s controversial biodiversity metric
You may have seen that there is controversy over what might appear to be a dull technical document issued recently by Natural England (see this story in The Guardian from 21 July). The document is about the idea, an attractive idea, of net gain for wildlife to be achieved through the planning sytem (in England). If you get permission to build say, a supermarket, on a greenfield site, then how can the loss of wildlife value be measured and compensated?
There is some confusion, as usual. over what DEFRA and Natural England are doing, and the implications could be serious, so Wild Justice is keeping an eye on things, along with lots of other concerned parties.
We have written to DEFRA and Natural England today to see whether they will tell us what they think they are doing, and how it fits in with the legal requirements.
Our letter to DEFRA is below and the letter which has gone to Natural England covers the same ground.
The Wild Justice Hen Harrier Day broadcast will occur on Saturday 7 August – click here to register your interest and to receive updates ahead of the event.
Comments Off on BASC or the Climate Change Committee – who would you believe?‘… burning of vegetation on blanket bog is damaging to peatland formation and habitat condition. It makes it more difficult or impossible to restore these habitats to their natural state and to restore their hydrology.‘ DEFRA https://www.gov.uk/government/news/englands-national-rainforests-to-be-protected-by-new-rules Photo: Sarah Hanson
Predictably, BASC, a pro-shooting organisation which is always jumping up and down shouting about something or other, is desperate to get involved too. BASC is hoping to be recognised by the court as an interested party in the case. We’ll see. Will we see a range of other shooting organisations jostling for some publicity too?
BASC’s intervention in Wild Justice’s challenge of the Welsh general licences was very helpful to our case and resulted in Justice Jarman contrasting the agreement on the legal position between Wild Justice and Natural Resources Wales with the different position of BASC. BASC couldn’t have beeen more helpful in getting that judgment and the precedent it sets in law, had they been trying. We’re not sure that BASC, and their members, actually realise that yet…
Our challenge of DEFRA’s burning regulations is based on their inability to deal well enough with the damage caused by vegetation burning on upland peatlands, largely on grouse moors, to protected blanket bog habitat and to greenhouse gas emissions. The regulations are very badly framed.
Wild Justice says:
There’s a climate crisis and a biodiversity crisis, and this type of burning adds to both. Instead of acting decisively, DEFRA is fiddling while the uplands burn.
… and DEFRA says…
There is a consensus that burning of vegetation on blanket bog is damaging to peatland formation and habitat condition. It makes it more difficult or impossible to restore these habitats to their natural state and to restore their hydrology.
Restoring England’s peatlands is a priority for the government. It will help achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050 as well as protecting our valuable habitats, and the biodiversity those habitats support.
That’s very witty! BASC’s a conservation organisation, is it? And yes, we hope that our legal challenge will affect the sustainable management of the uplands, that’s why we are taking it with great support from real conservation organisations. BASC, not really being an environmental organisation, may have missed the report to Parliament of the Climate Change Committee which recently said;
Introduce legislation to … [e]xtend the ban on rotational burning of peat from certain protected upland bog sites to all peatland before the start of the burn season in 2021.
BASC, and maybe the rest of the shooting industry, are way out on a limb with this. The narrow interests of shooting are distanced from DEFRA, and DEFRA is lagging behind what the environment and conservation movement believes is needed. Wild Justice is happy to be walking in step with the Committee on Climate Change on this issue. Compare the credentials of the Climate Change Committee with those of BASC – well, who would you believe?
The Wild Justice Hen Harrier Day broadcast will occur on Saturday 7 August – click here to register your interest and to receive updates ahead of the event.
Comments Off on Press release from Leigh Day and Wild JusticePhoto: Sarah Hanson
Wild Justice issues legal challenge to new rules on burning of peatlands
A legal challenge to new rules governing the burning of heather and grass on peatlands in England has been issued, claiming they are unlawful and unenforceable.
Environmental group Wild Justice, represented by law firm Leigh Day, has applied for a judicial review of The Heather and Grass etc Burning (England) Regulations 2021, arguing that they are not only unenforceable, but create a façade of effectiveness, preventing urgent and far-reaching legislation addressing climate change and biodiversity loss from being introduced.
Wild Justice, led by Chris Packham CBE, Dr Ruth Tingay and Dr Mark Avery, say the Regulations introduced in May this year need to be much stricter to ensure they can be enforced effectively. The Regulations were introduced after previous voluntary measures aimed at halting the burning of blanket bogs failed. The Government has a responsibility to protect blanket bog under the Conservation and Species Regulations 2017, which require the restoration of the habitat to “favourable conservation status”.
The Burning Regulations 2021 are fatally flawed in two ways. They only prohibit the burning of heather, rough grass, bracken and gorse on peat deeper than 40cms – but there is no map to identify where such peat exists and therefore no means of properly enforcing the new rules. The new Regulations also only prevent the burning on Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) that are also designated as Special Areas of Conservation and Special Protection Areas, which amounts to a ban on only 40 per cent of all blanket bog in England.
The UK’s peat habitats are wetland landscapes where it is estimated there are over three billion tonnes of carbon stored. They have a unique biodiversity recognised as habitats of national and international significance. The UK’s upland blanket bogs are a globally rare habitat.
However, vegetation on upland peat soils is set alight at regular intervals, to promote the growth of young heather shoots to feed Red Grouse for the shooting industry. The practice damages the habitat, reduces peat accumulation, and releases around 260,000 tonnes of CO2 every year.
On 24 June 2021, the Climate Change Committee’s latest progress reports were laid before Parliament. The Report criticised the Burning Regulations for only preventing rotational burning on protected peatlands, highlighting that a partial ban was less ambitious than it had recommended. The Report includes a priority recommendation that this be “addressed quickly as delayed action now puts future targets at risk given the time profile of carbon sequestration” and that the Government: “Introduce legislation to … [e]xtend the ban on rotational burning of peat from certain protected upland bog sites to all peatland before the start of the burn season in 2021.” Wild Justice’s grounds for claim are:
Unlawfulness arising from the Burning Regulations frustrating their own purpose: The Regulations do not include a map, without which they are unenforceable. The failure to publish or refer to a map is unlawful;
Demonstrable flaw in the reasoning or serious logical error in the reasoning leading to the making of the Burning Regulations: there is no rationale for limiting the location of areas affected by the Regulations;
Breaches of the Conservation of Habitats and Species Regulations 2017: failure to take appropriate steps to avoid deterioration of natural habitats and disturbance of species;
Failure to take into account a material consideration, namely the imperative for early and swift action under the Climate Change Act 2008 (“CCA”) and the Paris Agreement.
Wild Justice said: ‘There’s a climate crisis and a biodiversity crisis, and this type of burning adds to both. Instead of acting decisively, DEFRA is fiddling while the uplands burn.‘.
Leigh Day solicitor Carol Day said: “Our client strongly supports effective action by the Secretary of State to protect peatland, including through enforceable legislation regulating the burning of blanket bogs, given their crucial importance as a habitat and in sequestering carbon. But in falling so far short of what is needed, these Regulations create a façade of effectiveness preventing real progress from being made. Wild Justice hopes that bringing this challenge, along with the call from the Climate Change Committee for urgent action, will prompt the Government to plug the gaps in these Regulations.”
Not exactly natural is it? Photo: Duncan Andison/Shutterstock
ENDS
Wild Justice depends on donations to carry out our campaigning and legal work (and to pay our running costs). If you like what we do then please consider making a donation through PayPal, bank transfer or a cheque in the post – see details here.
This week’s Shooting Times published this lame and inadequate correction;
It made us laugh that Mark was described as a ‘regular reader’ – regular as in ‘once in a blue moon’!
But this correction is inadequate, and we have written to Shooting Times to tell them so, as follows:
Dear Shooting Times
Wild Justice notes the correction you have published in this week’s magazine. We were amused to be described as regular readers – we read the Shooting Times about as regularly as England wins penalty shoot-outs. Don’t kid yourselves!
Your ‘correction’ is inadequate in that it does not attempt to remedy the damage done by the original false account that you published. As you know, but as you have not informed your readers, the account you published described behaviour that, had it actually occurred, would make anyone behaving in the same way liable to a police investigation concerning a potential breach of the general licences. You have not corrected that consequence of your publication in any way by your feeble and minimalist correction.
Whilst we appreciate the good humour in which this exchange of emails has taken place, this is your last chance to remedy the situation. Failing you responding adequately to us by noon on Friday 23 July we will forward this correspondence, which shows we have given you every opportunity to act responsibly, and full details of your breach of the Editors’ Code, to the Independent Press Standards Organisation.
yours, very occasional and disappointed readers of the Shooting Times,
Wild Justice
We’ll let you know what happens. And, we haven’t heard from DEFRA yet.
Comments Off on Wild Justice’s second year accounts and corporation tax
Wild Justice is a not-for-profit company limited by guarantee and so we file our accounts with Companies House and pay corporation tax on our ‘profits’. When setting up Wild Justice we decided to go this route, rather than the ‘full charity’ route, at least to start with. If we decide to do an ‘upgrade’ to a charity then we will be able to claim Gift Aid on donations but we will have more onerous and costly reporting requirements and our freedom to say what we want would be reduced. At the moment we aren’t planning to convert to being a charity but it’s something we discuss quite regularly.
Our financial year runs from 1 November to 31 October. Our rather unilluminating company accounts for our second financial year (up to 31 October 2020) have recently been posted on the Companies House website and the gist of them is reproduced below;
We have paid nearly £7,000 in corporation tax as a result.
Thank you to all our supporters for their generosity of spirit and their donations that support all the work we do.
We get some lovely letters and notes and cards and emails. This note was one of many which arrived this week, accompanying a cheque. Thank you to all our supporters.
Wild Justice depends on donations to carry out our campaigning and legal work (and to pay our running costs). If you like what we do then please consider making a donation through PayPal, bank transfer or a cheque in the post – see details here.
Comments Off on Progress on Northern Ireland general licencesWoodpigeon. Photo: Tim Melling
The current Northern Ireland general licences are shockingly bad – as we wrote and told the Northern Ireland authorities back in the spring (click here for details). There are three licences which deal with public health, serious agricultural damage and nature conservation. The Northern Ireland general licence dealing with killing birds for nature conservation purposes lists Wood Pigeon (see above – isn’t it a very beautiful bird?) as a conservation threat! None of the other UK nations agree with that. There are some other howlers, both legal and biological, in the licences too.
But the Northern Ireland government has decided to issue a consultation on the licences which is open now and closes on the Inglorious 12th August so that comments can be taken on board before new licences are issued when the current ones expire towards the end of September. We’re sure this consultation and its proposed changes would not have occurred without our intervention.
The proposed changes are fairly modest but we welcome them. They are to remove Herring Gull, Lesser Black-backed Gull, Great Black-backed Gull and Rook entirely from all of the general licences in Northern Ireland – this brings them more in line with those elsewhere in the UK. And also to remove Wood Pigeon from both the public health and conservation licences, and Feral Pigeon from the conservation licence.
Removing species from the general licences does not mean that they cannot be killed, they can, but only if an individual applies for and is granted an individual licence with strict conditions, limits and reporting procedures. That is a step forward towards eliminating casual killing of species.
Responding to the consultation is very quick (less than 5 minutes) and is open to all. You may want to respond now which will simply involve filling in a few necessary details about yourself and ticking all the boxes that say you agree with the removal of these species from the relevant licences (if you do agree, we do). We will be giving it a bit more thought because there is a box for ‘other comments’ and we’ll have some! To learn about our further thoughts on this matter, and to get a reminder to respond to the consultation, and also to hear our news across the board, then subscribe to our free newsleter – along with over 50,000 other supporters – click here.
Wild Justice depends on donations to carry out our campaigning and legal work (and to pay our running costs). If you like what we do then please consider making a donation through PayPal, bank transfer or a cheque in the post – see details here.
Gill Lewis is a children’s author who has written many books about issues in nature conservation. Her books Sky Dancer and Eagle Warrior are very specifically about illegal killing of raptors, but she has written about bear farms, dolphin strandings and a wide range of other issues as ways of introducing young people of various ages and reading abilities to the natural world.
Her latest book, Willow Wildthing and the Magic Spell, is about rewilding and it is a great tale of magic and uplifting action for nature. The illustrations by Rebecca Bagley are wonderful too.
Gill has been a generous supporter, in lots of helpful ways, to Wild Justice over the few years we have been in existence and we’re touched that this book has a dedication to us.
We thought we’d give a more detailed critique of the article, purely in terms of factual corrections.
The title: not so much the Perfect Ten as the Far From Perfect Eight.
The caption above: should read ‘The day’s bag comprised fox, rabbit, a crow that I got out of the freezer, red-legged partridge, woodcock, mallard, teal, pheasant, pigeon and a jay that also came out of my freezer, so, only eight species really‘.
The original passage that read ‘I surprised myself with a very high crow that wheeled overhead 50 yards out. It turned away from us, exposing its vulnerable underside, and folded like a fist to the top barrel. It wouldn’t be troubling the yellow wagtails and corn buntings this spring. three species in the bag before breakfast. Spirits were high.’ should now surely read ‘I got a frozen crow out of the freezer where it wasn’t troubling anything, certainly not yellow wagtails which were in Africa, south of the Sahara, at the time. But it’ll make a nice addition to the row of quarry I hope to assemblefor a staged photo.‘.
The original passage that read ‘It was already 9am and we already had five species in the bag‘ should now read ‘It was already 9am and although we only had four species in the bag I was going to claim a good shot at the crow to bring the total to five species‘.
The original passage that read ‘I made the naive error of proposing we might be on for 10 before 10‘ may be closer to something like ‘I was trying to remember how many other useful corpses were in the freezer and what I might be able to claim that we shot in the day‘.
The original passage which read ‘Between us we had eight species in the bag. Ordinarily, I too would have hung up the game bag. However, in more than 30 years of shooting I have never been part of a day which ended with 10 species. These chances don’t come that often and I wanted to see if it could be done.‘ might more accurately be rendered as ‘Between us we had seven species in the bag and a frozen crow. Ordinarily, I too would have hung up the game bag. However, in more than 30 years of shooting I have never been part of a day which ended with 10 species. These chances don’t come that often and I wanted to see if it could be donewith maybe one more shot bird and that jay that I think is in the freezer.‘
The original passage which read ‘But surely I could manage another two species before the weather proved too much‘ might be closer to the truth if it read ‘But surely I could manage one more species and add in the frozen crow and I’m pretty sure there is a jay in the freezer‘.
The long triumphant finale to the article reads ‘Darkness was falling without any hint of a sunset. The weather had been unremitting from dawn until dusk. The jackdaws had disappeared and nothing seemed to be moving. A pigeon settled out of range.
Then from the other side of the wood, a jay screamed out its woodland alarm.I can’t say for certain at what it was aiming its bile but I assumed that it couldn’t be me. A stalk might be on. If I stayed in the wood, I might have the chance to account for it and therefore help the nightingales and turtle doves when they return in spring. I ignored a second pigeon behind me.
With a stealth I hadn’t mustered since jungle-tracking days I moved as cautiously as frozen limbs would allow, glad that I now had steady Tess instead of headstrong Scout.When we were a little under 100 yards from the edge of the wood, we both stopped and listened intently.The wind had dropped, I could hear the sounds of the estuary in the distance.
Silhouetted as it rose and fell between two huge chestnuts, the jay didn’t look quite right.I hesitated. Might it have been a woodpecker? Or a blackbird? It settled. Darkness continued to fall. Then it turned and flew back. This time I was sure. It needed only the slightest of lead. Ignore the branches. Squeeze, don’t jerk. Keep moving.
The jay slumped and toppled with the lightest of landings into the leaf litter. The glorious turquoise flashes and white rump were still visible in the gloom. I had my 10th species. It was just after 3:30pm. Ten species in 10 hours.’
… shouldn’t all that be ‘I jacked it in and went home. Eight species shot for fun and two taken out of the freezer to make an article for the Shooting Times.The Imperfect Eight!’?
Our main point though is that two of the species that the author of this piece claimed to have shot, to see if he could get the ‘perfect 10’, are covered by general licences which set out conditions and circumstances under which the licences can be relied upon. When faced with the prospect of a police interview the author repudiated his own published account and said that he had not shot the crow, a Carrion Crow, and the Jay. The original article gave an account of behaviour which may well attract the attention of the police because, if anything like that were ever to happen (we accept that it didn’t in this case and that the article was a false account) it may be illegal. How much of such behaviour, which we would call casual killing, does happen? And what steps should shooting organisations take to stop it? And what steps should a wide variety of shooting magazines take to educate their readers?
We write to you to draw to your attention the inaccuracy of an article published in your magazine of 10 February 2021 entitled ‘Shooting for a Perfect Ten‘ where your columnist describes, in detail, a day’s shooting, whose aim was to kill as many different species as possible, which includes an account of bringing down a Carrion Crow and then stalking a Jay.
Your columnist wrote that he ‘surprised himself’ with a ‘very high crow’ which ‘folded like a fist’ when a barrel was emptied into it, and that it ‘wouldn’t be troubling the yellow wagtails or corn buntings this spring’.
Your columnist writes nearly 200 words on stalking the Jay at the end of the day, bringing it down with a single shot and how its glorious turquoise flashes and white rump were still visible in the gloom. He seemed to think that he was helping Nightingales and Turtle Doves by doing this.
Essex Police investigated this case after we reported it to DEFRA as a potential breach of the general licences. DEFRA asked Wild Justice to forward to Essex Police the legal and biological dossiers we had sent to DEFRA.
Essex Police inform us that ‘With regards to the Carrion Crow and Jay he [ie your columnist] has stated that, he did not shoot these birds on this day and has a number of frozen/prop birds that he uses in his articles, if he needs to and bases the events on previous incidents or other incidents which have similarities.‘.
So all that stuff about a very high crow was actually a very frozen crow and the lyrical account of the killing of the Jay was also, we must assume, false. If those elements of the fictional account published by you had been true then your columnist might have faced criminal action.
We are writing to you, now that the police investigation has concluded, to point out to you that by publishing a false and inaccurate story, the Shooting Times has broken the Independent Press Standards Organisation’s Editors’ Code of Practice to which we see you are signed up. You have, in our opinion broken, Clause 1(i) which refers to publishing inaccurate, misleading or distorted information since you have published an account which the author now says was untrue.
In any case, we believe that the original article could encourage others to take similar action and for them to believe that such action would be lawful when we believe that it would not be.
We ask that you publish a full and detailed retraction of the original article and make clear that had it actually been true, such behaviour might open up the shooter to criminal prosecution and that the Shooting Times would never condone firearms users breaking the law. We ask that you send us the retraction that you propose to publish for our review and approval.
We look forward to your response. We have not made a complaint to IPSO as we wish to give you the opportunity to make amends for your publication voluntarily, but we remain cognisant of the possibility of referring this to IPSO for adjudication.
Comments Off on The Shooting Times and the general licences
Some time ago we told our newsletter subscribers, and wrote a blog (see here), about an article in the Shooting Times where a regular columnist of theirs wrote an account of going out to shoot 10 species in a day, actually on the 30 January this year, which was published in the Shooting Times on 10 February.
We regarded the behaviour described as a potential breach of the terms of the current general licences in operation in England, and in particular the need, articulated by Justice Jarman, that there is a present danger that the killing is seeking to avert. Wild Justice compiled a legal dossier and sent it to DEFRA along with a biological document which pointed out that Yellow Wagtails and Nightingales are not present in the UK in January and so were not suffering any present danger at all.
We reported this matter to DEFRA, as the Secretary of State has the power to act on such matters. We are still waiting for the result of DEFRA’s cogitations.
Wild Justice suggested to DEFRA that they might want to forward our dossier to the police but DEFRA requested that we did so, and we did.
The police took the case extremely seriously and we are grateful to them for that. The Essex Police have now informed us that they cannot take the case any further as the Shooting Times columnist denies having shot either a Jay or a Carrion Crow despite having described the shots that led to the deaths of these two birds in some detail in his published article.
The Essex Police tell us that ‘With regards to the Carrion Crow and Jay he has stated that, he did not shoot these birds on this day and has a number of frozen/prop birds that he uses in his articles, if he needs to and bases the events on previous incidents or other incidents which have similarities.‘.
So, assuming, as we will, that this statement is true, the article was not true. If it had been true then perhaps the court would have been asked to rule on the legality of the action – an action that we would state is unlawful (but since it did not happen in this particular case that is the end of this matter).
We intend to ask DEFRA for their view on these matters in general, in case such circumstances arise in future. We have also written to the Shooting Times (see here).
Comments Off on Wilful blindness over grouse shooting
The Wild Justice petition, signed by many readers of this blog and many, many others across the UK, including in grouse shooting areas (see map below) had a debate in Westminster Hall yesterday. Labour MPs were woefully thin on the ground and LibDems totally absent. The SNP spoke and made some good points about how they do things differently in Scotland and the Labour Shadow Minister, Olivia Blake, was good. Here is a link to the transcript – isn’t it amazing how quickly these appear?
But Conservatives lined up to demonstrate that wilful blindness is the name of the game. We will come back in more detail to what individual MPs said over the next days and weeks, if your MP spoke then maybe you’d like to drop them a line and we will publish our thoughts here in case they help you.
So this is just a series of headline points for now, but we’ll be back with more detail soon.
Conservative MPs are wilfully blind on economics – many said how important grouse shooting is to local economies but took no account of the impacts of flooding, water treatment or greenhouse gases on the wider economy. Tom Hunt MP (Ipswich) said that he ‘did not come across any evidence that said that an alternative use would promote better natural capital than the unique environment that we are dealing with here‘ which must mean that he hasn’t read the book of the former Chair of the Natural Capital Committee, a highly respected academic economist, Prof Dieter Helm, where he writes (amongst other things – see here) that ‘Responsibility for the consequences of grouse moor management lies with the owners. They are the ‘polluters’ imposing costs on the rest of us, and they should pay. A more prosperous uplands would start with the licensing of game shoots and then a levy to put right the damage.’.
Conservative MPs are wilfully blind on raptor persecution – many MPs spoke about the skies being darkened by vast flocks of raptors as they visited the moors with friendly gamekeepers. Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) and Robert Goodwill (Scarborough and Whitby) both hail from the North York Moors which is a bit thin on nesting Hen Harriers, whatever the Moorland Association’s local representative’s gamekeepers say. Indeed the study using Natural England data, by Murgatroyd et al. (published since the last debate in 2016, and providing the clinching science that shows the scale of persecution on driven grouse moors – see here) shows that the North York Moors NP is the most dangerous place for Hen Harriers to go of all English upland, so-called protected, areas. If you are a Hen Harrier, your risk/day of death or sudden disappearance is higher in the North York Mors National Park than anywhere else. Maybe Mr Hollinrake and Mr Goodwill could ask their constituent gamekeepers why that would be the case? Mr Hollinrake could clearly start with the estates he named: Snilesworth, Bransdale and Spaunton. But wilful blindness is the name of the game. Only Olivia Blake mentioned the Murgatroyd et al. study which is a damning indictment of the impact of a hobby, driven grouse shooting, on wildlife crime figures in upland England.
Conservative MPs are wildfilly blind on climate change impacts – Olivia Blake was right to point out (‘I must say that a number of colleagues who have spoken today seem to be a bit behind their own Government on this issue, as the Government have introduced a ban, although it has limitations that I will come on to later‘) that the Conservative MPs who spoke in the debate were out of step with their own government which has introduced restrictions on burning of upland vegetation (weak restrictions – subscribers to the Wild Justice free newsletter will know that we are considering a legal challenge to those feeble restrictions) on burning of upland vegetation. And she was right to mention that the Climate Change Committee regard more sustainable upland management, on driven grouse moors included, as a big issue.
Conservative MPs are wildfully blind to the need for government to act – if you admit that there is a problem, then as a decision-maker you should act. That may be why so many Conservatives, including DEFRA itself, has to paint a picture that everything is rosy, economically rich, environmentally rich, socially rich in the uplands and on grouse moors in particular. If they removed the blinkers then they’d have to act, and that would really irk the grouse moor owners and managers who expect the Conservative Party to speak for them. It was good that the SNP, in the form of Dave Doogan (Angus) pointed out that things are different in Scotland when he said ‘...it includes the ambition for grouse moor management. By contrast, the dead slow and stop approach by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to the challenge is unacceptable and does not benefit anybody on either side of this challenging debate‘ and ‘…the Scottish Government will look at implementing a licensing regime for grouse shooting, providing a framework to the sector that will assist it in combating illegal persecution of raptors and related wildlife crimes. Grass [I think that is meant to be grouse] moor estates found to be non-compliant—those that practise the types of behaviours that nobody wants to see—would face the prospect of not having a licence, whereas those that uphold the very best practices would be endorsed and licensed as undertaking a legal and productive activity. Those changes are designed to apply an achievable balance‘. In other words, facing the same issues and problems, and the same economics and social issues, Scotland is acting whereas England is staring out into space saying ‘Problem? I can’t see a problem’. That is wilful blindness.
Wild Justice thanks everyone, over 111,000 of you, who signed this petition and got this debate, much-delayed, into parliament. Things have moved on since the 2016 debate – at least they have in the SNP and Labour Parties, both of whom now favour licensing. Only some of the faces have changed on the Conservative side, there is no more acceptance of a problem now than there was five years ago. But the world is moving on and will leave the wilfully blind behind.
There’s nothing heroic or Nelsonian about ignoring the facts.
KFFYJ6 Nelson holding a telescope to his blind eye, ignoring the order to retreat, Battle of Copenhagen, 1801. Image shot 1880. Exact date unknown. Alamy.
Wild Justice also thanks the Petitions Committee staff with shom we have dealt on this and other petitions for their hard work.
Early this morning the joint NGO #stateofnature petition passed 200,000 signatures. Wild Justice supporters played a large part in helping to reach this milestone. Thank you.
The petition will be handed in to government some time next week and a major amendment to strengthen protection for wildlife will be discussed in the House of Lords later today.
This is not the time to ease off – this is the time to search your address book for those friends who might well sign this petition to increase the pressure on DEFRA and Boris Johnson to do a good job for wildlife. We want a legally binding target to end wildlife declines in the Environment Bill. What DEFRA promised in May was a world-leading target, what they now bring forward in June is feeble.
Please sign the #stateofnature petition to show that you want this government to act now to save wildlife – click here please.
Comments Off on Badger challenge – we lost this oneBadger. Photo: Chris Packham
We heard on Friday that we had lost our challenge of the legality of free shooting of Badgers. It is legal for Natural England to license shooting of badgers which does not meet the welfare recommendations of the expert committee which set out what the standards should be. Government and Natural England do not have their own criteria on the dividing line betweem cruel and not cruel and haven’t used those proposed by experts.
We’re sorry that we didn’t win this one but we are glad that we tried. We thank our legal colleagues at Leigh Day and Matrix Law for all the time and expertise they have put in to this complex case. The moral position is clear, the legal position is very complex. We also thank many experts who know a lot more about issues such as the pain suffered when a bullet passes through a living being than we do. And also we thank our supporters for funding this challenge.
Here is the Court Order.
For updates on Wild Justice’s work, subscribe to our free newsletter – click here.
Comments Off on Wild Justice questions the quality of NE’s IUCN Assessment for their lowland Hen Harrier reintroduction project
Yesterday Wild Justice sent the following letter to Natural England questioning the quality of their assessment of the feasibility of a reintroduction of Hen Harriers to southern England.
We recognise that reintroduction projects can be controversial. That makes it all the more important that the analysis which may seek to justify them is of high quality. It is also essential that a regulatory body applies high standards to its own projects when they are of a similar nature to others which may need licensing. There should be no possibility that double standards apply or might be suspected to apply to a statutory body’s own projects and those of others.
Wild Justice does not think that the Assessment carried out by Natural England is of high enough quality to form a safe basis for a reintroduction project. We are happy to concede that a proper assessment, carried out well and referring to all relevant data might (or might not) show that the proposed project might (but also might not) meet the criteria set out in the IUCN Guidelines.
The easiest way to resolve this matter is set out in paragraph 36 below and would require NE not to go ahead with any releases in 2021 and to undertake a high quality assessment with the input of independent experts before going ahead.
We await NE’s response before considering whether to take this matter further.
Wild Justice is a not-for-profit company which carries out legal challenges on behalf of wildlife, and campaigns for changes to laws and policies that will favour wildlife. To subscribe to our free newsletter – click here.
Comments Off on Ban driven grouse shooting debate rescheduled for 21st June 2021
After many false starts and long delays due to Covid19, the Westminster Hall debate on banning driven grouse shooting, triggered by our successful 2019 petition, has been rescheduled to take place on 21st June 2021 at 4.30pm.
This petition was submitted in July 2019, published by the Westminster Parliament in August 2019, reached 100,000 signatures in September 2019 and closed because of a general election in November 2019 … and debated in June 2021!
It’s unlikely that spectators will be allowed in to watch the debate live at Westminster Hall but you can follow it live on the UK Parliament’s YouTube channel.
Comments Off on Alleged breach of General Licences (updated)
Note: this blog was originally posted on 28 May, and was temporarily removed after a few days. It is now republished in its original form. There are important developments in this issue which we publish here and here and which should be read alongside this blog post.
For a small number of species the authorities issue General Licences rather than making individuals make applications on a case by case basis. The General Licences are published on websites and list the species which can be killed and the circumstances and purposes under which killing is lawful. Under these licences, millions of birds are killed in the UK (mostly Wood Pigeons, and various crow species) without any real oversight or monitoring. Wild Justice calls this ‘casual killing’ and we have acted to tighten up the system – with some success. We are not wholly against any control of bird species but we believe that the current system amounts to casual licensing of casual killing of far too many protected birds.
The legal judgment referred to in the last of those blogs, by Justice Jarman, made it clear that the legality of the general licences was dependent on there being a present danger and that the licences should not be relied upon at times of year or in locations where there was no threat to the interest being allegedly protected.
Imagine our surprise then, when we opened the 10 February 2021 edition of Shooting Times and read an article written by a General Licence user in Essex who described setting out to shoot, and then succeeding in shooting, ten different species in ten hours just ‘to see if it could be done’.
As three of the thirteen animals that he described shooting that day were covered by the new General Licences GL40 (Carrion Crow and Jay) and GL42 (Wood Pigeon) and thus subject to certain licence conditions that prevent what we would describe as ‘casual killing’, e.g. killing them just ‘to see if it could be done’ within a particular time limit, on the evidence available it is our view that this licence-user breached the terms of General Licences GL40 and GL42.
These alleged breaches were published in an article in Shooting Times, without any editorial comment about the activities described, and thus could be perceived by its readers as activity within the scope of the General Licences that may be replicated elsewhere in England. We put it to the regulator, DEFRA, that this activity amounted to alleged breaches of the General Licences and we asked DEFRA to investigate and consider imposing enforcement action.
According to the terms of General Licences GL40 and GL42, failing to comply with the terms of the licence may result in the following consequences:
If you do not comply with this licence’s terms and conditions you may face serious consequences.
Failing to comply with the licence may:
• mean you commit a criminal offence under the 1981 Act – the maximum penalty available for such an offence is, at the time of issue of this licence, an unlimited fine and a 6 month custodial sentence
• result in your permission to use this licence being withdrawn – the Secretary of State will notify you in writing if your permission to use this licence is withdrawn and the Secretary of State may impose a similar sanction in relation to other similar licences.
The shooting described in the article took place on 30 January 2021, and was published in the Shooting Times of 10 February 2021. We wrote to DEFRA on 26 March drawing this matter to the Secretary of State’s attention with a letter setting out our thoughts on the legal matters and an ecological statement which set out matters such as the fact that there was no present danger to species such as Nightingale and Yellow Wagtail on the date in question as both species were then in their African wintering grounds. DEFRA told us they would look into this matter but then on 26 April said they would not be providing any further updates, to which Wild Justice replied saying that we believe this is a matter of public interest on which the Secretary of State should act and that we would be bringing this matter to the public’s attention. This is us bringing it to your attention. We still await action from DEFRA on this matter.
Comments Off on What you think about lead in game meat
In yesterday’s Wild Justice newsletter we asked our over 40,000 subscribers (you can subscribe for free here https://wildjustice.org.uk/contact/ ) six simple questions about the results that we had published revealing the lead levels in game meat sold by Sainsbury’s. There had been 2773 responses in 24 hours and the results hadn’t changed much at all in 23.5 hours so we called it a day.
We’d like to thank the staff of pro-shooting organisations who attempted to get a surge of ‘Lead is fine, Sainsbury’s are great‘ responses to the survey but you made very little difference to the results.
Q1 Did you learn something from reading about this study?
92% Yes
That’s good – we hoped you would!
Q2 Were you surprised at the high levels of lead in game meat on sale at Sainsbury’s?
62% Yes
Q3 Has your opinion of Sainsbury’s changed after reading about lead in the game meat they sell?
Down, 66%; No change, 30%
This ought to be uncomfortable reading for Sainsbury’s – at least 17,000 people have already read our newsletter and the actual total will grow over today and subsequent days and awareness will have swelled through spreading of the blog through social media and the report in today’s Times (p13). We think that this result is partly because Sainsbury’s sells high-lead game meat without health warnings but also because Sainsbury’s have not answered reasonable questions from their customers on the subject. That’s our guess at why you think this way about Sainsbury’s.
Q4 Which of these actions would you most like government to take?
Ban Pb ammunition, 60%; Apply same ML as for non-game meat, 24%; Mandatory health warnings, 9%
Most of you think that government should ban lead ammunition (and so do we) and your view is, we guess, influenced by the fact that lead ammunition has environmental impacts as well as health impacts. Very few people (6%, many of them clearly shooters from their comments) think that it is OK for government to do nothing. Will DEFRA stop dragging its feet on this issue?
Q5 Which of these actions would you most like supermarkets and other game sellers to take?
Ensure supplies are lead-free, 76%; Prominent health warnings, 17%
Most outlets which sell game meat, including Sainsbury’s, are in the small green sector which most people do not favour (those who do include quite a lot of shooters). To the best of our knowledge, only Waitrose occupies both the blue (they are moving in this direction) and yellow segments (they do this already) of this pie chart – that shows approval of Waitrose’s position and should be a signal to other retailers that they should catch up.
Q6 What action do you think should be taken by those who shoot game for the human food chain?
Supply lead-free game meat, 92%
Overwhelmingly, you think shooters should only supply lead-free meat to go into the human food chain. We agree.
Government received the report of the Lead Ammunition Group in 2015 which recommended the phasing out of lead ammunition – that came from an expert committee which spent five years reviewing the health and environmental evidence, and also noted that hunters in other countries had already switched to non-toxic shot. After sitting on the report (or operhaps carefully reading it over and over again) for a year DEFRA rejected the report in 2016. If they had acted then, the shocking findings we see now would be very different. This year, DEFRA have announced a 2-year review of lead ammunition to consider withdrawing it some time in the future. This is glacially slow progress on a straight forward health and environmental issue. Frankly, it’s foot-dragging of the worst possible kind.
Wild Justice believes that DEFRA (and the devolved administrations) should act more quickly in order to start delivering better environmental and health protection. Just get on with it!
In the continuing absence of government action then retailers should follow the example of Waitrose (and Waitrose must follow through on its promises) and supply lead-free game meat.
Here are some of the 1240 comments that were made on this survey. They are representative in that we took every 30th comment, whatever it said;
The dangers of lead in natural habitats is well known. Warning customers of high lead levels in food will not solve this wider problem, a complete ban on lead shot is the only solution.
It’s blindingly obvious that if you shoot with lead one will end up eating fragments of lead! Abundantly clear health warnings should self-regulate the demand for birds that are shot and slowly reduce the public demand and appetite. Shooting wild birds should be outlawed. We are in the 21st century!
I’m amazed that lead in any form, least of all pellets, is allowed anywhere near the food chain, especially after so much work went into removing lead from water pipes, paint, toys etc.
Steel shot in game will cause damage to teeth. Steel shot in timber will blunt saws
I would much prefer them not to sell game at all. Get lead banned now. Very difficult to police in the field though, I would imagine
spreading lead into the environment is wrong.
Not good, obviously. But restrictions on levels for all meats can come now – in advance of banning. And non toxic ammunition, if introduced more widely, should be plastic free, including packaging.
Game shooting for pleasure should be banned completely.
I am appalled that lead shot is still being used in the country given that its toxological effects are well understood. Lead in petrol was banned more than 2 decades ago and in paint nearly three decades ago!! Please carry on campaigning for lead free meat. Thank you for all your good work.
I am really surprised rules are so lax. I believe lead shot and weights for fishing were banned years ago?
Many tv programmes are encouraging more game will be eaten. So more lead ingested. Lead was taken out of paint as it was so dangerous.
Basically ban shooting of any wild animal including game. Lead contamination would not arise then. Become vegetarian.
Lead weights were banned for fishing so same should apply here.
eating the occasional pheasant is not going to do you any harm. why don’t you concentrate on sugar ?
I think this is quite scary and I think we put a lot of faith into supermarkets to do the right thing by their customers, but this just shows that they really are only interested in profit!
This is yet another disgraceful aspect of the game meat industry.
I would like to say that I am surprised that governments (of whatever political party) have not taken action before on this issue, but I regret to say that I am not. Now that this information is publicly available I would like to think that the present government will take action – and that offending retail suppliers will take immediate, voluntary action themselves pending legislation that enforces action and imposes very strict sanctions.
Appalling
Hard to blame Sainsbury’s as they are not breaking any laws, all supermarkets are the same. This is a great study but need to be careful not to discourage supermarkets from selling game meat, it could be a good and sustainable market if some changes happened eg banning lead shot. We all need to be eating more deer for example. Great project though. Shows the weakness of our regulation yet again.
Avoid eating game anyway as it helps to fund the “shooting for fun” people.
All contamination of food should be banned
I was surprised it spread in the meat
Should be prosecuted for selling it
What about the other supermarkets and ordinary butchers?
Lead shot should be banned, it’s an environmental contaminant. Humans can choose to avoid these products once they know about the problem. Animals, cannot avoid it in the wide environment. It must kill individual birds, which are then eaten by other animals. It must affect cognitive ability and therefore survival chances, at lower levels.
I wouldn’t buy game meat as I don’t approve of shooting any animal in the wild because of the risk of it suffering injury or a slow painful death. I’d rather we did not artificially breed pheasant and other game for shooting.
Thank you for raising this issue, and acting on it!
I am vegan
######### School, Lancaster in 2019 used pheasant shot with lead in their cookery classes without any warnings to children, because the pheasant was donated free by a gamekeeper parent. When confronted about this the headteacher was pretty unconcerned.
Lead is toxic and should be banned outright. Would you feed your children food containing such high levels?
Not happy about eating food contaminated with lead
Lead is a very toxic substance to have in food and it was very worrying to learn that people who buy game are being exposed to a higher level than allowed in other meat. I don’t buy game but I’m glad you are exposing this.
There’s still a lot of lead water pipes in old houses, can you test how safe the water is to drink?
I was shocked to see just how many of the samples – 80% – contained lead. And even more shocked to find out that neither the shooters nor the supermarkets are legally obliged to point this out to consumers. I am also concerned about how much of this lead ammunition finds its way into our waterways and soils.
No-one should be shooting game in the first place! It’s not a sport, it’s not a business, it’s cold blooded murder of innocent creatures!
The UK government should introduce legislation for an outright ban on the use of lead shot.
We no longer have lead used in pipework, roof flashing, paint and so forth because we know the detriment it has on health. Therefore, why on Earth is it justifiable let alone sensible to be eating it, especially unwittingly more often than not??!
Please publish the levels found, not just that you found higher levels and which part of the country it was sourced rtom
I have eaten pheasant many times & have sometimes found the tiny lead pellet inside. It never occurred to me that lead contamination would occur throughout the game & cause a health risk, so I would also like to see health warnings on packaging also saying how the game was killed.
I’d rather it the wild birds than chicken that is intensely farmed. The lead in the bird can be removed.
Lead contamination should be highlighted in public media more often. game shooting needs much stricter controls.
There needs to be more media coverage of the realities of the lead content of game based good products, The relevant food safety authorities should be proactive about this.
Comments Off on Waitrose game meat still has lead in it – but signs of improvement
Introduction:
Yesterday we described the results of tests for lead levels which we commissioned on Game Mix and Pheasant breasts sold by Sainsbury’s. There are no maximum allowable lead levels set for game meat but there are maximum levels set for other meat such as pork, beef, chicken etc. We showed that Sainsbury’s game meat was usually way above the lead levels allowable for non-game meat. This is despite the fact that lead is a poison and is the subject of health warnings, particularly aimed at pregnant women, women trying for a baby, toddlers and young children. We analysed Sainsbury’s game meat because we considered their responses to customers on this issue to be misleading and evasive.
Are Sainsbury’s typical of other supermarkets? We don’t know except that Waitrose definitely appears to be different. Waitrose announced in July 2019 that from the 2020/21 shooting season it would only stock lead-free game birds. To do this it would source its game meat from suppliers who only used non-toxic ammunition, such as steel shot for killing Pheasants, Red-legged Partridges, Wood Pigeons etc..
As the game shooting season approached last year Waitrose shifted its position and blamed this on the coronavirus pandemic. This is what they said, and this notice is still on the Waitrose website (at least it was yesterday) but it is quite difficult to find (follow the link below and then scroll down a very long way).
Lead shot pledge
Waitrose & Partners is the largest retailer of game in the UK. We sell prepared wood pigeon, partridge and pheasant during the season. We are supplied by a single game dealer who ensures all the game source is from environmentally minded British shoots and reared to the highest standards. We monitor the shoots we source from and expect them to adhere to our bespoke standards of animal welfare and shoot behaviour.
From the 2019-20 season we began phasing out the use of lead shot on the Estates from which we source our game. We publicly stated that all the Estates we buy from will be required to use lead alternatives such as steel or bismuth from season 2020/21. We are disappointed that the COVID-19 outbreak has set back our plans as many of the Estates that supported our pledge are not shooting this season. However, we expect that more than half of the game on our shelves will be lead free during the 2020/21 season. As a result, our game will continue to carry the FSA lead warning which states “Consuming lead is harmful, health experts advise to minimise lead consumption as much as possible. Anyone who eats lead-shot game should be aware of the risks posed by consuming large amounts of lead, especially children and pregnant women.” In agreement with our game supplier, we are now pledging that by season 2021-22 all Waitrose & Partners game will be brought to bag without the use of lead ammunition.
So, when we bought game meat from Sainsbury’s earlier this year and sent it off to be analysed, we also bought 20 Waitrose whole Pheasants and took samples from them to be analysed too.
Yesterday we showed you the results of lead analyses of Sainnsbury’s chicken meat and two game products; Game Mix and Pheasant breasts. In the table below those findings are reproduced with the two types of Sainsbury’s game meat combined on one line and the Waitrose data added.
Chicken: there were 20 samples, none had any detectable lead in them so the lead levels were below 0.04 units, and therefore 0/20 of the chicken samples were above the maximum allowable level which applies to chicken, pork, beef etc.. No problems there.
Sainsbury’s game: there were 30 samples, and 24/30 (ie 80%) had lead levels beyond the threshold of maximum allowable level which applies to beef, pork, chicken etc..
Waitrose game: despite having the highest single lead value of any of the meat samples we had tested, Waitrose game meat had a lower median and lower mean lead level than Sainsbury’s game meat. And 11/20 (ie 55%) of Waitrose samples were above the level allowable in non-game meat. There is evidence here that Waitrose really has tried to move towards lead-free game meat and with some success. That impression is enhanced by the fact that 0/30 of the Sainsbury’s game meat samples were below the detectable level of 0.04 units whereas 7/20 of the Waitrose samples were ‘lead-free’.
Discussion:
Sainsbury’s game meat has high lead levels and Waitrose game meat has lower lead levels. Both companies ought to do better and we will test their game meat and perhaps that of other game sellers next winter to see whether they are doing better.
There are some other differences too. Waitrose game meat has a health warning (see below) which refers to lead and its effects on children, Sainsbury’s does not. Waitrose have publicly stated that they are going ‘lead-free’, Sainsbury’s have not.
Waitrose health warning
Wild Justice spent some time talking to journalists about this matter yesterday. Waitrose told a journalist that ‘game continues to be labelled for lead as per Food Standards Agency requirements‘ which is being unduly modest of them, since there are no FSA requirements to label game meat in that way. If there were, then Sainsbury’s and every other supermarket would be doing it, and it is, to the best of our knowledge, only Waitrose. So well done Waitrose.
Also, Sainsbury’s told a journalist in a statment which they said could be used publicly, that ‘Although it’s rare, it’s possible small traces of shot may remain in the product and this is explained on the packaging.’. Well that’s not true – all of Sainsbury’s game meat tested by us, that’s 30/30 samples, had detectable lead levels and many of them were spectacularly high lead levels. That doesn’t seem like small traces to us, and it’s not just ‘possible’ it seems to be normal. Lead is not mentioned on the packaging that we have seen. Sainsbury’s also claimed that ‘We can reassure our customers that testing shows any traces found in the product available from Sainsbury’s are within EU legal limits.’ which is true, in a way, in a very strange way, because there are no lead levels for game meat set by the EU and so Sainsbury’s could put a lump of lead on the shelf, call it a Pheasant and it wouldn’t be above the EU lead levels for Pheasant! It has been suggested in a scientific paper last year (see here) that there should be maximum allowable lead levels set for game meat because they don’t exist at the moment. Maybe Sainsbury’s will start lobbying the FSA and DEFRA to introduce such limits in this country? Do you think they will?
Sainsbury’s also told journalists that they are no longer selling the range of products we tested but it seems nobody thought to ask them whether they would be selling them again next season and what their plans are for selling game with or without lead in it. We will ask Sainsbury’s those questions and in any case we will test their game meat next winter.
Yesterday, as well as publishing our blog on Sainsbury’s game meat, Wild Justice sent out a newsletter to over 40,000 subscribers (you can subscribe to future issues here – they aren’t all about game meat) asking them what they thought should happen about regulation of lead ammunition and food quality. We also asked what our supporters thought about Sainsbury’s. We’ll publish the results of over 2,500 responses later today. It will make interesting reading for the FSA, Sainsbury’s, Waitrose, other vendors of game meat and DEFRA.
Comments Off on Sainsbury’s game meat has high lead levels
Introduction:
Here we describe the results of analysis of samples of game meat purchased online or from Sainsbury’s stores.
The context to this study is that lead is a poison and has been removed from many previous uses (water pipes, paints, petrol, fishing weights) over time. And yet we continue to use lead ammunition in recreational shooting in vast quantities each year. Lead shot is overwhelmingly the commonest form of ammunition used for killing ‘small game’ such as Rabbits, Wood Pigeon, Pheasants and both species of partridge. Some of that lead-shot game is eaten privately by the shooter or enters the human food chain through game dealers, butchers and large supermarkets.
The Food Standards Agency warns against eating large quantities of game shot with lead ammunition and advises pregnant women and those trying to become pregnant to avoid eating such meat and that it should not be fed to young children. Ingesting lead can have a variety of physiological impacts on different parts of the body but the emphasis on children is because the central nervous system is susceptible to lead. Decreases in the IQ scores of children are associated with increases in blood lead level. Health authorities consider that there is no safe threshold level of exposure to lead, below which there is no risk of harm.
Surely government regulations protect us against eating meat with lead in it? The current situation is bizarre; Maximum Levels (MLs) for lead exist for most meats such as chicken, beef, pork etc, but not for game meat which is shot with ammunition, very often lead ammunition. The ML for lead in most meats is 0.1mg/kg wet weight (WW); that’s 1g of lead in 10,000,000g of meat, or 1g of lead in 10,000kg of meat – a standard portion of meat is around 80g (0.08kg).
Because there are no MLs set for lead content of game meat, most consumers (with no specialist knowledge of lead levels in foods) have to trust retailers to provide food for sale with low lead levels, or for retailers to flag the health impacts of high lead levels in such meat, or for the suppliers of shot game to switch away from lead ammunition to the many non-toxic alternatives. There is very slow progress on any of this.
Why did we pick on Sainsbury’s game meat to analyse? Sainsbury’s is a big company and it ought to be well aware of all of the above. Sainsbury’s is selling game meat with a prominent British Game Alliance logoon it and the packaging prominently states that it is ‘ideal for a healthy casserole or game pie’. At the back of the packet there is a small warning that mentions that shot might be in the meat, but not that the shot is probably lead and not that ingesting lead has health implications for all, but especially for young children. The front of the packet says ‘healthy’, the back of the packet does not even flag health concerns. And when Sainsbury’s were asked about lead in their game meat they clammed up very quickly, passed enquirers on to their supplier, Holme Farmed Venison, who have not answered enquiries about lead levels in the game meat that they supply.
That’s why we thought it worth testing Sainsbury’s game meat for lead levels – because they would not tell us or anyone else about the levels of a poison in their meat.
We expected to find high levels of lead in Sainsbury’s game meat because all similar studies of lead-shot game meat have found high levels of lead in them. We thought that it was unlikely that Sainsbury’s had ensured that they had removed the possibility of lead being in the meat they sell to their customers because we thought they would have said so. But you never know until you look, and so we looked.
Methods:
20 Sainsbury’s British Small Whole Chickens (to act as a control), 20 Holme Farmed Venison Diced Game Casserole Mix packs and 10 Holme Farmed Venison packs of Pheasant breasts were purchased in Sainsbury’s stores or from Sainsbury’s online between 8 January and 10 February 2021 (more details in Appendix 1 below).
Samples from each purchased pack were taken, labelled and frozen. From the chicken meat, two samples were taken from the breast and one from each leg, making a combined total weight of 20-40g per bird.
Frozen samples were sent to a laboratory for analysis where they were desiccated, ground down and then a sample of the milled dried meat analysed with standard techniques by a team with experience in this type of chemical analysis (for more details see Appendix 2).
Results:
No lead shot was found in any of the samples, consistent with Sainsbury’s saying that lead shot are removed. However, what were the lead levels?
All 20 of the chicken samples had lead levels below the limits of detectability for the process – less than 0.04 mg/kg WW. They were all, therefore, well below the ML of 0.1 mg/kg WW which is set by regulation.
But it’s a different situation for game meat. Despite there being no lead shot found in these samples the lead levels are high – so high that if the ML for lead in meat did apply to game meat Sainsbury’s wouldn’t be able to sell this meat (24 out of 30 samples were above the ML).
The highest recorded level in this relatively small sample of game meat is at least 200 times higher than that present in the chicken samples, and 87 times higher than would be legal in chicken, pork, beef, etc.
Discussion:
These results are in line with previous studies. They don’t really show anything very new but they are of high relevance to public policy, retail practice and the public’s ability to make informed choices about what food to buy.
If government applied the same ML to game meat as is applied to other meats then lead-contaminated meat would essentially disappear from our tables.
If government and the Food Standards Agency regularly tested game meat for lead levels, and publicised the results, then we, and others, wouldn’t have to. Actually, a government body, the Veterinary Medicines Directorate, has been measuring levels of lead in venison, pheasant and partridge destined for consumers for many years, but they do not publicise their results.
If the Food Standards Agency made their health warnings about game meat prominent and if they required labelling of game meat with warnings then consumers would be making a more informed choice when buying such food.
If supermarkets voluntarily put warning labels prominently on their game meat then consumers could make a more informed choice and choose to eat high levels of lead if they wanted, and choose to feed high levels of lead to their children if they really wanted to do that.
If the shooting industry switched to the readily available non-toxic ammunition then this would be a done deal.
Sainsbury’s have not done a good job in protecting their customers from high lead levels in the meat that they sell, they have not done a good job in highlighting the health issues and they have not been open with customers who have asked them specifically about these matters. We’re not impressed by Sainsbury’s on this issue.
Waitrose is the supermarket which has reacted to this issue the best. We also collected 20 samples of Pheasant meat from Waitrose stores and got them analysed. We will report on those findings tomorrow.
Acknowledgements:
This study was entirely funded by supporters of Wild Justice donating money to our general funds – thank you! We’d like to thank Dr Mark Taggart and Dr Yuan Li of the Environmental Research Institute, University of the Highlands and Islands, Thurso, for carrying out the lead analysis. A variety of friends and colleagues helped with this project, collected samples, commented on drafts of this blog or helped in other ways.
Wild Justice:
Wild Justice is a not-for-profit organisation set up by Chris Packham, Ruth Tingay and Mark Avery. We are entirely dependent on donations. To support our work – click here. To hear more about our campaigns and legal cases subscribe to our free newsletter – click here.
Appendix 1
The meat samples were bought at the following Sainsbury’s supermarkets: Chicken; Romford, Ilford, South Woodford, Walthamstow, Stratford City and Beckton (all London), Brentwood (Essex) and Biggleswade (Beds); Game Mix; Romford, South Woodford and Beckton (all London), Brentwood (Essex), Hoddesden (Herts) and Biggleswade (Beds); Pheasant breast; online (4), Beckton (London), Brentwood (Essex) and Hoddesden (Herts).
Appendix 2
The frozen samples were first dried in a drying oven at 65°C to constant dry weight. The average wet weight sample size was 38.3g, dropping to 11.8g after drying – giving an average moisture content of 69%. Dried samples were then milled to a fine powder and stored in zip-lock bags in a desiccator post mill to ensure they remained dry. Milling was undertaken very carefully to ensure thorough cleaning of the mill between samples, using dry lab tissue and a stream of compressed air to remove all residual particles of material. Milled samples were digested using a microwave digestion system and pressurised Teflon vessels – using trace metal grade nitric acid and trace metal grade hydrogen peroxide. A 0.4g subsample of each powdered sample was digested and following complete dissolution solutions were made up to 15ml volume with Type I Milli-Q ultrapure water. In parallel with samples, blanks were run to attain a procedural limit of detection for the process, and a certified reference material (CRM) was used to ensure Pb recovery was within tolerance (strawberry leaf powder (LGC 7162) was used as the CRM, with a certified Pb level of 1.8 +/-0.4 mg/kg DW). Once digestions were complete, all samples/CRMs/blanks were analysed using an ICP-OES system (Agilent 5900). The instrument was calibrated against five Pb wavelengths and the 220.353nm Pb line was used for final data processing/calculations. CRM recovery was within the above CRM tolerance. Analysis was undertaken at the Environmental Research Institute, University of the Highlands and Islands, Thurso, Scotland.
Lead is a poison and it is harmful to wildlife and to people. There is a vast literature on this subject, much of it is technical and scattered across the scientific literature. Here are some pointers to fairly accessible accounts that you can read in order to learn more about the subject:
The Peregrine Fund 2008 conference proceedings, Ingestion of Lead from Spent Ammunition: Implications for Wildlife and Humans, held in Boise , Idaho. Have a look at Qualitative and quantitative detection of lead bullet fragments in random venison packages donated to the Community Action Food Centers of North Dakota, 2007 (p154, it’s a short paper and Figure 2 is worth seeing), Lead bullet fragments in venison from rifle-killed deer: potential for human dietary exposure (p144, the abstract is quite clear about the issue), Hunters and anglers at risk of lead exposure in the United States (p169, again the abstract is good).
The 2014 Oxford Lead Symposium proceedings; the Foreword by Professor Lord Krebs FRS contains the phrase ‘Lead ammunition may be traditional … but it is doubtful whether future generations would perpetuate a tradition of knowingly adding lead to food‘, the Introduction by Professor Christopher Perrins FRS says ‘Successive Governments have dragged their heels over the issue of lead ammunition, none seeing it as a serious enough concern compared with other issues with which they are dealing‘ and the paper Risks of health effects to humans in the UK from ammunition-derived lead has a very accessible abstract.
the 2015 Final Report of the Lead Ammunition Group is a weighty and massive review of the literature. The Key Questions (and the answers to them) are a very accessible summary of the issue (p vii – ix). there is also a useful update on the same site.
The current health advice from the Food Standards Agency is blunt, saying ‘Consuming lead is harmful, health experts advise to minimise lead consumption as much as possible.’ and ‘Those who eat lead-shot game should minimise the amount they eat, especially for small game animals.’ and ‘Exposure to lead can harm the developing brain and nervous system. So cutting down the amount of lead-shot game eaten is especially important for toddlers, children, pregnant women and women trying for a baby‘. But these warnings are not visible on packaging and, as we have seen , game suppliers are tight-lipped about such dangers and most supermarkets selling game do not highlight this issue at all.
How could we reduce the risk of exposure to lead in game meat? It’s simple – stop shooting lead ammunition into animals that are destined for the human food chain. One of the useful properties of lead is that it is soft and malleable – that’s why, in the past, we have used it widely. But those same physical properties mean that lead passing through the flesh of a shot animal, hitting organs, soft tissue, bones and cartilage, shatters and tiny fragments of lead spread through the body of the animal. Here are three x-rays of shot birds that were bought in butcher’s shops and then x-rayed. The top x-ray is of a partridge and the other two are Red Grouse. Large white circular objects are lead shot. The green arrows point to fragments of bone and the red arrows indicate fragments of lead, from the shot, that have spread through the flesh.
Almost all of the fragments of lead are tiny – far too small to be detected in the cooking or eating process. Yes, you can spit out the almost-intact lead shot but you can’t get rid of the fragments. The lead analyses that have been done in studies cited above, and in our own, remove the lead shot and analyse the lead content of the meat after that removal. So when Sainsbury’s say that their game meat has no lead shot in it that’s good (although careful eating would remove those anyway) but they are not removing the tiny fragments of lead. So removing the almost intact lead shot particles is pretty irrelevant to the lead levels in the meat, as we will show you later this week…
Comments Off on Sainsbury’s game meat – and why we tested its lead levels
Later this week we will publish the results of laboratory tests that we commissioned to determine the amount of toxic lead present in samples of game meat being sold by Sainsbury’s supermarket.
The reason we chose to test game meat samples from Sainsbury’s for traces of toxic lead was because in autumn last year we became aware that Sainsbury’s was selling two game meat products – pheasant breasts and a mixed-game casserole (venison, Pheasant and Red-legged Partridge marketed as ‘healthy’) – both produced and supplied by game dealer Holme Farmed Venison (HFV) in North Yorkshire. Both products were ‘kite-marked’ by the British Game Alliance which claims to be the ‘official marketing board for the UK game industry’ offering ‘traceability and credibility’.
However, despite this endorsement both Sainsbury’s and the supplier were reluctant to answer customers’ questions about why there was no health warning that these products may contain toxic lead shot, for which there is no agreed safe level of consumption according to the Food Standards Agency. Health warnings were absent from the product packaging, from Sainsbury’s in-store shelf labelling and from the sales pages on both Sainsbury’s and HFV’s websites.
Repeated requests were made to Sainsbury’s and to HFV for information about the lead content of these products. Sainsbury’s initially responded with this generic corporate response, which dodged the direct questions about whether the products contained, or had been tested for, toxic lead:
The product you have enquired about is a branded product (not Sainsbury’s own brand) and we would encourage any further questions to be directed to Holme Farmed Venison, through their customer helpline. The branded Holme Farm Venison (HFV) [sic] game products are assured by the British Game Alliance (BGA).
The British Game Alliance independently audits all shoots participating in the accreditation, ensuring that they are all compliant with the requirements.
Lead shot is being phased out, but is still in use, however HFV products only select from meat that has no shot in it. Initially, visually inspected and then metal detected at the game processor and again visually inspected in the final pack. There are additional warnings on pack that refers to shot to ensure customers are aware.
When customers weren’t satisfied that their concerns had been addressed and wrote again to Sainsbury’s, Sainsbury’s responded in a shocking display of complacency about its own customers’ health concerns:
At present Sainsbury’s will not be providing any further update regarding your concerns, and we would encourage any further questions to be directed to Holme Farmed Venison, through their customer helpline.
Holme Farmed Venison failed to respond to a single information request.
So, since Sainsbury’s seemed so reluctant to provide health information on products it had chosen to sell, and Holme Farmed Venison refused to communicate at all, we thought we’d do some testing to find out whether these products contained any toxic lead and if so, how much.
We’ll tell you about those analyses later this week.
Comments Off on Wild Justice supports ‘End Wildlife Crime’ campaign by Wildlife & Countryside LINK
As a member of the coalition Wildlife & Countryside LINK (58 organisations working together to campaign for improved environmental policy), Wild Justice is pleased to be supporting a new initiative to ‘End Wildlife Crime’.
LINK’s Wildlife Crime Working Group (of which Wild Justice is an active member) has today written to all Police and Crime Commissioners (PCC) candidates, ahead of the elections on 6th May 2021, to ask them to commit to end wildlife crime.
Police wildlife teams are working hard to combat the tide of wildlife crimes but officers need more support. Constrained resources, limited training opportunities and missing data all hold back the successful capture and prosecution of wildlife criminals. Despite hundreds of offences being committed each month, just 10 people were convicted of wildlife crimes in 2019.
Police and Crime Commissioners have a crucial role to play. PCCs can hep turn the tide on wildlife crime by increasing support for wildlife crime policing within the police plans and budgets they control, giving their officers increased access to wildlife crime training and by adding their influential voices to calls to national policing action.
LINK has asked all PCC candidates to commit to the following:
If elected as Police and Crime Commissioner, I commit to:
• Make tackling wildlife crime a key priority within my first police and crime plan, and to make budget provision to support this prioritisation.• Increase wildlife crime training opportunities for officers in my force and liaise with the National Wildlife Crime Unit on best wildlife policing practice. • Encourage the Home Secretary to make wildlife crimes notifiable, so that data on these crimes can be collected and used to inform policing.
Prior to the elections on 6th May and to help voters decide who to support, LINK will be reporting on which PCC candidates have made the commitment to end wildlife crime.
Comments Off on NRW misses the point – or seeks to avoid it
We wrote to NRW’s Chair some time ago and did not receive an acknowledgement (although they say that one was sent). We have now received a response from Sir David Henshaw and another from a person called Customer Hub – as we expect that some of you will have done too. The response is copied below, in red.
NRW is foolishly or deliberately and foolishly missing the point of our enquiry. We are not asking them to change their general licence GL004 – we quite like it (as we have said before, many times). But the conditions that apply to the licence are not clear and the licence exists now, yesterday, today and tomorrow, and that is why we wrote to the general enquiries function at NRW asking some specific questions, such as:
inwhich of the remaining months of 2021 is it lawful to kill Magpie, Jay, Carrion Crow and Jackdaw under GL004 in Wales?
what non-lethal steps must be taken before lethal control is lawful?
what information would NRW like to receive of breaches of the licence conditions and how should these be reported?
These questions are not answered in what NRW have sent us, and so we will be going back to them to ask for answers to these questions about their current licences which allow killing of birds in Wales. If NRW cannot answer specific questions from the public on the conditions of their current general licences then they are not, in our view, properly fulfilling their duties as a regulator. If a member of the public asks specificially about the conditions of a current licence then NRW should be able to answer those questions. It would, of course, be a lot easier to put that clarification on the NRW website , but NRW has chosen not to do that.
NRW’s response in red and our thoughts on it in black:
Enquiry about NRW’s General Licences
Thank you for contacting NRW about our General Licences. No problem.
Our General Licences clearly set out the purpose and circumstances in which they may be relied upon. This was one of the grounds of challenge in a recent unsuccessful legal case. The judgement is clear the current general licences are not unlawful and there is no legal requirement for them to specify, any further than they already do, the circumstances in which they may lawfully be relied upon. There may be no legal requirement but as a regulator you should be able to answer sensible questions about the conditions of the licence when asked by the public – you haven’t done that. You are maintaining a fog of confusion about when it is legal to kill birds under GL004 for the rest of 2021. Your general licences permit what would otherwise be a criminal offence and so their boundaries are important and it is perfectly reasonable for the public to ask for clarification.
We are currently undertaking a detailed and comprehensive review of our approach to all the permissions we give for shooting and trapping wild birds in Wales, this includes General Licences. We have committed that, as our licences are lawful and the review is underway, we will not be making any changes to our General Licences at this time. We haven’t asked for any changes – we have asked as a general enquiry, becauise the information is not ion your website, under what conditions we and others can go out and kill, say, Carrion Crows in Wales for the rest of 2021. This is a current issue, not a future issue.
The current General Licences are valid from 1 January 2021 until 31 December 2021. Yes, we know that. But when is it lawful to kill Magpies, Carrion Cows, Jackdaws and Jays in Wales during this period – it’s a simple question and one which was covered in court. You miust be able to answer it. What’s the answer please? You have made no attempt to answer our questions about the non-lethal alternatives that must be tried before killing can lawfully be undertaken or about how we should report any apparent unlawful incidents.
The review will include a consultation later in the year, and we would encourage you to take part as it will shape our future approach to all the permissions we give for shooting and trapping wild birds in Wales. Further details about the consultation will be made available on our website and on our social media channels once available. We’ll be happy to do that, thanks. We are aware of the Newsletter from Wild Justice that suggested you contact us about our General Licences. We hope that our response provides you with additional clarity about our General Licences and the context of our ongoing review. We also wish to advise that we did acknowledge receipt of the original correspondence from Wild Justice and have responded to their letter to us in full. You must be joking! You have avoided providing any clarity at all to direct and simple questions.
Over the Easter period we’ve post five short summaries of the responses – just for interest really.
This is the fifth instalment.
We asked you:
Our newsletter subscribers are a very active group – and that doesn’t surprise us at all, and explains why you respond so quickly to requests for help. Thank you.
In the free text ‘answers’, some of you asked some questions. Here are some examples with answers:
Q1: why aren’t you a charity? A: We might be in time, but we’re still thinking about it. The advantages are all financial – Gift Aid, no Corporation Tax anda few other things. The disadvantages are all to do with how it would eat up our time, create more work every year and possibly restrict how outspoken we could be about ‘political’ issues. At the moment we’d rather spend our time, energy and money campaigning and taking legal cases. But we have this nagging feeling it would be the right thing to do eventually.
Q2: why don’t you sell merchandise to make more money? A: We have discussed this a few times and we can’t agree! Would the revenue repay the time? Do we want to be selling more ‘stuff’ in a world full of ‘stuff’. This issue is parked for a while because we are too busy with other things.
Q3: will you help me….? A: We read every email that comes to us and we have given small amounts of help in the form of advice, information and introductions to worthy causes, but we can’t tackle anything other than a small number of issues at once – we’re a small organisation with no permanent staff. Our experience is that when we get into an issue we stick with it for a long time eg general licences. It’s important that we don’t start more projects or campaigns than we can finish.
Q4: why can’t I make regular monthly donations to Wild Justice? A: you can, and quite a lot of people do – thank you! But you have to set these up with your bank, we don’t do Direct Debits (they are too complicated for us to deal with at the moment).
Q5: why don’t you have a membership fee like most other conservation organisations? A: we aren’t like most other conservation organisations! Our newsletter is free – anyone can subscribe. If you like what we do then we think you’ll support us financially and we’d rather leave the amount entirely up to you. If you think we’re doing good work then please support us, but if you don’t, keep an eye on us and we might well amaze you in the future and then you can give us money if you feel that way. We could wind up Wild Justice very quickly if the money stopped coming in for our work, and if you don’t like what we do then that’s what we would have to do. We don’t have land, offices, permanent staff, salaries, pensions, stock or any of those things that we need to fund. We pay our bills on time – usually on the day they are rpesented to us and we don’t have any debts. At the moment, thousands and thousands of people like what we are doing and want to support us – we’ll trust that as our financial model for at least a while.
Over the Easter period we’ll post five short summaries of the responses – just for interest really.
This is the first instalment.
We asked you:
These are difficult figures to compare with UK averages but it is fairly clear that Wild Justice newsletter subscribers are likely to eat less meat than the national average.
When asked whether wildlife, the environment or animal welfare was their main concern (a difficult choice) our newsletter subscribers narrowly opted for wildlife conservation.
How does Wild Justice make you feel (just 10 comments to illustrate the range)?:
I was really pleased when I heard of the formation of Wild Justice. I have in the past been on many demos/marches./protests in respect of how animals are treated. Wild Justice is using a different approach and one which I believe is making a difference. When so much is weighted against kindness and compassion for animals ie loss of habitat due to intensive development type housing , factory farming, destruction of our wildlife such as badgers, Wildlife Justice gives me hope.
Excellent that you can challenge through the legal system where other charitable organisation cannot or will not. It’s interesting to read the views of the likes of Countryside Alliance who tie themselves in knots trying to ridicule what you say.
Please keep up the good work! Yoiu are taking action where it is needed.
I had to put I live outside the UK. I live in the Isle of Man which is the British Isles. Home to a thriving population of hen harriers whose young migrate from the island and tend to get shot/poisoned or trapped in Scotland and the Lake district. I support wild justice because it is logical in its approach, open minded and inclusive in ways the organisations I did not tick in question 5 are not.
Thanks for all you are doing – you fit a campaign niche that is vital to our future countryside.
Your straightforward attitude is proving to be very effective as evidenced by the significant influence your interventions and challenges are already having on government and organisations. You can be proud of your successes which are sure to increase with time. I am proud to have the opportunity to be a small part of you.
So happy you exist; I’m 83, not very active now and very deaf, but Nature + same on TV and my garden gives me all I need to make me happy, though I could do without the many parakeets (which I CAN hear) and feral pigeons which consume most of the food I put out. Any advice there gratefully accepted!! Good luck and keep on the good work.
So proud that you stand up for the wildlife that have no voice!
I think what you are doing is amazing- it is so interesting to realise that using legal challenges is making more difference (I think) to protection of wildlife than decades of conservation attempts. I think the RSPB are genuine, and it is excellent that many species are more numerous due to their work, and big projects like rat-removal on Tristan de Cuna are surely important – but at the same time where I live in Edinburgh/Lothians, whenever there is a new house development e.g. near Roslin, huge hedges still get torn out regardless of protests, and in hills south of Edinburgh there is still hardly any wildlife..and when I read the wording of the challenges or judge’s response to the gamebird/ shooting licenses I was amazed at the gaps and vague sections. I feel sure it is the same situation as women’s rights and the law – yes there was much progress and sea changes in attitudes from 1900-the 1970s- but in 1970 my friends mum still couldn’t get a mortgage on her own – it had to be in her husband’s name. That only actually changed after it became illegal to discriminate in that way. I spent my youth hating passing building sites, because of the ubiquitous unpleasant calls from male builders – it didn’t matter if you answered or ignored – nothing made a difference – we were just expected to “put up with it”. But suddenly when there are legal frameworks that define “considerate constructors” – impacting contracts – they don’t do it(because they are not allowed to)! I know a person may not change inside, but it’s been jolly nice for me… So that’s what effect I think you are having, in a way. I don’t know if it’s a coincidence, but I am following the Scottish Creel fishermen’s legal challenge against the Scottish Government not properly considering application for 3-mile limit on dredging. I also saw news of a coastal group in Sussex getting a dredging ban in an area (not sure of all details ) by citing a bye-law (I think)- where decades of scientific reports have failed. I wonder if your work inspires those groups? My problem at the moment is I literally have almost no money – I am studying, having given up my job to return to university – so I’m not a very useful supporter at the moment where finance is concerned. But I do fill out some of the surveys/ consultation responses you suggest. I am not on twitter so can’t comment. But I can tell you I like your writing style, often I look forward to getting your newsletters because the sarky comments on misinformation etc make me laugh!
Well done to a dedicated team willing to fight to protect wildlife and the environment.
We sent out a survey in our newletter #57 and 8640 of you responded – which is amazing! Thank you.
Over the Easter period we’ll post five short summaries of the responses – this is the third.
We asked you:
Wild Justice newsletter subscribers generally support a range of other organisations
The UK was split very close to 50:50 on Brexit – Wild Justice newsletter subscribers who voted and disclosed how they voted were almost 75:25 Remain.
Your free text responses indicated a high degree of understanding and support for the way that Wild Justice mixes legal challenges and campaigning approaches:
I donate to over 20 organisations each year, but donations to Wild Justice is the ONLY organisation that I feel does not waste my money on ridiculous executive salaries. I believe you are all there not just for your own self satisfaction but that you really care deeply in what you are trying to achieve – so THANKYOU. I support you 100% in trying to tighten and change the present laws regarding our wildlife.
I like your logical, committed approach using logical arguments rather than more extreme action. Although I do believe that reasonable , normally quiet people like me will respond and take action if something is inherently unfair.
I am very supportive of Wild Justice’s work to “encourage” the statutory authorities to implement existing legislation to protect wildlife, and to work to improve the legislation where needed. Also support and welcome work to combat raptor persecution.
Keep up the good work :). Your legal challenges are getting results.
I’m really grateful to you all for the work that you are doing. I’m not so clear on my thinking, understanding and knowledge in this area even though I’ve been connecting and supporting campaigns since a teenager; but it feels that Wild Justice shows a really effective and necessary new way to keep a vigilant eye on actions that are harming our wildlife and our natural world, and to take strong action to counteract this. Thank you all once again.
We owe you all at Wild Justice a big thank you for all your time and expertise fighting for the protection of our diminishing wildlife. For quite some time now you have been the only ones campaigning with any teeth. A couple of the NGOs in Q5 need to wake up. Thanks again and we will continue to support you.
Clear objectives are set with evidence provided and the means to a solution provided. Very proactive organisation.
I believe working through legal channels is a sensible and realistic way to try and ‘change the system’, although I also support those who use other methods, eg, Greenpeace and, to some extent, Extinction Rebellion. I am very thankful that Wild Justice is doing what it can to change legislation to protect wild animals and the environment – keep up the good work!
Great goals. It’s really heartening to see a group like this prepared to take on the government over its appalling environmental (and related) policies etc.
I think the work that you do is admirable; I really like how you use the law to make people and organisations accountable.
I like how WJ use the law to determine and clarify processes and actions organisations should take and in that way hold them to account
I think yours is a unique and necessary approach to takling the harm being done to wildlife and the environment by those who normally hide behind often outdated and unfit for purpose legislation.
I strongly support the efforts by Wild Justice to ensure existing animal welfare laws are stringently applied and the efforts to introduce new laws to stop animal suffering.
Think you’re doing a great job in a very difficult area. The law relating to the protection of wildlife and environment is often weak, poorly enforced and sadly exploited. An organisation such as yours is really needed. Well done for all your efforts
I am very glad Wild Justice has come into being and has such a strong focus and direction. I wish you great success. We need a voice to open the eyes of those who are blind to or ignore the dangers that our world faces and someone to act impartially and decisively on behalf our wildlife. More power to your elbow!
To me Wild Justice feels like a fresh, strong, professional, effective organisation which highlights, supported by facts, the wildlife persecution and damage to natural habitats that is happening today and fights effectively in getting present laws changed to better protect wildlife and natural habitats. The barbaric cruelty to wildlife haunts me and that it is allowed to go on despite evidence of lawbreaking because of loopholes in the law and associations with the perpetrators sickens me. I do appreciate the guidance you give through your unassuming newsletters when asking supporters to write to mp’s etc. it is good to have facts to hand. THANK YOU for all you are doing and please keep going. K
The reason we support WJ is because our country needs a body to stand up for wildlife; EU laws have still not yet been made law here (as far as I am aware), wildlife crime is a huge problem, from hare coursing to raptor killing , and even though there is often evidence there are very few prosecutions and they are not enough of a deterrent to change some peoples behaviour. Landowners should be brought to task and not allowed to simply sack the employee who was carrying out their instruction. Unfortunately in this country wildlife comes second to money and its very sad. DEFRA and Natural England do not appear to be playing the role that many of us think they should be, sanctioning culls of wild birds for instance and giving out licences to kill – its disgusting. We also find it very sad that we can go for a 10 mile walk in the countryside and see very little wildlife, in fact there is more in our garden nature reserve when we get home! This needs to change. We both think your cause is incredibly important and wholly necessary. Well done WJ!
I think you’re doing a great job in lobbying and campaigning successfully for changes in the law that make a difference to wildlife and the environment.
I think you are doing an important job. There is little point campaigning to change the law if laws are not enforced. I should try harder to be a more active supporter!
Very impressed by what you have achieved so far and your approach to challenging the state organisations supposedly protecting the wider public’s interests
I think this is an excellent organisation. It is very important that where legislation exists to protect wildlife – that it is adhered to, and just as importantly – properly enforced.
I support the way that you’re tackling issues that other wildlife organisations seem less able/willing to take direct action on.
It’s great that someone is making a stand the way Wild Justice is. Thank you
Wild Justice, along with a few other organisations and initiatives recently, has provided renewed hope that things can and will change for the better. As someone who has worked in conservation for 20+ years in the charity and public sector I was becoming very jaded and quite despondent in the face of witnessing continuing damage to our natural heritage from things such as DGS and improper use of General Licensing, especially since moving north for work. The existence of WJ has injected a much needed burst of positivity into the conservation debate and I expect I’m not the only person it has given a bit more momentum to.
Keep up the great work, I like the fact that you are prepared to take on Defra and the Government to insist on positive change for wildlife.
There is a real need for Wild Justice – to bring issues such as you are doing into the courts – to be decided by laws – so government has to abide by it’s own rules as it expects from Joe public to do.
I admire your strategy of ‘playing them at their own games’. I despair at the way the legal profession in general has developed into a highly expensive ‘game of words’, but realise that it has to be used as one of the approaches to save our planet.
I feel wild justice is a new and vital way of holding the government to account. Taking legal action, in my opinion, is the best way to improve the laws and ensure organisations are adhering to current laws. I would like to see improvements to laws concerning pollution of the environment, especially our water ways and better protection for habits – we can’t just keep building as a way to improve the economy. I do believe in what you’re doing and embedding it in law is the best way to do it!
Power concedes nothing without demands. Keep making DEMANDS.
I just think you are bringing to every ones attention the questions that no one else has the balls to ask, and I think that’s vital.
Think you are doing a good job. It really should be done by Natural England but they have been so curtailed by Defra who appear to be in the shooting /and purely farming interests.
I think you’re doing an excellent and much-needed job. It’s a shame that some of the other, long-established, wildlife conservation bodies – notably RSPB and the Wildlife Trusts, but also WWT, Butterfly Conservation, Plantlife, etc, etc – haven’t come together to develop a stronger and higher profile sector-wide approach to the issues you’re now addressing; and I also think that you need to hold their feet to the fire so they don’t feel able to continue to ignore the more difficult issues just because you’re now addressing them. It’s important to show decision makers and the wider public that Wild Justice is representative of the sector as a whole, rather than risking being portrayed as a radical or fringe group.
I think you’re doing an invaluable job in conserving wildlife and confronting this corrupt government and their rich cronies who frequently talk about being conscientious ecologists and yet in their actions do just the opposite. Thanks for doing the job so well and being such a strong public / media presence.
I greatly admire what you are doing to tackle the injustice to wildlife. You appear to have made strides where others have failed by being prepared to go to court and challenge policy. I think the action on general licences was a good one.
I am genuinely impressed by what a small group of people, with a clear agenda and none of the “baggage” of the large NGOs, can achieve. Thank you for taking these fights to the courts and holding those in power to account in a way the large NGOs (RSPB and wildlife trusts) repeatedly fail to do. I see my contributions to wild justice as some of the most worthwhile charitable contributions I can make.
I like your assertive legally competent approach to tackling environmental issues. I am impressed by your collective expertise.
Finally an organisation prepared to stand up for wildlife through the courts. Protesting is all well and good but this is the only way to effect real change. Well done.
What you are doing is incredibly important. Government and those who think themselves entitled to treat environmental concerns with contempt must be held to account and since brexit has removed the ECJ level of censure it only leaves organisations like you to take action.
The UK has many laws that are important for wildlife and the environment that are not enforced, and there are many that we need but don’t have. Wild Justice seems to be attempting to correct the situation.
Wild Justice has tackled important issues head on and not been afraid to go to the heart of power. Your vast experience and great credentials are well respected by all who are passionate about wildlife and sustaining this beautiful planet we live on – great job guys
I support and admire Wild Justice for its uncompromising and outspoken campaigning. For too long landowners and the wealthy have behaved as if they have the right to destroy and ill-treat wildlife and the countryside.
I’ve been impressed with your actions against the General Licences. These and also the questions concerning uncontrolled release of game birds into the environment are certainly good examples of causes I am willing to give strong support to.
I support Wild Justice because it takes an activist position on issues concerning bird and animal conservation and protection, I have a deep concern about a society that allows people to slaughter wildlife for fun or to protect their prey, it is time landowners and mangers are made personally responsible for the actions of their gamekeepers. I have been keen on birdlife for all of my life but withdrew my support for RSPB for whom I volunteered, when they became a glossy talking shop and now focus on Wild Justice and BTO.
Wild Justice appears to me to be a welcome, and complementary, addition to other conservation organizations. I like the way it comes across as active, professional and focussed. I like that Wild Justice progresses with challenging existing law to improve it and make it more precisely correct. Having Chris Packham as one of the ‘leaders’ is a strong positive for me as I respect and like him, purely through his television and radio presentations and persona.
At last! An organisation which does not fear losing members because they rattle a few cages. It is what real conservationists have been missing – a body which fights back, with teeth bared. Keep it up.
I support as many organisations as i can who try to look after our natural world. Yours appears to be one which tackles issues by trying to change laws. This is the way forward rather than just mud slinging as it that method goes nowhere. Keep up the good work. Brains over threats will prevail .
I think you are doing a great job and that legal challenges are the way forward to protect and restore wildlife. I’d like to support you as much as I can.
You are doing valuable, specific, constructive work that recognises and uses the power of legislation as well as fighting for hearts and minds. I should get more involved – so many calls on my time, so hard to know where to focus my energy – thankyou for doing it for me!
What I like about Wild Justice is that there’s no spin or hyperbole. The Directors are clearly passionate about the things they take on and they do so logically and legally backed up by fact and reason. How can you argue with that? I am equally passionate about the other organisations I support but there is something different about Wild Justice and how it speaks to me personally. I like that.
Love the way you are taking on the Establishment & its purpose to protect land owners, farmers, the gun lobby, hunting lobby etc and their rights at the legal level. Making it much harder (and making their actions transparent) for them to continue damaging the environment for the profit motive that drives them. Enforcement is everything in the end, but great to see you putting them on the spot, even if they drag their heels, don’t follow legal judgments or deliberately ignore the law. They’ve had it easy and their way for far too long!
I think that what you are doing is brilliant and the reason why I say this is because you are using the law to achieve your and my aims and objectives. Your objective and factual approach to issues based on science and the law does not leave a lot of room for people and organisations who break the law to manoeuvre. The more that you use the law against these people the better off our wildlife will be. Wild Justice has done more in the past couple of years than I ever thought possible and what you are doing clearly works (well, most of the time). I am sorry that you as individuals have come under some very nasty treatment from certain people and organisations and that it cannot be easy for you at times, so thank you for all that you have done and will continue to do. Thanks also to your legal teams. One thing that concerns me is how difficult it is for surveillance evidence to be accepted and used in Court for criminal proceedings and I wondered if there was anything that WJ can do to help bring about changes in the law to resolve this issue. The Guardia Civil in Spain seem to have some good outcomes from using sniffer dogs and powers that allow them to go on any land at any time. Can we not petition for these types of resources and powers? Keep using the law to fight for wildlife, it’s the only way forward.
It’s free and easy to subscribe to our newsletter – just click here if you are interested
We sent out a survey in our newletter #57 and 8640 of you responded – which is amazing! Thank you.
Over the Easter period we’ll post five short summaries of the responses – this is the second.
We asked you:
Just over 1% of newsletter subscribers live outside the UK.
Wild Justice’s newsletter subscribers are slightly under-represented in Northern Ireland and slightly over-represented in Scotland (but not by much)
Wild Justice newsletter subscribers are mostly middle-aged and older (a bit like the three of us)
53% of Wild Justice newsletter subscribers are female.
And here are some more of your comments:
Newsletter and communications:
Love the news letters and congratulations on achieving so much for wildlife
I mostly follow your actions via the email newsletter which is helpful to keep abreast of your activities.
Not actually got to look at website but enjoy the newsletter which keeps my levels of concern about wildlife/environmental issues at the forefront.
Always enjoy receiving and take time to digest your updates.
I also enjoy the tone of the newsletters – even if Chris Packham doesn’t write them I can see him talking in his no nonsense way. I’ve shared the newsletters with a number of people, some who have also become involved.
I also like the way that you keep your supporters informed and up to date with the work you are undertaking and your progress.
I read your newsletters. I don’t use Twitter or engage with social media really, but I forward your emails and spread the message that way….
I have found your emails very informative and interesting. You are doing vital work raising awareness of wildlife and conservation issues.
Great organisation with good communication and raising and supporting incredibly important issues
I think you’re doing a great job, especially like the personable, relatable tone of your communications!
Your newsletters give me hope that there are positive changes happening in this world.
I skim read the emails -they are a but long for me. I don’t look at any other wild justice Comms.
I follow you mainly through Twitter.
You guys are very well informed on the issues you campaign on. It would be great if you could share more of this through links to research/ publications in your newsletter and website. You already do this, thanks, I’m just asking for more. Maybe a “resources” page on your website.
Very interested in keeping up to date with Wild Justice and look forward to receiving the newsletters.
I love receiving the newsletter and reading about all the great important work you do!
I get so many communications on line that i am not encouraging you to send me a lot more but the amount that you send me at the moment is about right and i am keen to keep abreast of the issues that you raise
I really enjoy your weekly newsletter and your Twitter account content and wondered if you could also launch an Instagram account?
I enjoy reading the newsletter as it is informative and gives me an opportunity to help when I can
I enjoy your newsletters and I usually sign petitions.
I get so many e mails from groups I support I like brief clear updates with links to longer articles etc if wanted.
I love the Newsletter content but sometimes it is a little long, maybe more frequent “bitesize” comms?
Thank you for your information. It’s always in easy to understand format. I feel I am learning lots.
I’ll read all information from your Newsletter
Respected & informative in the undertaking of being a voice in conservation.
It’s free and easy to subscribe to our newsletter – just click here if you are interested
We sent out a survey in our newletter #57 and 8640 of you responded – which is amazing! Thank you.
Over the Easter period we’ll post five short summaries of the responses – just for interest really.
This is the first instalment.
You’ll see that our newsletter subscribers are primarily, but not exclusively, UK based and from right across the UK. Very few of our subscribers could be described as youngsters and more are female than male. Our subscribers support a range of other wildlife and environmental NGOs. More details on all that to follow over the next few days.
We also invited free text comments on anything and received 4610 of those – we have read every one. We’ll summarise those comments in what follows too. Overwhelmingly, the comments were favourable and many made excellent suggestions.
Let’s just get the less than polite comments out of the way first (then we can ignore them in future blog posts). It was very obvious, scrolling through the comments, that abusive and rude comments came from the shooting community. Because BASC (British Association for Shooting and Conservation) was one of the organisations we listed, it is possible to see how many of the rude comments come from people who self-identify as BASC supporters: all of them do (yes, every single one). This is not to say that all BASC supporters are rude and abusive, but it is true to say that all rude and abusive comments we received were from people who said they were BASC supporters. We had some nice comments from BASC supporters too.
Here are some examples (of complete unedited comments) just to illustrate the range of comments (the rudest comments are colour-coded in red so that you can avoid them or seek them out as you see fit):
What you’re doing is fantastic because there’s so much which needs doing. And thank you for giving your time. I don’t know how you keep going what with the apathy of people and the ‘politicians’!!!!! But we all must keep going. I would love to help you further if I can. Good luck and stay safe.
I thank you all for the good work you’re doing. The campaign is so well organized and targeted. A voice of reason & hope in troubled times.
As someone with a lifelong involvement with a wide range of countryside activities (not all shooting related!), I’m genuinely interested in some of you’re aims, eradicating raptor persecution and mass gamebird release especially. I would however like to see at least some acknowledgement that human management of the UK countryside is a requirement and includes the wildlife that resides within it. I think even yourselves accept deer have to be managed – many other species similarly love the environment we have created but have no natural predators – badger & fox included – and can wreak havoc on species we need to conserve. Just one more & I’ll climb off my soap box. I personally am not a grouse shooting fanatic but surely the way forward is getting large landowners on board with conservation practices – moors are a managed environment like it or not and if grouse are not there (and they won’t be if left to their own devices) then Harriers and most other ground nesting birds won’t be either. PS I don’t work for BASC!
I have in the past participated in game shooting including grouse but I am now not doing so . I see the sport as out of control and often damaging so I support some controls
I agree with many of your proposals e.g. with regard to lead shot, game bird releases, but feel that sometimes you just come across as anti field sports and this then becomes personal. I shoot for pest control and for the pot. I love watching raptors and am disgusted if any are harmed, including Eagle Owls. The best day’s shooting for me is a Rabbit for the pot, calling back to a Buzzard and seeing the flash of a Kingfisher. You could have shooters on your side in many issues.
Wj is a Marxist cell intendng to destroying the British countryside and its traditions by repeatedly lying to ignorant townies about the true state of our wildlife and how important fieldsports are in preserving it. By destroying things like grouse shooting numbers of birds that currently thrive thereon will decrease whereby wj and others will go begging for ever more money to spend upon their next attack on our wildlife.
My opinion is that you haven’t a clue how the countryside operates and l am happy to give my support to land managers and gamekeepers. Packham is a liar and a fraud. Avery and Tingay need a lesson in reality. Your organisation will ultimately fail but not nefore you have fleeced a gullible public.
I maybe a member of BASC but I’m not their biggest fan, just like to keep up with what’s going on in the Shooting community and to hear their views on recent challenges to their sport, which I find quite amusing at times. I think your doing a cracking job with the general license reforms, but there’s still more can be done. My tip would be.. don’t take too many battles on at once. Keep up the good work.
Stay out of business that dosnt concern you. Shower of shite.
Have always been interested in wild life and also the environment plastic waste etc I am also an Airrifle shooter, I shoot mainly for food and also for the conservation of other wildlife, l don’t shoot for no reason, and I practice to keep up my skills for clean kills. I’m also not a fan of .22 target shooting clubs who have no respect for the land that they shoot over, I have complained many times about a local club that I used to belong too, and their dumping of lead residue onto the ground instead of disposing of it in the right way, I complained to the chair/secretary of the club, the clubs governing body, and also the land owner (Thames Water) but all to no avail, TW quite surprised me, as they profess to be guardians of the environment.
I appears WJ want to change the traditional way of the countryside, and not for the better. Their actions don’t support their words, for instance, the suspension of the general licence. It caused a lot of damage at nesting time through lack of pest control. Quite the opposite to what you claim to want to achieve. We now have a religion, and our traditional ways and strongly held deep beliefs will in future be protected as is any other religion. The next time anyone says anything derogatory about us , it will be reported as a religious hate crime.
terrible organisation with no understanding for the countryside
They have got no idea on animal conservation issues ..
I belong to The Free Church Of Country Sports and I find Wild Justice is really damaging towards my religion , I almost feel persecuted.
You are destroying this country’s hunting heritage with your ill-informed, biased and illogical rhetoric. Your representatives are low-intelligence, their ASD prevents them from spreading the truth, you lie and you deceive the public. You are reprehensible oafs with a vegan agenda and yet you offer no practical and effective solutions to pest control, conservation and protection of rare species. You should be ashamed of yourselves.
You do not understand how the natural world works predators have to be controlled or predated species suffer. The country side has been managed successfully by countrymen for generations.
You spout a load of bollocks and don’t really have a clue as to how the countryside really works. Bugger off back to the towns and give your barber wellie boots a clean
Your all a bunch of ill informed sheep trying to get everything banned that you don’t agree with and use lies and misrepresentation to get money from the gullible
As a member of the free church of country sports,I’m not a supporting wild justice
I think that the countryside should be left to be run by those that live and work within it, being either Farmers, landowners, gatekeepers. These are the true guardians of the countryside
Wild justice and a bunch of self important no it alls who know very little about how the country side actually works. There policies of protecting certain species seriously harms other species
People from towns Vegans Jumping on the bandwagon People who actually live in the country Think your parasites
I am pro hunting, shooting and fishing and am definite that those who participate in such sports have a greater understanding of how the countryside works, conservation, animal welfare than the sort of people who join Wild Justice, LACS and similar organisations.
I am interested in Wild Justice as I find they are a danger to existing conservation projects and do not have a clue how our country side works. They appeal to the fluffy bunny brigade at the expense of rural jobs and livelihoods
Wild justice is not needed just leave the countryside to country people to manage like they have for hundreds of years better concentrating their efforts on the mess the city’s are in
Wild justice haven’t a clue about wildlife and I really don’t think they care. The only shouting wildjustice do is for the predditors and nothing for their prey. HYPOCRITES the lot of them
You are all a bunch of wankers that don’t know what your doing and how your actions are doing more harm than good
More townsfolk with little or no knowledge of country life trying to mess with nature for their own ends. The cities are a shambles and now they want to move outwards. Probably never seen flocks of woodpigeon descend on a crop of wheat or what a single fox will do in a shed of 3000 chickens.
Don’t support at all. They have no idea about how the countryside works. Due to misinformation from people like Chris packham. The countryside is a workplace, not a free for all do as you like bunny hugging play ground
Load of tree huggers who have no idea about Countryside management
Wild justice are are bunch of delusional tossers ,who are trying to destroy our county side. Go away Chris packam your a prick
Wild Justice are liars,and scam money from gullible members of the public,justice will be seen in court.
I think your a despicable bunch with no true care for wildlife and you are only interested in your own agenda
Your organisation is an utter disgrace with a hidden agenda against the countryside.
Just a bunch of nutters who know nowt about the countryside. Should be declared a domestic terrorist organisation
Dear DEFRA, we asked you at a so-called stakeholder meeting in early November about the conditions applying to your (then) upcoming general licences for bird killing.
On 23 November we emailed you asking the same question in writing ‘under the conservation licence, does DEFRA consider that its licences allow the killing of say, Carrion Crows, at any time of year or only in the breeding season when Carrion Crows take eggs and chicks?‘. You replied saying that you would get back to us – you didn’t.
After the publication of the said licences we contacted you again, on 5 January, and you originally told us that the information would be published within two weeks, but then had to ‘phone back and say it might take longer than two weeks.
More than a further two months have passed and you have not published the information and you have not got back to us. You will be aware of the judgment of Justice Jarman at which you were an Interested Party, where he stated ‘Mr Corner QC with Ms Sargent, on behalf of NRW, submit that the licences only authorise action where there is a present risk to the stated interests. Thus, in the example given above NRW accepts that the relevant licence (004) should be used only to kill crows during the months between egg laying and when the chicks are well grown, namely April to July, and only in those areas where curlews nest, which do not extend to urban areas. It should not permit someone to kill a crow in the autumn or in an urban area on the basis that that bird might someday at some place take a curlew’s egg or chick.‘.
Our query is a perfectly reasonable request about a licence which applies to most of England and purports to license the killing of wild birds which would otherwise be a criminal offence. Please answer this query as a matter of urgency.
In any case, as a Department your word cannot be trusted and you are an administrative shambles. Please let us know the route by which we can complain about your lack of responsiveness and repeated broken promises.
Comments Off on Our letter to the Chair of Natural Resources Wales, Sir David Henshaw.
Dear Sir David
We are writing to you following Wild Justice’s challenge of NRW’s general licences and following subsequent discussions with NRW staff.
We write not to seek to change NRW’s policy but to ask you to improve your practice as a regulator and as the licensing authority for general licences. Our concerns are primarily with your GL004, the ‘conservation’ licence, but you might want to take these points on board for your other licences too.
The Court found that the NRW general licences are lawful but there were useful and important constraints on the use of those licences in time and place. We were pleased that in sworn evidence to the Court NRW staff made it clear that lawful use of GL004 for conservation purposes required its use to be limited to the bird breeding season and limited to areas where species of conservation concern are nesting. The judge referred to these important constraints in his judgment. Wild Justice is happy with this clarification of the circumstances of lawful use of NRW’s licences.
You may remember, but your staff will be able to confirm, that the NRW position, which is shared by Wild Justice, and more importantly the judge, was not the position of BASC who argued that the law allows landscape scale culling of species on the general licences – we characterise this as ‘anywhere, anytime culling’. The judgment, and NRW’s sworn evidence, makes it clear that is not the case.
That is the first part of important background to this letter: NRW, Wild Justice and the Court are agreed on the legal basis of GL004 (but an important part of the user community, shooters, was not).
Following the judgment we wrote to NRW on this matter, and had an online meeting eventually in late February. We asked that NRW clarified the conditions of lawful use of GL004 (about which NRW, Wild Justice and the Court are agreed) in order to make clear to any users of the licence the boundaries of lawful and unlawful behaviour. We simply asked that NRW posts words on its website to make these conditions clear.
Your staff have refused to do so. This is very disappointing and strikes us as poor practice by a regulatory body and licensing authority. NRW has refused to clarify the legal basis for its own licences – that’s quite astounding! That is why we are writing to you now as a matter of urgency.
We would ask you to do the following things please:
copy this letter to your fellow Board members
respond to this letter by Monday 29 March setting out what steps NRW will take to clarify the conditions of lawful use of its live, existing, general licences starting with GL004.
In the absence of any satisfactory response we will consider other means of publicising the legal position of your licences.
Comments Off on DEFRA’s terrible consultation on gamebird releases – let’s see.
Thank you to hundreds of Wild Justice supporters who responded to the DEFRA consultation on gamebird releases – see here, here, here and here for examples of your comments back to us.
Wild Justice sent in a consultation response too. Our response included this warning;
In the view of Wild Justice the proposals in this consultation fall far short of what DEFRA promised to the court in October 2020. The proposed measures will not, in our view, protect N2K sites in the way that is needed and to which DEFRA committed itself. If these proposals are implemented then Wild Justice will seek legal advice on how best to expedite a further legal challenge to gamebird releases in England.
Hundreds and hundreds of you are responding to the DEFRA gamebird consultation and telling us that you have done so. We’ve been answering queries (we simply cannot answer every single one, sorry) over the weekend so far and will be doing our best to do so through Sunday and Monday too.
Thank you for responding – every response is valuable, whether you basically cut-and-paste our suggestions, shorten or lengthen them, correct the typos or introduce some of your own, refine or embellish them, or indeed start from scratch and produce your own perfect consultation response.
The closing date for consultations is Monday (time unspecified) so we expect many more people to have a look at this today and send off a response this evening. Here are our suggestions for how to respond – click here.
And here are some more quotes (to add to these earlier selections – click here, here and here) from your messages to us:
Thank you for all that you do. I’ve completed and submitted my response thanks to your clear guidance and suggestions. I’ve signed many petitions but have never responded to a consultation before!
Thanks for guiding us through this process. As I went through it I became almost incandescent at the transparent bias in the process.
Just to let you know that I have responded to the consultation. I have also canvassed friends, family and various organisations that I belong to to do the same. Thank you so much for the work that you do to protect wildlife and wild places. You are helping empower people to act on behalf of the voiceless. We can make a difference and we are powerful.
You might be interested in the response I gave at section A3; ‘I live between two shooting estates and more than 500m away from their release pens; yet I always have pheasants in my garden, and I don’t feed or encourage them. A gamekeeper once explained to me that pheasants and gamebirds wander about all day and then go to sleep wherever they happen to be when the sun goes down. Unless they are regularly shepherded back to where they ‘should’ be they will wander indefinitely. Therefore 500m buffer zones are ineffective and need to be much bigger.
It is obvious to all reasonable people (and doubtless to the unreasonable ones, too!) that WJ’s challenge is completely justified and the only correct way forward. Unfortunately that won’t stop DEFRA, with their shooting world bias, pushing hard in the other direction wherever they see the opportunity. Knowing WJ is watching and ready to raise public awareness will make them think before they try to get away with things… which is brilliant!
Phew I’ve completed and submitted the consultation – wasn’t too painful and I’ve learnt something
Response submitted. I do wish you well with this. We have had gamebirds on land near to us – exotic they may appear, as visitors regularly exclaim when seeing them – but they are a nuisance and do wander from the pens, quite a considerable distance.
Good evening!
I have completed my response to the consultation document. I spent many hours studying it and the links to try to understand better what it was about and what it would likely achieve. I am just an ordinary member of the public and found the exercise quite challenging. I determined I was going to do it so am pleased to have done so. I would probably have given up if I had not had the guidance from you. I did a personal response but your suggestions were invaluable.
Please keep up the good work – there is so much to do and some of it is quite technical and necessarily political.
I have responded to the DEFRA consultation on gamebirds along the guidelines you suggested, mainly a cut and paste response. I do very much hope we get some effective regulation of these releases, it is totally out of control at the moment. Some woodlands near me (Buckinghamshire) are in a very poor state, full of release pens and covered in tracks used by quad bikes.
Thank you for sending such useful information about the gamebird consultation (without your newsletter I would have had no idea this even existed). I have filled it in using your hints and my own thoughts. DEFRA is not giving the impression that it cares about the environment at all. This is nothing new, but to see it in black and white is still quite shocking.
Anyway, I just wanted to thank you for everything you are doing and I look forward to supporting you in your future campaigns. I can imagine it is exhausting work. A few months ago I set up a small standing order to you – it’s not much (at all) but I am on maternity leave at the moment (from [a named conservation organisation]) and this is all I can afford. I hope it is useful.
Thank you again for helping me to have a voice.
Thank you! Please keep going! I have submitted my response and a made a donation. I no longer feel like such a lone voice. The consultation period is woefully inadequate and not impartial or linguistically accessible to other voices. DEFRA should not be the invincible leviathan it has become. I am shocked at the way it has already joined with the food industry to overturn the ban on the use of neonicitinoids in farming. Thank you for helping to give people and nature a voice.
I sent my consultation response in yesterday. Followed your helpful advice – thank you – and made the most of the ‘precautionary principle’ with specific reference to my area and the [named] site. Had fun talking about the pheasants in our garden and all over the roads having strayed rather further than 500m
I wanted to let you know that I have just completed and submitted a response to the DEFRA consultation on game bird release. This is the first time I have ever undertaken such a task but would like to thank you for your helpful notes on how to put our point of view across on this very important matter. It is high time politicians were forced to consider the weight of public opinion in favour of nature conservation and against its exploration by any minority.
Just to say I have completed the DEFRA consultation; it took me ages but thank you for your suggestions.
After mulling over it for so long, it almost feels that they threw the document together in the staff room over coffee and roast pheasant sarnies with their (shooting) mates, giggling the while.
My final comment: the unseemly brevity of the consultation period is a cause of concern, especially in the context of the rapid report involving the shooting industry (and no-one else), resulting in a laughably biased and one-sided set of recommendations forming an embarrassingly low base from which to start. Being even-handed would be a good start.
We experience damage caused by pheasants from a local farm, 1000m away, wandering onto our own few acres, all of which we manage for wildlife. I suspect they may have contributed in part to decreasing numbers of frogs toads and grass snakes in our plot in recent years. It is absurd and unacceptable that the shooting industry should be at liberty to release game birds into the countryside so near or into areas protected for wildlife.
Please keep up your hard work. It is wonderful to know that you are there to speak up for, challenge the current law, and fight for our precious wildlife. Thank you to everyone at WildJustice.
Many hundreds of you are responding to the DEFRA gamebird consultation and telling us that you have done so – here are some more examples from your emails to us (see earlier selections – click here and here.
Thank you for responding – every response is valuable, whether you basically cut-and-paste our suggestions, shorten or lengthen them, correct the typos or introduce some of your own, refine or embellish them, or indeed start from scratch and produce your own perfect consultation response.
The closing date for consultations is Monday so we expect many more people to have a look at this at the weekend and send off a response then. Here are our suggestions for how to respond – click here.
Here are some more quotes from what you have sent us:
Just wanted to say a huge thank you for this email. I was able to respond easily with your suggested responses (on my phone with my thumb while feeding my 10 day old son!). I’ll also forward on to family and friends.
For the first time in my life (65 years and counting) I have sat down and completed a government consultation. This is thanks to you for taking the time to provide me with the tools and information (and inspiration) to do so. I live in the countryside surrounded by trees and, it seems to me a lot of people who do appear to care about nature. Sadly, we seem to also have a number or people, generally wealthy landowners, who care more about exploiting nature to fill their coffers and to hell with everything else.
I therefore really appreciate all you are doing and the inspiration you give.
Thank you for providing all the information to fill in the DEFRA consultation on gamebirds. I’ve submitted mine and forwarded your email to birdwatching friends. Fingers crossed!
Just to let you know I have just filled in the DEFRA consultation it was much easier with your guide points that you posted on Twitter earlier, I don’t think I would have bothered wading through the mire otherwise.
We have some land which we are rewilding which has glow worms, slow worms and grass snakes (as well as pole cats and dormice) and our next-door neighbours release some pheasants and they just come straight on into ours and hoover everything up. It’s very disheartening.
Thanks ever so much for everything you guys are doing for nature, you inspire me to get up and go out and do my bit…
Thank you for emailing me about the government consultation document, which otherwise I would have known nothing about. I have filled it in using your own comments and hope this will be okay. I’m not skilled or knowledgeable enough to compile such answers myself, but i have read them and understand the replies. I will now share your newsletter. It did take a bit of reading, but worth it. Thank you ,
Just to let you know that I have completed the DEFRA consultation form…thank you for the guidance, it was very helpful.
It does seem very bizarre that a small minority can release such huge numbers of non native animals into the countryside with no assessment of the environmental impact just because they plan to shoot them…but try and reintroduce a beaver…..!!!
Following your email this morning I’ve just submitted my response to the game bird consultation – phew! Hopefully some of what I said even made sense. Please keep up the work that you do – I think it is amazing and so vitally important. I’m not quite sure how you do it – I definitely need some time to recover from the DEFRA consultation experience!
Hi thank you for sending out the structured response to the DEFRA gamebird consultation. I have just finished filling it out. No small task even with your excellent structured response. Thank you for being our voice and saying no to this ridiculous activity. Well done for your work in getting DEFRA to evaluate the situation as it stands. Fingers crossed at the very minimum it does mean Buffer Zones will be introduced even if they are not adequate, once the concept is in place it is easier to build from.
Job done – response sent.
Well done Chris, Ruth & Mark with taking on the Dinosaurs.
I have completed the questionnaire. I got more and more angry as I did so. Releasing birds so that humans can practice their shooting skills. Thank you for bringing this to my attention.
Given the scale of unregulated large game birds being released DEFRA should have never allowed the situation to get as bad as it has
I have just filled in the form and responded.
I would just like to add my gratitude and admiration for the work you have done in making this possible and also in making a difficult form easier for those of us who are on the side of the environment!
There was FAR too much on the form about monetary losses which gamebird releasers might suffer – they are a business – we should not kowtow to their profit margins in looking to save the environment.
Hundreds of you are responding to the DEFRA gamebird consultation and telling us that you have done so – here are some more examples from your emails to us (see earlier selection – click here).
Thank you for responding – every response is valuable, whether you basically cut-and-paste our suggestions, shorten or lengthen them, correct the typos or introduce some of your own, refine or embellish them, or indeed start from scratch and produce your own perfect consultation response.
The closing date for consultations is Monday so we expect many more people to have a look at this at the weekend and send off a response then. Here are our suggestions for how to respond – click here.
Here are just a few more quotes from what you have sent us:
I enjoy your emails and have responded to your various campaigns, as they have always been worthwhile. I don’t always take the effort to write protest emails, but I did take the time to respond to the DEFRA consultation this morning. Much as I trust you all, and certainly a lot more than our current catastrophic government, I don’t like putting my name to anything unless I know enough about the subject. Consequently it took me a lot longer than forty minutes. This is because I felt I had to read the Madden and Sage review. But this did allow me to express your views in my own words, add a few of my own and include some additional facts from the report. Let’s hope that together we can make a difference. As it stands, these particular proposals seem designed to support the status quo (not one of my favourite bands: I consider myself an ageing punk, much like Chris!).
I submitted my response to the consultation today. Bit of a long winded process but your guidance was really helpful. Here’s hoping they revise the proposal! Keep up the good work.
Hi – I’ve responded – wow – what a pig of a consultation – they really don’t want you to answer do they? Thanks for the helpful hints.
Hi Folks. Just to let you know filled in the consultation survey. Living in Suffolk I am very aware of the game bird industry and what nasty things come with it . I wish you so much luck and thank you for being my voice , Take Care . Keep safe
Wanted to let you know I’ve just responded (in full) to this, complete with the mini rant below (!) in answer to Part C
I beleve that Defra should not allow any releases of gamebirds on N2K sites or within a min 1km buffer zone around them for at least 5 years. Also: This consultation has not had a long enough period for responses (only 3 weeks) It is heavily biased towards the shooting industry rather than protection of the countryside. Not only in terms of what would suit the shooting industry but also in biased presentation of so called ‘evidence’ that shooting BENEFITS the environment – when all genuinely independent evidence shows that nearly all the effects and impacts are negative It does not address the negative impacts – including financial – on other residents/businesses eg tourism etc etc – or communities in the countryside in the vicinity of shoots. I know from bitter personal experience how much shoots impact negatively on the wellbeing of those around them . A local wellknown area of great natural beauty and many rare species which is -or was – much loved and treasured by local people has been quite literally trashed by being sold and turned into a shoot for rich incomers who care nothing for the wildlife or local communities. And I can also assure you the birds roam a LOT further than 500m (or even 1km)!
Your suggestions were invaluable, I paraphrased but it saved hours of time, thank you!
Dear Lovely People, Many thanks for the very helpful notes which helped me enormously in drafting my response to DEFRA. I think these government agencies make such consultation exercises as difficult as possible to deter members of the public from challenging their traditional role of supporting the vested interests of wealthy and powerful groups. Keep up the good work.
I have just submitted my response. The 500m buffer zone is as you have pointed out inadequate and I have proposed a 5km buffer zone. When *********** Farming Ltd. took over the surrounding farmland around my village they introduced shooting and despite protests their response was ‘its going to happen whether you like it or not’. However, after numerous complaints to the police the shooting was stopped. Local properties were hit with lead shot, I experienced lead shot whizz past my house on several occasions and lead shot landed next to me whilst walking along the public highway. I have also experienced the shooting of a pheasant directly above my car as I passed by a group of shooters. These people involved in shooting have no respect for anything or anyone, including the law. The legacy of the shooting has left a significant local pheasant population which invade my garden on a daily basis with anything up to 25 birds. These birds cause much damage with their scratching and deprive the native bird species that I try to attract of vital food. Its no wonder so many of our native birds are in decline.
Mark, Ruth and Chris, I have responded to DEFRA’s consultation. Many thanks for the guidance notes – great focus but I chose to put it in my own words. Keep up the good work.
We have been amazed by the number of people who have already told us that they have responded to the DEFRA gamebird consultation. This is an issue about which many ‘ordinary’ people, many living in the countryside, feel very passionate.
Thank you for responding – every response is valuable, whether you basically cut-and-paste our suggestions, shorten or lengthen them, correct the typos or introduce some of your own, refine or embellish them, or indeed start from scratch and produce your own perfect consultation response.
The closing date for consultations is Monday so we expect some people to have a look at this at the weekend and send off a response then. Here are our suggestions for how to respond – click here.
Here are just a few quotes from what you have sent us:
Hi team Wild Justice,
I’ve been waiting for your email.
I will certainly be responding to the DEFRA consultation despite concern of retribution from local gamekeepers. Thank you for the prompts for submitting my response.
I’m boiling with rage at the narrow scope of this consultation and time window as I’m sure that you are !!!
Please keep up the good work. Thanks for getting us this far whatever the outcome. I’ll keep the (modest) financial support coming for this and your other initiatives.
parts of a much longer communication
Thanks for being brilliant. Carry on doing an excellent job on our behalf please. Game bird consultation response done.
Response submitted (copy attached). Good luck.
from a professor who proposed a 1500m buffer zone
Thank you for circulating this, I have now submitted my response. I am appalled at the bias towards the shooting industry that was evident from the wording of the consultation. I can see a long fight ahead – keep up your great work. Best regards and warm wishes
Greatly admire your sterling work fighting the corner for British wildlife against such powerful vested interests.
Just to mention that I did respond. Distressing stuff indeed with a clearly stated intention of only pursuing a 3-year interim licencing regime, excluding 87 sites without any research/evidence basis, setting down a 500m buffer zone without adequate evidence , ignoring economic impacts and ecological/services impacts through selection of only 2 research components to be studied namely soil eutrophication and depletion of vegetation. I don’t see any evidence of research appreciation or need or “letting the science decide”.
Dear Mark Avery, Chris Packham and Ruth Tingay,
Just to let you know that I completed the consultation and sent it in to DEFRA by email today,
Comments Off on How to respond to the DEFRA gamebird consultationSeven week old pheasant poults, after being released into a gamekeeper’s release pen on an English shooting estate
What the consultation is all about: Because of Wild Justice’s legal challenge settled in court last October DEFRA must take measures which will protect sites of nature conservation importance in England from the impacts of vast numbers of Pheasants and Red-legged Partridges released for recreational shooting. This consultation is necessary for DEFRA to regulate the release of non-native gamebirds so obviously we think it is important and we would encourage organisations and the general public to respond. You are entitled to respond wherever you live in the UK, and nudging DEFRA in the right direction should have implications for measures to be taken in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Responding to a government consultation is not a bundle of laughs, and it may take around 40 minutes to get it done. Pro-shooting organisations are asking their supporters to send in responses, and we are sure that many of them will – it would be very helpful if you, as an individual, could make your views known too. What follows is our attempt to help you to do that. Wild Justice will make its own, more technical, response to the consultation.
Introduction to filling in the consultation: the DEFRA gamebird consultation can be found here – click here. You can fill the form online (click here) or print it out, fill it in and pop it in the post (click here). Hint: reading the pdf version first to get an overview and then filling in the online version is a good way to do it.
The structure of the consultation: there are some brief questions about yourself and then four main sections; Parts A – D. You don’t have to fill in each section. Indeed, Part D asks for feedback on the form where DEFRA is hoping you say that it was a bundle of laughs. You could safely ignore Part D or answer it in very few words. Part C asks you to suggest an alternative way forward to DEFRA’s proposals. You could safely ignore this section or answer it in very few words but we suggest that you do use that section and we suggest some points to make in it. Part B asks you to fill it in only if you are an interested party who releases gamebirds into the countryside. We’re pretty sure that most readers of this blog do not fall into that category so you can safely ignore Part B. So really it is Part A that forms the main consultation response and that is the longest section but it isn’t too scary once you have a good look at it. Below we take you through the consultation and the purple text indicates words that you might use in your response. At least they’ll give you some clues as to things that we think it is important to say.
Filling in your details – that’s easy
Completing Part A;
Q A1: No, and then fill in the text box along these lines DEFRA is proposing an interim licensing regime. That should start in the most precautionary way and then remove restrictions on the basis of evidence as time passes. DEFRA should not exclude the list of sites in Group 2 for four main reasons; precaution, clarity, error, futility. This licensing regime must protect SPAs and SACs (hereafter referred to as N2K sites) from damage. It is not precautionary to remove sites before they have been properly assessed. The clearest measure for users is to include all sites in these interim licensing measures and adjust the list over time when better knowledge is available. There are sites in this list which are both SPAs and SACs and yet it is unclear whether both sites are affected and there are overlaps between sites which are and aren’t mentioned in Group 2. There are sites in this list which are vulnerable to impacts of eutrophication and are proposed for exclusion in error. We accept that some of these sites will not be affected by gamebird releases because gamebirds won’t ever be released on or near them – excluding them is therefore futile. This list looks like a rushed and inadequate job. See my response to Part C.
Q A2: No, and then fill in the text box along these lines This very consultation states that most studies of gamebird movement have been restricted to 300m and so cannot have looked at issues at greater distances. Moreover, the Madden and Sage review quotes studies that show that both gamebird species travel further than 500m. Those studies are mostly limited to the shooting season. Moreover, the 500m buffer erroneously appears to be based only on known impacts of droppings and physical disturbance and ignores issues such as predation of reptiles and amphibians, increases in predator populations as a result of increased gamebird carrion etc. The GWCT’s Head of Advisory said on BBC Radio4 recently that ‘The majority of birds [Pheasants] don’t disperse more than a kilometre’ so a 500m Buffer Zone is clearly inadequate. You ask whether a 500m buffer zone will ensure that releases do not cause deterioration or significant disturbance of protected features of N2K sites and the answer is most definitely No as it is not based on science and is not precautionary. See my response to Part C.
Q A3: Yes and then fill in the text box along these lines But not sufficiently effective to meet the requirement of protecting N2K sites.
Q A4: No, and then fill in the text box along these lines This proposal allows releases to continue in undiminished numbers according to guidelines that are out of date (they were published in 2007) and where compliance is admitted by the shooting industry itself to be extremely poor (see https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0006320704003350?via%3Dihub ). These proposals do not limit the numbers of birds released, nor the number of release sites, nor their locations, only the densities of birds within release pens. These measures are totally inadequate and if implemented DEFRA will not be fulfilling its obligation to ensure that N2K sites are protected from damage. No gamebird releases should be allowed on N2K sites or in the Buffer Zone around them as the first step in licensing gamebird releases. See my response to Part C.
Q A5: Yes and then fill in the text box along these lines This is welcome and very important as a first step in effective regulation.
Q A6: Leave blank.
Q A7: I do not believe there should be any gamebird releases within the Buffer Zone. This is what is needed to protect N2K sites.
Q A8: I do not believe there should be any gamebird releases within the Buffer Zone. This is what is needed to protect N2K sites.
Q A9: Do not tick either Yes or No and then fill in the text box along these lines I agree with this and my representation is that this measure is essential and urgent.
Q A10: Do not tick either Yes or No but fill in the text box along these lines I agree with a sunset clause but I disagree that it should be after two years as this is too soon for the necessary research, analysis and consultation to be carried out. As far as I am aware DEFRA has not commissioned independent research or monitoring, nor provided Natural England with sufficient resources to carry out the necessary work. A period of at least five years is needed even if such resources are made available.
Completing Part B:
Q B1: if you are not a gamebird releaser then answer No and move on.
Completing Part C:
Q C1: Yes and then fill in the text box along these lines My proposal is that DEFRA scraps Group 2 sites, institutes a 1km Buffer Zone around all N2K sites and that no releases of Pheasants or Red-legged Partridges should be permitted for a 5 year period in that zone or on any N2K sites. That is a precautionary, clear and effective interim arrangement that protects nature. If appropriate, these modest restrictions can be loosened on the basis of good evidence in future.
I would like to make some further points.
a. I do not consider this consultation to have been properly conducted as it lasts only three weeks, was delayed and DEFRA has imposed ludicrously short word limits on answering complex questions.
b. DEFRA appears to have written the consultation with measures that the recreational shooting industry would want rather than ones which ensure protection of N2K sites of conservation importance.
c. This consultation clings to the myth of 500m being an adequate Buffer Zone despite DEFRA being well aware that there is little scientific evidence to support this (see here https://markavery.info/2020/11/05/gamebirds-victory-16-the-500m-myth/ ) and so this consultation is knowingly misleading. And in any case, the measures proposed to apply to the Buffer Zone are nugatory.
d. Part B does not in any way properly address economic impacts, which in any case must be subservient to the need to protect N2K sites from damage. Since the measures do not limit overall release numbers, and hardly limit current practice, there can be no overall economic impact. The consultation simply invites unverifiable moans about impacts from the very industry that needs to be regulated in order to protect the environment. At most, any restrictions on release numbers locally can create opportunities for releases in less sensitive sites and so others, who are not invited to comment, will benefit. At this stage it is unclear whether, or to what extent, recreational shooting will be possible in any case in the 2021/22 shooting season because of COVID-19 restrictions. Further, there are economic impacts of gamebird releases on the general public which are completely ignored in this consultation.
Completing Part D: voluntary.
That’s it!
Remember, the deadline is Monday. The more responses DEFRA gets the better. We’d be delighted to hear that you have responded – send us an email if you like. We hope this advice helps but you should make any points you wish and in any way you wish. If you have questions or queries about filling in the consulation then we may be able to help – email us at admin@wildjustice.org.uk and give your email the title GAMEBIRDS and we will try to help but we cannot promise that we’ll be able to answer long or complex questions very quickly – we’ll do our best.
Comments Off on Please sign #StateOfNature petition today!
Good morning!
Wild Justice is one of over 50 wildlife groups asking you to send a strong message in favour of wildlife to the Westminster government.
Today sees the launch of a major campaign to persuade Boris Johnson to add an amendment to the Environment Bill to set a legally binding target to reverse the loss of nature in England by 2030.
Please add your voice to the #StateOfNature petition today – click here.
Even the Prime Minister’s father, Stanley Johnson, has written to ask for this amendment to be added!
Although the Environment Bill mostly deals with English matters we would ask all of our supporters, wherever they live, to sign the petition – you’ll be doing English wildlife a favour. And on this St David’s Day, and after Wales whipped England at rugby on Saturday, it would be particularly kind of supporters in Wales to do so.
Wild Justice is very happy to be part of this campaign and we hope we might be the first organisation to ask for your support. We’ll be reminding you of the petition as the campaign gains momentum through the spring, but today you can be one of the people to get it off to a strong start.
Please add your voice on Day 1 of this campaign – sign here.
Thank you!
PS And you can see that this campaign has support from a massive range of organisations including all of the big beasts of nature conservation, as well as lots of the tiddlers like Wild Justice.
This consultation was released today – over two weeks later than we were told. The consultation period is three weeks, closing Monday 15 March.
This consultation is obviously of great importance to Wild Justice as it was our legal challenge which caused these measures to be proposed by DEFRA as laid out in this consultation. we would encourage interested parties to read the consultation carefully and to respond to it.
We will evaluate the consultation document and reveal our thoughts through our free newsletter, probably on 8 or 9 March – click here to subscribe.
Last week, a package arrived for Wild Justice in the post and it contained a cheque, a letter and some knitted keyrings in the shape of leaves.
Here is most of the text of the letter – it is well worth a read.
Dear Wild Justice
Please find enclosed some knitted keyrings that I have made for you all.
I also enclose a cheque to show my support for the magnificent work that you all do. Keep it up! I know that it can feel as though you are banging your head against a brick wall, but, rest assured, you are chipping away at ancient walls of cruelty and unfairness. Any time now they will come tumbling down. Well done for all the campaigns you have fought. Maybe not won them all, but you are getting the word out there and raising the profile of important issues.
I have felt powerless, as a ‘little person’ watching the world go to hell in a handcart whilst I am forced into lockdown.
At New Year I made a resolution – to be a Craftivist, We make gifts to give to people or to display publicly trying to persuade them to change their minds by a positive act, rather than negative arguments. I decided that I would knit leaves and make them into keyrings to give to my local councillors and to the Mayor of Greater Manchester. In my letter I explain how important green spaces are – not only to wildlife but to our own physical and mental wellbeing. My request is that they work towards saving as much of the green belt as possible from the impact of new house building. I am hoping that each time they use my keyring it will remind them of that request.
I am well on the way to completing that project, but green wool is at a premium. I thought I’d take a break and knit some in different colours for people that I know are on my side. Is there enough green wool in the world to change those minds? I live in Hope.
Isn’t that lovely? And isn’t it inspiring?
We get lots of messages from supporters and all of them are read by us. It really is good to know that so many people support what we do. Thank you.
To be kept up to date with our work please subscribe to our free newsletter – it’s how we aim to give our supporters our most up to date news (roughly once a fortnight) – click here.
There’s a slogan on Sainsbury’s website stating that its vision is to become the UK’s ‘most trusted retailer’. Some might say it’s got a long way to go.
In October 2020 we became aware that Sainsbury’s was stocking two products of interest: pheasant breasts and a mixed-game casserole (venison, pheasant & partridge).
Both products were being manufactured by Holme Farmed Venison, a company based in North Yorkshire which, according to the product packaging, ‘sources Pheasants and Partridges from Traditional UK Estates, renowned for the quality of their birds, and within the guidelines laid down by the British Game Alliance using ‘The Code of Good Shooting Practice’’.
Both products displayed the British Game Alliance (BGA) kite mark prominently on the packaging’s front sleeve but neither product included a warning to customers that the meat may contain toxic lead ammunition, a known poison that the Food Standards Agency advises is especially dangerous to young children and pregnant women.
The BGA claims to be ‘the official marketing board for the UK game industry’ and claims on its website, ‘Through our ‘British Game’ assurance scheme we can ensure the provenance of our game meets rigorous and ethical standards‘.
However, some of us aren’t convinced by the BGA’s claimed credentials, especially when we know that some of the BGA’s accredited members are currently being investigated by the police in relation to alleged wildlife crimes.
So given this lack of transparency and thus confidence in the BGA, rather than taking the BGA’s word about these products we’ve asked Holme Farmed Venison to provide further detail about the provenance of their gamebirds and Sainsbury’s has been asked, repeatedly, whether these products contain any toxic lead ammunition.
Holme Farmed Venison has not yet responded.
Sainsbury’s has responded, with a generic corporate response:
“HFV products only select from meat that has no shot in it. Initially, visually inspected and then metal detected at the game processor and again visually inspected in the final pack”.
In a shocking display of complacency about its customers’ health concerns, Sainsbury’s went on to tell one customer:
‘At present Sainsbury’s will not be providing any further update regarding your concerns, and we would encourage any further questions to be directed to Holme Farmed Venison, through their customer helpline‘.
Since Sainsbury’s seems so reluctant to safety- test this food product it’s selling to families, we thought we’d do it ourselves.
Over the last month we’ve bought some of those pheasant breasts and mixed-game casseroles from various Sainsbury’s stores and have prepared a series of samples using a rigorously-scientific process. These samples have just been shipped to a specialist laboratory where an experienced scientist will examine them to determine whether they contain any toxic lead ammunition and if so, in what quantities.
led to better protection of designated wildlife sites through increased regulation of recreational wildlife shooting.
challenged the licensing of Badger shooting in the courts (we are waiting for an appeal hearing) and through a petition which already has over 104,000 signatures – please click here.
put pressure on governments in England and Scotland through an e-action taken by 123,000+ people (together with RSPB and Hen Harrier Action) to protect blanket bogs from harmful burning and give birds of prey effective protection on grouse moors – we have seen progress (not enough) on both issues.
In addition we have worked with other wildlife organisations on campaigns and advocacy across a wide range of conservation issues.
It’s not a bad start!
There’s much more work for us to do and we have started several projects about which we will be able to tell you as they unfold over the coming weeks. Some are Wild Justice projects, and in others we are working collaboratively with other wildlife conservation organisations.
To hear about our work – subscribe to our free newsletter – click here.
If you like what we are doing then please consider making a donation through PayPal, bank transfer or a cheque in the post – see details here. A small birthday present would be much appreciated – thank you.
Comments Off on We write to DEFRA on their consultation failureSeven week old pheasant poults in a gamekeeper’s release pen on an English shooting estate
Back in October, Wild Justice won a historic victory regarding the regulation of shooting when DEFRA committed to bring in regulation of gamebird releases because of their impacts on sites of high nature conservation importance – see here.
Wild Justice withdrew its legal challenge because DEFRA committed to do various things including adding the non-native Pheasants and Red-legged Partridges to Schedule 9 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act, creating a buffer zone around important sites in which no gamebirds will be released etc.
Those commitments were made binding in a court order which ended the case:
For months, DEFRA has intended to issue a consultation on the measures it will introduce, as it is required to do. Wild Justice has been looking forward to the consultation as it represents an opportnity for public pressure and evidence to strengthen the measures that DEFRA will take. That consultation was promised for this Monday, 8 February but on Monday afternoon DEFRA issued a curt email (referred to here) in which they only committed to launching the consultation in ‘the coming weeks’.
Yesterday, Wild Justice wrote to DEFRA as follows;
Comments Off on Our badger petition passes 100,000 signatures
Yesterday our petition to end the shooting of Badgers passed 100,000 signatures. Thank you for all your support.
This means that it will, eventually, be debated in Westminster Hall by backbench MPs and a government minister will have to respond. Petitions of this type rarely, of themselves, change government policy but they keep up the pressure for change. We would like to increase that pressure and will continue to promote the petition to gain more signatures right up until midnight on 24 March when it closes.
Support for the petition has come from right across the UK but has been particularly strong in those areas where Badger culling is taking place such as the southwest counties of Cornwall, Devon, Somerset, Dorset and Gloucestershire, and also in Derbyshire where plans for Badger vaccination were well-advanced but have been disrupted by government pushing ahead with culling.
See the map of strength of support by Westminster parliamentary constituency here:
Why we care so much:
1. We care about Badgers and over 20,000 were shot in 2020, and in 2019 and DEFRA plans allow for tens of thousands more to be killed in the future. This is a massive government-sanctioned assault on a protected species.
2. We care about farmers and cattle too, and we see the Badger cull as a distraction from the main means of controlling bovine TB in cattle: better testing, movement restrictions and vaccination as recommeded by a recent report by Sir Charles Godfray FRS.
3 Shooting Badgers is cruel – this government has never stuck to the recommendations of an expert group in 2014 that 95% of shot Badgers should die within 5 minutes of being shot – the usual figure is always around double that level and some Badgers take more than 10 minutes to die. We believe that monitoring is inadequate.
How you can help:
1. If you haven’t signed this petition yet then please consider signing now, here is the link – click here.
3. If you use social media such as Twitter, Facebook etc then spread the word there please. By the way, our Twitter handle is @wildjustice_org
4. Please note that the petition can be signed by anyone resident in the UK (not just in England, even though this is an English cull) and also by UK citizens resident abroad.
In a blog here on Monday we asked the GWCT to fact-check the DEFRA myth that non-native gamebirds have no impacts on nature conservation at a distance of further than 500m from release sites.
We asked three specific questions and GWCT has failed to answer two of them (but got the other one right – maybe because we gave them the answer). Any student knows that you should read the exam paper carefully and do your best to answer the questions. GWCT failed to answer the questions and did what many a failing student does – write down everything they can think of that pops into their minds in case it might be relevant. That’s a fail.
We got something wrong too on Monday though – when we wrote ‘We appreciate that GWCT might feel uncomfortable correcting the factual errors of the Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs but we are sure they will wish to stand by the scientific statements of their staff in preference to sucking up to DEFRA.‘ we assumed that GWCT would stand by their own staff member in addressing question 3 which was:
Does the GWCT stand by the view of their own Head of Advisory, Roger Draycott, who on BBC Radio 4’s Farming Today said, and we quote, ‘the majority of birds [Pheasants] don’t disperse more than a kilometre‘ which clearly means that some disperse more than a kilometre and suggests that many disperse further than 500m.
We were wrong because GWCT have not stood by their own staff member, Head of Advisory no less, who said that some Pheasants disperse more than a kilometre and GWCT instead did choose to support DEFRA’s flawed buffer zone proposal. If you are taking advice from the GWCT just be aware that they might not stick by it if a politician says something else. So that’s a fail because GWCT didn’t even remember to answer the question.
What about the other two questions?
Question 1 was;
Does the Madden and Sage review (see here, and Rufus Sage is, after all, a staff member of GWCT) mention anywhere that Pheasants and Red-legged Partridges have minimal impacts on biodiversity beyond 500m from the point of release? (hint – it doesn’t)
GWCT do answer this question (although you have to look hard for the answer and they only attempt an answer in their twelfth paragraph) where they say ‘500m is not explicitly discussed in the review’. Yep, that’s what we thought, and said, and so GWCT at least get a few marks for anwering that question (eventually) and noticing that nowhere is a 500m buffer zone suggested, discussed or justified in that review. The answer was contained in the question though so GWCT don’t get many marks for that. The 500m buffer zone is simply a made up figure and it isn’t made up based on the science.
Question 2 was;
Do the references in Madden and Sage (eg Turner (2007), Beardsworth et al. (in prep), Sage et al. (2001)) state that Pheasants and Red-legged Partridges travel no further than 500m from their point of release in their first year of life?
GWCT do not answer this question so that’s a Fail here too. What they do say is that they think 500m is too big a distance, whereas we think it is too small. We cite the relevant references in the Madden and Sage review and discuss why they do not in any way add up to justifying a buffer zone as small as 500m while the GWCT just wave their hands around and support the DEFRA 500m buffer zone myth without citing any science.
Like a poor student, GWCT pad out their non-answers with lots of words to try and make it look as though they know lots and have been working extra-hard – but their homework adds up to ‘There is no scientific justification for a buffer zone as small as 500m but we know which side our bread is buttered so we are going to agree with DEFRA’.
You’ll find that GWCT spend more time writing, inaccurately, about Wild Justice than they do about the biological issue at question. That speaks volumes too. We’re not going to respond to those inaccuracies here and now because that would deflect from our main message – the proposed 500m buffer zone is not based on science and even the supposed experts on gamebirds, GWCT, cannot point to its scientific justification. That alone should be enough to persuade you that there isn’t a scientific justification for it. We think that DEFRA will launch their consultation on the subject on Monday and then you will have the chance to say so.
Comments Off on GWCT, please check these statementsSeven week old pheasant chicks, often known as poults, after just being released into a gamekeepers release pen on an English shooting estate.
Wild Justice mounted a legal challenge to make DEFRA review harmful gamebird impacts which concluded last October when DEFRA agreed to license non-native gamebird releases – see here.
We expect DEFRA to issue a public consultation on their plans a week today. We will encourage our supporters to respond to that consultation – to receive hints and information then subscribe to our free newsletter – click here.
We expect one of the key issues (on which we believe DEFRA must do better) will be to increase the buffer zone around designated sites in which gamebird releases will not be allowed. At present, as best we can tell, DEFRA are planning a 500m buffer zone. We have written to DEFRA pointing out that their suggested buffer zone is not based on science and certainly not based on the review of the subject which Natural England (and BASC!) commissioned.
This is a statement from George Eustice (Mr Eustice is a Cabinet minister and a farmer but not a professional biologist):
The negative effects of gamebird releases on protected sites tend to be localised with minimal or no effects beyond 500m from the point of release.
This statement has, as far as we can see, no basis in fact (see this long blog by Mark Avery).
The Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust set up a fact-checking website last August – see here. We believe that DEFRA’s statement (which may have come from Natural England originally) is in serious need of checking and then correction.
Here are areas where we would like GWCT to check the facts (and anyone else who wants to investigate the matter can do the same);
Does the Madden and Sage review (see here, and Rufus Sage is, after all, a staff member of GWCT) mention anywhere that Pheasants and Red-legged Partridges have minimal impacts on biodiversity beyond 500m from the point of release? (hint – it doesn’t)
Do the references in Madden and Sage (eg Turner (2007), Beardsworth et al. (in prep), Sage et al. (2001)) state that Pheasants and Red-legged Partridges travel no further than 500m from their point of release in their first year of life?
Does the GWCT stand by the view of their own Head of Advisory, Roger Draycott, who on BBC Radio 4’s Farming Today said, and we quote, ‘the majority of birds [Pheasants] don’t disperse more than a kilometre‘ which clearly means that some disperse more than a kilometre and suggests that many disperse further than 500m.
We appreciate that GWCT might feel uncomfortable correcting the factual errors of the Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs but we are sure they will wish to stand by the scientific statements of their staff in preference to sucking up to DEFRA.
Comments Off on Badger petition updateBadger. Photo: Chris Packham
Our e-petition has passed 88,000 signatures with several thousand signatures being added yesterday. Yes, we had given this petition a bit of a rest for a few weeks but now is the time to get it moving quickly and pass the 100,000 signature threshold which will entitle it to a debate in Westminster Hall (eventually).
The National Gamekeepers’ Organisation is grumpily coming to terms with the changes to their job description that we explained back at the beginning of January – no longer can one kill corvids to protect released non-native gamebirds such as Pheasants and Red-legged Partridges and the conservation licence can only be used to ‘protect’ a list of species of conservation concern.
On designated wildlife sites such as SSSIs in England the general licences do not apply unless specifically authorised by Natural England. Rightly, Natural England is refusing licences for casual killing of corvids on spurious conservation grounds and wrongly gamekeepers are moaning about it. This is just Natural England beginning to do its job and stems from the changes brought about as a result of the Wild Justice legal challenges. Have a look at the Natural England letter which spells this out – click here. [By the way, the letter isn’t perfect and we’ll be pointing this out to Natural England.]
Wild Justice hasn’t changed the law, but we have changed the way that long-existing laws are now being implemented (see this Wild Justice blog from late December).
Those responsible for casual killing of millions of birds over the years aren’t best pleased by these reforms. We see the gamekeepers are suggesting they might take legal action against Natural England on this matter. They probably won’t, but Wild Justice would be willing to help Natural England with the legal arguments should any such legal challenge arise.
We bank with Triodos Bank because we like their environmental credentials – and they are efficient and friendly.
Over the last few weeks we’ve had a few donors saying that they have had difficulty in transferring money from their bank to ours because they get a message saying that the name (Wild Justice) is not recognised or verified (or something like that).
This is not because there is anything wrong with our bank account, nor anything wrong with Triodos Bank, it’s because the Confirmation of Payee system which was introduced last year does not yet include many of the smaller banks, such as Triodos. Triodos is in the queue to join this system and expects to get there later this year.
So, in our case, if you see that message when you are trying to donate to us through bank transfer you can safely go ahead with your donation provided you are using the bank details on our website.
However, we wouldn’t want our supporters to do anything that felt a bit scary so if you see a message like that one then please find another way to send us some money (PayPal or cheque through the post) or simply hang fire and send us a donation at a later date. Whatever suits you best.
By the way, we receive about 125 donations through bank transfers each month, many of them regular monthly payments, so the system is working for lots of people.
Thank you for all your continuing moral and financial support. Both mean a lot to us.
Comments Off on Further success on general licences – this time in Wales
Earlier this morning, His Honour Justice Jarman handed down his judgment on Wild Justice’s judicial review of Natural Resources Wales’s general licences. His judgment further limits the casual killing of birds under general licences and has implications for general licences in other parts of the UK.
Wild Justice is delighted at the content of the judgment, and its implications, even though the judge did not go as far as saying that the current licences are unlawful.
The judgment: The Wild Justice challenge of the Welsh general licences concerned the circumstances under which the licences can lawfully be used. And our main concerns were about the conservation licence (GL004) which authorises the killing of four corvid species (Carrion Crow, Magpie, Jackdaw and Jay) for the purpose of conserving wild birds. The judgment considered the following; ‘For example, carrion crows, of which there are about 20,000 pairs in Wales, prey upon the eggs and chicks of ground nesting birds, such as curlews, of which there are less than 400 pairs left in Wales.‘ and later stated ‘Thus, in the example given above NRW accepts that the relevant licence (004) should be used only to kill crows during the months between egg laying and when the chicks are well grown, namely April to July, and only in those areas where curlews nest, which do not extend to urban areas. It should not permit someone to kill a crow in the autumn or in an urban area on the basis that that bird might someday at some place take a curlew’s egg or chick.‘. In other words, you can only kill Carrion Crows under this licence where the Carrion Crows are a present danger to species of conservation concern – in those places at those times. Wild Justice believes that this is a highly significant and very welcome clarification. Justice Jarman further wrote ‘Written evidence was filed on behalf of WJ by one of its directors, Dr Mark Avery, on behalf of NRW by one of its managers Dr Sarah Wood, and on behalf of BASC by Glyn Evans, one of its heads. Whilst there was some disagreement between Dr Avery and Dr Wood, there was little if any difference between them on how the licences given for the purposes stated in them should work in practice. Mr Wolfe [counsel for Wild Justice] made it clear that WJ welcomed such clarification but submits that these clarifications should have been expressly imported into the wording of the licences. He points to the fact that Mr Evans interprets the licences more widely than NRW, and submits that that is a cogent reason why the licences should specify the circumstances of their use in greater detail.‘. In other words, the licensing authority (NRW) agrees with Wild Justice that the licence should only be used where there is a ‘present risk’, and the court agrees with us both, but BASC had a different view which was rejected by the court.
What should happen now:
1. Wild Justice calls on NRW immediately to clarify the details of their conservation licence. This only requires changes to a web page to reflect what NRW told the court it intended those licences to mean. Not to do so would constitute ongoing casual drafting of a licence which authorises otherwise unlawful actions.
2. Wild Justice believes these same issues appear to apply to the ‘livestock and crops’ licence (GL001) and so farmers should be aware that they may be acting unlawfully if they carry out ‘pest control’ at inappropriate times of year or in the ‘wrong’ places. This is not, currently, a matter of the highest priority for Wild Justice as all along we have concentrated on the ‘conservation’ licence GL004. But this judgment does have implications for other casual bird killing.
3. If NRW fails to move rapidly to clarify licence GL004 in line with what they told the court, and the court’s judgment, then Wild Justice may seek to gain evidence for private prosecutions of people killing Carrion Crows, Magpies, Jackdaws or Jays outside of the bird breeding season.
4. What does this mean for England where DEFRA have, after a consultation, issued similar general licences for similar purposes? There is one important difference in the conservation licence for England as the NRW licence stipulates that it is to protect eggs and/or chicks from corvids whereas the DEFRA licence does not have that same helpful and biologically realistic detail (of eggs and chicks) attached to it. Wild Justice has asked DEFRA for clarification of whether DEFRA believes that its licence can lawfully be used outside the breeding season for those species alleged to be protected by its conservation licence (and whether it regards corvid killing at all locations as being authorised by their licence) – as yet DEFRA has failed to clarify these points which now require urgent clarification by DEFRA for England just as they do by NRW in Wales.
5. Wild Justice will not be appealing the decision of Justice Jarman and we thank him for his clear, polite and helpful judgment on this matter.
6. In passing, Wild Justice would like to thank BASC for their intervention in this case. In our opinion, BASC’s presence did nothing to change the course of this court case, which hinged on the law, except that it made it abundantly clear that BASC wished the licences to be interpreted in a much broader way with none of the restrictions of time of year or location that NRW, Wild Justice and now the court understand them to have. We thank BASC for demonstrating the impacts of the vagueness of the current published NRW licences.
Dr Mark Avery of Wild Justice said: ‘We are very pleased. We expect NRW to move very quickly to clarify their online general licences in line with this important judgment. DEFRA too should consider the wording of its general licences for England’.
Comments Off on Ban driven grouse shooting debate postponed again
The forthcoming Westminster Hall debate on banning driven grouse shooting, triggered by our successful 2019 petition and scheduled to take place at 6pm on 25 January 2021 has been postponed again, due to Covid.
A note from the Petitions Committee clerk says, ‘The House has agreed to suspend sittings in Westminster Hall until further notice. This means that petitions debates that were due to take place in the coming weeks are unable to go ahead, and have been postponed‘.
We await further information from the Committee in due course.
We are waiting patiently for the judgment on our judicial review of the Welsh general licences. There is no point in speculating on what the result will be as we have nothing much to go on. We’ll just have to wait and see.
Most judicial reviews are unsuccessful – that’s the way things go. We are hopeful that the judge will say that NRW’s general licences are unlawful, in which case they will have to be rewritten and that would have implications for general licences in England and Scotland too. But let us imagine that the judgment goes the other way and the judge says that the current licences are lawful, there may still be elements of his judgment that help define more clearly aspects of the licensing system – that might be very useful and important in itself.
So, we’ll have to wait and see.
But we don’t have to wait and see to know that NRW’s general licences are very poor things (whether or not they are lawful). They allow the Jay to be killed for alleged conservation purposes while no conservation organisation kills Jays anywhere in the UK to the best of our knowledge. And they allow the purpose for which you can kill species to be for the protection of the eggs and chicks of species that have never nested in Wales. the conservation licence specifically says that it is to protect eggs and chicks but it leaves the circumstances under which you can take that action very unclear – can you cull Carrion Crows in November to protect some eggs and chicks somewhere or other in Wales next spring? Or not?
If driving licences or TV licences were written with such lack of clarity then there would be uproar. We think there should be uproar over the casual licensing of the casual killing of birds in Wales. Wild Justice believes that NRW is not doing its job properly and that whether or not its current licences are unlawful (we think they are) they are such awful licences that NRW should be upgrading them as a matter of urgency.
This petition was submitted in July 2019, published by the Westminster Parliament in August 2019, reached 100,000 signatures in September 2019 and closed because of a general election in November 2019 … and debated in January 2021!
It’s a pity that this is in the middle of Winterwatch – just a coincidence no doubt.
Watch this space for suggestions of how you can help.
Thanks to the legal challenges made by Wild Justice, and our subsequent lobbying and that of others, the general licences in England have improved significantly in the past two years: there are fewer species that can be killed and for much more specific purposes than before. And some species have been removed from the general licences altogether and so now anyone with a good reason for lethal control of those bird species has to apply specifically for a licence for their particular issue and circumstances.
In the big scheme of things, these are the most fundamental and far-reaching changes over the past decades, but Wild Justice believes that there is still some way to go to make the licensing of bird killing, through general licences, fit for purpose. We believe that the current DEFRA general licences are legally flawed but are awaiting full disclosure by DEFRA before we can consider whether or not to mount further challenges.
We are hopeful, but not the least bit certain, that our legal challenge to the Welsh general licences will move things on further still. We should find out, probably, in the next 10 days or so.
We have asked DEFRA for clarification on a number of issues since they published their new general licences in November, ahead of them going live on 1 January. We contacted DEFRA yesterday to say , very politely, ‘Oi! You promised us some answers to our questions’ and were told that answers to our questions and those of others would all be published within two weeks. Then we had a call from DEFRA a little later saying it might be longer than two weeks.
Wild Justice is primarily concerned with the so-called conservation licence under which it is possible to kill a small, and reduced, number of corvid species (Carrion Crow, Magpie and Jay (and the non-native and rarely encountered Indian House Crow)) for the purposes of conserving threatened bird species (as listed on the Red and Amber lists of Birds of Conservation Concern). In England there is a further narrowing of scope introduced which is that Jays can only be killed to protect woodland species (which are listed).
Wild Justice’s scientific position is that this is better but not good enough; Jays should be removed from this list completely (as arguably should Magpies) and the list of species actually affected by predation by corvids in numbers large enough to be a conservation issue is much, much smaller than the Red and Amber lists. These are matters of science, and cannot easily be addressed in the courts, but we believe that DEFRA has not taken much notice of the science in only moving as much as they have so far.
Carrion Crows, Magpies and Jays are scavengers and predators. They will eat the eggs and chicks of many species, and have been doing so for thousands of years. That doesn’t make them a conservation problem any more than Blue Tits eating caterpillars are a conservation problem. Species eat each other – it’s ecology. The conservation general licence in Wales helpfully makes it clear that it is designed to protect the eggs and chicks of species of conservation concern, not adults. Presumably DEFRA thinks the same as ecology does not differ in that respect on either side of Offa’s Dyke.
If predation on eggs and chicks is an issue (which we would contend for most circumstances) then this can only possibly occur in the avian breeding season. Although different species nest at slightly different times, being at this latitude in the northern hemisphere means that the breeding season for UK breeding birds is essentially March-July inclusive – those dates would capture over 95% of all nesting attempts each year in the UK.
So our question to DEFRA (and to NRW by the way) is very simply ‘under the conservation licence, does DEFRA consider that its licences allow the killing of say, Carrion Crows, at any time of year or only in the breeding season when Carrion Crows take eggs and chicks?’. So would killing a Carrion Crow today, in England, where the person killing that Carrion Crow claimed it was for a conservation purpose under the general licences, be lawful or not?
We’re interested in DEFRA’s answers to this and are surprised that in nearly two months they have not given us one – and we believe that these answers are relevant to others’ actions too. DEFRA must know their own intentions in writing their revamped general licences. Is a gamekeeper killing a Jay today in England, allegedly for conservation purposes, covered by the current general licences or not?
DEFRA have had more than long enough to get their thoughts together on this issue but Wild Justice fears we are still confronted by casual licensing of casual killing of huge numbers of birds every year.
Comments Off on Gamekeeping gets a change of job description
Following reforms introduced as a result of Wild Justice’s legal challenges, the job description for gamekeepers in England has changed dramatically. No longer is it legal to kill corvids to protect the adults, chicks or eggs of wild Pheasants and Red-legged Partridges under general licences issued by DEFRA. Under the terms of the conservation licence, General Licence 40, published on Friday for 2021, corvids can only be killed to conserve red-listed and amber-listed bird species of conservation concern and not the 60 million non-native Pheasants and Red-legged Partridges released into the UK countryside in a normal, non-COVID-affected year.
Captive gamebirds, such as in rearing facilities or release pens are classed as livestock and if serious damage occurs (which it hardly ever does) then corvids can be killed but only if non-lethal methods are impracticable (see General Licence 42). However, after release in late summer those captive-bred birds are no longer classed as livestock and cannot be protected by killing of corvids (see British Game Alliance, William Powell Sporting, DEFRA . For most circumstances, the ‘protection’ of the two gamebird species shot in highest numbers (Pheasant 15m/year, Red-legged Partridge, 4+m/year) no longer provides a lawful purpose for killing corvids under the general licences.
Wild Justice suggests that a number of websites describing the role of gamekeepers, particularly lowland gamekeepers, will need to be updated to catch up with this legal change. Gamekeepers operating crow traps will have to learn a new vocabulary to explain to the public what they are doing and why.
The job of a gamekeeper in England, particularly a lowland gamekeeper, is different in 2021 from what it has been for decades before.
Comments Off on General licences in general and our challenge to the NRW general licences in particular
This blog is about the licensing system for killing birds in Wales which is licensed by Natural Resources Wales. There are similar in essence, but different in detail, licensing systems in England and Scotland. Wild Justice has been active on challenging general licences throughout our short existence. On Friday our challenge of the legality of the Welsh general licences was heard and the judge indicated that he would hand down his judgment in the first weeks of January so we know how he will be spending some of his lockdown Christmas.
This rather long blog sets out some of the background to general licences and how we ended up in court on Friday, what the judicial review process looks like, and what might come out of this challenge. We end with some relevant FAQs on this subject.
The protection of Wild Birds by the law
This is a good place to start because it is simple and everything else flows from it. All wild birds are protected by law – that’s the starting point (gamebirds are the main exception). Notice, the same is not true of mammals for example and Wild Justice will be doing some work on that. . Although all wild birds are protected by law the drafters of the laws recognised that there may be some good reasons why limited exceptions should be made to this general rule. They did not decide that all birds except corvids were protected by law but they decided that all birds were protected by law but exceptions can be made for particular purposes and under particular circumstances.
The purposes for which you can kill otherwise protected birds seem to us to be quite sensible. They are for such purposes as preventing serious damage to livestock or crops, to protect public safety and to conserve birds. And those are the types of purposes under which you can kill a Robin, a Carrion Crow or a Bar-tailed Godwit. But you’ll need a licence to carry out that killing because all wild birds are protected by law.
General licences and specific licences
There are two types of licence under which you can legally kill wild birds and they are specific licences and general licences. They both have to identify the purposes for which the bird killing is legal and the circumstances under which it is legal. Let’s start with specific licences.
If you believed that the Robins were causing serious damage to crops then you could apply for a specific licence to kill them. You’d contact your statutory nature conservation agency and probably have a phone chat with them first and then you’d have to fill in a form. And then you would either be issued with a licence or not. In the case of Robins purportedly causing damage to crops you would probably be asked things like: Are you sure they are Robins? What sort of damage are they doing? Is it serious damage? What non-lethal means have you tried before seeking a licence to kill? Are you really sure they are Robins? And then you might be issued with a licence that would specify how many Robins you could kill, in what period, in what geographical area, after carrying out what alternative methods. And you would have to send the licensing authority details of what you actually did after you’d done it. If you went ahead and killed Robins after being refused a licence you would clearly be committing an offence. If you broke the terms of the licence you would be committing an offence. The important thing though, is that if you had a good reason you would get a licence. But your case would have been scrutinised and the licensing authority would have decided that this particular, specific exception from ‘All wild birds are protected by law’ was justified. We know that such a system is not likely to be perfect, but that depends on the ability of the licensing authority to do its job properly. How about general licences?
General licences to kill birds exist in all four UK nations. What is a general licence? It’s a means of setting out the purposes and circumstances under which killing otherwise protected birds is legal. Instead of arguing your specific case under purposes and circumstances in order to get a licence to kill, those things are set out in a general licence which these days is published on the internet (here are some examples; England,Wales, Scotland).
We don’t have a pest list, but the general licences are as close to such a thing as we come in the UK. The species that have been killed under general licences over the past decades are generally corvids (such as Carrion Crow, Magpie, and Rook) alongside Wood Pigeon, some gulls and a range of non-native species.
Why Wild Justice cares about general licences
The fact that all wild birds are protected by law is important to us. It is a cornerstone of bird conservation in the UK. And yet millions of birds are estimated by shooting organisations to be killed under the terms of the general licences. These estimates come from asking people what they do and we aren’t confident that the right people are asked nor that they are all telling the truth. By their very nature general licences are difficult to monitor because there is no list of people who claim to be operating under their terms and no requirement to gather centralised information on the number of birds killed – so there is a lot of guesswork involved.
Across the UK there are certainly millions of birds killed under general licences and this has been going on for decades.
Species have come and gone from the lists over time. Getting the way these licences work fit for purpose is an important strategic goal. We wouldn’t want to see future general licences being flawed in detail and having more inappropriate species added to them.
Wild Justice is primarily a conservation organisation and we have been primarily concerned with the general licences in all UK nations that purport to be for the purpose of nature conservation. Until recently it has been legal to kill Rooks, for example, under the conservation licence to protect wild birds. This is simply ridiculous and our actions have led to Rooks being removed from these licences across the UK.
We believe that the conservation licences across the UK are badly flawed and are simply a cover for shooting interests, not conservation interests, to carry out casual killing of birds. The licences add up to casual licensing of casual killing of birds – and remember, all wild birds are protected by law.
Let us illustrate the point with respect to the Jay – a beautiful woodland bird that feeds on a variety of things including, yes, some eggs and chicks of other woodland birds. Jay is currently listed on the conservation general licences in England, Wales and Scotland. Who kills Jays for conservation purposes under these general licences? We really don’t know! It isn’t the RSPB who kills no Jays, Magpies or Jackdaws for conservation purposes across its 200 nature reserves in the UK. And it isn’t statutory land-managing organisations in England, Scotland or Wales that have a conservation remit – across our public forests Jays are not killed in anything other than tiny numbers. Note that this includes by NRW itself – NRW is the licensing authority in Wales but is also a land manager and it does not kill Jays on the land it manages, nor does it allow others to do so, despite being the author of the very licence!
Jays are only listed on general licences now for conservation purposes and yet conservation organisations do not kill Jays. So who does? We have no idea except gamekeepers seem very keen to kill Jays. GWCT tell us that 10,000+ Jays a year are killed for conservation purposes in the UK. By whom? Why? How many of these Jays would still be killed if their killers needed a specific licence before they could kill Jays?
A short history of Wild Justice’s challenges of general licences
Wild Justice’s first legal challenge was of Natural England’s general licences in spring 2019. Natural England agreed the licences were unlawful and clumsily withdrew them at a few days notice causing alarm and despondency amongst shooters and some farmers. Natural England then embarked on writing replacement general licences and these looked better to us, but not good enough, and so Wild Justice started a new legal challenge of aspects of those licences. DEFRA caved in, as they so often do, to ill-informed lobbying and took over the licensing job from Natural England. DEFRA held a very brief consultation and then issued new flawed licences but committed to carry out a further review and recently they have issued new licences, still flawed in our view, but better in some respects. We are still examing those licences since their final shape has only been made clear in the last few days.
In Wales, NRW issued new improved licences for 2020 but those licences were still, in our view, unlawful because of lack of clarity over circumstances under which they could be used, and so we started a legal challenge of those licences in 2020 (see below) and that’s how we ended up in court on Friday.
What Wild Justice has achieved so far
Since we challenged the Natural England general licences in February 2019 there have been significant and welcome changes to the general licences in place across England, Scotland and Wales – although not enough! Our action has made a huge difference. Here are some changes:
the species that can be killed have been reduced in number
the species that can be killed for alleged conservation purposes have been reduced
the species for which conservation licences can be used for their conservation have been defined and listed for the first time – the lists are pretty bizarre but the task now is to make them better
in Wales (well done Wales) the circumstances under which the killing of some species to conserve certain other species can be lawful is only to protect eggs and chicks which suggests that it is only valid when those species have eggs/chicks which severly limits the time of year
the places the licences apply now exclude SSSIs etc where special permission is needed
the killing of species to protect gamebirds has been limited
the wording has improved (but not enough)
We believe this is the start and not the end of progress on this important issue.
What happens in a judicial review before you get to court?
To get to court on Friday we had to go through a variety of stages, all time-limited. We sent a formal Pre-action Protocol letter to NRW on 3 February 2020. Here is the start of that 10-page letter (and note that correspondence had started months earlier);
…some bits from the middle:
…. and the end:
NRW asked for more time and replied on 2 March (thus causing delay).
Wild Justice took the next step by filing papers with the court on 17 March; these included a Witness Statement from Wild Justice, outline grounds for the case, a financial statement of means and a permission bundle!
NRW then had to file similar papers with the court and on 3 August we heard that a judge had given us permission for judicial review – in front of a different judge, and that’s what happened on Friday. Ahead of Friday both sides (we are the Claimant, NRW the Defendant) have to provide more paperwork including the skeleton legal arguments on which they will rely.
It’s a process with bouts of high activity and long periods of waiting to see what is going to happen. COVID-19 won’t have speeded things up, nor will BASC, DEFRA and the NFUW applying to be interested parties. BASC were originally turned down as interested parties but got through in the end – we feel their intervention was rather more helpful to our case than NRW’s case as it happened (although we expect BASC may disagree)..
What happened in court on Friday
The hearing took place online – so we all had the joy of logging in and then watching a screen for ages. Our barrister, David Wolfe QC opened proceedings at 10:30 by setting out the general legal framework and what our particular legal gripes were. This took around two hours. Then the Defendant’s barrister had a good chunk of time (interrupted by an hour off for lunch) and followed by shorter speeches by two of the three interested parties’ barristers, first the government’s top lawyer Sir James Eadie (which shows that DEFRA is paying close attention to the implications of this challenge for their own licences) and then the BASC barrister. And then our guy, David Wolfe, gets a slot to say why Defendants and interested parties have got it all wrong. The hearing ended on time just before 4:30.
The judge, His Honour Judge Jarman, asked a few questions but basically listened and took notes. The questions he asked were potentially useful to our case but since we cannot read his mind we’d better not speculate.
Basically what we asked for was that the judge declare the 2020 NRW general licences unlawful because they do not specify the circumstances under which their use would be lawful. You may notice that the 2020 licences have less than a fortnight to run but if they are called unlawful then that has implications for all future licences (and potentially knock-on implications for general licences across the UK, which is why, we imagine, Sir James Eadie was present throughout).
What happens next?
The judge considers the arguments, consults the legal tomes, decides what is right and writes his judgment. The judge said he would be able to do that in the first weeks of January which is very good of him.
What might he decide? We have a strong case, so the judge might, in different words, decide that Wild Justice has NRW bang to rights. That would be great! We’re not banking on that but it is entirely possible.
He might decide that Wild Justice has got it all wrong and NRW has got it all right. We’re hoping this doesn’t happen but most judicial reviews fail so it is a possibility. That would be a shame for us but at least we have tried, and we have shone a light on the whole murky process of general licences – particularly those allegedly for conservation purposes.
Or it might be somewhere in between with each side gaining something, either ‘the licences are unlawful but they aren’t far off being lawful’ or ‘The licences are lawful but they aren’t far off being unlawful, and should be redrafted either now or next time around’.
What happens next 2?
When the judge delivers his judgment we and other parties will have to read it, discuss its implications and decide what to do next. There is the possibility of appealing the judgment if it goes against us. but let’s look at the rosier side of things; success, even limited success, in our challenge has implications for future general licences in Wales and England and Scotland. Wild Justice will be keen to make futher progress in making these licences fit for purpose. Remember, all wild birds are protected by law except under very limited circumstances.
Sorry, that’s a long and somewhat technical blog but we hope it explains many of the issues and the work that goes into taking such a legal challenge. also, we are sometimes asked questions about the process and this blog sets out some answers to regular questions below.
FAQ
Q1: Why is Wild Justice trying to end the killing of pest species?
A1: We’re not (although we don’t like the term pest species) we are trying to make the licensing system both lawful and reasonable. We accept that there are valid reasons for killing bird species but we believe that there is a lot, an awful lot, of casual killing of birds which goes on. And notice that the agencies have removed several species that should never have been on the general licences in the first place from the conservation licences so our action has made them think again.
And, of course, we haven’t challenged the specific licensing system which is another means of licensing bird killing under the law.
Q2: Why does Wild Justice want to see general licences scrapped.
A2: We’ve never asked for them to be scrapped. It’s up to the agencies to come up with general licences that are fit for purpose and lawful. They seem to be struggling, we agree.
Q3: Nobody is going to wipe out Carrion Crows by shooting and trapping them. This isn’t a conservation issue.
A3: General licences allow unregulated unlimited killing so how do you know what could happen in future? Would you say the same about Herring Gulls and Lesser Black-backed Gulls which have been removed from the general licences after our challenge? In those cases there was good evidence that unlimited culling under the general licences did cause population declines. And in any case, the law doesn’t say anything about that – it says all wild birds are protected by law. You could kill Robins, Blackbirds and Avocets, up to a point, without reducing their populations but the law doesn’t allow that either.
Q4: Why don’t you do anything in Scotland on this issue?
A4: As you probably know, there is a separate legal system in Scotland although the laws are basically similar. We know that Nature Scotland and the Scottish government are watching events south of the border with interest and, we believe, with some trepidation. we are prepared to take legal action in Scotland too – but we’d have to find a new bunch of lawyers and barristers with whom to work whereas our legal team, who can operate in England and Wales, are now right up to speed with these issues. Watch this space.
Q5: Everyone was perfectly happy with the general licences until you lot came along and stirred everything up. Everything was fine as it was.
A5: Ha! Ha! We’re often told that everyone knew that the general licences weren’t fit for purpose but that the agencies and the major wildlife NGOs were to scared to change or challenge them. We prefer that version. The scale of change already brought in shows that you are wrong, and we believe there is more to come.
Q6: You’re ripping off the public so that yourselves and a bunch of lawyers can get rich on the proceeds.
A6: That’s very rude of you and completely untrue. Wild Justice is a not-for-profit company and none of its members, the three of us, are paid or get any benefit from the company. In fact, we get death threats and abuse from some quarters and we give freely thousands of hours of our time and experience in bringing these legal challenges to court to make a difference for wildlife.
Our lawyers are brilliant and work long hours and offer us heavily discounted fees. You can see how much our legal challenges cost from our crowdfunders. We have access to the finest legal advice and some brilliant legal minds and pay moderate fees (Shhh! Don’t tell them!).
We don’t have the resources ourselves as individuals to fund such challenges. Nor do lots of other people who support them, but by all chipping in to a crowdfunder together we can mount such challenges and make a difference. Arguably some of the larger wildlife NGOs could have been doing what we are doing, and arguably should have been, but they weren’t, so we stepped in and we have considerable public support for which we are very grateful.
Q7: You’re just anti-shooting aren’t you?
A7: Yawn! No!We are, remember, challenging the shooting of Badgers under Natural England licences – Badger shooting isn’t a fieldsport as far as we are aware. We’re still waiting for an appeal date on that.And if you subscribe to our newsletter – click here – you’ll know something of our plans for the future. Use of pesticides is not a shooting issue is it? The next issue of our newletter goes out tomorrow – you’ll learn more about what we do in that.
Thank you for all your messages of support – these come in a wide variety of forms and we get a lot of really lovely cards – especially at Christmas.
Here are a few of your recent messages:
Eat scouse – not grouse!
I’ve agreed with a friend to make donations instead of buying Christmas presents. So please find enclosed a cheque on behalf of my friend ***** ****
Thanks for all your hard work this year and many congrats on your success.
Thank you for what you are doing, you give us all some hope in a very bleak world.
I thank you for your hard, effective work.
Hope you can keep up the good work – thanks!
Thank you for all the important work you do.
Well done and thank you!
There are lots and lots more along those lines – thank you very much.
And thank you for your donations too – today three cheques, each for £50, arrived in the post and a very generous donor made a donation of £1000 through PayPal. It must be Christmas!
Thank you all for the various forms of support you give us.
Comments Off on Thank you for your suggestions and kind remarks
If you are signed up to our free, occasional, newsletter you will have noticed that we asked for suggestions of future areas that Wild Justice could explore. Newsletter: sign up here. Email us with your suggestions: admin@wildjustice.org.uk with SUGGESTIONS as the email subject please.
Already, ie since Wednesday, we have plenty of good suggestions and you’ve been very kind in sending us lots of uplifting messages too. Here are some of each:
Your messages (just a small selection):
Firstly I’d like to say a massive thank you for what you are doing. It’s high time that our government were taken to task for its treatment of our wildlife, and you are doing just that. You’ve achieved so much in such a short period of time.
Hello, I have been following the progress of Wild Justice closely and I am encouraged by the positive change that has already been made.
Hello lovely people!
Thank you so much for what you are doing and all the best.
With heartfelt thanks for all you are doing and achieving,
Hello Brilliant inspiring Wild Justice
Your suggestions (a selection):
trail hunting
lead ammunition
mowing of verges
felling of trees in bird breeding season
hedgerow destruction
raptor persecution
Beaver protection
planning regime
chemicals used on pets
low-flow rivers
funding for statutory agencies
pesticide use
wildfowling on SPAs
shooting of Snipe and Woodcock
grants to farmers
use of snares
glue traps
rewilding of unused green spaces
overgrazing in National Parks
urban trees
countryside rangers
Thank you for these ideas, some of which are things we have been thinking about, and some of your emails had useful details, and some were new ideas for us to think about.
Wild Justice Director Ruth Tingay was interviewed on Planet Pod recently, discussing wildlife crime in the UK with podcast host Amanda Carpenter and Richard Benwell, CEO of Wildlife & Countryside Link.
Comments Off on General licences in England – Wild Justice legal challenges bring about significant reformMagpie. Photo: Tim Melling
Today DEFRA released new general licences which will apply in England from 1 January 2021 for the calendar year. This is the most recent move in a sequence which started with Wild Justice’s successful first legal challenge to the legality of these licences’ predecessors back in spring 2019. Things have certainly moved on thanks to the pebble we threw into this particular pool and the ripples have probably not stopped spreading yet. All should now stop talking about ‘pest species’ – the licensing system has partly caught up with the science and with the law. All wild birds are protected by law and can only be killed under specific circumstances when non-lethal measures are ineffective. No native species is listed on all three of these licences any more. Since spring 2019, and our legal challenge, the following major changes have been made:
The general licences do not automatically authorise killing of species on SSSIs
Herring Gull and Lesser Black-backed Gull are removed from these general licences and treated differently under a better (though imperfect) licensing system which has more controls built into it
Rook and Jackdaw are removed from the conservation licence – it will be illegal to kill these two species in future and claim that it is for conservation purposes
The conservation licence is only valid (for killing Carrion Crow, Magpie and Jay) for the purpose of conserving a list of species of conservation priority (not necessarily exactly the right species but certainly a step forward)
There are more details to come on animal welfare aspects of killing these species.
Less than two years ago there were 156 species/purpose combinations under which you could possibly kill species but those combinations have now been reduced to 41. That represents a massive change brought about by our legal challenge.
We have yet to talk to our lawyers in any detail about these licences and suspect they may identify remaining problems with them, but our judicial review of the Welsh general licences in mid December will possibly elucidate those legal issues (and DEFRA will have to react to the results of that legal case, whatever they might be).
DEFRA carried out a consultation on these licences last year. We’d like to thank all of you who contributed to that consultation – your views made a difference, without a doubt.
In all modesty, Wild Justice’s legal challenge has prompted the biggest and most far-reaching reform of general licences ever.
The general licences for England from 1 January 2021 can be viewed here:
Wild Justice mounted a legal challenge to make DEFRA review harmful gamebird impacts and introduce proper protection for wildlife sites and we have got DEFRA to address both. There is more to do to make sure this regulation is made to stick but we have reached the limit of what the legal system can do at this stage.
Wild Justice expects that a proper licensing system, compliant with the Habitats Directive, will require the following actions:
Adding the Pheasant and Red-legged Partridge to Schedule 9 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act, which contains species which cause ecological, environmental or socio-economic harm (such as Signal Crayfish, Grey Squirrel, Ruddy Duck, Japanese Knotweed). This means that those species can only be released under licence.
Refusing to license gamebird releases on or within 1km of Natura 2000 sites unless stringent conditions on numbers of birds released are met.
A ban on the use of lead ammunition on or within 1km of all Natura 2000 sites.
Further research on impacts of predation by Pheasants on threatened reptiles such as Common Lizards and Adders.
Further assessment of the influence of gamebird droppings on soil and water chemistry.
Further monitoring of impacts of gamebird releases on densities of scavenging and predatory birds and mammals.
Monitoring by Natural England of a large number of sites to ascertain the extent of damage caused by non-native gamebirds.
Wild Justice said:
‘We’re delighted! And we thank our brilliant lawyers at Leigh Day and Matrix Chambers and hundreds of people who contributed to our crowdfunder which allowed us to take this case.
This is an historic environmental victory by the smallest wildlife NGO in the UK against the massed ranks of government lawyers, DEFRA, Natural England and the shooting industry.
Thanks to our legal challenge, the shooting industry faces its largest dose of regulation since a ban on the use of lead ammunition in wildfowling in England in 1999. Pheasants and Red-legged Partridges are now recognised by government as problem species where their numbers are too high and they cause damage to vegetation, soils, invertebrates, reptiles etc.
This move forward was only possible because of the legal protection given to the environment by the EU Habitats Directive (incidentally, largely drafted by Stanley Johnson, father of the Prime Minister). On 1 January, at the end of the Transition Period, the Habitats Directive and other EU legislation will still be relevant to UK environmental protection but each government in the UK could, in theory and in practice, start amending those laws. Society should be vigilant that environmental protection is not whittled away.
There is more to do in making sure this regulation is made to stick but we have reached the limit of what the legal system can do at this stage. We called for review of gamebird impacts and proper protection of wildlife sites and we have got DEFRA to address both’.
Leigh Day solicitor Carol Day said:
‘The decision to establish a licensing regime for the introduction of some 60 million gamebirds a year is a major breakthrough in regulating the impacts of these non-native birds on our most valuable wildlife sites. Our clients will be examining the detail of the proposed scheme very carefully to ensure that it fulfils the Secretary of State’s obligations under the EU Habitats Directive‘.
Media enquiries to mark@markavery.info
Notes:
Wild Justice is a not-for-profit company set up by Dr Mark Avery, Chris Packham CBE and Dr Ruth Tingay
Pheasants and Red-legged Partridges are non-native species which are bred in captivity and released in vast numbers (around 60 million a year) for recreational shooting. These birds are omnivores and their huge numbers can damage vegetation, fragile invertebrate communities and soils. Their droppings can affect soil and water chemistry. They may spread diseases to native wildlife. They provide abundant food for some predator and scavengers whose elevated population levels may then affect other species.
Natura 2000 sites are those designated under the Birds Directive and Habitats Directive, and form some of the most important sites for nature conservation in the UK.
BASC described the Wild Justice legal challenge as ‘an attack on shooting’, ‘vexatious’ and ‘deeply flawed’ back in January and pledged to fight the legal action.
Comments Off on Raptor Forensics Fund opens with £10K
Earlier this year we proposed a new fund to help the police tackle wildlife crime. The idea was that this fund would help speed up the analysis and assessment of forensic evidence in wildlife crime investigations relating to the illegal killing of birds of prey, where police budgetary and resource constraints were impacting on the progression of potential criminal investigations (see here).
This week we’re delighted to announce the launch of the new Raptor Forensics Fund, which has a very healthy initial budget of £10K. These funds have been donated by Wild Justice, Northern England Raptor Forum, Tayside & Fife Raptor Study Group, Devon Birds, and a number of individuals who wish to remain anonymous.
The Raptor Forensics Fund will be administered solely by the PAW Forensic Working Group (a sub-group of the Partnership for Action Against Wildlife Crime) and is open to any regional or national statutory agency in the UK, specifically to support forensic testing in wild raptor crime investigations.
The fund will support investigations in two ways:
Support for early investigations
We anticipate this fund will be most useful in circumstances where there is suspicion of a crime but insufficient evidence to meet the criteria required to submit a carcass for Government testing. To prevent any delay in progressing an incident, which could also involve a live injured bird of prey, immediate access to funds of up to £200 will be granted for x-rays and post mortems as long as the investigating officer submits case details to the PAW Forensics Working Group (FWG) within 24 hours.
If initial forensic costs are estimated to exceed £200 (e.g. there are multiple birds), officers must first receive approval from the FWG before work begins.
Support for criminal investigations
Once it has been established that a crime has been committed, a criminal investigation can proceed. Additional evidence that may have been recovered with the dead birds or during follow-up enquiries may require forensic testing. Investigators are encouraged to discuss forensic options with the FWG and apply for subsequent funding which, if approved by FWG, will be 100% recoverable from the Raptor Forensics Fund.
Detailed specifics about the availability of the new Raptor Forensics Fund are currently being prepared by the PAW Forensic Working Group and will be distributed to the Police Wildlife Crime Network imminently. The FWG website will also highlight the fund and provide information about how officers can apply for funding support.
Thank you to those who have provided donations for this new fund and thank you to the PAW Forensics Working Group for its willingness to administer the funding applications. We look forward to seeing the money being put to good use to help bring the raptor-killing criminals to court.
Tomorrow is the RSPB AGM and one of many interesting items will be the revelation of the RSPB’s new improved shiny policy on gamebird shooting. The RSPB announced at last year’s AGM that it was doing the review and the shooting organisation have been whipping themselves up into a frenzy over it ever since (as they do!).
In a predictable attempt at a spoiler, shooting organisations are trumpeting a rather meaningless list of principles of game management (BASC, GWCT, Countryside Alliance, Moorland Association). Principles? The Countryside Alliance? Hmm!
Comments Off on Our Badger petition – end of Week 2.Badger. Photo: Chris Packham
We’ve just come to the end of Week 2 of our Badger petition – and we have over 55,000 signatures already!
Thank you for your support for this wonderful mammal.
We are angry at the scale and inhumanity of the NFU-driven, government-sanctioned, Natural England-licensed cull. And the amazing response to the petition is a sign that you are angry too.
We’ll be asking for your help in various ways over the weeks ahead and we’re doing some thinking about that now. We’ll keep you informed of how you can help through our newsletter (sign up, free, here) but in the meantime please just spread the word of the petition to your friends, family and workmates.
All UK residents and UK citizens living abroad can sign the petition – here is the link.
And if you follow that link you can also see where the signatures come from:
This story in the Guardian today backs up our worries about the impacts of massive, unregulated releases of gamebirds on wildlife in our countryside, included on designated sites.
Nigel Hand, a reptile expert, describes the impacts of Pheasants in particular in gobbling up young snakes such as the declining Adder. We have made these points in our case for judicial review of gamebird releases. It’s very helpful to have this support.
Teresa Dent of the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust (more for the conservation of game shooting than wildlife we think) says that GWCT has carried out detailed research but fails to come clean on the fact that their research was not on Adders, so probably best to go with the Adder expert Nigel Hand who believes that, of all the factors affecting Adders, and causing their decline, the massive releases of gamebirds is the most important.
Wild Justice’s case will be heard in court on 3 and 4 November, and it may force DEFRA to regulate gamebird releases in future.
Comments Off on Our Badger petition – the first weekBadger. Photo: Chris Packham
We’ve just had the first week of our Badger petition – and we have over 48,000 signatures already!
Thank you for your support for this wonderful mammal.
We are angry at the scale and inhumanity of the NFU-driven, government-sanctioned, Natural England-licensed cull. And the amazing response to the petition is a sign that you are angry too.
We hope to get to the threshold of 100,000 signatures which almost certainly triggers a debate in parliament but we also hope to get further than 100,000. After all, we’re at the end of Week 1 and we have 25 more weeks to go!
We’ll be asking for your help in various ways over the weeks ahead, but there is a very simple way that you can help and that is to spread the word of the petition to your friends, please.
All UK residents and UK citizens living abroad can sign the petition – here is the link.
And if you follow that link you can also see where the signatures come from:
Comments Off on Our Badger petitionBadger. Photo: Chris Packham
Tony Juniper, Chair of Natural England
It’s Tony Juniper’s birthday today and the House of Commons Petitions Committee have inadvertently given him a present from Wild Justice – a petition against the free-shooting of Badgers which Natural England licenses. For his birthday present Tony, Chair of Natural England, is seeing that the licensing of Badger shooting is one of the most unpopular actions that Natural England has ever taken.
Our petition – thanks to all of you out there – has just passed the 10,000 signatures mark which triggers a response from government. It’s taken just eight hours to reach this landmark total.
There’s a long way to go to the next landmark, of 100,000 signatures, but let’s see whether we can get there with a little help from our friends. Click here to have a look at the petition please.
We’ll keep you up to date with progress on this blog but also on our free newsletter which also provides a wider view of Wild Justice’s work – click here to subscribe.
Wld Justice’s challenge, and the potent threat of further legal action, has prompted a long (will it have been thorough?) review of general licences in England whose results we should see in the next four weeks or so. We look forward to seeing what DEFRA has come up with.
Meanwhile, Wild Justice has been given permission for judicial review of the Welsh general licences too – see here, here, here.
It is horrifying that we have to fight our own government to save the environment.
Comments Off on Our legal challenge on gamebird releases features in The Guardian
In a week where gamebird shooting has been in the media spotlight following its exemption from the so-called ‘rule of six’ measure to tackle the spread of Covid19, our legal challenge against the unregulated annual release of almost 60 million non-native gamebirds for shooting has featured in The Guardian.
Last week we had a setback on our Badger case when we heard that the Hon Mr Justice Johnson had refused permission for judicial review of Natural England’s licensing of Badger shooting.
This week, after consulting with our legal team, we’ve decided to appeal the judge’s order and today we lodged court papers to this effect.
Our view remains unchanged that Badger shooting is inhumane and that Natural England is not taking full account of the animal welfare aspects of Badger culling.
If you’d like to continue to take action on this issue then sign up to our free newsletter for some tips over the coming weeks (and all Wild Justice’s news on other subjects).
Comments Off on 100,000+ e-actions – thank you!Chris Packham and Iolo Williams live on Twitter as the counter passed 100,000 e-actions a little while ago.
Three weeks ago on Hen Harrier Day (online) we launched an e-action with Hen Harrier Action and the RSPB. Since then over 100,000 people have contacted MPs in England, members of the Senedd in Wales, MSPs in Scotland and Assembly Members in Northern Ireland to bring the plight of the Hen Harrier and the unsustainable management of grouse moors to the attention of elected politicians.
The response from the public has been fantastic. And some politicians have responded well too. Here at Wild Justice we will be contacting those people who subscribe to our newsletter to help them carry on the advocacy with their elected politicians. The main targets to influence have to be the parties of government in the two UK nations where grouse shooting is a major land use – the SNP in Scotland and the Conservative Party in England.
Yesterday evening we heard that we have been refused permission for judicial review of Natural England’s licensing of Badger shooting. This is a grave disappointment.
The Hon Mr Justice Johnson said:
We will, of course, need to discuss this with our legal team and consider whether to appeal this judgment.
This setback on legal grounds does not in any way affect our view that Badger shooting is inhumane and that Natural England is not taking full account of the animal welfare aspects of Badger culling. We submitted a petition in the Westminster government petition system calling for an end to shooting of Badgers almost four weeks ago and we are waiting for it to emerge…
This review forms a major part of DEFRA’s response to our legal challenge over the impacts on sites of high conservation importance of unregulated releases of tens of millions of non-native gamebirds. It was commissioned last autumn, appears to have been completed this spring but was only published last week, in late summer (over a year after our legal challenge started).
Wild Justice’s position on the science is that because this review does not rule out ecological impacts then DEFRA should act as though such impacts exist until it has done the necessary work to investigate further. Lack of proof for an impact cannot be taken as proof for lack of an impact, particularly where there is evidence that such an impact is entirely feasible.
And that, essentially, is where we think the science leaves DEFRA – not being able to discount impacts of exactly the sorts that the Wild Justice challenge identified. We’ll have to leave it to the lawyers to figure out where we go from here but if DEFRA had hoped to put a line through all of our concerns then this review doesn’t do that.
Overall quality of, and findings of, the review
We regard this as a sound piece of work. It comes to essentially the same conclusions that everyone else does, that there are some potentially harmful impacts of releasing very, very large numbers of non-native birds into the countryside, these are not foolish concerns but because they have not been studied in great detail their magnitude is unknown – unknown, not nonexistent. In other words they might be big impacts and that possibility has not been ruled out. Moreover, the more birds that are released the greater these impacts will be.
We do not mean to disparage this review by saying this, but it hasn’t moved knowledge on very much. The view expressed in the paragraph above could probably have been agreed over a couple of pints in a pub by the authors of this review, Wild Justice, GWCT and a bunch of ecologists. DEFRA, NE and others have spent the last year confirming what we all knew a year ago.
Limitations with this review
This review is a sound piece of work but its value to DEFRA in addressing the science of the Wild Justice legal challenge is somewhat limited. This is partly because of the scope of the review (which was presumably decided by DEFRA and Natural England (and perhaps, bizzarely, BASC) rather than by the authors).
To recap, Wild Justice says that millions of released gamebirds (Pheasants and Red-legged Partridges) are likely to have impacts on Natura 2000 sites (Special Protection Areas for Birds and Special Areas of Conservation) which need to be assessed. These impacts include physical impacts of trampling, grazing, eating of invertebrates, removal of seed resources otherwise available to wild native species, increases in predator and scavenger populations (eating live or dead gamebirds), increased fertiliser input of defecating gamebirds, increases in persecution of birds of prey and increased use of lead shot.
Because gamebirds move around, and Wild Justice has already demonstrated that Pheasants and/or Red-legged Partridges are found on all Natura 2000 sites or in their very close neighbourhood, then all Natura 2000 sites are potentially affected by gamebird releases. We are not concerned with sites on which gamebirds are released, we are concerned with sites on which released gamebirds occur, and not just lowland sites but all sites as was eminently clear in our legal papers (which the authors of this review may well not have seen) which have been with DEFRA for months and months.
So, some headline limitations with this review include:
very little attention has been paid to upland sites (this is a bit odd in that we know from BTO data that Pheasant numbers have increased more rapidly in upland areas)
there is very little attention given to Red-legged Partridges (presumably because more of the literature is on Pheasants)
there is no analysis of impacts specifically on SPAs and/or SACs (and yet that is the focus of our legal challenge)
the impacts of lead ammunition use on shoots is not covered (presumably because it is embarrassing to DEFRA that a very thorough review of ecological (and health) impacts of lead ammunition use was provided to DEFRA in 2015 which recommended phasing out of lead ammunition and this has never been implemented by DEFRA).
the authors say they can’t find any link between gamebird releases and raptor persecution incidents but, as they must know, there is no complete database of raptor persecution incidents for them to use in analysis. (The authors have ignored the fact that the great majority of convictions for crimes against birds of prey are by people whose jobs are associated with gamebird shooting).
These are fairly significant limitations. However, we accept that the major limitation is not the fault of the authors nor solely the fault of the commissioners of this review, and that limitation is that the necessary studies have not been carried out.
There are several studies which show that at high densities, often in or near release pens, gamebirds have detrimental impacts on vegetation or invertebrate biomass. These are important because if they had shown no impact at all then that would be strong evidence for no harmful impact. However, because at high densities there is a discernible impact then, biologically, we must assume that there is a more widespread but lower impact when all those gamebirds are released to roam around over a larger area. They do not stop eating invertebrates, pecking at vegetation or defecating for the months that they are outside of the release pens it is just that any impacts are spread over a much wider area and for a much longer period of time.
So, Wild Justice’s concerns are confirmed and endorsed by this review. What will DEFRA do as a result?
There are other quibbles we have with this review, which we may add in here as time goes on and on re-reading of the work.
Comments Off on Generous donation from WILD Sounds
Huge thanks to Duncan from WILD Sounds for a very generous donation of £600, collected from sales of Dara McAnulty’s debut book, Diary of a Young Naturalist.
Ironically, the cheque was written on the Inglorious 12th!
Duncan is a long-time friend of Wild Justice and we are enormously grateful to him and to everyone else who continues to support our work. Without it, we couldn’t do anything!
A couple of weeks ago the three of us (Chris Packham, Mark Avery and Ruth Tingay) were interviewed by raptor ecologist Jimmi Hill from the charity Raptor Aid to find out what makes us tick and what drives us to make change.
The interview is available to watch on our YouTube channel:
Exactly 10 days ago we launched a joint e-action with the RSPB and Hen Harrier Action on Hen Harrier Day. Your response has been incredible – over 55,000 e-action messages have been sent to elected politicians across the UK.
This e-action will close at midnight on 31 August and we are wondering how high the numbers can reach. Please tell your friends about it and turn to the person closest to you right now and see whether they will sign up, please.
All MPs in England have heard from their constituents with the sole possible exception of Julian Lewis in New Forest East who doesn’t have an email address!
The leading England constituencies for this e-action look like a familiar list to those who have campaigned on environmental matters: Here are the top 20 constituencies colour-coded by the party (Conservative, Labour, LibDem or Green) of the sitting MP.
Derbyshire Dales, 136 e-actions
High Peak, 135 e-actions
Coastal Suffolk, 131 e-actions
Sheffield Hallam, 131 e-actions
Central Devon, 125 e-actions
Isle of Wight, 121 e-actions
Somerton and Frome, 119 e-actions
Wells, 119 e-actions
Thirsk and Malton, 114 e-actions
Bristol West, 114 e-actions
Totnes, 114 e-actions
Skipton and Ripon, 110 e-actions
South Cambridgeshire, 109 e-actions
Brighton Pavilion, 108 e-actions
West Dorset, 108 e-actions
Calder Valley, 106 e-actions
Southeast Cambridgeshire, 106 e-actions
Keighley, 105 e-actions
Westmorland and Lonsdale, 103 e-actions
South Norfolk, 99 e-actions
A good mixture of constituencies with high support in some grouse shooting areas. Nice to see Therese Coffey MP being reminded by her constituents that she should have done more on this subject when she was a DEFRA minister. The number of Conservative seats in this list should bring home to individual MPs that this is an issue for them and their government is expected to take more action on raptor persecution and unsustainable grouse moor management.
We will provide further updates here for other parts of the UK, on overall numbers and information on how you can make sure that your MP (or other elected politician) does take notice of your views on this subject.
And please ask your friends to add their voices to this e-action – here is the link.
Comments Off on Permission granted for judicial review of Welsh general licences – we’re going to court.
Jackdaw. Photo: Tim Melling
Good news! This morning we heard from our legal team that the Hon Mr Justice Griffiths has granted us permission for judicial review of Natural Resources Wales’s (NRW’s) general licences – we are going to court!
Moreover, we have been granted an expedited hearing which is excellent.
This challenge is to the legality of NRW’s general licences authorising the killing of a variety of bird species as ‘pests’ or for nature conservation purposes. See these posts on the Wild Justice blog for more details if you are interested in the technicalities – see here, here, here and here. This challenge is, thanks to you, fully funded – see here.
We don’t know when this case will come to court but some time in the autumn looks likely.
Mr Justice Griffiths refused BASC’s (British Association for Shooting and Conservation’s) application to be added as an Interested Party ‘because the Defendant [NRW] and Secretary of State [DEFRA, as an Interested Party] sufficiently represent the interests engaged by the claim and can advance the evidence and arguments to oppose it. The addition of BASC as a further Interested Party is neither necessary nor desirable and would only serve to increase the costs and prolong the proceedings.‘. We expect BASC, having blown one gasket (see here) to blow another one on this correct characterisation of their value to these proceedings; neither necessary nor desirable. We wonder what the BASC membership will make of this as undoubtedly BASC will have incurred staff and legal costs already in getting nowhere…
Still, we mustn’t gloat…
These legal cases often seem quite long drawn out affairs. And then news, often good news (but it won’t always be good news) pops out all of a sudden.
Comments Off on Thank you for emailing Nicola Sturgeon (7)
Yesterday evening we sent out a newsletter asking our supporters to email Nicola Sturgeon about the scale of wildlife crime in Scotland, exemplified by the poisoning of this young White-tailed Eagle that was found on a grouse moor inside the Cairngorms National Park.
The response has been amazing so we thought we’d post a few examples here. This is the seventh tranche of examples.
Have a look at the examples below and please add your own voice. Tell Ms Sturgeon how you felt when you saw the image above. Ask her to act now. You don’t have to send a long email, or a clever email, or a learned email – just speak from the heart. And you don’t have to be Scottish or to live in Scotland.
If you are prepared to send a polite, but firm, email to Nicola Sturgeon, First Minister of Scotland, then this is her email address; firstminister@gov.scot
Thank you!
Dear Ms Sturgeon and Cunningham, I am saddened to read of the poisoning of another white-tailed eagle, in the interests of grouse shooting. The poisoning of a sensate creature is an offence against empathy of course, but so is the whole leisure activity of shooting birds, as a pastime. It’s time it was stopped. Yours sincerely,
Dear First Minister and Cabinet Secretary,I am writing to you after seeing the photograph of this poor bird on the Wild Justice email that I subscribe to. It is yet another example of the flagrant breach of environmental law that is all too common on and near the grouse moors of Scotland and England. I annually visit Scotland to enjoy its magnificent scenery, wildlife and hospitality after spending a year at Stirling University over 40 years ago. The persecution of wildlife to support a small minority interest is unacceptable and often illegal. Tourism is a much more important part of the Scotish economy and the publicity surrounding the continual persecution of wildlife to support driven grouse shooting will not help to boost tourist numbers. I am not advocating a ban on grouse shooting as such but driven grouse shooting and the damaging practices surrounding the activity must be much better controlled or banned. Some estates practice rough grouse shooting and do not kill raptors and mountain hares and do not practice widespread heather burning and bog drainage. This allows people who wish to pursue shooting to do so in a less cruel and environmentally damaging way. I urge you to set an example to those estates that flout environmental laws that it is unacceptable and there will be real penalties for those that continue with these barbaric practices. This must include much more effective investigation of incidents and prosecution of offenders. I hope too that it will send a strong message to the UK Government that similar action needs to be taken to stop similar practices in Northern England. Yours sincerely,
Dear First Minister, I am sure that, like me, you were disappointed and saddened to see the recent pictures released by Police Scotland showing an example of poisoning of another animal in Scotland’s countryside. You cannot fail to be aware that this bird probably represents the tip of the iceberg and was only discovered thanks to the tracking device that was attached to the bird. Whilst not all grouse moors are as poorly managed as this one appears to be it cannot have escaped your notice that there is a serious problem in these areas with illegal persecution of wildlife of all kinds. I am sure I do not need to remind you of the obvious negative impacts of grouse moors in terms of wildlife but also in their amenity value in flood prevention, carbon storage as well as biodiversity which forms an important part in Scotland’s offering for tourists. The negative publicity this sort of story attracts is not good for Scotland and is likely to deter visitors. Whilst I know that there are important issues of Public Health on your agenda at the present time please take a moment to remember that this will pass and human life will recover (we have the ability to shape our environment). But for our wildlife things are on a knife edge, and someone like yourself who clearly cares passionately about Scotland and its heritage have the chance to do something positive whether it be banning grouse shooting or just funding the police so they have the resources to investigate persistent offenders against inhabitants of Scotland who cannot speak for themselves. Whatever you choose to do, please just do something to help Regards
Dear First Minister and Cabinet Secretary, I have this evening been sent a photo (attached) of a beautiful white-tailed eagle that had been poisoned on a grouse moor in the Cairngorms National Park. I am so saddened by this I feel compelled to write to you to see if you can make a difference, for example by giving extra support to the police to pursue wildlife crimes, increasing surveillance in the area or banning grouse hunting, as the crime is almost certainly carried out by those with hunting interests. I’m sure none of us want to see these fabulous birds needlessly and painfully killed. Thanks in advance for any action you may take, best regards
Dear First Minister, I hope this letter finds you safe and well in these troubling times. You seem to have done a great job with controlling the Covid virus outbreak in Scotland, well done indeed. I have to raise the issue of the poisoning by banned chemicals of the White-tailed eagle in Cairngorms National Park. These beautiful birds of prey have been re-introduced, not just in Scotland, due to having already been shot, trapped and poisoned to extinction. To see this happening all over again in your beautiful country beggars belief. The cause for this poor bird’s death and countless other raptors, are the driven grouse moors and their need to present as many grouse as possible for shooting. Why or how this still carries on in Scotland in 2020 is beyond most people’s comprehension. Traditions are one thing but grouse shooting is just outrageous in this day and age. And to kill everything else to maximise the event is barbaric. It needs to stop now. Kind regards,
Dear First minister of Scotland, The recent poisoning of a young white-tailed eagle in the Cairngorms demonstrates how vulnerable birds of prey are to this form of attack, and how little protection current legislation offers. The crumpled image on the ground is in stark contrast to how they are in life – flying high and determined to survive. This determination in adversity can be matched by you and your government to stop this practice of the deliberate killing of birds of prey in Scotland. Help to protect eagles and other birds of prey by increasing police surveillance of large birds of prey and harsher sanctions for when people are caught deliberately killing birds of prey. Show you care by investigating this practise. So that people understand that these casual killings which lead to such devastating effects will not be tolerated. So that eagles and other birds of prey can be helped to survive in Scotland in future. Best regards,
Comments Off on Thank you for emailing Nicola Sturgeon (6)
Yesterday evening we sent out a newsletter asking our supporters to email Nicola Sturgeon about the scale of wildlife crime in Scotland, exemplified by the poisoning of this young White-tailed Eagle that was found on a grouse moor inside the Cairngorms National Park.
The response has been amazing so we thought we’d post a few examples here. This is the sixth tranche of examples.
Have a look at the examples below and please add your own voice. Tell Ms Sturgeon how you felt when you saw the image above. Ask her to act now. You don’t have to send a long email, or a clever email, or a learned email – just speak from the heart. And you don’t have to be Scottish or to live in Scotland.
If you are prepared to send a polite, but firm, email to Nicola Sturgeon, First Minister of Scotland, then this is her email address; firstminister@gov.scot
Thank you!
Dear Ms Sturgeon I am sure that you are aware of the recent tragic and illegal poisoning of a young White-tailed Eagle, found on the Strathdon Estate. My social media feeds are full of the story, and to make matters worse, it happened within the Cairngorms National Park, a short way up the road from where I am currently holidaying in Grantown on Spey. I am equally sure that you would like to avoid seeing such stories in the future, which are a slap in the face for Scottish conservationists and a stain on the reputation of the country. Please consider making driven grouse shooting illegal, or if that is a step too far, insist that shooting estates need to be licenced and those licences could be taken away for such happenings. Vicarious liability ought to stop the iniquitous situation where if a prosecution takes place, the land-owner is not held liable. Perhaps if raptor numbers are below those that ecologists think ought to be present, then licences would not be issued? I know that there is money in shooting, but there is also money in wildlife tourism. A friend of mine runs a dedicated wildlife-watching hotel in Grantown and photographers pay good money to shoot birds as well. With a camera, after which they can fly away and carry on with their lives. There is another future for Scotland and its wildlife. Thanks for taking the time to read this and I hope that wildlife protection will get the resources and enthusiasm it needs in what I expect will become a sovereign nation in the years ahead. Yours sincerely
Dear Ms Cunningham, No doubt you will be aware of the incident detailed below:
My constituency is Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch and I went to a surgery to talk to Kate Forbes about raptor persecution following the publication of the Werrity Report. At that meeting I highlighted the issues around intensive grouse shooting including raptor persecution and urged Ms Forbes to support the immediate introduction of licencing for grouse moors. Her response was that she favoured the consensus view that a review would be carried out after five years to see if self regulation of grouse shooting would work. Is this the SNP view? If so, how many raptors is the Scottish Government prepared to sacrifice before it takes action. This is happening in a National Park. A park which has intensive grouse shooting as a major land-use. A park that is devoid of raptors over these areas. A park where visitors struggle to see Golden Eagle. It need not be this way. Clearly this incident demonstrates that this is an “industry” incapable of self-regulation, out of control and dependent on criminality to continue its activities. I would urge to support the immediate introduction of licencing. Regards
Dear First Minister, I write this in sadness, but not shock. In despair, but not surprise. Certain crimes, it appears, are permitted to happen in Scotland with impunity. If a criminal connected with a grouse moor wishes to commit a wildlife crime they can do so in Scotland, it seems, knowing there will be no legal consequences for them. If owners of grouse moors direct wildlife crimes to be committed on their property it seems they can do so knowing there will be no legal consequences for them. The poisoning of a white-tailed eagle is only the latest known incidence of rampant wildlife crime on Scotland’s grouse moors. Of course the known cases are the tip of the iceberg of the horrific suffering of Scotland’s wildlife that must be going on unreported. And yet despite the mounting reputational damage to Scotland, just at a time when attracting tourists to Scotland is more important than ever to protect livelihoods and support the economy, despite the casual unlawful killing of some of Scotland’s most spectacular wildlife, it appears nothing is being done. Your handling of the Covid-19 crisis has been brilliant. You have shown compassion for Scotland and its people. You have been able to take decisive measures and have explained to Scotland’s people why those measures were necessary and you have brought Scotland along with you. You are the envy of many other less able political leaders. Please First Minister, if you want, you can get this growing national scandal under control. Consulting with the grouse moor people won’t work. That’s been tried. I don’t live in Scotland, but have holidayed many times over the years. The last time we came we avoided going to areas of recorded wildlife crime, besides, the land in those areas has been all but destroyed. Sadly, I can’t envisage another holiday in Scotland any time soon. It seems too much like a wildlife crime hotspot with weak law enforcement. I know this view may not be accepted but that’s how it appears. Will you take a look at this issue and see what you can do? Thank you for taking the time to read this note and I wish you well in your continued dealing with the pandemic. Yours sincerely,
Dear Ministers This has to stop! Please bring these criminals to )serious) justice and protect what is far more important than the survival of reared game birds. We are coming on holiday to the highlands next week with the specific intent of seeing wildlife and sea eagles in particular Please act – our world depends on your actions Respectfully yours
Dear First Minister and Cabinet Secretary I have, this evening, been made aware of the appalling death – by poisoning – of the White-tailed Eagle, in the Cairngorms National Park. I wanted to register my intense sadness at this – presumably deliberate – act against a beautiful and rare Scottish treasure of a bird. May I urge you to do what you think is morally right to ensure this does not happen again to other valuable and much-loved birds of prey? Banning driven grouse shooting and licensing all wildlife shooting would seem to be a good place to start and should, apart from some administrative cost (which could be covered by license fees), be low effort measures. Whilst there is clearly going to be a pressure on public services in the aftermath of Covid, increasing police resources to tackle wildlife crime, I’m sure, would engender support from the public – particularly the Scottish common man and woman. Thank you for considering my views. Yours sincerely
Hello I’ve just seen the photo provided by Scottish Police of the young white-tailed Eagle found poisoned on the grouse moors. Its a really tragic photo, one which I see on Twitter too many times of raptors killed over grouse moors. I’m not a political person I just love to see raptors in their habitats. I love Scotland and driving up the A7 to my sisters in the Borders and seeing the countryside change, the mountains and the birds. Can you do anything to tackle this? The more you hear about the grouse moors the more it would seem that anything that isn’t a grouse that earns a few people money and status needs to be shot, poisoned , trapped, you name it. Protecting the hares was wonderful, but how can we help these beautiful raptor from these painful terrible deaths at the hands of gamekeepers? Or how can you standback and not use your power to find out why and who? You are doing great work, can you stop the people who are doing this? Many thanks
Comments Off on Chris Packham writes to Nicola Sturgeon and Roseanna Cunningham
Chris writes: Today I sent this letter to Nicola Sturgeon and Roseanna Cunningham. I’ve had enough of the criminal slaughter of our raptors on driven grouse moors . Please send polite emails yourself to firstminister@gov.scot CabSecECCLR@gov.scot
Dear Nicola and Roseanna
I hope you are both well in these strange and worrying times.
I’m writing about the White-tailed Eagle which has recently been found poisoned in the Cairngorms National Park , which by now you will be familiar with . And I’ll speak candidly and frankly.
We, that’s every decent , law abiding , well informed and committed conservationist in the UK, have had enough of this relentless criminal slaughter. We, and you, know precisely who the criminals are and we want you to put an end to it now. Not later, now. We are justifiably incensed by the ever growing pile of corpses which represents not only a considerably negative impact on the ecology of Scotland’s landscape, but also the vile destruction of our natural national heritage.
This increasingly high profile vandalism is not compatible with the Climate and Environment Emergency which you have declared. It is not compatible with the need to protect biodiversity and it is not compatible with Scottish Tourism. People come from all over the world to visit the Highlands and . . . to see eagles.
We cannot wait for the consultation following the Werrity Report, like so much else in life this is taking too long and will be corrupted by parties with a vested and nefarious interest in protecting their criminal element. Figures suggest that almost one fifth of Scotland is given over to driven grouse shooting and yet if Scotland’s economy were the size of Ben Nevis this industry’s contribution would be the size of a small banjo. Why are you hesitating to act against this environmentally destructive practice which is irrefutably underpinned by illegal activities?
There is not a single case of a successful prosecution for the killing of an eagle in Scotland. Not one. And yet, as your own report into satellite tracked birds revealed, a disproportionate number of these magnificent creatures disappear under suspicious circumstances on driven grouse moors . And as you know, this is just the visible tip of an iceberg of death.
You are in dereliction of your duty to protect Scotland’s wildlife. You are demonstrating a wilful blindness to a national disgrace which shames your government, people and country.
Please act now to root out these criminals and stop this cruel destruction of our most treasured birds.
Comments Off on Thank you for emailing Nicola Sturgeon (5)
Yesterday evening we sent out a newsletter asking our supporters to email Nicola Sturgeon about the scale of wildlife crime in Scotland, exemplified by the poisoning of this young White-tailed Eagle that was found on a grouse moor inside the Cairngorms National Park.
The response has been amazing so we thought we’d post a few examples here. This is the fifth tranche of examples.
Have a look at the examples below and please add your own voice. Tell Ms Sturgeon how you felt when you saw the image above. Ask her to act now. You don’t have to send a long email, or a clever email, or a learned email – just speak from the heart. And you don’t have to be Scottish or to live in Scotland.
If you are prepared to send a polite, but firm, email to Nicola Sturgeon, First Minister of Scotland, then this is her email address; firstminister@gov.scot
Thank you!
Dear Roseanna Cunningham, I am writing to express my disgust at the poisoning, accidental or deliberate (though I believe the latter most likely) of a juvenile White Tailed Eagle in the Cairngorms National Park. I am horrified that killings of birds such as this rare and beautiful eagle are still prevalent in Scotland, particularly in a National Park. I am angry that the Scottish Government, like many others in the UK and elsewhere in the world (though that is no defence) is still not doing enough to protect all wildlife, not just rare birds such as the White Tailed Eagle. It is time the Scottish Government took this more seriously. Grouse shooting for sport should be banned. Indeed, shooting for sport should be banned. The police should be tasked and resourced sufficiently to take action against any and all illegal actions that deliberately harm our wildlife and environment. Laws should be enforced, and enacted where insufficient or non existent, to ensure that wildlife and the environment is fully protected. Scotland must show it is leading the world and take strong action to end killings such as this. I hope that you can take such action and demonstrate the Scottish Governments commitment to wildlife and the environment and its willingness to take action to protect and enhance it for future generations. Best wishes.
Dear Ms Sturgeon, I have admiration for you and how you are coping with this pandemic and really feel that Scotland shows England how it should behave, but the wholesale killing of wild life on grouse moors really lets you and all your countrymen down – just to pander to rich guys who find it a sport to shoot birds. I imagine a lot of them are English too. I realise that jobs and money are involved but so is respect – what an example you could be to the rest of the world – well at least to those politicians in the UK. Please do what you can to make sure wild life, which is one of Scotland’s attractions, is protected better. Yours,
This email is to plead with the First Minister for Scotland and Cabinet Secretary, people in power, to stop this outrageous illegal killing of wild animals. How, in 2020 do we still allow the illegal persecution of birds of prey. This fabulous protected bird died the most horrible death by poison AND in the Cairngorms National Park on grouse moors….well there is a surprise!! I thought the Cairngorms National Park was given National Park status for the protection it affords the animals and landscapes that all locals and visitors love, treasure and visit in their thousands, myself and my husband included! Something needs to be done to stop this heinous crime!! Why is driven grouse shooting still allowed? All wildlife shooting should require a license, why not take that step to protect? Why can’t money be made available to increase police resources? After all the tourist industry in Scotland is worth millions, so use a little of that to support what tourists come to see? Will we visit the Cairngorms National Park again if nothing is done ? The answer is…NO! Please, please do something to stop this sad and barbaric crime continuing, you have responsibility! Thank you from the bottom of my heart
Dear Cabinet Secretary, I was horrified to hear today of the poisoning of a white-tailed eagle in Strathdon in the Cairngorms National Park, but, sadly, not surprised. I am a keen paraglider pilot and captain of the Southern team in the annual UK North-South Paragliding Cup. Four years ago we held the competition in the beautiful surroundings of the Cairngorms. We had some of the best flying I’ve ever had, taking us across stunning remote scenery, but I was most stunned by the complete absence of birds of prey. I have never experienced anything like it anywhere in the world and I have flown extensively in the Americas, Europe, Africa and Asia. I implore you to clamp down on this barbaric behaviour. Yours, with best wishes,
Dear First Minister. It was brought to my attention tonight the horrific death of a young endangered White-tailed Eagle. It’s beautiful body was found in the Cairngorms National Park. An area we have previously holidayed to specifically try and view these amazing birds. They have to be a real asset to Scotlands tourist industry and should be protected at all costs. It is therefore such a tragedy that this young bird has died. The way it died is however abhorrent and a criminal act. It was found in grouse moors in Strathdon poisoned, I would imagine by gamekeepers managing this area for the shooting season. A cruel painful slow death. This surely now puts into question this whole industry. The vast majority of the UK public are without question against these so called “sports” which are lead by cruelty for the blood thirsty rich or landed gentry. This activity serves no place in a modern civilised society. It’s no longer 1880 when these pastimes were acceptable and they must now be banned. I look forward to your response to this incident and hope you stand for the rights of Scotlands unique, amazing wildlife and can be strong and protect and prevent this happening time and time again. Yours sincerely
Dear First Minister and Cabinet Secretary Ref: crime, no. CF0160960720 In December, on one of my then frequent visits to the Cairngorms, I was lucky enough to have a long, silent, encounter with a majestic young white-tailed eagle. It was a magical seven minutes or so, as the two of us stared at each other, while the hares kept a low profile, the kestrel gave up and headed north and the eagle hung in the air above me. It wasn’t shy, this sea eagle. It was inquisitive, intelligent, curious. Anyone can enjoy an encounter like that, even the unfit and the unarmed – I wasn’t on a summit, just up the Geal Charn Mhor path in the Monadh Liath. There were small defunct mammal traps around – this is an old grouse moor – but right here, no one’s shooting grouse, so the eagle was safe, as were the ever-more-scarce hare thankfully, and indeed the grouse. In that same month, hundreds of people could, quietly, individually, have enjoyed breathtaking, inspriring, memorable encounters like mine that day. So when a landowner, businessman, gamekeeper or any other single individual takes it upon themselves to poison any of these creatures, they rob you and all the other people in your extraordinary beautiful country. I’ve not been to Scotland since February because of the pandemic. Partly I don’t want to add to the traffic your poor Highlands are being swamped by. Partly, the current crop of wild-crappers are ruining the hills, lochsides and peace for the usual bunch of us – walkers and climbers who respect Scotland, its people, land, water, history and wildlife. But even without the pandemic, the filth and the litter, as long as the country panders to people who know how to shoot with a gun, but apparently not with a camera, and their lackeys who poison and trap, I feel it’s not just the wild-crappers who are killing Scotland. It’s anyone in power who lets this keep going on without at least withdrawing these people’s shooting licences, and ideally encouraging a better use of the land. Yours sincerely
Comments Off on Thank you for emailing Nicola Sturgeon (4)
Yesterday evening we sent out a newsletter asking our supporters to email Nicola Sturgeon about the scale of wildlife crime in Scotland, exemplified by the poisoning of this young White-tailed Eagle that was found on a grouse moor inside the Cairngorms National Park.
The response has been amazing so we thought we’d post a few examples here. This is the fourth tranche of examples.
Have a look at the examples below and please add your own voice. Tell Ms Sturgeon how you felt when you saw the image above. Ask her to act now. You don’t have to send a long email, or a clever email, or a learned email – just speak from the heart. And you don’t have to be Scottish or to live in Scotland.
If you are prepared to send a polite, but firm, email to Nicola Sturgeon, First Minister of Scotland, then this is her email address; firstminister@gov.scot
Thank you!
Dear Madam, as the First Minister of a fine country, one of much outstanding beauty, I’m sure you will be as shocked as saddened by the poisoning of a White-tailed Eagle in your Cairngorms National Park.It is, of course, the tip of a wicked iceberg of illegal wildlife destruction, Grouse shooting being at the root of most of these acts.No doubt your police and environment officers will try to pursue the culprits, who are killing the jewels that grace the wild parts of your visitor-hungry country. Respectfully,
Dear Ms Sturgeon and Ms Cunningham, I am sure you are both aware of the young White-tailed Eagle recently found dead, poisoned, in Strathdon, an area of grouse moors which, despite being in a part of the Cairngorms National Park, is unfortunately known as a wildlife crime hotspot. I have for some years been aware of the ongoing persecution of birds of prey in areas used for driven grouse shooting, both in England and Scotland. This latest incident, involving a young bird that will no doubt have died an agonising death, has both saddened and angered me. As a life long bird watcher and lover of all wildlife, I have visited Scotland, and specifically the Cairngorms, a number of times, but this relentless persecution of birds of prey has made me reluctant to visit again – if your government and the authorities are unable to prevent these blatant criminal acts, then I fear for the future of what is supposedly a national park – will it just be left, as seems increasingly likely, for the minority of people who revel in the killing of birds (and mammals) for supposed ‘sport’, but ultimately, in my view, just for their perverted pleasure. I have supported a number campaigns over the years which call for the banning of driven grouse shooting – an activity which can only be sustained through the destruction of many other mammals and birds, some legally but many not, including Mountain Hares, and an activity which is also detrimental to the landscape and general biodiversity. Surely there is no place for such barbaric pastimes in today’s society. I urge you to consider the appalling effect this latest killing, in a string of similar incidents, will have on many people who might otherwise enjoy Scotland’s wonderful wildlife, much of which is unique to the United Kingdom, and to please consider banning this outmoded activity which continues to reflect badly on Scotland. Yours faithfully,
I was shocked and saddened to learn from Wild Justice that a young White-tailed Eagle has apparently been poisoned in the Cairngorms National Park. Apart from the serious criminal aspect of this killing, how can the Scottish Government, knowing the practices of grouse moor landowners and keepers, allow a grouse moor within a National Park?
Dear Roseanna Cunningham, I’m sure that by now you must have been made aware that a satellite-tagged White-tailed Eagle has been found dead in the Strathdon area of the Cairngorms National Park. Apparently the bird was poisoned and must have died a horrible, painful death. If this was an isolated incident it would be shocking and shameful enough but the killing of birds of prey on the grouse moors of Scotland has become routine. The area where this latest death occurred is known to be a wildlife crime hotspot but raptors aren’t safe anywhere that there is driven grouse shooting. So, my obvious question is: when is something going to be done to stop this national scandal? We in the UK have been vocal in the past about the awful slaughter of song birds around the Mediterranean and countries like Malta and Cyprus have gained a terrible reputation not just for the killing but also for the lack of effective government action to put a stop to it. There is clearly a danger that Scotland will soon have a similar reputation. Surely it is time now for action to be taken to end the illegal killing of birds of prey in Scotland. Increased resources for police to investigate these crimes would be an obvious start but the reality, I suspect, is that only a complete ban on driven grouse shooting will stop these criminals. Kind regards
Dear First Minister The horrific saga of raptor killing in Scotland cannot have escaped your attention during your incumbency. The most recent poisoning of a White-tailed Eagle is heart-breakingly typical. Why is the Scottish Government allowing landowners to get away with breaking the law like this ? It does not redound to the good reputation of Scotland, its government, or your party. On the contrary it makes Scotland look primitive, its government in the palm of the rich and the SNP as bad as any other political group in terms of looking after Scottish interests, especially with regard to the environment. This is one area where you could easily differentiate yourself from Westminster, who are similarly doing nothing to protect eg hen harriers from grouse farmer persecution south of the border. Sincerely
Dear First Minister and Cabinet Secretary, You will no doubt have heard and seen todays report of a poisoned sea eagle found in a grouse shooting area of Strathdon in the Cairngorm National Park. We assume that you are both as shocked and horrified at the images as we were. Poisoning is particularly horrific as it is a horrible death and it is also indiscriminate, any animal could have become a victim, including someones pet. We strongly urge you to make this the final straw. The grouse shooting industry has had decades to put its house in order and has failed to do so. Wildlife crime is rife in Scotland and we are only seeing the tip of the iceberg as it is so hard to detect. The Werritty report has already recommended licensing of grouse moors, but 5 years is too long to wait. The industry has repeatedly demonstrated that it is incapable of respecting the law so the time to act is NOW. Enough is enough and we are sick and tired of reading report after report of wildlife crime on Scottish grouse moors. Please, please act NOW. Implement licensing of grouse moors, increase police resources to enable them to properly police the industry and make wildlife crime in Scotland a thing of the past. Thank you.
Comments Off on Thank you for emailing Nicola Sturgeon (3)
Yesterday evening we sent out a newsletter asking our supporters to email Nicola Sturgeon about the scale of wildlife crime in Scotland, exemplified by the poisoning of this young White-tailed Eagle that was found on a grouse moor inside the Cairngorms National Park.
The response has been amazing so we thought we’d post a few examples here. This is the third tranche of examples.
Have a look at the examples below and please add your own voice. Tell Ms Sturgeon how you felt when you saw the image above. Ask her to act now. You don’t have to send a long email, or a clever email, or a learned email – just speak from the heart. And you don’t have to be Scottish or to live in Scotland.
If you are prepared to send a polite, but firm, email to Nicola Sturgeon, First Minister of Scotland, then this is her email address; firstminister@gov.scot
Thank you!
Dear First Minister, I would like to register my huge sadness that the poisoning of birds of prey continues in Scotland without effective redress. Last year I visited the Isle of Mull with my family to see the white-tailed eagles nesting there, and it was truly thrilling. Such a huge amount of effort has gone into their care, monitoring and positive promotion, that it is shocking to me that the protection of these birds is not considered a top priority. As well as being the spectacular apex of the wild Scottish ecosystem, they are such a wonderful promotional opportunity for Scotland to attract visitors from all around the world. That opportunity is being wasted by letting an environmentally catastrophic industry (driven grouse shooting) get away with appalling wildlife crime. Please look very hard at the terrible cost to our wildlife of the ‘Driven Grouse Shooting’ industry, which benefits so few individuals, and consider an outright ban of this outdated activity. Please also act immediately act on the legal protection given last month to Mountain Hares, which I understand could be killed in unprecedented numbers this year ahead of new laws coming into force to protect the species. The new Bill must be fast-tracked before the start of shooting season to prevent a “blood bath”. Scotland is loved for its unique wildlife. Please act to protect it as the priority it deserves to be. Yours sincerely,
Dear First minister, It seems a regular occurrence these days to hear about yet another raptor going missing or being found dead on or near a grouse moor. Unfortunately the grouse shooting industry for reasons I do not understand seems unable to resolve the problem. They claim it is a few bad apples, which would be easily dealt with, the conclusion therefore is that it is rife in this community and self governance does not work. I therefore ask you to bring in laws that regulate the industry and halt this illegal slaughter. After all, tourism is an important part of the Scottish economy and Scottish wildlife is a major part of the attraction. Yours sincerely
Dear Nicola and Roseanna, Although I am English, I studied at Glasgow University and holiday when I can in Scotland. I love Scotland and admire Scots’ forward thinking, their valuing of education, their radicalness. However, when it comes to the tolerance of the corrupt industry of driven grouse shooting, it appears that the political establishment are as cowed by (or bought by?) the rich and powerful landowners as are the English. This puzzles and depresses me. Because yet again a fabulous bird of prey, this time the iconic white-tailed sea eagle, has been illegally poisoned on a grouse moor. With the introduction of vicarious liability I hoped that things would change, but nothing has. The obvious conclusion to reach is that these crimes will not stop until driven grouse shooting is banned. Please, please be as brave as you can be in other matters. Stand up to the landowners, please ban driven grouse shooting and re-wild the uplands for the benefit of all. Regards,
Dear First Minister and Cabinet Secretary, I was distressed and dismayed to see the image of a magnificent white-tailed eagle illegally and cruelly slaughtered in Strathdon. I believe Scotland is shamed and diminished by the continual onslaught on such beautiful, majestic creatures – quite possibly just to misguidedly ‘protect’ game birds bred by the million for so-called sport. Whilst I realise it is difficult to point a finger in particular cases this is the latest in a long line of such killings, and I have followed the cases brought by RSPCA, RSPB and others and know the evidence is fairly conclusive. I was so delighted that Holyrood voted to protect the mountain hares, as were all my friends, but please can we see a genuine campaign to rid Scotland of the criminals who think it acceptable to put the profits of a few landowners, and their vested interests, above the richness and variety of our wonderful wildlife. Otherwise how can we hold our heads up on the international stage and ask other countries to protect the other many endangered species in the world? I live in Arbroath, and used to love going out into the highlands to enjoy the scenery and wildlife and have even thought of moving to those areas, but over recent years have found the takeover by driven grouse-shooting estates off-putting to say the least. I know many others who feel this way and have even moved back to towns because of it. How many more visitors, national and international, who truly care about and respect the countryside and our natural heritage, would Scotland be attracting if it only became known as a true haven for species as special as the white-tailed eagle? I know that it is argued that grouse shoots bring a lot of money into the country, but I really don’t think the income stays in Scotland; beaters are paid a pittance (and often endangered), and as the shoots are sold as all-inclusive experiences, participants don’t even leave the estates. The real income goes to the investors in the industry, often not based in the UK. This can surely be compared to some of the few areas being managed for wildlife, where visitors are dispersed around different towns, hotels, b&bs, cafes and so on. Please can this be addressed with urgency, I believe Scotland will need every asset it has post-Brexit and post-Covid, in order to get back on its feet, Yours most faithfully,
Dear First Minister, I am writing in relation to Schedule 1 raptor killings across Scotland, but firstly would like to thank you and your advisors for your efforts during the Covid-19 pandemic. The professionalism and humanity within your approach has been a steady for many people I know and most of us are glad that you all are genuinely acting for the benefit of us all throughout the emergence. In relation to the illegal killing of protected birds, I am heartily sickened by yet another poisoning of another white-tailed eagle within the Cairngorms National Park Authority boundary. I have had the pleasure of spending many hours over many years as a researcher and consultant surveying Schedule raptor species, and feel that we as a civilised country have a duty of care to these animals. Unfortunately, I have direct experience of poisoning incidences in the late 90’s, when working at RSPB Geltsdale. I found a poisoned hen harrier and raven (carbofuran), saw the keeper putting out the poisoned starlings, police raided his house: no prosecution. Carrying around a beautiful but dead hen harrier in a plastic shopping bag when I had spent tens of thousands of hours watching them skydancing, watching the chicks grow to fledging from a hide, watching them waft across the moor into a winter roost on a frosty winters day… sorry, don’t have the words. Wildlife brings more money to the economy, more employment and more enjoyment by many factors that driven grouse shooting. Driven grouse shooting has preserved some of our uplands in a seemingly more biodiversity favourable condition compared to sheep walk or commercial forestry, employing a few people in the hill who seem to pay little attention to UK or EU law, but that is not enough to allow this to continue. There is a saying, don’t blame the player-blame the game: this game is rotten, but most of the players are not. I would urge the Scottish Government to look at these birds as they are: our national and ancient heritage. They are as important, as historical, as beautiful and as important as any painting or building. They are also our future, driven shooting based on illegality is not. So I would urge you to work towards the licensing of driven grouse and all shooting activities, alter the law so that e.g. we don’t have nonsense relating to people escaping justice as they didn’t give prior permission to be filmed committing a crime, and make this industry mires in illegal activity shape up or be shipped out. Thank you for you time.
Dear Excellency Sturgeon and Cabinet Secretary Cunningham, I am writing with great sadness at evidence of a beautiful young white eagle that was poisoned near grouse moors in the Cairngorms and recently found by conservationists who had been tracking it. I am a Scot in exile in Cambridge/Guernsey who yearns to come home. It is my dream to return to Scotland and support efforts to rewild the lowlands (I must just find my academic husband a job up north). My father was a timber merchant, based in Glasgow, who in the 1930s through to the 1950s began his business deforesting the highlands. On the other hand it was his passion for Nature and stories of escapades in Loch Lomond and sailing with basking sharks in the Scottish Isles which enthused me with an environmental consciousness that has driven my career to date. I am passionate about wildlife and conservation and have built a social venture which operates internationally to help the mining and minerals sector contribute to resilient futures for everyone. I have spent the past year on sabbatical in Guernsey building my understanding of climate action and (re)wilding and formulating a plan to be part of the movement that is gathering such pace around Europe, with Scotland in a leading position. I was due to spend a week with Trees for Life helping reforest Dundreggan in September, but due to COVID this has been cancelled. I have been so proud in recent years to be a Scot in exile. To witness your excellent handling of the COVID crisis and putting England to shame in this regard. To note the extent to which the SNP put climate change, Nature and social justice at the heart of its 2019 election manifesto. (And don’t get me started on Brexit). Thank you from the bottom of my heart for these values which you lead with, and lead the UK with. I only wish I could vote for you but being in Cambridge, I can’t. Grouse moors are a colonial excuse for elite entertainment, representing a myth of ‘scottishness’ that is outdated and destructive. In today’s world we must put biodiversity, climate action, sustainable food production, and local communities at the heart of our land management. Grouse moors contribute to climate change and low biodiversity. It is time to let Scotland live to its full potential to be a leader in nature based solutions to global challenges. This means doing grouse moors differently – or minimally. One dead eagle may seem a sorry starting point for my heady story-telling, but it ties in. if we can protect our iconic species, our predators, we can have our ecosystems thrive. Where they thrive they sequester carbon, offer ecosystem services, and generate new economic opportunities that can drive Scotland’s rural economies forward. If eagles do well, I believe we can do better too.
My request is that a more enabling environment is created to enable Scottish biodiversity to flourish; that landowners curating grouse moors are incentivised to be climate smart and biodiversity smart; that all shooting of wildlife should be licensed; that more resources are put into preventing and prosecuting effectively wildlife crime.
Comments Off on Thank you for emailing Nicola Sturgeon (2)
Yesterday evening we sent out a newsletter asking our supporters to email Nicola Sturgeon about the scale of wildlife crime in Scotland, exemplified by the poisoning of this young White-tailed Eagle that was found on a grouse moor inside the Cairngorms National Park.
The response has been amazing so we thought we’d post a few examples here. This is the second tranche of examples.
Have a look at the examples below and please add your own voice. Tell Ms Sturgeon how you felt when you saw the image above. Ask her to act now. You don’t have to send a long email, or a clever email, or a learned email – just speak from the heart. And you don’t have to be Scottish or to live in Scotland.
If you are prepared to send a polite, but firm, email to Nicola Sturgeon, First Minister of Scotland, then this is her email address; firstminister@gov.scot
Thank you!
Ladies, I know your inboxes are full and getting fuller so I will be brief; Prompted by the recent poisoning of a white-tailed eagle in the Cairngorms National Park I note; 1) That none of the measures put in place to protect Scotland’s birds of prey seems to have any effect 2) No one has ever been convicted of killing an eagle in Scotland 3) Satellite-tagged eagles can be killed with impunity right up to the Edinburgh bypass 4) The Werritty Review’s outcome of a five year period of self-regulation is infuriating and futile 5) Your party appears not to have the stomach to take on serious, organised crime by landed interests in Scotland 6) Indeed your appointment of Richard Scott’s financial adviser Benny Higgins (a former colleague of mine) as an economic advisor suggests the opposite – that you regard these people as trustworthy or reputable in some way 7) Lots of people (including me) are extremely angry about your hand-wringing and inaction 8) I expect action from you. Driven grouse shooting is a moral disgrace, drives out productive land use, wrecks our uplands and depends on rampant criminality. It needs to be banned right now. 9) The Cairngorms National Park should either become an actual nation park with no sport shooting or it should come to an end. If it has no power to tackle this carnage there’s little point in it existing. Thanks for reading,
Dear First Minister, I wanted to let you know how sickened and saddened I am to learn that yet another satellite-tagged bird of prey has been found dead in Scotland. I believe this bird was poisoned – a particularly horrible way to die, and one which puts other wildlife, dogs and even humans at risk. It would seem that Scotland has a problem with out of control game-keepers, who persecute and kill our precious and beleaguered wildlife to protect the interests of a few wealthy land owners who make their money through grouse shooting – itself a frankly disgusting waste of life for a few seconds ‘fun’. Although I live just over the border in Cumbria, and have family in Edinburgh, I am increasingly reluctant to spend any time in the Scottish countryside for fear of what I may witness in terms of wildlife persecution, be it dead and dying birds of prey, shot or beaten beavers, or the mass slaughter of mountain hares. At a time when the world is facing the very real threat of ecological collapse, and when it has never been clearer that we need to radically change our relationship with nature if we are to survive, I urge you, please, to address the wholesale persecution of wildlife in your country, and work towards making Scotland a land rich in wildlife and biodiversity. We owe it to ourselves and future generations to do no less. Kind regards,
Dear – – – – – – It is with a heavy heart and, indeed, tears in my eyes that I find myself appealing to you for action by the Scottish Government. Yet again, I am reading of another hideous wildlife crime perpetrated in a grouse-shooting area in Scotland. I am also conscious of the fact that the Government response to this particular incident seems to be platitudes that ‘the law will be upheld’ and ‘penalties have been increased’ – attitudes that seem meaningless when not a single wildlife crime has yet resulted in a conviction, other than for possession of illegal substances. My wife and I have been visiting Scotland once or twice a year for the past ten years. We’ve mainly stayed in Grantown on Spey and, for the past four years, I have led groups and given talks there – sadly, not this year, due to Covid-19. I have often wondered why, when I am passing through the Strathdon area on my way to and from Grantown, I have not seen raptors, as it would appear to be ideal habitat – I now know why! This whole raptor persecution business has got out of hand and it seems to me that the perpetrators are ramping up their efforts in defiance of the authorities. Controls are not working and so I believe that it is time that the antiquated and barbaric pastime of shooting living things for pleasure should be stopped for all time. Much as we think that the Scottish Highlands is one of the finest places on earth for scenery and wildlife, We are increasingly finding that the depressing situation with wildlife crime, plus the slaughter of Mountain Hares and other abhorrent practices involving wildlife , is cancelling out the joy of being there. Until the situation improves, sadly, we have no intention to return to the Scottish Highlands. Please, please, please take action!
Dear First Minister, The dead White-tailed Eagle in the photograph below was discovered by scientists who had been tracking it via its satellite tag. It had been poisoned, and will have suffered horribly. The dead bird was discovered in an area of grouse moors in Strathdon, which is within the Cairngorms National Park. The White-tailed Eagle was, as you will know, almost rendered extinct in the 20th century because of illegal killings, which makes this poisoning even more appalling. I wonder whether the First Minister shares my disgust at this wildlife crime, likely to have been committed by someone working within the lucrative driven grouse shooting “sport”. I also wonder whether you agree that cruel and needless killings like these badly tarnish the image of Scotland. If so, I ask you to ban driven grouse shooting to remove the motivation to kill White-tailed Eagles and other birds of prey. If the First Minister feels unable to do that, I should be grateful to know why, and what steps would be taken instead to put an end to such wildlife crimes.
Dear First Minister,Whilst I live in England, I have many friends and relatives in Scotland and have visited on many occasions, so I would, first of all like to thank you for the good work you have been doing to protect them during the covid-19 crisis. I am, of course, disappointed that I was unable to visit as planned earlier this summer, but fully understand why and hope to visit again now things are improving. A major attraction for me has been the wildlife and, in particular the magnificent Birds of Prey that make Scotland their home, if only for the breeding season. So, you can probably imagine my disappointed and anger at the continued persecution of these magnificent birds. This has been brought into focus in the last few days by the reported poisoning oa White-tailed Eagle within the Cairngorms National Park. You don’t need me to tell you the value of these birds to the Scottish economy since their re-introduction over the past 20 years or so. They have become an iconic symbol of Wildlife tourism. But, it is becoming increasingly evident that the perpetrators of this criminal activities, and their employers, are making no attempt to curtail their activities despite discussions on how to end the persecution have been ongoing for several years. They seem to be incapable or unwilling to ‘self-regulate’, so legislative action is now the only course of action. The Werritty review has made its recommendations, so I think it is time for action. I appreciate how busy you are with the aforementioned crisis, but wonder if you could find the time to instigate proceedings to regulate the Driven Grouse Shooting Industry, at least through licensing or better still banning. The latter would have the added benefit of providing an opportunity to restore the moors to a more environmentally friendly state. Such action I believe, would be of considerable benefit to the Scottish economy through increased.Eco-tourism. May I thank you in advance for your kind attention. PS. thank you for been such a good sport in relation to Janey Godley’s videos.
Dear First Minister and Cabinet Secretary, I live in England but every year I spend my holidays (and money) in Scotland because I love the nature and wildlife of Scotland. It breaks my heart to see that one more beautiful and rare bird of prey you are so privileged to have in Scotland has been illegally killed. Do you understand how privileged you are to have such magnificent birds flying in your skies? And even if it wasn’t a beautiful bird, surely illegal practices of any sort should be stopped immediately? Why are they allowed to continue at the detriment of nature and all the people who love and enjoy it? For the economic gain of a small (already rich) minority who continuously burn and ruin the countryside killing anything that they don’t like (mountain hares, for example)? Why do you still allow this destruction of your beautiful country to continue? I hope you will answer my questions with honesty.
Comments Off on Thank you for emailing Nicola Sturgeon
Yesterday evening we sent out a newsletter asking our supporters to email Nicola Sturgeon about the scale of wildlife crime in Scotland, exemplified by the poisoning of this young White-tailed Eagle that was found on a grouse moor inside the Cairngorms National Park.
The response has been amazing so we thought we’d post a few examples here.
Have a look at the examples below and please add your own voice. Tell Ms Sturgeon how you felt when you saw the image above. Ask her to act now. You don’t have to send a long email, or a clever email, or a learned email – just speak from the heart. And you don’t have to be Scottish or to live in Scotland.
If you are prepared to send a polite, but firm, email to Nicola Sturgeon, First Minister of Scotland, then this is her email address; firstminister@gov.scot
Thank you!
Here are half a dozen examples of emails sent already – six of the most recent so they are at the top of our inbox – we’ll post more examples later today:
Dear First Minister, Whilst I appreciate that you and our government are working flat out to manage the current situation, I wanted to bring to your attention the fact that the killing of wild birds of prey is obviously still happening in Scotland. A young White Tailed Eagle which was satellite tagged for scientific research has been found poisoned in Strathdon, Cairngorms National Park. How much longer are we going to allow people to carry out this cruel practice for monetary gain? Under the Scottish Government we think of ourselves as a progressive, just society. Surely the killing of wild creatures anywhere let alone in our national parks flies in the face of this view. The fact the bird was found on a grouse shooting area lends suspicion to the idea it was poisoned on purpose to stop it predating creatures that some humans want to shoot for their own pleasure. When you break down the arguments surely the practice will be seen as unacceptable by the majority of decent folk and abhorrent by many. At this pivotal moment in the way we view our place in the world, I urge you to take another look at the issue of protection of these birds and whether the Parliament think it right that a few landowners or wealthy citizens can control our wild areas for their own gain rather than reinstating the natural world. This is indeed an opportunity to show the world we really are a progressive fair society which does the right thing. I appreciate your time considering this issue. Many thanks and best wishes,
Stirling
I don’t live in Scotland, but regularly visit and have friends who have moved there recently. Seeing this photo of a poisoned white tailed eagle found dead in the Cairngorms – it doesn’t matter where you live – this sight is deeply sad. You have an opportunity to lead the rest of the world in stamping out these horrible acts of cruelty driven perhaps by the barbaric so called sport of grouse hunting – that is where you can take a stance – breeding birds to kill is morally wrong surely? I want my legacy to be that I made a lasting positive difference to our animal kingdom – my feelings are so strong that I even believe that our planet would be so much better without us humans – that may sound extreme so instead can we live as nature intended in harmony and find the true reasons and stamp that out? If anyone can – you can.
I have just seen an image of a young dead, White-tailed Eagle. It was found in the Cairngorms National Park, Scotland. It had been poisoned.This is shocking and sickening. To think that this happened in an area where there is driven grouse shooting is a further indication that criminal activity goes hand in hand with the shooting fraternity.It should make Scotland feel ashamed and indeed many people will be turned against her. It is high time driven grouse shooting was banned. Those who engage in it believe themselves to be above the law and indeed, get away with these crimes time and time again because the shooting industry is governed by those who put wealth above all else and seem to walk arm in arm with politicians for protection. Please take action now and put an end to the persecution of wildlife by those in pursuit of profit out of those who enjoy killing. Supporting blood sports is not a good image for Scotland. She has beautiful scenery and wildlife to attract tourists. Allowing its wildlife to be persecuted will only drive them away.
Dear First Minister and Cabinet Secretary We are writing to express our extreme disappointment at the news of yet another bird of prey dying in suspicious circumstances in the Cairngorms National Park. We wonder whether the Scottish government is taking seriously the message that this sends to all of those who enjoy wildlife in this country. We visit Scotland on holiday fairly regularly, specifically to enjoy it’s natural beauty and iconic wildlife. This sickening assault on an incredibly valuable attraction makes us question whether we wish to return. Unsurprisingly, a lot of this criminal activity appears to be focused around driven grouse moors. Is it time to consider banning these, or at the very least licensing/policing their activities? We feel the Police are under-resourced in this area, and when perpetrators are caught, the punishments do not fit the crime. There does not appear to be much deterrent. We would appreciate this being looked at again, with more action taken, as things cannot continue as they have been. Yours sincerely
Dear Nicola Sturgeon, In almost every respect the Scottish government has shown itself, under your excellent leadership, to be humane, efficient and intelligent. However, the grouse moors of Scotland have been the location of illegal and cruel practices, which have involved the mass shooting of mountain hares and now the poisoning of eagles and other precious wildlife in Strathdon, Cairngorms National Park. Police Scotland said: “As well as being illegal, poisoning is a cruel way to kill a bird. It also puts the lives of other creatures and plants at risk and impacts negatively on our environment.” My daughter lives in Scotland and although I am an Italian mother living in England and miss her badly, I am consoled by knowing that the quality of her life has greatly improved since her move to live and work in Scotland. I understand people in Scotland love hill-walking and are rightly proud of the natural beauty of the breathtaking Scottish landscape. But the balance of nature is precarious and the mass killing of wildlife, including the poisoning of eagles, by people involved in the highly profitable grouse-shooting industry is affecting the balance of Scottish nature. The coronavirus pandemic has surely shown us that we must not exploit wildlife for cultural or monetary reasons because nature will strive to redress this imbalance in ways which may be dangerous to humans as well as animals. How we treat our wildlife is a measure of our humanity and if the laws which are intended to protect wildlife are not effective, then please consider legislating to protect our precious and fragile wild animals. Laws could be passed to ban driven grouse shooting or to licence all shooting of wildlife, the police could be given more resources and encouragement to pursue and prosecute illegal practices. I appreciate that Scotland probably does not want to be lectured by a woman living in England, but the protection of wildlife is a global issue. Wildlife has so little power to protect itself, people must watch over the welfare of animals with compassion, wisdom and imagination so that they can live the free, healthy lives they deserve and not experience unnecessary cruelty or suffering. If this cruelty is led by a profitable industry founded on the mass killing of animals for sport, then laws need to be rigorously passed and implemented and police need to be given powers, resources and support. Whatever we mean by ‘The Balance of Nature’ we know we human beings are not doing well on that front at the moment, so please use all of your intelligence, courage and thoughtfulness to protect our fragile wildlife – and particularly the eagles currently being poisoned on the grouse moors of Strathdon. Thank you,
Today I learnt of yet another horrific poisoning of our precious and protected wildlife heritage, a rare juvenile White Tailed Eagle. It appears this bird was discovered dead because it was fitted with a satellite tracking device, a device fitted to allow a degree of security to be afforded to protect and study this rare animal. The eagle was found at Strathdon, an area of grouse moors, within the Cairngorms National Park, so it is more than certain that this bird was killed by someone involved in the shooting and game industry. I appeal to you to put a stop once and for all to the persecution of birds of prey as a result of a most questionable practise in this day and age, namely grouse shooting, which leads to gamekeepers poisoning eagles, harriers, falcons and hawks to preserve the grouse that will ironically be shot as sport by people who put their ‘sporting’ practise above the practise many tens of thousands people enjoy – simply enjoying the amazing spectacle of Scottish wild places and the incredible animals that live there. Please take notice of the outrage I and many many people feel at the seemingly never ending blind eye that is turned towards the shooting establishment. In other parts of the world, namely Africa, practises of shooting wildlife for sport has been driven out and replaced by people paying good revenues to governments to simply visit a national park to watch and photograph stunning wildlife. When is this government going to wake up and challenge the perverse and outdated practises of hunting and shooting and get on with promoting the idea to land owners to stop killing everything and promote their wildlife and wild places for tourism. Above all, bring these criminals – who poison our flagship wildlife heritage to death in the name of keeping their employers profits high – to justice so we may build a momentum to radically change and see the back of this outdated and barbaric so called sport. Yours sincerely,
There is a lot of comment about Wild Justice from others (we may even have been given a tangential mention from the Secretary of State for DEFRA, George Eustice, yesterday – see transcript about too many lawyers). A lot of the comment comes from the shooting community and most of it is incredibly ill-informed and way off the mark. It’s very funny to see how wrong they usually are (and we do mean usually, in the sense of almost always).
Just as an example we came across this example from March last year only a few days ago and we, the three of us, have been exchanging jokey emails about it ever since.
Here are some quotes from the article and comments from us:
‘Although ostensibly united by their common antipathy to fieldsports‘ – that’s not what we are about as our work on glyphosate and Badgers probably shows! It’s not all about you, shooters.
‘one suspects that required to work collaboratively under the auspices of a company structure, not for profit or otherwise, may prove very challenging‘ – there’s no ‘or otherwise’ about it, and we are having a blast thanks. We don’t agree about everything – that’s part of the strength of our collaboration – but we have never had a fist fight (go ask BASC about those).
‘Presumably they will be able to count on pro bono support from those in the legal profession who share their beliefs‘ – no, we pay our way, although we get very good rates we know.
‘the question is just how will they get the sort of funding which their ambitious manifesto demands?‘ – we ask people to donate and they do. Our recent crowdfunder for our current Badger challenge raised £48,500 in three days – sorry we were so slow.
‘The problem is that the three people who have taken it upon themselves to do so, are single issue fanatics each blessed with an abundant ego and obsessed with shooting. Chuck into the pot questionable people skills and it becomes a matter of if rather than when the bust-up happens.’ – you’re such sweeties, with such great people skills although you seem a little obsessed with shooting…
A writer about shooting was sure that we established Wild Justice to take private prosecutions in Scotland – we didn’t and we haven’t but we might, thanks for the suggestion.
Another bunch of shooters were sure that the generous donation of £10,000 to our crowdfunder was coming from Brian May, Mark Constantine or the League Against Cruel Sports – all wrong. And as far as we know (though we wouldn’t necessarily know if they contributed to crowdfunders) we have received no donations from any of those. We thank HSI-UK for their funding.
If you are hearing about Wild Justice for the first time then sign up to our free occasional newsletter – click here. Then you’ll know what we are doing – shooters welcome!
This time last week we were approached by Humane Society International – UK offering us support for our challenge of the legality of licensing of free shooting of Badgers as part of the DEFRA Badger cull.
We had a chat, filled in some forms and the money was on its way which meant that we could close our crowdfunder after just three days, and having raised £48,500.
Wild Justice said ‘We are very grateful to everyone who has supported our crowdfunder to challenge the legality of the current licensing of free shooting of Badgers. HSI-UK came along at just the right moment last week to take the crowdfunder, already supported by over 1000 individuals, past its target of £48,500 in just three days. Wild Justice thanks HSI-UK for this generous grant of £10,000 and also for the confidence they have shown in us and our legal team.‘.
Wildlife campaigners launch legal case to challenge the humaneness of the badger cull
Wildlife campaign group Wild Justice has launched a legal case challenging Natural England’s failure to ensure that badgers are being killed humanely as part of the annual cull to help prevent the spread of bovine TB.
Natural England published 10 licences for supplementary badger control on 15 May 2020. Further licences are expected to follow in Autumn 2020. Condition 21 of the licences states that all reasonable steps must be taken to ensure that badgers shot under the licence are dispatched “swiftly and humanely”.
Wild Justice, led by Chris Packham CBE, Dr Mark Avery and Dr Ruth Tingay, claims that in order to work out whether steps being taken are reasonable, Natural England must have some idea what is meant by “humanely” – but it would appear to have no basis for measuring what that means.
The group has applied for a Judicial Review of Natural England’s failure to clarify how it sets a benchmark for humaneness and argues that a lack of clarity means that an unacceptably high proportion of badgers could be left to an inhumane death.
Wild Justice is represented by Leigh Day, which sent Natural England a Pre-Action Protocol letter calling on the Government’s advisers to explain what measure for humaneness it was using after it had chosen not to apply the approach to humaneness agreed in 2014 by an Independent Expert Panel (IEP) established by Defra to report on pilot culls in Somerset and Gloucestershire.
The Panel considered that for the controlled shooting of badgers in the field, the percentage of animals surviving for more than five minutes after being shot, and the percentage being wounded but not retrieved (the “non-retrieval rate”), should not together exceed five per cent. i.e. at least 95 per cent of badgers that are shot at should die within five minutes.
The Government accepted that steps should be taken to improve shooting accuracy in its response to the IEP report but, despite efforts to improve the overall quality of marksmanship, Natural England’s annual reports demonstrate that the non-retrieval rate alone has consistently remained above 10 per cent since 2014, i.e. double the level recommended by the IEP.
The Protection of Badgers Act 1992 requires that Natural England be satisfied that licence applicants “are able to deliver the cull as safely and humanely as possible” and only permits two culling methods: cage trapping followed by shooting and/or controlled shooting of free-ranging badgers.
In the Judicial Review application Wild Justice argues that Natural England is acting unlawfully because it has imposed a condition which is entirely vague and unenforceable. It therefore provides none of the necessary certainties to ensure that reasonable steps are being taken to ensure the culling of badgers is humane. Wild Justice will ask the court to quash the licences and declare them unlawful.
In a statement, Mark Avery, Dr Ruth Tingay and Chris Packham said:
‘We’re very grateful to over 1,100 individual donors who have funded our legal challenge. Badgers are wonderful creatures and they need all the friends they can get these days. We believe Gandhi was right to say that you can judge the greatness of a nation by the way it treats its animals, and by that measure this government, DEFRA and Natural England are doing a very poor job.”.
Wild Justice is represented by Carol Day and Partner Tessa Gregory.
Solicitor Carol Day said:
“The Government set up the Independent Expert Panel (IEP) to look at issues arising from the pilot badger culls, including humaneness. If Natural England has chosen not to use the IEP threshold, it must have some other basis for determining what constitutes “swiftly and humanely”. Since Natural England has not clarified what measure it is using to ensure that contractors are dispatching badgers swiftly and humanely, our client believes it has no alternative but to apply for Judicial Review to ensure the licence conditions are complied with.”.
Wild Justice has filed its first-year accounts with Companies House – click here. We also paid our Corporation Tax last week – a month ahead of the deadline.
Comments Off on Extracts from our Pre Action Protocol letter to Natural England.
Wild Justice has been in fairly lengthy and detailed correspondence with Natural England and DEFRA on the matter of Badger culls.
Here we post extracts from our last letter to Natural England, dated 22 May 2020.
You can see that the beginning of the letter sets out what the letter is and names Natural England as the proposed defendant in any legal case.
Then there is a lot of legal stuff but some of the most important aspects of the letter follow here:
An independent expert panel recommended one thing but Natural England has continued to license Badger culling by free shooting which fails, always, to meet this criterion of humaneness, and Natural England have not specified any alternative criterion. What would a humane culling programme look like? Why is Natural England continuing to licence a programme which every year fails to meet some fairly basic standards of animal welfare?
As far as para 29 is concerned we received a reply in June but then we would refer you to para 27.
We’ll have more to say about the state’s inhumanity to Badgers over the coming days and weeks.
We heard this morning that Wild Justice’s application for judicial review of the impacts of vast releases of non-native gamebirds on sites of high nature conservation importance has been granted.
Thank you the Hon Mr Justice Kerr!
This means that after scrutiny by a Judge, it has been decided that there is a substantive case to answer, and that case should be made in court (by the end of October 2020). We have, after quite a long wait, got everything we could ask for at this stage.
We may win in court, or we may not, but there is no doubt that there is a case to answer. If we were to be successful then this would have big impacts on Pheasant and Red-legged Partridge shooting in 2021.
We asked the court for a hearing this autumn so that any implications of the eventual judgment would be known long before gamebird shoots were making plans for ordering imports of birds for 2021.
Wild Justice is represented by Carol Day and Tessa Gregory, solicitors at LeighDay, in this legal case; Carol said “Defra was prompted to launch a review into the release of gamebirds on protected sites following the threat of legal action by Wild Justice in 2019 and on the issue of proceedings sought to argue the case is academic and premature. In granting permission for Judicial Review and ordering a hearing before the end of October, the Judge has clearly recognised the importance and urgency of this case, which will now be given a full and proper airing in Court.”
Thank you to all those who donated last summer when we started this challenge. We have the money in the bank to carry it through to the autumn.
Comments Off on Wild Justice response to RSPB consultation on gamebird shooting
The RSPB has asked for views on 7 draft principles around the issue of gamebird shooting. It is expected that the RSPB will adjust its position fairly substantially after taking such a long time to review its position and policies. Wild Justice was consulted by the RSPB and this is what we submitted.
ORGANISATIONAL RESPONSE: WILD JUSTICE
YES, HAPPY FOR RSPB TO PUBLISH OUR RESPONSE
Draft Principle 1: Shooting must not adversely affect the population of any native species targeted for shooting
Yes, Wild Justice agrees with Draft Principle 1. And we take ‘shooting’ to mean the actual deaths, the injuries and the impacts of all other management practices (positive and negative) on those species.
And an unavoidable consequence of that is that there must be sufficient monitoring of quarry populations and of shooting pressure to make any necessary adjustments to current practice. In many countries this involves licensing of shooting and reporting of bags by recreational shooters. The UK does not have such a system in place. While such proper monitoring and regulation is absent the RSPB faces a choice over whether to support shooting because it could be done well or to oppose it because it is not done well. Which will it do?
The term ‘adversely affect’ requires clear definition and an acknowledgement of scale, i.e. local, regional, national and international population status. In addition to the issue of a species’ distribution and abundance, it should also include aspects such as disease caused by intensive management techniques, e.g. cryptosporidiosis spread by use of medicated grit stations.
Mandatory pre-shooting season population data should be collected at a local level and submitted to an overseeing statutory agency to compile and assess at scale. It should be the statutory agency’s duty to impose appropriate temporary and spatial restrictions if required.
Mandatory bag size data to be collected and submitted for analysis/monitoring purposes as above.
Disease/health monitoring to be undertaken on a suitable sample size (i.e. cf with current poor monitoring effort by Veterinary Medicines Directorate on approx. 10 Red Grouse samples per annum).
Voluntary self-regulation by the shooting industry is unreliable and untrustworthy.
Costs for independent monitoring and assessment to be covered by shoot licensing costs.
The question asked refers to native quarry species. The elephant in this particular room is that most birds shot for recreation are not native to the UK. The numbers of Pheasants and Red-legged Partridges shot annually in the UK number in the low tens of millions of birds whereas the number of Grey Partridges, Snipe, Woodcock, Red Grouse and wildfowl shot annually number in the low millions. Shooting in the UK has moved considerably from a harvesting of native species to the shooting of captive-bred live targets. In addition, probably low hundreds of thousands of birds (and mammals) are killed each year by the shooting industry allegedly to protect gamebirds.
Shooting of Snipe, Woodcock and Golden Plover might well be having an impact on the status of these species in the UK and wider (since many of the birds shot will be migrants visiting the UK in winter).
Although native quarry species may be affected by overshooting they may also be expected to benefit from the fact that shooting interests will seek to protect their populations. There is little evidence in the UK for this being effective when one looks at the historical trends in population of Grey Partridge (the logo of a pro-shooting organisation), Black Grouse, Red Grouse, Capercaillie, Snipe, Woodcock.
In the UK shooting interests have not been effective at protecting native resident species from wider land use changes and the shooting industry now depends for its existence mainly on winter visitors from abroad and non-native species captive bred for release just before the shooting season.
For the avoidance of doubt, Wild Justice believes that driven grouse shooting should be banned.
Draft Principle 2: Effective measures should be in place to ensure that shooting operates within the law and those not complying with the law must lose their permission to shoot.
Yes, Wild Justice agrees with Draft Principle 2.
Generally speaking the laws in the UK are not bad but their enforcement is hopelessly inadequate. The RSPB needs to consider whether its position should be ‘We’ll try to improve enforcement’ given decades of failure to make any noticeable difference, or whether it should adopt a position of ‘Since effective self regulation is absent, and so is effective enforcement, we cannot support the continued existence of shooting in its current form. Neither industry nor government is serious about the law being upheld’.
The well-known and persistent persecution of birds of prey on grouse moors is a classic example. What is the point of investigating crimes when everyone knows that they occur but government and the industry involved are both wilfully blind to the situation and sit on their hands doing nothing, only occasionally getting their hands out to wring them in false horror as another raptor goes missing or is found dead.
There needs to be a substantial increase in penalties for wildlife crime associated with game shoots to ensure those penalties meet the criteria for a ‘serious’ offence that attracts a custodial sentence of five years. This would provide the police with the authority to apply for permission, under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (RIPA and RIPSA in Scotland), to install covert cameras on private sporting estates for the purpose of detecting wildlife crime. This is currently being considered in Scotland as part of The Animals and Wildlife (Penalties, Protections & Powers) (Scotland) Bill.
The UK authorities should use Spain as an example of deterrent policing and enforcement. E.g. routine and unannounced inspections including the use of specially-trained dogs to detect the use of banned substances, on conviction the suspension of shooting rights, substantial fines and custodial sentencing.
Additional penalties for crimes with an impact on conservation and in a protected area (i.e. National Park, AONB, SPA, SAC etc).
In addition to the suspension of an individual’s shooting rights, shooting should also be suspended on the landholding where the offence was commissioned.
Remove all public subsidies for landholdings where there is evidence that employees/tenants have committed wildlife crimes, based on a civil burden of proof.
Automatically remove firearms and shotgun certificates for 10 years following any individual’s conviction for any wildlife crime, regardless of the sentencing tariff.
A new law for England and Wales to make it an offence to possess specified banned poisons commonly used for wildlife crime, as in Scotland.
Introduce the offence of vicarious liability for all landowners in England and Wales, to make them responsible for wildlife crimes on their land as is the case in Scotland.
Create a national, multi-agency response unit to investigate all offences that fall under the National Wildlife Crime Priorities. To be funded by shoot licensing costs.
All wildlife crimes to be made recordable offences using official Home Office codes to enable effective monitoring.
The English and Welsh governments to publish an annual wildlife crime report, as they do already in Scotland.
Draft Principle 3: Management must not adversely affect the population of any native species in order to increase the shootable surplus of gamebirds and it should be underpinned by transparent reporting of the number of animals killed.
Yes, Wild Justice agrees with Draft Principle 3 although the definition of ‘adversely affected’ requires clarity.
And we know that management does adversely affect the populations of some native species, notably Hen Harrier, Golden Eagle, Peregrine and Red Kite – so what stance should the RSPB take?
And in addition to the above named avian species, this draft principle should also apply to other bird species as well as Red Fox, Pine Marten, Hedgehog and a range of other mammals given the RSPB’s wider conservation remit.
There is a serious ethical question to be addressed here – regardless of whether a population is adversely affected, should native wildlife be killed simply to increase the availability of another species to be killed by recreational shooters?
Also, the killing of native species is primarily allegedly to protect non-native gamebirds i.e. Pheasant and Red-legged Partridges. Wildfowling and shooting of some waders requires no predator culls because the quarry populations breed outside the UK.
Draft Principle 4: Species in favourable conservation status, killed for the purposes of maintaining or enhancing the activity of gamebird shooting, should be managed in accordance with best practice guidance.
Yes Wild Justice agrees with Draft Principle 4, but that assumes that the best practice guidance is good enough and that compliance is good.
There are questions around what is considered to be ‘best practice’, who defines it and most importantly, what happens when best practice isn’t reached? It doesn’t have statutory authority (e.g. see current Code of Good Shooting Practice’) so no enforcement options available if best practice isn’t met. It’s a waste of time in this particular context because the shooting industry has proven itself incapable of self-regulation.
We take this to be a question about predator control which we know is a difficult issue for the RSPB because the RSPB carries out some limited, lethal predator control on its own nature reserves (and for which it is criticised by some (and always has been)). However, the RSPB position on this subject, though not universally popular, is entirely consistent with the position that lethal predator control is a last resort, only to be taken when non-lethal means have failed, and only where there is good evidence for a conservation benefit and where welfare aspects are carefully considered.
The RSPB position is one that is so much better than that adopted by the shooting industry as a whole where predator control is seen as a first resort and where standards of humaneness are low – and of course where the main aim is for protecting gamebirds that are to be killed by recreational shooters.
The RSPB is not an animal welfare charity but then neither is it a social welfare charity (and yet it has expertise and sensitivity to issues such as social inclusion) and nor is it an economic charity (and yet it deals routinely these days with economic issues with considerable expertise). The RSPB needs to develop a much clearer public position on animal welfare issues rather than putting them in a box labelled ’Too hard, too contentious, not our job’.
The RSPB needs to seek guidance from those more expert in these matters but not to avoid them. The scale of killing native wildlife which underlies commercial shooting is far too high for a conservation organisation to ignore.
Draft Principle 5: Land used for gamebird hunting should be managed in a manner that protects and enhances the natural habitats and ecosystem services it supports.
Yes, Wild Justice agrees with Draft Principle 5 but not just the natural habitats, the man-made habitats too e.g. farmland.
The RSPB does not have a clear position on rewilding. What is a natural habitat?
The RSPB has for too long sought to maintain the practice of driven grouse shooting on man-made unnatural habitats when the evidence has long been clear that this activity prevents a natural ecosystem establishing (in National Parks, AONBs, SPAs and SACs for heaven’s sake!). If the RSPB were signed up to this Principle itself then it would oppose the very existence of driven grouse shooting and not seek to introduce licensing as a means of better regulating an almost completely unsustainable activity. On this particular issue, based on this particular Principle, the RSPB does not have a principled policy.
Draft Principle 6: Some practices associated with shooting need to be assessed for their environmental impacts and, if necessary, to be better regulated or stopped.
Yes, Wild Justice agrees with Draft Principle 6 but surely the word ‘some’ is unnecessarily restrictive.
Luckily for the RSPB, Wild Justice is seeking a judicial review of the unregulated release of tens of millions of non-native gamebirds into the countryside as a first step towards fixing this issue.
In the case of driven grouse shooting the need for assessment is long gone. The combination of impacts on natural habitats, ecosystem services, protected wildlife and welfare of native species adds up to a very strong case for opposing the current situation. Attempting to tinker with one or more aspects of a totally flawed land use is not what is expected of a leading wildlife conservation organisation.
Draft Principle 7: Mechanisms should be developed and implemented to ensure that gamebird hunting, across all parts of the UK, is carried out in accordance with these principles.
Yes, Wild Justice agrees with Draft principle 7 and where mechanisms do not exist then the RSPB should oppose the status quo.
This isn’t a debate that is starting with this RSPB consultation; there is a lot of background and history with which the RSPB has not adequately engaged.
Wild Justice is one of very many organisations and individuals asking DEFRA to facilitate Beaver reintroductions in England. Here is a joint lettter sent this week to DEFRA. When you look at the list of signatories it is pretty impressive.
The Rt Hon George Eustice MP, Secretary of State
The Rt Hon Victoria Prentis MP, Minister for Agriculture
Tony Juniper, Chair, Natural England and Ex Officio Board Member
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs,
2 Marsham Street,
London,
SW1P 4DF.
8th May 2020
LETTER OF SUPPORT: A BRIGHT FUTURE FOR BRITISH BEAVERS
Dear Minister Eustice, Minister Prentis and Mr Juniper,
The Government has declared a climate and ecological emergency. Britain is one of the most nature depleted countries in the world, ranked 189th out of 218. Only 14% of our rivers are in good ecological condition.
The 6 goals of the Government’s commendable 25 Year Environment Plan commit to provide clean air, water, a thriving ecology, a reduced impact from natural events, to use resources from nature sustainably and to ensure ‘beauty, heritage and engagement’ with our natural environment. They are all in large part entirely satisfied by the ecosystem engineering activities of the Eurasian beaver (Castor fiber).
Beavers are nature’s builders. Scientists stress that this single species is not a keystone element in nature but rather an entirely unique force on its own. Beavers create complex wetland mosaics along the length of water courses. These features slow the flow of water and purify it of toxins; store water during droughts and, when widely present in upper water-sheds of wooded catchments, reduce the impact of flooding events. And, they regenerate biodiversity in great abundance, providing food-rich habitats for wildlife.
Beavers are a native species. Our remaining, but diminished, kaleidoscope of wetland wildlife from fish to frogs, water voles to great white egrets, is entirely attuned to their activity. The only reason for their absence from our modern countryside is our past overhunting for their lustrous fur, meat and valuable scent glands. Their critical importance is evidenced by broad scientific research indicating we can only recover nature sustainably, and with its desirable socio-economic functions, if we restore the beaver.
A decade of learning from Scotland, combined with the 5-year project now concluded on the River Otter in Devon demonstrate unambiguously the benefits of beavers far outweigh the issues. With a wealth of experience from Europe, any undesirable beaver impacts can be mitigated swiftly by professional field staff. The species’ presence is entirely tolerable in many modern, cultural British landscapes.
Public support for beavers from town and country is high and rising, with recent newspaper editorials backing their return. When indicating political support in the Telegraph for the engineering activities of the ‘humble, native beaver’, Minister Eustice encouraged innovative solutions to help prevent a repeat of the disastrous 2020 floods.
As a result, many owners of the great estates and prominent NGOs have, while a final decision on the Otter Report is awaited in August 2020, applied for licences to keep beavers in large, near-natural securely fenced enclosures. Community groups, including local government, are planning wild releases across catchments and regions too.
The Eurasian beaver, but not the Canadian (Castor canadensis), is the only rodent species in the world (including the dangerous larger porcupines and the pony-sized Capybara) which requires an enclosure permit in England – but not in Wales or Scotland. The security and standards of these projects have been unprecedented. Since they began, not a single instance of escape has occurred. If new permits are terminated as an option, and in the absence of any ability to import beavers from Europe, the availability of British born beavers for any wider programme of release in the near future will be critically limited. Without demand from new English sites, translocation of further beavers in low numbers under licence from Scottish Natural Heritage from intensively farmed, arable landscapes will cease and result in them being shot.
We believe this is inappropriate and missing an opportunity. It is now time to focus our collective efforts on a swift and active process of beaver restoration. We will produce a position paper regarding details of this shortly.
This letter is to state our whole-hearted support for beavers and the tenets of the Governments’ 25 Year Environment Plan which their restoration will greatly assist. We would like to ask you 2 questions:
Will you commit to making policy decisions this year on producing a pragmatic and ambitious strategy for beaver reintroduction in England?
Will you ensure there is no moratorium on the current, effective system of beaver licensing and to expedite applications if they are reasonable and competent?
We invite you to meet with Beaver Trust and relevant signatories to discuss these questions. Together we can reconnect people with nature, incentivise them to relearn how to live with beavers and build climate resilience.
Thank you for the energy and resources you are committing to secure a brighter future for us all.
Yours sincerely,
James Wallace, for Beaver Trust, and the signatories below.
Environmental NGOs
Beccy Speight
Chief Executive
RSPB
Craig Bennett
Chief Executive
The Wildlife Trusts
Darren Moorcroft
Chief Executive
Woodland Trust
Dominic Jermey
Chief Executive
Zoological Society of London
Hilary McGrady
Director-General
National Trust
James Robinson
Director of Conservation
Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust
Jamie Peters
Director of Campaigns
Friends of the Earth
John Sauven
Executive Director
Greenpeace UK
Mark Rose
Chief Executive
Flora and Fauna International
Mike Barrett
Executive Director of Science & Conservation
WWF-UK
Environmental Organisations
Alasdair Harris
Executive Director
Blue Ventures
Andrew Kerr
Chairman
Sustainable Eel Group
Andrew Simms
Co-Founder
New Weather Institute
Chris Price
Chief Executive
Rare Breeds Survival Trust
David Gasca-Tucker
Principal Hydrologist
Atkins Global
Dean Godson
Director
Policy Exchange
Derek Gow
Director
Derek Gow Consultancy
Fiona Mathews
Chief Executive
The Mammal Society
Frans Schepers
Chief Executive
Rewilding Europe
Gary Rumbold
Director
National FWAG Association
James Thornton
Chief Executive
ClientEarth
James Wallace
Co-Director
Beaver Trust
Jan Stannard
Chief Executive
Heal Rewilding
Jeremy Biggs
Director
Freshwater Habitats Trust
Jill Nelson
Chief Executive
People’s Trust for Endangered Species
Julie Williams
Chief Executive
Butterfly Conservation Trust
Lesley Dickie
Chief Executive
Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust
Liz Hosken
Director
Gaia Foundation
Louise Ramsay
Chair
Scottish Wild Beaver Group
Martin Lines
Chair
Nature Friendly Farming Network
Nick Fox
Founder
Bevis Trust
Paul Lister
Chief Executive
The European Nature Trust
Peter Cairns
Director
Scotland the Big Picture
Philp Lymbery
Chief Executive
Compassion in World Farming
Rebecca Wrigley, Alastair Driver
Chief Executive, Director
Rewilding Britain
Roy Dennis
Director
Roy Dennis Wildlife Foundation
Ruth Tingay
Partner
Wild Justice
Sara Lom
Chief Executive
The Tree Council
Shaun Spiers
Director
Green Alliance
Toby Aykroyd
Coordinator
Wild Europe Initiative
Tony Gent
Chief Executive
Amphibian and Reptile Conservation
Estates
Archie Ruggles-Brise
Partner
Spains Hall Estate
Charlie Burrell and Isabella Tree
Owners
Knepp Estate
John Mildmay-White
Owner
Flete Estate
Lady Elizabeth Ashcombe
Owner
Sudeley Castle Estate
Merlin Hanbury-Tennison
Owner
Cabilla Farm
Mish Kennaway
Owner
Escot Estate
Sam Galsworthy
Owner
Trewin Estate
The Duchess of Richmond
Owner
Goodwood House
The Duchess of Rutland
Owner
Belvoir Castle
The Duke of Somerset
Owner
Maiden Bradley Estate
The Marquess of Cholmondeley
Owner
Cholmondeley Estate
Thomas MacDonell
Director of Conservation
Wildland
Individuals
Axel Moehrenschlager
Chair IUCN SSC Conservation Translocation Specialist Group
In April we announced a new fund to help the police tackle wildlife crime. This Raptor Forensics Fund will help speed up the analysis and assessment of forensic evidence in wildlife crime investigations relating to the illegal killing of birds of prey.
This week the Tayside & Fife Raptor Study Group has stepped up and made a £750 contribution to the fund. Kelvin Thomson, Chair of the Tayside & Fife branch of the Scottish Raptor Study Group said:
“We are delighted to help fund the fight against the illegal persecution of birds of prey no matter where it occurs. Over many years, we have ourselves experienced several incidents of persecution involving birds of prey across the Tayside & Fife area. It’s a great frustration to us all that this insidious crime still persists across the UK and in making this donation we are helping law enforcement agencies to more swiftly collect and forensically analyse evidence to help bring those responsible to account”.
This generous donation brings the fund total to just under £7K following additional contributions from Wild Justice, the Northern England Raptor Forum and a private individual.
We anticipate that guidelines for police officers on how to apply for funding support from the Raptor Forensics Fund will be published shortly.
If anyone else would like to contribute to this new fund, please get in touch: admin@wildjustice.org.uk and enter ‘Raptor Forensic Fund’ as the subject header.
Thank you so very much. Our third major crowdfunder has been fully funded by over 900 generous donors.
The English general licences are being reviewed – there have already been minor changes and we are sure more change is on the way. Anyway, we haven’t given up.
The release of gamebirds is being reviewed – we are keen to see what if any changes come about – but we are also ready to take further legal action whenever necessary.
And now we have a fully-funded legal challenge of the Welsh general licences too – we believe they are unlawful, unscientific and unjustified. Thank you for your support.
Natural England is waking up to the shambolic state of knowledge amongst those seeking licences for lethal killing of birds under new licensing regimes.
In a recent update, Dave Slater, the Natural England director for licensing makes it clear that many applications to kill large gulls in rural settings (now removed from general licences following Wild Justice’s legal challenge last year) have been received after the deadline and lacking the necessary information to justify a licence being issued.
Rather extraordinarily, Natural England’s response to this is to allocate more staff to the issue rather than simply sending out letters rejecting the licence applications. Wild Justice has several times suggested to Natural England that if workloads are high on processing licences then charging for licence applications is a completely reasonable response. Where licence applications are late or inadequate it is difficult to see why public money should be spend on hand-holding applicants.
If large shooting states, owned by some of the wealthiest in the country, charging massive fees for shooting days, and employing land agents, shooting agents and teams of so-called professional gamekeepers cannot fill in some forms and submit them on time then it is unclear why the taxpayer is picking up the bill.
But more broadly, and more importantly, this is an insight into the reality of the casual killing of wild birds under the discredited former and current general licences. Mr Slater had to remind the world that:
Natural England will issue licences where there is enough evidence and information in applications for us to conclude that:
– there is a genuine problem to resolve or need to satisfy for which a statutory licensing purpose applies;
– there are no satisfactory alternatives, including that non-lethal solutions have been tried and/or shown to be ineffective;
– the licensed action will contribute to resolving the problem or meeting the need; and,
– the action to be licensed is proportionate to the problem or need.
This is what the law has always required except that in their former and current general licences, DEFRA, Natural England (and Natural Resources Wales) left it to the licence user to go through those steps on their own rather than, as Wild Justice believes is required, making sure that these conditions are met. Here we see that those requesting (often demanding) licences to kill protected birds (all birds are protected by law) fail to meet the simple requirement of filling in a form properly.
As an insight into the shambolic and unjustified casual killing of birds, and the urgent need for reform of the licensing system for bird killing across the UK, we couldn’t have come up with a much better example.
Following our launch last week of a new fund to help support police investigations in to the illegal persecution of birds of prey, we’re delighted to see that the Northern England Raptor Forum (NERF) has stepped forward and made a contribution.
NERF is a collaborative, self-funded organisation representing voluntary raptor field workers whose expert monitoring provides the statutory agencies with vital data on species’ distribution, abundance and conservation status. NERF understands the need for this fund only too well.
A quote from NERF’s press release:
‘Unfortunately every one of our member groups has experience of raptor persecution within their own study areas. Many of us have also been involved in cases where the search for forensic evidence, vital to support the case, was not pursued because of lack of funding thereby resulting in the investigation being abandoned prior to trial. We believe that this initiative will make a very significant impact on the investigation of raptor related criminal cases‘.
Steve Downing, NERF’s Chair said:
“As a former Wildlife Crime Officer I fully appreciate the complex decision making process that is used to assess competing applications for funding the forensic analysis of potential exhibits. Every application for forensic funding is justifiable, however it is understandable why some crimes take precedence over cases of raptor persecution. This raptor related forensic analysis fund is a very valuable tool that will make a tremendous difference in the battle to detect wildlife crime and Wild Justice is to be commended for introducing the scheme“.
To read NERF’s press statement in full, please visit here
If anyone else would like to contribute to this new fund, please get in touch: admin@wildjustice.org.uk and enter ‘Raptor Forensic Fund’ as the subject header.
Our crowdfunder is approaching its target – thank you to everyone who has contributed at this very difficult time.
We were able to transfer £15,000 of funds originally raised for our similar, and successful, case on Natural England general licences, to this challenge. Those funds have been sitting in the Crowdjustice system until now. It has taken Crowdjustice longer than we expected to carry out this transfer but now it’s done.
Also, many people have donated direct to Wild Justice and we have recently transferred those cleared cheques to this crowdfunder. Everything, understandably, has taken longer than expected with the current situation affecting the speed of the post, banking transactions etc.
But the good news is that we are close to meeting our target and so we are now confident that we will be able to see this case through the courts. We are now in the hands of the legal system, itself showing signs of strain under current circumstances.
Let’s hope that we can make progress in forcing Natural Resources Wales to adopt a lawful and scientifically defendable approach to lethal killing of birds.
Comments Off on Wild Justice proposes raptor persecution forensic investigation fund and calls for more organisations to contribute
Wild Justice has proposed a new fund to help the police tackle wildlife crime. This fund would help speed up the analysis and assessment of forensic evidence in wildlife crime investigations relating to the illegal killing of birds of prey.
This idea emerged following several conversations with Police Wildlife Crime Officers who have been frustrated at having to persuade senior officers to authorise such costs in a number of recent investigations.
Many police forces struggle with slashed budgets and reduced resources, and senior officers aren’t always keen to consent to payment because if the cost of analysis is higher than any likely penalty a judge imposes then it’s hard to justify the costs of laboratory work. These discussions can delay the analyses being undertaken and in some cases may affect the condition of the sample to be tested (e.g. through biological deterioration), resulting in a missed opportunity to secure evidence of sufficient quality to proceed with a prosecution.
Other schemes, such as the PAW Forensic Analysis Fund, provide only partial funding support (of up to 50% match funding) for a wide range of national and international wildlife crimes using a variety of forensic techniques. Wild Justice proposes that this new fund be administered via the National Wildlife Crime Unit and be focused specifically on providing full funding to cover the cost of specialist forensic analysis to support police investigations into the illegal killing of birds of prey in the UK. This may include something as simple as an x-ray to establish whether a raptor has been shot to more complex techniques such as DNA testing of illegal traps or the analysis of game bags, knives, containers, vehicles and clothing for evidence of both DNA and banned substances.
Wild Justice will contribute £5,000 to establish the fund and is calling on other organisations to contribute. Case costs could range from a £40 x-ray to several thousand pounds for more specialist analyses. We’re told repeatedly that organisations from the game-shooting world want to see an end to illegal raptor persecution so this is the perfect opportunity for groups such as the Moorland Association, British Association for Shooting and Conservation, National Gamekeepers Organisation, Scottish Gamekeepers Association, Scottish Land & Estates, Countryside Alliance, the Game Fair, Shooting Times etc to put their money where their mouths are.
Police Superintendent Nick Lyall, Chair of the Raptor Persecution Priority Delivery Group (RPPDG) said: “I welcome this initiative from Wild Justice. As in all criminal investigations, evidence gathering needs to be undertaken swiftly and thoroughly to secure any chance of a prosecution and wildlife crime is no exception. Long delays caused by budget deficits can, and have, impacted on raptor persecution investigations. I believe that this targeted fund will help police officers to be in a stronger position to solve these horrendous crimes and I look forward to seeing RPPDG partners support the initiative”.
Leave a CommentSeven week old pheasant chicks, often known as poults, after just being released into a gamekeeper’s release pen on an English shooting estate
This post describes a piece of scientific analysis carried out by Wild Justice and friends.
Estimating the occurrence of Common Pheasant Phasianus colchicus and Red-legged Partridge Alectoris rufa in terrestrial Natura 2000 sites in England.
Layperson’s summary (written by Wild Justice and approved by scientific collaborators) Wild Justice is taking legal action against DEFRA on their failure to assess the impacts of the very large numbers of non-native gamebirds on sites of high nature conservation importance. For Pheasants and Red-legged Partridges to have an impact on the ecology of a site then, for most impacts, they must be present on the site, although for some impacts being found nearby would be enough (eg through affecting the densities of generalist predators which may use the sites in questions for foraging). Birdwatchers often collect data on the presence or absence of birds in identifiable geographical locations. By collating the publicly available data from such birdwatchers’ observations and comparing those records with the boundaries of sites of conservation importance we examined how many sites of high conservation importance (Natura 2000 sites) had Pheasants, or Red-legged Partridges, or both, inside, probably inside, or at least very close to the Natura 2000 sites. This analysis shows that only two out of 313 terrestrial Natura 2000 sites in England lack records of Pheasants and Red-legged Partridges within or very close to their borders. Given that this method is almost certainly very conservative in identifying such sites, we have established that non-native gamebirds are present on the vast majority of English terrestrial Natura 2000 sites and therefore the scale of the task that DEFRA must undertake to assess any ecological impacts.
TechnicalSummary Terrestrial Natura 2000 sites in England were intersected with an irregular grid of post-2000 records of Common Pheasant and Red-legged Partridge, each cell scaled according to the spatial precision of the record(s) within it (maximum cell size = 2×2 km). Of the 313 Natura 2000 sites in England that have a terrestrial component, 33.5% entirely contained one or more cells with confirmed presence of Pheasant, 71.9% contained the central points of one or more cells with confirmed presence and 99.4% (all but two Natura sites) overlapped one or more cells with confirmed presence of Pheasant. The equivalent values for Red-legged Partridge were 18.2%, 53.4% and 85.6%, respectively. The average percentage of the land area of terrestrial Natura 2000 sites in England that fell within grid cells occupied by Pheasant was 93.0% (45.6% for Red-legged Partridge), and for a dissolved layer total land area of all SPAs and SACs combined, taking out the overlap between sites, it was 72.1% (31.9% for Red-legged Partridge). Pheasants are therefore present within, or immediately outside, practically all the terrestrial Natura 2000 sites in England, and Red-legged Partridges are present within, or immediately outside, a majority.
Location data for Common Pheasant and Red-legged Partridge were downloaded from NBN Atlas: https://nbnatlas.org/. These comprised mostly BTO data (up to 2015) but also included a small proportion of additional locations from other sources. To these were added eBird data filtered to a location accuracy of 100 m. Most NBN Atlas data come as point locations indicating the centre of a square grid cell within which the sighting was made; they do not usually indicate the precise location of the sighting itself. The associated accuracy codes indicate the size of the grid cell to which each sighting was assigned. Note that location accuracy in NBN is rather illogically coded such that a location accuracy of 1km refers to a point in a 1-km square
Records without a location accuracy were deleted
All records with a location accuracy of over 2 km
were deleted (these were mostly or entirely from 10-km atlases)
All records prior to 2000 were deleted
Duplicate locations were deleted (e.g. BBS squares
were the two species were recorded in multiple years) to leave only unique
locations
All records were buffered by a radius of half their
location accuracy and squares were created that entirely inscribed the buffered
circles (using the “Feature envelope to polygon” tool in ArcGIS), thus
re-creating the original square grid cells. These cells were of different sizes
and overlapped according to the source data (Fig. 1). A dissolved layer of
these cells was also produced for analyses by area (see below).
Fig. 1. Reconstructed grid cells, showing the different classes of precision of confirmed presence of Common Pheasant (larger blue squares 2-km, medium blue squares 1-km, small blue squares <100m) overlaying part of a Natura 2000 site (Breckland, in red). The white areas are those with no records of Pheasant in the dataset used. In this example, none of the 2-km cells falls entirely within the Natura site polygon, but one of the 1-km cells (“A”) and several of the smallest cells (circled in white) fall entirely within it. Note that due to the very high precision of mapping of Natura sites, with sites broken into multiple small polygons and even roads and individual fields excised from the site, cells such as that labelled “B” and the 2-km cell immediately below it, which fall entirely within the outermost boundary of the site, do not entirely fall within the site’s polygon because of the tiny proportion of their area falling on roads; even two of the highest-resolution cells (in yellow triangles) are not entirely included in the site’s polygon for the same reason.
Data analysis
To estimate the occurrence of Pheasant and Red-legged
Partridge in each Natura 2000 site with different levels of confidence,
intersections were undertaken for each species using spatial joins in ArcGIS
Pro to calculate three variables for each Natura 2000 site:
The number of occupied cells falling entirely
within the Natura 2000 site
The number of occupied cells whose centres fall
within the Natura 2000 site
The number of occupied cells at least partly
intersecting the Natura 2000 site
These are logically nested such that cells captured by intersection 1 are a subset of those captured by intersection 2, etc.. The first intersection, when applied to the example in Figure 1, would yield a count of six (cell “A” and the five much smaller cells circled in white). The second intersection would include these six, plus others whose centres fall in the site polygon (e.g. cell “B”, the 2-km cell immediately below it and the two much smaller cells contained within yellow triangles, plus others). The third intersection would include all cells already captured by the previous intersections plus any other cells that intersect any part of the site’s polygon, even if only to a small extent (e.g. cell “C”, plus many others).
In order to estimate the percentage of each Natura 2000 site’s
area that falls within cells occupied by each species, the dissolved grid of
occupied cells was intersected with the Natura 2000 layer using the “Tabulate
intersection” tool in ArcMap. In the example shown in Fig. 1, this would
calculate the percentage of the site that falls within blue cells (i.e.
everything except the bright red portions of the site).
Once these intersections were complete, N2K sites that were terrestrial and fell entirely within England were extracted using the coding in the spreadsheet accessed here and selecting sites coded Country = “E” and Zone = “Terrestrial”. Sites listed in this document as being 100% marine were deleted. Some partly terrestrial sites have a marine or inshore component, e.g. some estuaries; for analyses of the percentage area of sites falling within grid cells occupied by each species, the marine component of such sites was excluded.
RESULTS
Filtering sites as described above returned a total of 313
Natura 2000 sites falling wholly within England that have a terrestrial
component.
The filtered data contained 73,091 cell records of Pheasant (82.2%
from BTO data via NBN Atlas, 14.2% from other sources via NBN Atlas, and 3.6%
from eBird) and 26,123 cell records of Red-legged Partridge (with a similar
breakdown of sources), spread across the UK. Of these, 9.9% were accurate to
within less than 100 m, 36.2% were accurate to within around 500 m (i.e. they
represented records presented at a 1×1-km cell level and 53.9% were accurate to
within around 1 km (i.e. a 2×2-km cell level accuracy).
Fig. 2. Percentage of all terrestrial Natura 2000 sites in England (n = 313), and of SPAs (n = 79) and SACs (n = 234) separately, that completely contained one or more cells occupied by one or other species (black bars), that contained the centre(s) of one or more cells occupied by one or other species (mid-grey bars), and that intersected one or more cells occupied by one or other species (pale grey bars).
Figure 2 shows the percentage of terrestrial Natura 2000 sites in England that entirely contained at least one occupied cell, that contained the centre of at least one occupied cell and that overlapped at least one occupied cell, for each species separately and for both species combined (i.e. either Pheasant or Red-legged Partridge). Because the distribution of Red-legged Partridge records fell almost entirely within the distribution of Pheasant records, the combined plot for both species is almost identical to the plot for Pheasant. The percentage of SPAs wholly enclosing one or more occupied cells or containing the centres of occupied cells was higher for SPAs than for SACs, probably due at least in part to the larger area of the former (mean 94.8 km2 vs 36.2 km2).
The only two terrestrial N2K sites in England that did not
intersect any cells occupied by either Pheasant or Red-legged Partridge were
the Farne Islands, which presumably lie outside the dispersal range of mainland
birds, and Fen Bog, a tiny site in the North Yorks Moors that falls 450 m from
a cell with recorded presence of Red-legged Partridge and 1.2 km from a cell
occupied by Pheasant.
The average percentage of the land area of terrestrial Natura 2000 sites in England that fell within grid cells occupied by Pheasant was 93.0% (45.6% for Red-legged Partridge). These figures do not take account of the fact that SPAs and SACs can overlap one another, and hence that a single record of Pheasant or Red-legged Partridge can fall within more than one Natura 2000 site. When the SPAs and SACs are dissolved into a non-overlapping layer of land under one or both designations, 72.1% of its area falls within cells occupied by Pheasant and 31.9% within cells occupied by Red-legged Partridge. The difference between these figures and the much higher site averages is due largely to the absence of Pheasants (or at least to a lack of records) from large parts of a small number of very large upland moorland Natura 2000 sites.
DISCUSSION (written by Wild Justice and approved by our scientific collaborators)
This report uses freely available bird observation data collected mainly by volunteer birdwatchers and made available through the application eBird or through Birdtrackor through more formal data collection exercises such as national surveys of distribution or numbers of birds, mainly organised by the British Trust for Ornithology. The fact that we could analyse these data is a testament to those many thousands of volunteers who collected the data and those who made the data publicly and freely available.
It
is well known that Pheasants in particular, but Red-legged Partridges
too, are widely distributed across most of England in practically all
habitats (eg farmland of a variety of types, open moors and heaths,
woodlands of all types) but the occurrence of these two non-native bird
species in relation to sites of high conservation value have not before
been examined to our knowledge. Our analysis, which shows, essentially,
that these two non-native gamebirds, released for shooting for pleasure,
are found on practically all Natura 2000 sites does not come as a
surprise but is a novel result.
Might
these data, or this analysis of them, overestimate the incidence of
these birds on Natura 2000 sites? We feel it is unlikely. Pheasants and
Red-legged Partridges are moderately large birds and can easily be
identified, by sight or call, by many members of the public let alone
the keen birdwatchers who mostly contribute to the datasets we have
used. Therefore we feel that there is little chance of false positives
in terms of misidentifications. We cannot think that the methods of
analysis used would overestimate the presence of these birds on these
sites.
In fact, these results are probably highly conservative in their findings given that they depend on visits to sometimes remote locations in England. If no-one has visited a site then there will be no records for us to examine. However, it is certainly the case that if there were more visits then there would be higher incidences of presence recorded in this dataset. There may be another small factor which leads to conservatism, some birdwatchers do not regard these two species as ‘real’ birds given that they are non-native and their numbers are hugely influenced by annual releases of captive-bred individuals and so may not think them worthy of recording.
These data only give clues to numbers of the two species present on Natura 2000 sites (as opposed to presence in unknown numbers) but the high incidence of presence suggests that numbers are appreciable at many sites (a conjecture born out by personal observation). Some of the datasets analysed by us could be used to explore this issue further and we have carried out some small-scale analyses for selected sites. Birdtrack data, allocated to well-known sites such as nature reserves (where they are contained, as they quite often are) within Natura 2000 sites, could be analysed to examine what proportion of visits where complete lists of birds seen were recorded, contain the relevant species. One could then identify for any Natura 2000 sites what proportion of visits to the sites recorded either Pheasants, Red-legged Partridges or both. It might then be possible to construct a league table of Natura 2000 sites ranked by the likelihood of non-native gamebird observations. Wild Justice has done some simple analyses with data which were to hand, to show that this is feasible and we recommend this approach to DEFRA. Perhaps DEFRA is already carrying out such an analysis but if they are then we are unaware of it.
These findings show that Natura 2000 sites in England have non-native gamebirds recorded within their boundaries, probably within their boundaries or near their boundaries with a very high incidence. This has implications for DEFRA’s review of impacts of these the non-native species of gamebird on the integrity of Natura 2000 sites.
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Comments Off on Why is NRW allowing casual killing of Jackdaws?Jackdaw. Photo: Tim Melling
Natural Resources Wales authorises the uncapped, unchecked, unregulated killing of Jackdaws all over Wales through its General Licence GL004. This is supposed to be a conservation licence. It’s outrageous – totally outrageous.
We know of no conservation organisation that culls Jackdaws on its land and yet NRW is allowing this killing for alleged conservation purposes – conservation of what, exactly? NRW lists the species for which killing of the four corvid species on GL004 is authorised, but without telling us whether it is the Jay that is predating Gannet chicks or Jackdaws. Most of the species listed on Annex 1 are simply ridiculous – after all, a lot of them never nest in Wales!
Although NRW have had evidence that Jackdaws are not a conservation problem they appear to have ignored it. We won’t go into all the details, but the more you do, the more alarming the NRW General Licences appear. Take for example the NRW General Licence Review report.
Have a look at Table 2 on page 12, and look at Jackdaw under licence GL004. You will see that Jackdaw scores 2 in one column (showing that there is some quite good science done on the subject) and 1 in the other column which purports to be the strength of the evidence. Clearly the evidence is fairly weak because Jackdaw doesn’t score 2. What does a score of 1 mean?
We’ve discussed this before on this blog – see here. The score of 1 comes from a BTO report to SNH where, for some reason, we can’t think what reason, and we certainly can’t think of a good reason, if there is one study that suggests that Jackdaws are important predators of other species and millions of studies which suggest they have no impact at all, then the BTO report to SNH scored that species as having an effect. This the opposite of giving a species the benefit of the doubt and it flies against the precautionary principle. What the flawed BTO report does, and what NRW has repeated without thought it seems, is remove the benefit of any doubt and paved the way for widespread culling of Jackdaws for alleged but unexplained conservation purposes across the whole of Wales in unlimited numbers. Scandalous!
Look at the BTO report and what it says about Jackdaws on pages 33 and 34 – click here. Is that the evidence that would move you to put Jackdaw on a general licence which authorises unlimited killing of a species across Wales?
And yet, on this basis, Jackdaw is regarded by NRW, but not by any conservation organisation that we know, as a widespread conservation problem. Its ridiculous.
Comments Off on The strange case of NRW and the missing eggs
This post is about our legal challenge of the general licences issued by the public body, Natural Resources Wales, on 1 January 2020. To take a legal challenge against the decision of a government body requires a good knowledge of the law, and none of the three Wild Justice co-founders, Mark Avery, Chris Packham and Ruth Tingay, would claim to know much about the law, but we do know a bit about nature conservation (and luckily we have a great legal team).
The Welsh General Licence GL004 purports to be a licence for the purpose of conserving birds by taking lethal control measures against four corvid species (birds of the crow family, Corvidae). The four corvids are Jackdaw, Jay, Magpie and Carrion Crow, and we’ll come back to them in later blogs, but let’s for a moment consider the purported beneficiaries of this licence – a list of 143 bird species listed at Annex 1 of GL004.
Having a list of species such as that long list of species at Annex 1 of GL004 is a good thing – it’s actually attempting to be more specific about what the conservation purposes of the licence are – not to conserve every bird species in Wales but to conserve these particular species. That’s a small step forward compared with the general licences in Scotland or England.
The NRW licence goes one small step further in stating very clearly that it is only to protect the eggs and chicks of the 143 species, not the adult birds. That seems quite sensible too.
But, of course, for the licence to have any scientific credibility the list of 143 species has to be a sensible list. Now, we could, and probably will in later posts, get into whether species A of the four corvids (eg Jay) has a population level impact on Species B from the Annex 1 list (eg Gannet). What do you think? Are Jays an important predator of Gannet eggs? Nah, nor do we! But for now we don’t have to get into even that very easy discussion.
Do you recognise the egg at the top of this post? You might guess it’s a duck egg but we’d guess that few would have identified it as a Velvet Scoter egg. Hats off to you if you did, though.
Here is an adult male Velvet Scoter;
Velvet Scoter Melanitta fusca
…and a female;
Velvet scoter, Melanitta fusca, single bird swimming on water, winter, Lancashire, UK
…they’re quite cute ducks aren’t they? They are normally seen in Wales offshore, bobbing up and down in the waves in the winter months. Have you guessed where we are going with this?
Velvet Scoter is one of the 143 species whose eggs and/or chicks you can protect, thanks to NRW’s General Licence GL004, through killing Jackdaws, Jays, Magpies or Carrion Crows. The only trouble is that Velvet Scoters do not nest in Wales, come to that they do not nest in the UK – probably never have, probably never will.
NRW might just as well have added Emperor Penguin to Annex 1 for all the sense it would make.
And yes, we are taking the mickey out of NRW staff and their illustrious and knowledgable Board, because by our reckoning there are loads of species in Annex 1 which don’t, never have or hardly ever do nest in Wales. So who is taking the mickey really? Annex 1 is listed alphabetically and in the As and Bs we find: Arctic Skua, Balaeric Shearwater, Bar-tailed Godwit, Bewick’s Swan and Brambling – if they all nest in Wales in 2020 it will be quite a year!
By our reckoning there are c30 of the 143 species on Annex 1 which are not Welsh breeding species and yet you are authorised to kill an unlimited number of Jackdaws anywhere in Wales to protect the eggs and chicks of these non-breeding species.
This is not by any means the only thing bizarre, unscientific and wrong about these general licences. But it’s a pretty big fail at a pretty fundamental level.
Please help us to take our legal challenge against NRW General Licence GL004 through donating to Wild Justice’s crowdfunder – click here – or through donating directly to Wild Justice – click here.
Thank you to all our supporters so far – we are a third of the way to our target after just three full days.
We’re pretty accustomed to abuse from the shooting community – often from individuals but increasingly from their representative body BASC. The vituperative BASC are apoplectic with Wild Justice because of our legal challenge of the Welsh general licences – see here for what BASC say and see here for details of our challenge..
Apparently the three of us, Chris, Mark and Ruth, are bringing down the whole of farming, the whole of the countryside and the health of Wales by using legal approaches, available to all in a democracy, to challenge government action.
What is abundantly clear is that BASC is mightily rattled by the changes that are inevitable to the way that bird killing is licensed. We can’t be sure that we will win this case, but we are confident that we have an excellent chance, but we can be sure that change is on the way. BASC knows that it cannot bully Wild Justice and it cannot bully the law – so it just goes completely over the top with abuse. It is a strange way for a representative body to behave, have you ever heard the RSPB, the Wildlife Trusts or the National Trust using language like BASC uses against a few individuals with whom they disagree? And this approach will go down very badly with public bodies who will not want to be seen to be too closely associated with an organisation that spews out such nastiness. As is so often the case, shooting organisations are shooting’s worst enemies.
And lest there be any doubt about it, the timing of our legal challenge is not of our choosing, it is determined by the timing of the issuing of the general licences under challenge, the passage of exchange of letters between us and NRW and indeed the fact that NRW appears to want to fight this case. NRW knew full well that they would probably face a legal challenge if they issued their flawed general licences and yet they did. Bring on the legal battle!
And the excellent progress of our crowdfunder will have rattled BASC too – yesterday its total passed £1,000, £2,000, £3,000, £4,000, £5,000, £6,000, £7,000, £8,000, £9,000, £10,000 and £11,000 in a single day. thank you to all our supporters.
If you would like to support our challenge of the casual killing of birds in Wales then visit our crowdfunder here please. And thank you!
Comments Off on Our latest legal challenge – general licences in WalesJackdaw. Photo: Tim Melling
Yesterday Wild Justice’s lawyers filed our application for a judicial review of Natural Resources Wales’s (NRW’s) issuing of general licences on 1 January 2020. We’ve launched a crowdfunder and we’re seeking to raise £42,500 to pay the legal costs we have already incurred and to take this case through the courts. Please give generously to enable us to mount this challenge.
This is the latest in our challenges of the legality of the general
licences which allow the casual killing of millions of birds across the UK. We
have already seen some minor changes to the licences and the species listed in
England, Scotland and Wales but there is much more to do. This challenge, of
the Welsh licences, will have implications right across the UK. We need to see
the licences tightened up considerably to comply with the law and to reflect
the scientific evidence.
Our legal grounds of
challenge
All wild birds are protected by law and the exceptions to
this full legal protection are well-defined and quite specific.
Although NRW identify the purposes of their general licences
(eg nature conservation, protecting crops from serious damage, human health
etc) they do not identify the circumstances under which there is no non-lethal
alternative to using lethal control. This, we argue, is unlawful and amounts to
allowing casual killing of otherwise protected birds.
Our three legal grounds are:
Unlawful failure to specify circumstances
Unlawful failure in relation to satisfactory
alternatives
Unlawful approach to derogations
The science is
lacking
Our main concern with NRW’s licences is with General Licence
GL004 which purports to be a nature conservation licence. Although licences GL001 and GL002 have the
same legal flaws we might not have challenged them if they weren’t associated
with the awful GL004.
GL004 allows the killing of Jackdaw, Jay, Magpie and Carrion
Crow to protect the eggs and chicks of a list of 143 bird species in Wales. At
first glance, it looks like a decent job has been done by NRW, but the more we
looked the more we realised how poor a job they had done.
First, many of the 143 species listed have never, and will
never, nest in Wales! Species like Sanderling and Velvet Scoter are winter
visitors and corvid predation on their eggs in Wales is simply out of the
question. Yet NRW list them as species
whose eggs and chicks can be protected by lethal killing of corvids!
Second, there is no strong evidence, and precious little
weak evidence, that, for example Jackdaw has any impact on species of conservation
concern in Wales (or anywhere else). In one of the most important studies
looking for evidence of impacts of predation on prey species the authors didn’t
even consider Jackdaw as worth examination because it simply isn’t a predator
of nests and chicks. Also, the literature review on which NRW relies actually
states that there is a ‘Low [level of] expert
opinion and no anecdotal evidence to suggest Jackdaw will have an impact on
wild bird populations’ and yet Jackdaw is on the list as a species that can
be killed for nature conservation purposes.This is turning the precautionary principle on its head.
We believe that Jackdaw, Jay and Magpie must be removed from
GL004 and that the licence would then only cover Carrion Crow, but that the
circumstances where Carrion Crows can be killed for nature conservation
purposes must be greatly limited.
The Wild Justice witness statement runs to about 25 pages so
you can see that there is much more we could say but we seek to get these
issues settled in court according to the law.
Our requested remedy
We are asking for permission for judicial review of the 2020
Welsh general licences where we will ask the court to declare the licences
unlawful. This will give NRW the opportunity to carry out a proper review of
these licences in time for lawful alternatives to be issued in 2021.
Please help us by contributing to our crowdfunder – click here.Thank you!
Scaremongering and hysteria is the response we’ve come to expect from many within the game-shooting world whenever Wild Justice launches a new legal challenge, and that’s exactly what the Daily Telegraph published yesterday in an article headlined as, ‘Dog walkers could be banned from swathes of countryside under Chris Packham plans, it is feared’.
According to Telegraph journalist Hayley Dixon, Wild Justice’s current legal action against DEFRA concerning the Government’s failure to undertake environmental impact assessments on the release of millions of non-native gamebirds near Natura 2000 sites, ‘could have a knock on effect on other activities’ such as ‘dog-walking, horse riding and farming’. Her article includes quotes from BASC, Countryside Alliance, Game Farmers’ Association and the National Gamekeepers Organisation so it’s not difficult to see what prompted the melodrama.
Wild Justice co-director Dr Mark Avery said the suggestion that dog-walking would be affected was “nonsense”, adding, “Our case is about the real issue of biodiversity concerns”.
Solicitor Tessa Gregory from law firm Leigh Day, representing Wild Justice, did provide a quote to the journalist but only part of it was published. Here it is in full:
“The suggestion that Wild Justice’s legal claim could result in the need to assess the environmental impact of dog-walking in the countryside is wrong and shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the law. Assessment is required under the law where, based on objective evidence, it is not possible to exclude likely significant effects of a plan or project on protected sites (known as Natura 2000 sites).
It is the scale, organisation and regularity of the mass release of gamebirds that mean such releases are capable of being a plan or project for the purposes of the law. Where these mass releases are on or near protected sites, it will in some instances (as accepted by Defra), not be possible to exclude negative impacts. It is in those circumstances that Wild Justice are asking the Government to comply with the law and carry out an assessment of the environmental impact of gamebird releases. Of course, there is nothing to fear from an assessment if a particular activity does not harm a protected site”.
Oh, and by the way, Daily Telegraph, none of the three Wild Justice Directors (Chris Packham CBE, Dr Mark Avery, Dr Ruth Tingay) are ‘animal rights activists’ as you’ve wrongly asserted. We’ve been here with you many times before (e.g. see here) and if you continue to misrepresent us we will consider legal action.
The Wild Justice e-petition which reached 100,000 signatures on Day 20 of its existence back in early September will be debated by backbench MPs in Westminster Hall soon – we imagine that it will be late March or early April.
Do not think that such a debate will rapidly lead to the banning of driven grouse shooting but it will be interesting to see what MPs say about the issue three and a half years after it was first debated. Since that time we have seen more floods, more calls for burning to cease on all peatlands and considerably more evidence of the scale of wildlife crime against protected birds of prey. In Scotland we have seen the publication of the Werritty report which calls for licensing of grouse shooting.
This debate will provide an opportunity for a DEFRA minister to say something on the issue. Heather burning is a hot topic now and this debate will give DEFRA the opportunity to lay out their plans on that subject. If they don’t, questions will be asked.
Wild Justice and other environmental organisations will be briefing MPs on the issues.
Once we know full details then we will post them here and put them in our next newsletter. The newsletter will also include information on what you can do to help this debate go well. Sign up for our newsletter – click here.
Leave a CommentSeven week old pheasant chicks, often known as poults, after just being released into a gamekeepers release pen on an English shooting estate
Here is another paragraph from the Wild Justice witness statement supporting our legal challenge;
The scale of gamebird releases is a particularly UK issue. When measured in spring (standard practice for bird populations) the breeding populations of Pheasant in the UK (ie those birds which have survived the shooting season, and the winter to breed in the spring before further massive releases in the summer) comprise about a half of the whole European population. Other countries have Pheasant shooting but they do not release such vast numbers of farmed birds into the countryside a few weeks before the shooting season as we do in the UK. The Netherlands banned almost all gamebird and game shooting in 2002 on a mixture of animal welfare and conservation grounds.
Or to put that a different way, the UK has 50% of the European population of this non-native bird whilst occupying only 2% of the land area of the continent.
And to put it yet another way, if the UK had the same density of Pheasants as the rest of the Europe then our population would be 1/50th of the current level.
DEFRA has ignored the ecological threat to UK wildlife for far too long and now needs to take urgent steps to assess the impacts on our wildlife.
Leave a CommentSeven week old pheasant poults, after just being released into a gamekeeper’s release pen on an English shooting estate
The Guardian covered our legal challenge – very accurately – click here.
One of us, Mark, was on talkRADIO this afternoon – that was fun.
Amongst many messages of support we’ve received was this email:
I’ve just heard Mark Avery on talkRADIO and thought he was absolutely amazing, a brilliant spokesperson. What is staggering is that he said this could go either way in the courts and I dont understand why. Anyway if there is a campaign I can sign I would love to. It disgusts me and upsets me how these birds are treated in the name of “sport”. I do everything I can to look after the birds in my little garden they are all fed all year round. What is it with some humans who just want to kill and destroy defenceless animals
Well done for your great work in highlighting such a huge issue to the public.
DEFRA need to pull their finger out.
We agree – this is what we say about our case – click here.
Comments Off on Wild Justice seeks judicial review of gamebird releasesSeven week old pheasant chicks, often known as poults, after just being released into a gamekeepers release pen on an English shooting estate
On Monday afternoon our lawyers lodged court papers calling for a ban of releases of Pheasants and Red-legged Partridges into the English countryside this year except where DEFRA has ruled out any impacts on the ecology of Natura 2000 sites. This is the latest stage in a legal challenge which began in November 2018. DEFRA admitted last year that it was required to assess the impacts of the vast numbers of non-native gamebirds on Special Protection Areas for birds and Special Areas of Conservation for wildlife and yet has recently admitted that its progress is so slow that nothing will be in place to limit releases this year. DEFRA has therefore not taken the necessary steps quickly enough to avoid further unlawfulness and we are seeking an expedited hearing for judicial review of their decision.
Each year gamebirds reared in captivity are released into
the countryside in late summer ahead of the shooting season. Both the species
in question, Pheasant and Red-legged Partridges, are non-native species and are
released in vast numbers. Industry estimates are that 47 million Pheasants and
10 million Red-legged Partridges are released for shooting.
Here is an extract from our Statement of Facts and Grounds
where the Claimant is Wild Justice and the Defendant is George Eustice,
Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
The Claimant seeks permission for a judicial review to be considered on
an expedited (so as to allow for determination of the claim well before July 2020
at which point releases of gamebirds will begin) basis.
At the substantive (or rolled up) hearing, the Claimant will ask the
court to declare that:
• As set out above, the UK has unlawfully failed to implement the Habitats
Directive.
• The Defendant has unlawfully failed to take such steps as would be required
(or indeed any steps) to ensure compliance with the Directive as set out above
in relation to the release of game birds for sport shooting in the summer of
2020.
• Given that the Defendant has failed to ensure that Appropriate Assessments
will be undertaken (and releases will only be in accordance with their
conclusions), the releases of game birds in 2020 will be unlawful other than in
those particular cases where it is possible to exclude from the outset adverse
impacts on Natura 2000 sites.
The Claimant also asks for an order that the Defendant should exercise
his powers to issue SNs (Stop Notices) to prevent such releases.
Here is an extract from our witness statement:
Imagine that there were no Pheasants or Red-legged Partridges living in the UK at the moment and somebody suggested releasing nearly 60 million of them for the first time this summer! There is no possibility that such a situation would be nodded through by any competent government department. And yet the scale of non-native gamebird releases has been allowed to increase steadily and inexorably over recent decades with government and its agencies failing to regulate or even study these impacts in any adequate manner. That must end now because common sense requires it but so does the law as far as it pertains to Natura 2000 sites.
Yesterday we heard that the Hon Mr Justice Mostyn did not grant our request that the period for the Defendant to file its acknowledgement of service and summary grounds of defence should be shortened, but did order that on filing of the acknowledgement of service and summary grounds of defence the papers are to be placed as soon as possible before a judge to decide if permission should be granted and, if so, who the interested parties should be and whether the claim should be expedited to be heard before the end of the Trinity term 2020.
The three co-founders of Wild Justice said;
Chris Packham CBE: DEFRA has been dragging its feet on this issue since we first raised it. It is time to sort this out and Wild Justice is fully prepared for a court battle on behalf of UK wildlife. Our challenge relates to Natura 2000 sites in England but the impacts will be felt right across the UK countryside.
Dr Ruth Tingay: The
lack of monitoring and regulation of gamebird releases is staggering. The
Government doesn’t seem to know or care how many are released each year and
even the figure of 60 million gamebirds may well be an underestimate. Incredibly,
there is nothing to stop the shooting industry releasing twice as many
gamebirds next year. This has to stop and proper regulation brought in.
Dr Mark Avery: These non-native gamebirds go around
gobbling up insects, other invertebrates
and even snakes and lizards, they peck at vegetation, their droppings fertilise
sensitive habitats which no farmer would be allowed to fertilise and they
provide prey and carrion that swell the populations of predators that then go
on to prey on other threatened species. And the biomass of Pheasants and
Red-legged Partridges exceeds that of all native UK birds put together. This is
a very serious ecological assault on the countryside which government is
failing to assess and regulate.
Wild Justice is represented by Tessa Gregory and Carol Day,
solicitors at Leigh Day.
Carol Day: Wild
Justice quite rightly held off issuing legal proceedings last year on the basis
that the Government said it would review arrangements to consider the impact of
the gamebirds’ release in future. It is now clear that the review has only just
started and that no action will be taken that could affect the shooting season
in 2020.
If Wild Justice
waited until September to challenge the legality of the gamebird releases it
would be too late. The Pheasants and Partridges would have left their breeding
pens, and the damage could then be done. And so – responsibly and properly –
the Claimant is acting now, at a time when it is still possible to head off the
alleged illegality.
Leave a CommentRuth Tingay of Wild Justice (centre) with a bunch of leagal eagles
On Thursday evening, Wild Justice held a small event in London with friends, colleagues, donors, potential donors, journalists and others. We weren’t going to mention it here but Charlie Moores wrote a lovely blog about it which you might like to read – click here.
We can tell you that our guests were very generous and we’ve had donations of over £5,000 since then.
On a less positive note, when Chris Packham got home after midnight, after a very busy day, he found a dead Badger tied to his gate.
Last year Wild Justice directors Chris Packham and Mark Avery were invited to the annual Game Fair to face a barrage of difficult questions about our thoughts and opinions on a variety of matters. We are pretty much always up for talking to people and so accepted the invitation as much out of a sense of duty as real enthusiasm.
And, you may remember, a few days, very few, before the actual event we were uninvited by the Game Fair organisers (actually only Chris was univited Mark read it on the BASC website – how classy are they?).
We notice that the Game Fair is in Warwickshire this summer and at the moment we might be free (all three of us not just the two blokes) so we’d just like to offer some advice to BASC, GWCT, the Daily Telegraph, Moorland Association, Countryside Alliance and others: if you’d like us to attend this year then ask us soon and get yourselves sorted out so that you can try to avoid the public relations disaster you caused yourselves last year. Just saying…
Here are some links to last year’s events (here, here, here, here)
We were very lucky. Considering the wind was blowing and it was raining when we arrived, it was unexpected that the weather would improve so much in the next hour. About 10 of us had chanced the weather and went on a raptor walk at Wicken Fen yesterday afternoon, and our main hope was to see, to glimpse, Hen Harriers coming in to roost.
We were very lucky. Five steps out of the warmth and shelter of the National Trust visitor centre we had seen a very distant Barn Owl and two quite distant ringtail Hen Harriers as well as Marsh Harriers. Wow! It was worth coming after all.
We were very, very lucky because later we had superb views of male and ringtail Hen Harriers. Multiple views, long-lasting views and close views. Some of the best harrier-watching I’ve had and the best so far for many of the rest of the group.
Ringtail Hen Harrier. Photo: Gordon YatesMale Hen Harrier. Photo: Gordon Yates.
The harriers, Marsh and Hen, were coming in to roost after a day of feeding out on the Fens and on the nature reserve at Wicken Fen itself. The Hen Harriers are winter visitors here, and nest, if these birds nest in the UK which is quite likely, mostly on moorland areas of Wales, Scotland and northern England. Their numbers are greatly reduced by illegal persecution on grouse moors because Hen Harriers eat Red Grouse that people want to shoot.
The Hen Harriers we saw weren’t eating Red Grouse, there aren’t any within 100 miles of Wicken Fen, instead they are eating small mammals such a voles and small passerine birds such as finches, buntings, sparrow, pipits and larks.
This was the third raptor watch that Wild Justice directors, Ruth Tingay and Mark Avery, have attended and we’ve seen Hen Harriers (and obviously lots of other birds) at every one ( Wicken Fen, RSPB Wallasea Island and RSPB Titchwell). We chickened out of travelling to The Wirral last weekend because of the foul weather and we have failed to set up an event in Kent this year, despite trying. But we’ll consider doing similar walks next year if people are interested.
Thank you to the RSPB and National Trust for hosting and facilitating these walks. Each was great fun. But yesterday at Wicken Fen was just superb. We were very lucky.
Comments Off on DEFRA roll out of general licencesCommon Jay Photo: Andy Rouse
DEFRA has rolled out the existing scientifically flawed and, we believe, unlawful general licences for several more months. This is yet another sign that DEFRA pays little attention to its environmental responsibilities or, perhaps yet another sign that DEFRA just cannot function properly these days. It’s difficult to tell which.
It’s certainly a very clear sign that DEFRA has no urgent interest in properly regulating the casual shooting of millions of birds but then DEFRA has been slow to act to reduce illegal killing of protected wildlife and quick to sanction killing of tens of thousands of protected Badgers so this does not act like a government department with the interests of wildlife at its heart. That’s a reason why Wild Justice needs to take battles on behalf of wildlife.
The issuing of these licences was, last year, a job which Natural England carried out. Many will remember that Natural England completely botched their response to Wild Justice’s legal challenge and revoked the then-existing licences with a matter of a few hours notice to all involved (despite having had legal advice weeks earlier that their licences were unlawful). Natural England then began what looked as though it might be a somewhat lengthy process of issuing a much larger number of more specific general licences (more on that approach later) until Michael Gove took the licensing role away from Natural England in what looked like a fit of impatience, telling all and sundry that DEFRA would sort it out much better and much more quickly. DEFRA has sorted out nothing under either Michael Gove or Theresa Villiers and DEFRA now plan that the discredited general licences will run for another five months until, we are promised, new licences will be issued.
It’s just another DEFRA shambles.
Wild Justice was invited to a meeting with DEFRA officials yesterday (we were invited on Wednesday evening for a meeting on Thursday afternoon). It was a private meeting and we were frank with DEFRA. As you can imagine (because we have made them often before) we made the following points;
Wild Justice is unimpressed by a further roll out of scientifically flawed and unlawful general licences. We do not believe that DEFRA is doing its job properly.
a 5-month extension of the existing discredited licences is in many ways an extension by a further calendar year because most of the casual killing of birds that these licences ‘authorise’ will take place in spring.
Wild Justice’s most pressing concerns are over the so-called conservation licence which does not specify what it is aiming to conserve, where it is aiming to conserve it and at what period of the year any such measures would be most effective. This licence, in particular, should not have been rolled over in anything like its current form. DEFRA has been negligent in encouraging further casual killing under a licence which purports to have a nature conservation function.
in particular, DEFRA has had ample time to consider the species listed under the so-called conservation licence and it should by now realise that there is no justification for having Jackdaw, Jay, Rook or Magpie on such a list. It does not take this long to review the science and in rolling over this licence for another breeding season DEFRA has simply rolled over to the shrill and unscientific cries of the likes of BASC. By not addressing this issue whatsoever and introducing any change for over a year then DEFRA has ignored the evidence that it has received from true nature conservation organisations and further reduced any claim it might have for science-led policy making. It doesn’t take this long to cross some species off a list.
further, the inclusion of released gamebirds on the livestock/crops licence is bizarre and another example of how the shooting industry appear to hold sway over DEFRA. Yes, Pheasants and Red-legged Partridges when in captivity in breeding facilities are livestock but DEFRA has bent the definition of livestock out of any semblance to reality when saying that free-living gamebirds are still livestock when they are at large in the countryside because they might come back and visit their release pens now and again. No civil servant worth their salt would ever draft such nonsense so surely this must have been dictated word for word by shooting interests? Who owns each individual gamebird with this status? How do they know who is the owner since gamebirds are not individually recognisable or close-ringed? Can I seek compensation from gamebird releasers if their livestock are in my garden eating my vegetables? Can I sue the owner of these livestock if they cause a road traffic accident? Can I shoot livestock? Can my gamebird-releasing neighbour claim that I am shooting his livestock if he thinks his livestock have crossed the boundary and been driven on one of my shoot days? And yet DEFRA has rolled over this nonsense after months of review.
Wild Justice made some other points too, but that’ll do as a summary.
DEFRA officials assured Wild Justice that the review they were carrying out was detailed and thorough, and we do not doubt that. Although, of course, we have no clear evidence about it and can only see the complete unwillingness of DEFRA to make any changes at this crucial time of year and instead DEFRA has done what the shooting industry in particular has demanded and kept everything in its discredited form for more months.
DEFRA asked Wild Justice whether we were against general licences in principle. We reiterated that we were not, but that we reckoned that DEFRA was finding that it was very difficult to write general licences that are detailed enough to be lawful. We can imagine that DEFRA may eventually reach the position that Natural England had reached when Michael Gove strode manfully into the debate, saying ‘Let me deal with this’, and realise that they need to have much more detailed and specific general licences, and more of them, to deal with different circumstances, than the incredibly vague ones that exist now. But that is up to DEFRA to decide – they should have decided by now.
Let us imagine that DEFRA officials come up with proposals for a new licensing system, as a result of careful and detailed consideration, that are far better than the ones we are living with today – this must be possible. DEFRA needs to consult Natural England on the new licences and then they must be signed off by ministers. There is nothing certain about the outcome of this process. The outcome is not certain and the timing is not certain.
DEFRA officials were quite keen to know Wild Justice’s intentions on the legal challenge. That’s a matter for Wild Justice and its lawyers to consider and we are. As you can see from the above, DEFRA has done nothing to reduce the chance of legal challenge to their licences as they have changed nothing, promised nothing and merely kicked the tatty and damaged can down the road for another five months.
Wild Justice can, of course, test some of the legal issues by legal action against Natural Resources Wales general licences, or potentially Scottish Natural Heritage general licences as well as the DEFRA general licences. These are possibilities under active consideration.
Also, we had a quick chat about gamebird releases where DEFRA has already told us that they need several months more to decide what they are doing. Wild Justice pointed out to DEFRA that having admitted that the law requires them to assess the impact of gamebird releases on sites of high nature conservation importance then they may be acting illegally if they do not limit such releases this year. That was just a reminder, we’ve said it before.
Monday – receive response from DEFRA on gamebird releases – we are waiting for our lawyers to advise us on options
Tuesday – publicise our new legal challenge to the Welsh general licences and spend three hours on Twitter responding to questions and taking insults from people who almost all self-identify as shooters.
Wednesday – a phone conference with our legal team and some experts – watch this space or to be sure to be kept in touch then sign up to our newsletter – click here.
Thursday – one of us does have an interesting meeting on this day.
Friday – we expect a response from DEFRA on general licences but since these things tend to arrive at the close of play (if at all) two of us, Ruth and Mark, may well be watching Marsh Harriers going in to roost at Titchwell RSPB nature reserve in Norfolk at the time.
Sunday – Mark and Ruth will be at Parkgate on The Wirral with lots of other birders looking for harriers, Marsh and Hen, out on the saltmarsh and there will be lots of other birds too.
And dispersed throughout this there will be lots of emails to read and send, and sending thank you cards and emails to donors who send cheques to us through the post.
Wild Justice is just three people, Ruth Tingay, Chris Packham and Mark Avery, none of whom is full time and none of whom is paid any salary. We are building up a Fighting Fund so that we can investigate a large number of legal challenges and pick those that stand the best chance of success coupled with making the biggest impact on wildlife. If you’d like to contribute to our Fighting Fund then that would be very kind of you – the options are through PayPal, bank transfer or cheques through the post – click here for details. Thank you.
Yesterday we sent this letter to Natural Resources Wales.
It won’t have come as a shock to them as we have corresponded with them on this matter.
Unless NRW agrees with our legal interpretation then we intend to apply for permission for judicial review of their issuing of general licences. If we do this then we will need to raise funds for such a legal case.
As always, Wild Justice’s main interest is in the general licence which applies to lethal control of birds for so-called conservation purposes but since the legal flaws we have identified with that general licence apply to all the general licences issued by NRW then there is little point in trying to differentiate between them. The farming industry should reflect on that.
Wild Justice is looking forward to the day when our successful e-petition to ban driven grouse shooting will be debated by backbenchers in Westminster Hall. Ours was one of very few e-petitions to have reached 100,000 signatures before the general election – in less than 20 full days in our case.
Everything was put on hold for weeks in the run-up to, during, and after the general election. Only last week was the Chair of Petitions Committee elected by MPs. The new chair is Catherine McKinnell MP, Newcastle upon Tyne, North (Labour).
Although Westminster Hall debates do not end in a vote, or a change in government policy, they do require a response from a minister (from DEFRA in this case) and allow the Shadow Minister to make points and backbenchers of all parties to air their views. It is an opportunity for an issue to be raised and put on the parliamentary record for ever.
Here is the link to the e-petition text. Thank you to 111,965 of us who signed it.
On Sunday 9 February Ruth Tingay and Mark Avery from Wild Justice will join lots of other birders and raptor enthusiasts on the Dee Estuary to look for waders, egrets, Marsh Harriers, Peregrines, Short-eared Owls and, we hope, a sighting or two of Hen Harriers hunting over the saltmarsh.
We received this on Thursday afternoon but didn’t actually read it until Thursday evening (which is quicker than we get to some emails!).
Dear Wild Justice
Personally I am heavily involved in the hunting, shooting and fishing community so must remain annonymous for obvious reasons.
Something has come to light that may be of interest to you. It will not shut down shooting, which I know you are fans of doing, but it will be of significant interest and providing that you know how to press for conviction would well lead to one.. Obviously my annonymity is important for me, but also my desire to see family financially cared for is important.
If there is an arrangement available whereby I can provide information on the basis of an annonymous source, such as a private investigator, that would result in financial reward in exchange for information about a significant a pest control supply company, that would be of great interest to myself and equally to yourselves I am sure. If this is something that you would be possible please let me know how arrangements can be made. Kind regards
received by email on Thursday afternoon
Two of us had a quick chat about this email but before we responded we got another one from the same email address as follows:
Time’s up. This is going straight to the police and BASC will get the glory instead.
received by email Friday morning
Well that saved us having to reply saying ‘If you have any genuine information then you should take it to the police. We are not interested in your deal, thank you.’.
A week today, Friday 7 February, Wild Justice co-founders Mark Avery and Ruth Tingay are visiting the RSPB Titchwell nature reserve to look for lots of (we hope!) Marsh Harriers and perhaps (we hope!) the occasional Hen Harrier coming in to roost.
We planned to visit the reserve and watch from the footpath to the beach but when we contacted the RSPB they said ‘Come on one of our regular walks’ so we will.
To be on the same walk you need to book and you need to pay the RSPB (but you get tea and cake as well as harriers). We’re talking about 3pm-5pm at the RSPB Titchwell nature reserve in north Norfolk and to register and pay, and for all details click here.
Last weekend we visited RSPB Wallasea Island – for an account of the visit click here – we saw several Marsh Harriers, a ringtail Hen Harrier and lots of waders and ducks.
On Tuesday Wild Justice had a long and detailed meeting with our legal team and a group of experts on badgers and bovine TB.
There are many aspects of the badger-culling programme that concern us but that doesn’t necessarily mean that there is a legal case to pursue. We are still looking with great interest at this subject.
Where, for example, is the evidence that the government’s actions have set us anyway down the road towards what is claimed to be the desired endpoint of eradication of bovine TB in cattle?
Why has DEFRA not responded to the Godfray report? This report was commissioned in February 2018, published in November 2018 (yes, 2018!) and has not yet received a government response in January 2020. DEFRA hardly behaves like a government department these days, it behaves like a shambolic home for deranged countryside myths.
Angry as we are, we’re still looking hard at the issues with the aid of some nice people and nice biscuits.
This is the type of work for which we need a Fighting Fund – if we do not find legal grounds to take a case on behalf of Badgers then we’ll have spent thousands of pounds getting to that position. We won’t take frivolous cases but that means we need to investigate a range of options and subjects and consider them carefully. If you feel able to contribute to our Fighting Fund then please click here for details of how to donate by PayPal, bank tranfer or by popping a cheque in the post. Thank you.
Yesterday Wild Justice’s lawyers sent this letter to DEFRA. Paragraphs 16, 17 and 18 sum it all up pretty well. The choice is DEFRA’s – and with the choice comes the responsibility for the consequences.
Essentially, Wild Justice has got what we asked for almost a year ago – an admission of unlawfulness from Natural England over their general licences and a period of review and consideration. That period is now coming to an end, and if it hasn’t been successfully concluded then that is DEFRA’s fault and DEFRA’s problem. We can settle the issue in court if needs be.
Wild Justice’s main interest is in the licence which foolishly and wrongly authorises killing of a long list of species for the purposes of nature conservation – we will not stand idly by and allow the casual killing of wildlife, falsely in the name of conservation, to continue unchallenged. How long does it take to cross off some species from a list?
Comments Off on General licences – DEFRA heads for a new debacle.Jay. Photo: Andy Rouse
Media speculation that DEFRA is woefully unprepared to issue new, lawful, sensible general licences is probably correct. The response of the shooting community has been to press DEFRA to extend the current unlawful (we contend), ridiculously flawed general licences and face legal challenge from Wild Justice all over again. This is hardly the advice of a wise friend.
Wild Justice proposes an alternative approach – issue no
general licences for 2020 and make all who wish to be licensed to kill the
relevant bird species apply for individual licences to do so. Wild Justice made this suggestion to DEFRA at
a stakeholder meeting last week.
This would probably remove any chance of an immediate legal challenge by Wild Justice, a challenge that we are confident that we would win, and which we are fully prepared to take, given that DEFRA has failed to make any progress in the last year. These were also points that we made to DEFRA last week. Our main interest is over licences which allege to permit killing for conservation purposes rather than to prevent serious damage to crops of livestock.
DEFRA has made more of a mess of this subject than did Natural England. Natural England was edging towards a solution when DEFRA intervened – we need not feel sorry for DEFRA all these months later if they have failed to find a way through these issues. Farmers and others who wish to rely on a licence to kill certain species need to reflect on how abject has been DEFRA’s lack of action.
Wild Justice does not seek to prevent lawful lethal control of birds, it is about stopping the casual and unlawful killing of millions of birds. It’s government’s job to have a licensing system that works for users and is compliant with the legislation. General licenses are the chosen route of this and other governments to attempt to license these activities but they are not the only way to do it and DEFRA is realising rather slowly that there are inherent difficulties in framing general licences so that they meet the requirements of existing legislation.
Let us reflect on how we got here:
13 February 2019 Wild Justice issued a Pre-Action Protocol letter to Natural England challenging the legality of general licences on specific grounds
23 April 2019 Natural England withdraws all general licences (despite this not being what Wild Justice had requested)
25 April 2019 Natural England starts issuing individual licences covering individual species and conditions – the shooting and farming community go wild, and Michael Gove decides that he can do a better job
5 May 2019 DEFRA issue a 4-day consultation on general licences
14 June 2019 DEFRA issues temporary general licences which are essentially unchanged
24 July 2019 Michael Gove replaced by Theresa Villiers as SoS for DEFRA
29 October 2019 Wild Justice and its lawyers meet DEFRA and its legal representatives to talk through issues
5 December 2019 DEFRA second consultation on general licences closes
Today – after nearly 12 months, DEFRA, having grabbed the issue out of NE’s hands, appears unable to come forward with a new licensing system and is being encouraged by the shooting community to stick with a discredited and unlawful licensing system.
The budget cuts to DEFRA and NE are one reason why this is such a shambles, but DEFRA simply appears unable to think through the issues these days.
To summarise: if, after a year, DEFRA cannot issue good general licences then they should not issue bad general licences.
Ruth Tingay and Mark Avery from Wild Justice went raptor watching yesterday afternoon at a rather chilly Wallasea Island RSPB nature reserve in Essex.
We see that we aren’t the only ones to have visited Wallasea recently and it’s a great place for birdwatching; there were large numbers of waders on show (mostly Oystercatcher, Golden Plover, Lapwing, Knot, Curlew, Redshank and Dunlin) with ducks, geese and swans and Grey Herons, Little Egrets and Great Egrets.
This newly created wetland was formerly a very large wheat field but now it is a nature reserve. It’s a good place to see birds of prey and we saw lots of Kestrels hovering along the sea wall, Buzzard, a very distant Peregrine, several Marsh Harriers and a ringtail (adult female or young male (probably the former, we thought)) Hen Harrier.
Hen Harriers breed in the uplands of the UK, very rarely in the lowlands, and the ringtail we saw yesterday, if it was a British bird and not a visitor from the continent, will have been hatched or attempted to nest itself in upland areas such as the Yorkshire Dales, North Wales, or the Highlands of Scotland. Hen Harriers are highly persecuted birds, because in summer they eat a wide variety of small birds and voles but their diet includes Red Grouse, and people will pay a lot of money to shoot Red Grouse whereas Hen Harriers don’t pay anything. So Hen Harriers are illegally killed by shooting interests on far too many grouse moors. Illegal raptor persecution is just one of the reasons why Wild Justice launched an e-petition last summer calling for a ban on driven grouse shooting. That e-petition received over 100,000 signatures and should be debated in the Westminster parliament in the coming weeks. Moorland management for grouse shooting was also criticised by the Committee on Climate Change last week – they called for a ban, starting this year, on the burning of peatland habitats for grouse shooting.
So, the Hen Harrier we saw on a newly created coastal wetland in the south of England yesterday is a survivor of wildlife crime in the uplands and is a poster girl for more sustainable upland management. Let’s hope she enjoys being an Essex girl for a while and then chooses a safe place in the uplands to try to nest. We wish her safe travels and a safe nesting season.
We’ll be raptor watching at other sites over the next month or so (we are waiting for news from Kent!) and we’ll update the details (click here) soon. Our next visit will be to Titchwell RSPB nature reserve where we understand we’ll be on a guided walk looking at harriers coming in to roost.
Wild Justice is fundraising in the run-up to the first birthday of its launch –click here for details of how to donate. Thank you for all your support so far.
Comments Off on BASC go ballisticSeven week old pheasant chicks in a gamekeeper’s release pen on an English shooting estate
Maybe it was optimistic to think that the shooting industry would be eager to see the issue of the conservation impact of the unregulated release of tens of millions of gamebirds into the countryside heading for resolution.
We renewed our legal challenge to DEFRA on this matter this week because we have seen no move from DEFRA over the last four months. Having admitted in September the need for conservation assessment DEFRA needs to move very quickly on this matter if the 2020 gamebird releases near designated sites can be considered lawful.
BASC issued this pugilistic statement – click here.
Our challenge to DEFRA on their failure to implement the nature conservation legislation properly is apparently an ‘attack on shooting’. DEFRA does sometimes give the impression of being in the pockets of the shooting industry for sure, but this is a legal challenge on conservation law. That ‘C’ in BASC doesn’t stand for much, does it?
BASC then says that our challenge is ‘vexatious’ and that Wild Justice is attempting to ‘rush’ the government into a decision on the legality of gamebird releases. In fact, Wild Justice could only be criticised for being too patient with DEFRA: our challenge started on 10 July 2019 and DEFRA took two months before conceding the correctness of our challenge. They have now taken four months without informing us or the world that anything is happening and we are getting ever closer to the July 2020 season for releasing gamebirds into our countryside. That’s not vexatious and it’s not a rush. After 6 months, the government ought to tell us what it plans to do to address and correct its admitted unlawful implementation of environmental legislation.
BASC say that their members should not be panicked by Wild Justice’s ‘cynical’ action. Well, our action is hardly cynical in pressing government to get itself and the shooting industry into compliance with environmental legislation. It’s up to BASC to advise its members on whether to panic or not but our reminder to DEFRA that they need to act is a serious one which may have consequences for gamebird releases this coming summer. We are aware that game shooters may well now be ordering in advance millions of gamebird eggs and poults for delivery in spring and summer – it would be a good idea if they were aware of this legal action.
The 2019/20 Pheasant shooting season ends 1 February. Wild Justice intends to help DEFRA ensure that the 2020/21 season is regulated in compliance with environmental legislation.
And just to be perfectly clear, Wild Justice expects a response from DEFRA by 4pm Monday 3 February, failing which we reserve the right to issue judicial review proceedings without further reference to DEFRA (and certainly not to BASC).
And because we successfully crowdfunded for action on this subject last year, and because DEFRA conceded our case, then we have most of the funds that we assembled then still at our disposal. At this stage we are not asking for further funding from the public and our supporters for this challenge (although that might change in future depending on how things go). We’re not asking you for money because you’ve already provided the funding for such a challenge – thank you again.
However, we are always open to more donations so that we can build up a fighting fund to investigate and then take on more cases – click here for details of how to donate to our work via PayPal, bank transfer or cheques through the post.
We launched our fundraising drive for the Wild Justice Fighting Fund less than a week ago but it has already been very successful. Over £10,000 has come in over that period from hundreds of donors. We are very grateful to all who have been able to spare some money to help us fight for wildlife – thank you very much!
We will continue fundraising through to the first anniversary of our launch on 13 February and we hope, perhaps, to reach £20,000 by then (but that might be rather a stretch – we’ll see).
A very big thank you to all who have donated so far. Here is the link which explains how donations by PayPal, bank transfer and cheques in the post can be made – click here.
Comments Off on Gamebird releases – renewed challengeSeven week old pheasant chicks in a gamekeeper’s release pen on an English shooting estate
Today, indeed this very afternoon, our lawyers have sent the following Pre-Action Protocol letter to the Secretary of State for DEFRA, and to Natural England and Welsh ministers as interested parties.
You will see that this is a follow-up to our earlier challenge (which was submitted in July 2019 see here and to which DEFRA responded in September 2019 see here) where DEFRA admitted that gamebird releases needed to be assessed properly and they promised to do so. We have seen no progress on this and so we are giving them a nudge. We are sure that this will be welcomed by the Pheasant-shooting and Red-legged Partridge-shooting community so that this matter is dealt with before such non-native gamebirds might be released next summer (usually from July onwards). It’s in everybody’s interest for this to be sorted out sooner rather than later.
The most easily understood (perhaps) and highly pertinent passages for the layperson are paragraphs 11 and 12 as follows;
11. The simple point is that, the problem having been recognised by Defra in September 2019, it would be unlawful for those releases to take place in 2020 unless the possibility of them having detrimental impacts on the sites in question had been properly considered and specifically ruled out ahead of time. And so the Secretary of State needs to initiate those processes now (in parallel with any continuing review if so wished).
…and…
12. To hold off doing that would lead to illegality later and so be unlawful now (unless the Secretary of State were to commit to using the SN and equivalent powers ahead of the 2020 releases as a longstop).
But here is the PAP letter in full, followed by a quote from Wild Justice’s Mark Avery.
Mark Avery from Wild Justice said:
We started this legal challenge last July, DEFRA took two months to respond (mid September) and now we are past mid January and only six months from the time when gamebird releasing might start again. DEFRA needs to get moving. This legal letter is designed to give them a very firm shove.
And because we successfully crowdfunded for action on this subject last year, and because DEFRA conceded our case, then we have most of the funds that we assembled then still at our disposal. At this stage we are not asking for further funding from the public and our supporters for this challenge (although that might change in future depending on how things go). We’re not asking you for money because you’ve already provided the funding for such a challenge – thank you again.
However, we are always open to more donations so that we can build up a fighting fund to investigate and then take on more cases – click here for details of how to donate to our work via PayPal, bank transfer or cheques through the post.
We’ve been getting payments through PayPal, transfers to our bank account and cheques in the post. All are very, very welcome – thank you! We’ll give you some idea of how generous people have been tomorrow.
The thing about cheques is that they tend to come in envelopes written by hand and with notes attached. It’s fun to read the messages, here are some examples;
No need to send me any ‘thank yous’. It’s thanks enough to see someone speaking up for wildlife + the environment now has the financial clout to take on people who are meant to protect our countryside.
Dear Warriors (!)
Thanks for all you are doing. Here’s a small donation.
Thank goodness for Wild Justice…
As someone who has spent the last 30 years writing letters to governments, ministers and NGOs in an attempt to dissuade them from the relentless onslaught against our natural world, I thank goodness for Wild Justice.
Just a few examples out of many – and they are all thanking us for the small part that Wild Justice is playing at standing up for threatened wildlife. But it is we who need to thank all our supporters. We can’t do anything without your support.
But, not to put too fine a point on it, we can do more if we have more resources which is why we are asking for donations to form a Wild Justice Fighting Fund so that we can explore more cases and take more action. Here is information on how you can donate if you feel you want to support us some more – click here (and thank you!).
There are lots of nature reserves around the UK where you might see birds of prey this winter, including, if you are very lucky, the endangered Hen Harrier.
Ruth Tingay and Mark Avery from Wild Justice will be looking for raptors at the following locations on the following evenings just before and around dusk. If you are out looking for raptors too, then say hello!
These are not Wild Justice ‘events’, they take place on land open to the public, mostly nature reserves, and entry or parking charges may apply.
Titchwell RSPB nature reserve, Norfolk, Friday 7th February, 3pm-5pm. The RSPB run a regular series of walks and we’re going to be on this one. You can come too but there is a fee (but you get tea and cake as well as birds) and booking is essential – click here for more information. (car park charges for non-members).
Parkgate, The Wirral, Sunday 9th February (public car park north of The Boathouse public house in Old Baths public car park) after 1pm.
At all sites there is a very good chance of seeing Marsh Harriers, and a chance of seeing the much rarer Hen Harrier. Bird sightings can never be promised and are weather-dependent.
The best time to look is from 90 minutes before sunset at Wallasea, Titchwell and Wicken Fen as the birds assemble at favoured sites to roost. Parkgate is dependent on high tides filling the saltmarsh and many birds of prey, herons, owls and corvids feed on the displaced rodents.
Birdwatching in winter can be a cold pastime – wear warm and waterproof clothes. In heavy rain observations are impossible and not much fun so consult a weather forecast before travelling to check whether your journey might be fruitless. A pair of binoculars will enable you to see distant birds in much more detail.
Wild Justice is fundraising in the run-up to the first birthday of its launch –click here for details of how to donate. Thank you for all your support so far. We’ll be providing an update on Tuesday.
Wild Justice launched 11 months ago and in the month running up to our birthday we are asking you for your money, please.
Traditionally this is the worst time of year to fundraise – but then, we aren’t traditional. Yes, we know it’s just after Christmas and those credit card bills are heading your way but we’re hoping that you will find a little money that you might be able to spare for us. Please!
But if you are already convinced, then we accept donations through PayPal or bank transfer – click here or by cheques through the post to Wild Justice, 9 Lawson Street, Raunds, Northants NN9 6NG.
As a member of Wildlife and Countryside Link, Wild Justice signed a recent letter to Theresa Villiers asking for an immediate end to burning of England’s upland bogs.
Walshaw Moor Estate. Photo: Sarah Hanson
Dear Secretary of State,
The 1st October marked the start of the heather and grass-burning season, and this week Parliament debated nature-based solutions to climate change for the first time in its history. In light of this we are writing to ask you to bring an immediate end to the practice of burning England’s upland bogs, including our internationally important blanket bog. This would make a significant and immediate contribution to our fight against climate change and increase the resilience of these habitats and the benefits they provide for people and wildlife. It would also be a prime example of global leadership in the run up the UK’s Presidency of a nature-based solutions themed COP26.
England’s upland blanket bogs are a stunningly valuable public good – they are internationally important for nature and are also vital in the fight against climate change. The UK’s peatlands store an estimated 3 billion tonnes of carbon, with England’s peatlands storing an estimated 500 Mt carbon.
However, this public good is being destroyed for private gain. Much of our blanket bog is now severely degraded. Historic atmospheric pollution has combined with intensive management practices including drainage, grazing and burning to devastate large areas of protected habitat. These intensive management practices are intended to make the bogs more productive for farming and grouse shooting, but the private benefits they produce are greatly exceeded by the environmental damage they entail in the destruction of public goods.
The scientific evidence is conclusive in showing that burning has a profound impact on the functioning of our blanket bogs, with large areas of bog now devoid of peat-forming bog mosses and vegetation, and the underlying peat soil dried out as a result. In many places, the vegetation has been entirely replaced by a monoculture of heather which further contributes to drying the peat. These habitat changes have significant detrimental impacts on bog structure, peatland invertebrates and internationally important species such as the dunlin and golden plover, which prefer to live on wet bogs.
Due to this poor management, whilst England’s blanket bogs should be a net carbon sink, they are instead releasing 350,000 tonnes of CO2 to the atmosphere each year, with 75% of these emissions a direct result of burning. This is the equivalent emissions of 140,000 cars per year.
Allowing burning to continue will substantially undermine the UK’s ability to achieve the Government’s target of net zero emissions by 2050. Rather than continuing to allow upland bogs to be burnt, we need a concerted programme to re-wet blanket bog across England to make them more resilient to future worsening climate change and the associated increase in fire risk. A recent study of European peatlands found that climate change and human impacts (including burning) are causing peatlands to change from being a carbon sink to a source of emissions. Healthy blanket bog needs water, not fire.
Burning also has more immediate effects on the ecosystem services provided by our moors and bogs. Healthy bogs help slow the flow of water across the bog surface, reducing the risk of flooding for communities downstream, as well as impacting water quality. By contrast, degraded blanket bogs are less able to withstand the worsening and more frequent heatwaves making them vulnerable to an increased risk of wildfires, with the resulting smoke pollution having a major negative impact on the air quality of nearby population centres.
We welcome your personal commitment to tackling the climate and nature crisis and that Parliament has declared a climate emergency, as well as the Queens Speech highlighting the importance of restoring natural habitats. However, if the Government is serious about showing global leadership in the run up to COP26, you should introduce an immediate and outright ban on burning on all upland blanket bogs. This would be a powerful and proportionate demonstration of practical action to show that the Government is determined to tackle climate change and improve our natural environment.
We would be very grateful for the opportunity to discuss this issue further and would be delighted to organise a site visit for you if that would be helpful.
Signed by: A Rocha, British Mountaineering Council, Butterfly Conservation, the Climate Coalition, CPRE, Council for British Archaeology, Earthwatch Institute, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, Green Alliance, the League Against Cruel Sports, National Trust, OF&G Organic, Plantlife, Conservation Farming Trust, People’s trust for endangered species, Real Farming Trust, Rewilding Britain, The RSPB, Wildlife and Countryside Link, Sustain, Sustainable Soils Alliance, Wild Justice, the Wildlife Trusts, WWF, ZSL.
Today is our birthday! On 26 October last year we registered Wild Justice as a not for profit company. It wasn’t until 13 February that we launched our website and our first legal challenge so we’re going to count that as a birthday too, but here’s a quick run through Wild Justice’s activities so far.
October 2018 – February 2019: set up website, register domain names, get an accountant, get a logo, open a bank account, set up a Twitter account, open a PayPal account, set up email addresses, explore a range of legal challenges.
13 February 2019: we launched Wild Justice and disclosed that we had sent a Pre-Action Protocol letter to a government agency as the precursor of potential legal action.
General Licence challenge: our challenge to Natural England over the legality of their general licences was successful. Our action has triggered a debate over the species included on the general licences across the UK and the terms under which they can be relied upon. Already Wales has changed its general licences reducing the species covered and more reviews are planned. Scotland is looking at the options for change too. In England the unlawful general licences were revoked, a small number of new licences were issued by Natural England and then DEFRA took over the process, issued some general licences which are similar to the former ones but, importantly, are now consulting on new general licences for next year. Wild Justice is involved with discussions with DEFRA over the legal and scientific basis for any new licences. We remain willing and able to take further legal challenges.
Wild Justice has started a process of review and change which we believe will lead to major and long-lasting changes to licensing of lethal control of birds by land managers. It will probably take at least a couple of years for the full impacts of our successful challenge to be seen.
Hen Harrier Day:
Wild Justice organised the largest ever Hen Harrier Day event with over 1500
attendees and a great line-up of speakers.
Ban driven grouse shooting e-petition: Wild Justice launched an e-petition to the UK parliament calling for a ban on driven grouse shooting. This passed 10,000 signatures within a few hours (which generated an inadequate government response) and 100,000 signatures on Day 20 (which should lead to a Westminster Hall debate in due course). The petition currently has over 111,000 signatures and will close to new signatures when the expected general election campaign begins.
Non-native gamebird releases: Wild Justice’s second major legal challenge has forced DEFRA to agree to review the impacts of the release of tens of millions of Pheasants and Red-legged Partridges on native wildlife. We are waiting to see the shape of this consultation.
Other:
Wild Justice is an active member of Wildlife and Countryside Link and has worked with other wildlife and environmental organisations on a number of campaigns.
We have had meetings with a range of organisations and individuals from Natural England to the National Farmers Union and from senior police officers to politicians.
We have investigated a wide range of issues for future legal challenges including; pesticide use, fish farming, felling of trees in the breeding season, licences to cull Beavers, licences to cull Buzzards, the Badger cull and several others. These and other subjects are still areas where we may become more publicly active in future.
Wild Justice has promoted the work of others through our social media actions – we know that our direct contribution can only be small but we are keen to help others too.
We have accepted interviews and presented talks on our work to a variety of audiences. We were banned from the British Game Fair because our views were considered to be ‘extremist’ and the organisers were concerned for our safety.
We have successfully crowdfunded £80,000 for our legal challenges (much of which is available for future work).
We think we have made a pretty good start – we hope you agree. There’s a lot more work to be done.
Thank you to all our supporters and donors for enabling us to do what we have done so far, and thank you to a wide range of people who have helped us get established, in particular, and in alphabetical order: Andy, Angie, Anita, Bill, Carol, Christian, Craig, David, Diane, Erica, Gerry, Henry, Lewis, Michelle, Patrick, Paul, Rosemary, Tessa, Tim, Tina, Tom, Wayne.
Open letter to
Natural England Chair, Board and staff
It was good to meet you and Marian two weeks ago and discuss policy issues. We didn’t agree about everything (and we note the news of another missing brood-meddled Hen Harrier since then) but those are differences of opinion that are part and parcel of debate. This letter is not about those.
We write to you about Natural England’s conduct to Wild Justice, and in particular Lord Blencathra’s remarks, as a Board member of NE, to the EFRA Select Committee on 21 May. And quite specifically Lord Blencathra’s remark ‘It is disingenuous for Wild Justice to say “We did not want Natural England to pull the licences immediately. We are quite happy to let them to continue to next year” ‘.
It is possible to find a range of synonyms for ‘disingenuous’
but in any list you will find these: dishonest, deceitful, underhand,
underhanded, duplicitous, double-dealing, two-faced, dissembling, insincere,
false, lying, untruthful, mendacious. To use this term of a Natural England
stakeholder organisation in public evidence to a Parliamentary Select Committee
is a serious matter, going as it does, to their reputation and character. We
cannot recollect Natural England having used such words about, say, the
Moorland Association, the NFU or the RSPB and we object to you labelling us in
this way, and refusing to correct this calumny.
We have been called worse, all of us, many times, and we are
not sobbing into our handkerchiefs in despair at Natural England’s rudeness,
but we object to this rudeness from a Board member of a public body. We are
asking for an apology from Natural England; ideally from Lord Blencathra
himself, but we would be content with an apology from yourself as Chair of
Natural England on the organisation’s behalf.
It was not the least bit disingenuous for Wild Justice to
state that we were happy for Natural England to let the General Licences
continue to next year as this was the remedy that we sought in our Pre-Action
Protocol letter which was written on the best legal advice available to us.
Indeed, before sending that letter we discussed, with our legal team, whether
we should ask for immediate withdrawal of the licences or not, and we chose
‘not’ on the basis that revocation of these licences would cause considerable
inconvenience to a large number of people.
To have chosen this course of action, on the basis of legal advice,
cannot possibly be disingenuous and we ask Natural England to withdraw this
baseless accusation and apologise.
You will have noted that NRW and SNH are revising their
general licence schedules under somewhat (not entirely) similar circumstances
to those in England but have at no stage abruptly revoked the licences as did
Natural England. They have, essentially,
followed the process that we asked Natural England to follow.
Just to recap, we have very little interest in Lord Blencathra’s personal views about us as Wild Justice, or as individuals, but he was not speaking as a private individual; this is a matter of how a public body behaves.
You, Tony and Natural England, have two courses of action.
Either you apologise in writing and we publish that apology on the Wild Justice
blog, and that will be an end of the matter, or you do not apologise and we
will take it that Natural England as a public body regards all three of us as
deceitful. The latter choice by Natural England is a serious matter.
We look forward to receiving an apology from Natural England
in a speedy fashion. Failing that, our
next step will be to take this complaint to the Parliamentary and Health Service
Ombudsman having exhausted the Natural England complaint procedure.
We attach a few other factual matters as Annex 1.
Yours sincerely
Wild Justice
Dr Mark Avery, Chris Packham CBE and Dr Ruth Tingay
We have pursued this matter through Natural England’s
complaints process receiving an email from Natural England on 9 September
(reference Complaint 7418).
That response was seriously inadequate;
Although the sender of the email said that he had reviewed the transcript of Lord Blencathra’s remarks in fact he misquoted those remarks (and in a way that would have made them seem less seriously pointed at Wild justice). This was careless of Natural England and suggests that the complaint was not reviewed thoroughly.
Natural England’s response mostly defends Natural England’s decision to revoke the licences rather than the remarks by Lord Blencathra about which we specifically complained. Our complaint was not about what Natural England did (foolish though we feel that it was) but about what Lord Blencathra said about us.
Our email to Marian Spain on 20 August included this passage ‘Our main complaint about NE’s conduct is that Lord Blencathra referred to Wild Justice, in public evidence to a Parliamentary Select Committee, as disingenuous. There were other errors in NE’s evidence to that committee which we have corrected but only Natural England can correct the slur against our integrity made by your Board member. We regard this as a serious matter and you can be assured that we will publicly and robustly seek an apology. ‘. That is what we are still doing and the Natural England response of 9 September did not address the use of the word ‘disingenuous’.
Natural England’s response to us of 9 September stated ‘We have also shared this information with our Chair, Tony Juniper, who agrees that an apology is not appropriate in this case.’ But when we met you recently, you, Tony, did not appear to have looked at all carefully at this matter so we are drawing it quite firmly to your attention now.
We do not believe that the Natural England complaint process addressed our main concern and appeared to us not to have taken this matter the least bit seriously.
Natural Resources Wales (the equivalent of Natural England, the Environment Agency and Forestry England rolled into one) has issued its new General Licences which are valid until the end of December 2019.
They are a big step forward and Wild Justice supports the moves that have been made to make these licences fitter for purpose. The new licences are not perfect but they are certainly better. Our view is very similar to that of the RSPB as set out in this blog post.
We are promised further review of these licences in 2020.
The new GL004 limits lethal control to Carrion Crow, Jackdaw, Magpie and Jay and only for the purposes of protecting the eggs and chicks of a list of species of conservation importance in Wales and only (without seeking further permission) outside of designated sites. This is a considerable clamping down on the licensed casual killing of birds in Wales. It limits the species (not enough), the location and, it appears, the time of year under which the licences can be used. We write ‘appears’ because we are sure that some shooters will say that they are shooting a Carrion Crow in November in order to protect Curlew eggs in May and we will want clarification on this matter from NRW. But it’s a good start (could be even better) and we know that it has been made in the face of strong opposition from angry men with guns.
The Annex 1 list, of species of conservation concern, is a bit ham-fisted, we would argue, given that it includes many species that never have and never will nest in Wales (so the protection of their eggs or young is rather moot). It also includes quite a few common widespread species, eg Song Thrush, which may allow those wanting to kill Magpies to do so with no earthly conservation benefit being possible since the science shows that Magpies do not have an impact on those species’ numbers.
There is also the issue of Shrodinger’s Pheasant. The Pheasant is not a species listed on Annex 1 (quite rightly – it’s a non-native species for heaven’s sake) but you will find in popping up on GL001 which sets out the rules for protecting livestock. Pheasants are livestock when they are being captive bred or are in release pens (even, it appears, when those release pens have no roof and those Pheasants can fly in and out of them). But NRW have followed NE in claiming that Pheasants are livestock when they are ‘kept’ and that any Pheasant that has been released into the wild but nips back now and again to have a peck of grain is still livestock. And the consequence of this is that, in theory, one could kill corvids to ‘protect’ Pheasants that were released months ago but occasionally revisit release pens. Livestock have owners. Therefore this opens up the possibility of taking legal action against the owners of free-roaming Pheasants who damage your vegetables or cause road traffic accidents – perhaps. This unsatisfactory situation needs looking into and it’s on Wild Justice’s list of issues.
We will be looking at these new licences in more detail with our lawyers.
However, Wales now has a better set of General Licences than does England or Scotland. Well done Wales! But let’s see more progress soon, please.
Huge congratulations to Wild Justice co-director Chris Packham, who received the Outstanding Contribution Award at the Mirror Animal Hero Awards 2019 last night.
His citation read:
Television presenter, campaigner, author and environmentalist who has inspired the nation to celebrate and care for British wildlife.
Read more about why Chris was honoured here and read an exclusive interview with Chris in the Mirror here
Well done, Chris, you’ll be needing to extend that mantelpiece at this rate! We’re very proud of your achievements and it means you have to buy the first round when we next get together.
Comments Off on Wild Justice seeks answers from Defra over Badger cull
We have received many requests, pleas and some communications akin to demands, that we take legal action against Defra over its outrageous, cruel and unscientific Badger cull programme and against Natural England over its licensing of these culls.
This may be a useful juncture at which to make clear that just because we and others dislike and oppose any particular government action it does not mean that there is a strong legal case to be taken on that subject; our and your opposition to government action does not make it illegal! Others have taken legal cases on the Badger cull and we have wished them luck and hoped that they might influence events but, to date, they have made valid points which have been taken on board but have not landed a killer blow to this cull.
Wild Justice has been following this issue with concerned interest and yesterday we sent the letter below to Defra and copied it to Natural England. The letter is not the start of formal legal action by Wild Justice against Defra on this subject but may be the precusor to such action as the letter makes clear;
This is not a formal letter under the Pre-Action Protocol, but your responses may inform such a letter. Given that it is foreseen that culling will take place in Autumn 2019, a response within the normal 20 working days under the Environmental Information Regulations 2004 is inappropriate. We therefore request an urgent response to this letter within 10 working days, i.e. by 4pm on Friday 11 October 2019, or earlier if culling is to commence before then.
Wild Justice will be making contact with experts on Badgers in the Badger Trust, academia and wildlife NGOs – some of them are already close contacts of ours.
At this stage we have not launched a crowdfunder and we are not asking for financial support (although sending a letter of the sort below clearly entails both work from Wild Justice and our legal team and some expense) although if we take this matter further we will ask for your support.
Everyone is looking at general licences following our successful legal challenge of the system, and in the knowledge that further legal challenges are possible from Wild Justice and from other interest groups. This unprecedented scrutiny is getting statutory agencies and governments to sharpen up their acts.
In Scotland, SNH has commissioned a report from the BTO which is now published – see here.
It’s not a bad report as far as the review of the science is concerned and it does go as far as to exonerate Rook completely from the General Licence 1 (with regard to impacts on nature conservation) as follows:
In relation to General Licence 1, which is issued to reduce impacts on wild bird conservation, there was no evidence that rooks are an important nest predator, or that they are likely to impact otherwise on the conservation of wild birds to support its inclusion on GL1.
Magpie: “Analyses of large-scale and extensive national monitoring data provide little evidence for national-scale impacts of magpies on avian prey populations but most studies do not assess the impact of magpies alone”
Carrion/Hooded Crow: “There is evidence that carrion and hooded crows can reduce the local productivity and abundance of prey species where carrion or hooded crow occur at high density, particularly of waders and gamebirds.” However: “Analyses of large-scale and extensive national monitoring data provide little evidence for national-scale impacts of carrion / hooded crows on songbird populations.”
Jackdaw: The worst that is said of this species is that “Jackdaws have the potential to out-compete red squirrels for artificial nest boxes where provided”
Jay: “An opportunistic species, for which the eggs and young of wild birds form part of a mixed diet. Nest predation is perhaps likely to be greatest for open-nesting birds in scrub or woodland habitats”
Given that general licences allow anyone, any time, anywhere to kill unlimited numbers of the listed species (in theory, after the person relying on the licence has tried or evaluated properly non-lethal methods first) these levels of scientific evidence are not remotely adequate to keep Magpie, Jay and Jackdaw on the general licences in Scotland or anywhere else in the UK. It is arguable whether Carrion Crow and Hooded Crow should be listed too, although we in Wild Justice will not be pressing that argument at this time.
Although the BTO reviews of the scientific studies are adequate there is a flaw in the way they summarise the findings of different studies, of different qualities in different parts of the world which is potentially problematic and certainly should be ignored by decision makers who need to look at the detail not just the summary (in Table 6).
The flaw in presentation and summary is as follows, let’s illustrate it with the Rook. The Rook gets top-billing exoneration in this report (perfectly correctly) because there are no studies that are rated (perfectly correctly) by BTO as being in what they call Category 2 (Clear effects in at least some situations) and no studies that are rated (perfectly correctly) as being in what they call Category 1 (Potential effects in at least some situations) and so all of the studies are actually in what they call Category 0 (No demonstrated effect). This works out well for the Rook and results in BTO saying there is no evidence for an impact and therefore no reason for the Rook to be included on General Licence 1 in future (and by extension, to have been included in the past decades). This makes sense. But the Rook was lucky, in our view, because if there had been hundreds of studies showing no impact and a single study (even if conducted in a different continent) suggesting an impact then the BTO would have popped it in Category 2 overall as they only, in the body of the report, report the highest category the studies of a species occupy.
This is the equivalent of convicting someone in the dock if there is one shred of evidence against them but loads of evidence that point to innocence. It’s a poor way to summarise what is, by necessity a complex picture of many studies conducted in different places in different times and to different degrees of rigour, sample size etc.
It is undoubtedly a poor way to summarise the complexity of the range of scientific studies on a subject. An alternative method (which we don’t propose, but we use to illustrate the point) would be to categorise any species that has a single study in Category 0 as a Category 0 species overall because there is evidence for no impact despite their being evidence of impact too – or giving the species the benefit of the doubt. We are not suggesting this as a method, but it is as daft as the one that the BTO actually used because it is essentially a mirror image of that method.
Let’s look at the Jackdaw too. The Jackdaw is popped into Category 1 (Potential effects in at least some situations) because there is at least one study in that category and no studies in Category 2. In fact there are nine studies of Jackdaw which the BTO evaluate as being four in Category 0 and five in Category 1 – an equal split really. It’s not as though all the studies are in Category 1, and Category 1 studies only show a ‘potential impact in at least some circumstance‘. Even if all the studies were allocated to Category 1 Wild Justice would argue that when decision makers come to evaluate them they should drop Jackdaw out of General Licence 1 in Scotland and say that anyone wanting to kill Jackdaws for the purposes of conserving wildlife should apply for a specific licence, giving their evidence of need and with evidence of non-lethal methods that they have tried and which have failed. A pile of Category 1 studies is hardly enough to put a species on a general licence which allows widespread and unlimited killing. But the Jackdaw has an almost equal number of studies in Category 0 as it does in Category 1 and therefore there is not a case to be made for keeping it on General Licence 1. And note, that the only two studies from the UK are both in Category 0 and so there is no UK evidence that lifts the Jackdaw into Category 1 at all. It is pretty clear that the Jackdaw should not be on Scottish General Licence 1 for a moment longer and that it has been traduced for years.
Similar arguments can be made for Jay and Magpie once you look at the individual studies and the numbers in each category and so get behind the BTO’s flawed Table 6 summary of the evidence. It would even be possible to make a decent case for excluding Carrion Crow and Hooded Crow from Scottish General Licence 1 on this assessment. SNH should certainly think hard about whether they really can issue a general licence if the impacts of Carrion Crow and Hooded Crow on wildlife are restricted to impacts on some species (such as Curlew) which live in some places and which would not benefit at all from exercise of the general licence to kill corvids in other places. SNH should look at the approach of NRW in Wales.
The BTO analysis of the individual studies looks OK to us – it is actually quite similar to that which formed the basis for our evidence to Defra months ago – but the report is let down by a flawed method of summarising the complex mix of studies.
When you look at the range of findings of the studies made on various species one finds that there is no justification for continuing to allow widespread unlimited killing of Rook, Jackdaw, Jay or Magpie and that even for Carrion Crow and Hooded Crow there are good reasons for limiting the circumstances and locations under which they can be killed for conservation purposes.
Comments Off on Impacts of non-native gamebird releases need to be assessed – another success for Wild JusticeSeven week old pheasant chicks, often known as poults, after just being released into a gamekeepers release pen on an English shooting estate
Yesterday, after nearly three months of cogitation, Defra agreed that the law requires them to assess the ecological impacts of the unregulated release of tens of millions of non-native gamebirds. This is another very significant success for Wild Justice, our wonderful legal team and our equally wonderful supporters. Be in no doubt that despite this being required by law, it would not be happening without the Wild Justice challenge.
Which law? Our challenge depended on the EU Habitats Directive (a piece of legislation drafted by former Conservative MEP, former civil servant in the environment department, and father of the current UK Prime Minister, one Stanley Johnson). This legislation was of UK origin, in that it started as an idea in Stanley Johnson’s head, but applies across all EU member states. It is an important source of protection for the environment from the eastern Polish border to the west of Ireland, and from the north of Finland to the southernmost tip of Spain, and it is what requires an assessment of the impact of gamebird releases in the UK.
Why and how? The Directive requires the assessment of plans or projects that may affect the status of sites of high conservation importance, Special Areas of Conservation and Special Protection Areas. A plan or project might be something as obvious as a plan to build a housing estate in the middle of such a site (where it is likely to be turned down) but also includes a plan to build a housing estate abutting such a site or close enough to such a site that it might be affected. Our challenge said that releases of non-native gamebirds needed to be assessed in a similar way for their impacts and Defra has had to agree. We suspect, on the basis of the government’s conservation record over nearly a decade, that they were reluctant to concede this point but after long thought they have conceded it. It’s a good decision and an important one.
What happens now? Nothing for a while! But Defra have said that they will consult on the issues and the legislative framework. Wild Justice will be keen to play a part in this consultation and we will encourage our supporters to do so too. The issues that are raised for the conservation status of SACs and SPAs will apply more widely than just those sites and so this should open the door to more scrutiny of the impacts of vast releases of gamebirds on the ecology of the countryside as a whole, and the consultation that applies to England will have implications for practice in Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland too – we’re all in the EU and all covered by the Directives at the moment.
Wild Justice said ‘We’re delighted to have prompted a government change of policy that will open the door to a review of the ecological impacts of non-native gamebirds on our native flora and fauna. The currently unregulated release of gamebirds for shooting has, the science shows, large potential impacts on the ecological health of our countryside. It is time that these releases are properly assessed and come under proper regulation.We will scrutinise the plans that Defra brings forward in order to assess their ecological value and their compliance with the Directives.If Defra’s plans do not comply fully with the Directive then we stand able to take further legal action, and we will not shrink from doing so if that is necessary. We are grateful to our wonderful legal team at Leigh Day and Matrix Chambers and to our supporters who funded our challenge.‘.
Comments Off on General licences in WalesCommon Jay Garrulus glandarius. Photo: Andy Rouse
Natural Resources Wales (NRW) ordered a review of licencing arrangements following a legal challenge in England by campaign group Wild Justice, headed by TV naturalist Chris Packham and fellow conservationists Mark Avery and Ruth Tingay.
Seven rural groups with little knowledge of nature conservation are ‘up in arms’ over unpublished proposals by Natural Resouces Wales (NRW, the rough equivalent of Natural England in Wales). The groups (Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust, Countryside Alliance, National Gamekeepers Organisation, Farmers Union of Wales, Countryside Land and Business Association, British Association for Shooting and Conservation and National Farmers Union Cymru) have ‘jumped the gun’ (according to NRW, rather wittily) in criticising the proposals which are as yet unpublished. No criticism has come from actual nature conservation organisations.
Wild Justice understands that the proposals will see a removal of several species from the general licence lists that will apply in Wales, following a scientific review of the evidence, and a tightening up of the circumstances under which the provisions of the general licence can be relied upon.
We understand that rather than the current approach to issuing licences for the purpose of nature conservation, which has applied across the UK, and which could be grossly oversimplified as ‘any corvid, anywhere, any time’, NRW is moving towards ‘some corvids (but only those where there is evidence of impact) and only to protect particular species of conservation concern’. This was one of the outcomes that Wild Justice sought by taking its legal action – a reexamination of the relevant science and a more focussed approach which would allow necessary lethal control as a last resort but would cut down on the casual killing of birds out of sheer prejudice.
Wild Justice said:
NRW is moving in exactly the right direction in its thinking. We welcome these moves and look forward to seeing them published and commenting on them in detail. We hope that NRW will not be bullied into watering down their proposals by landowning organisations whose interests are in game management and not nature conservation. Wales is leading the way it seems.
Wild Justice also said:
Defra promised a consultation on this matter this summer and we have yet to see anything from them. The nights are drawing in, the blackberries are ripening in the hedgerows, migrant birds are heading towards their African wintering grounds, and the leaves are beginning to turn on trees, and unless Defra pulls their finger out they will be overtaken by a period of purdah ahead of a general election. Wild Justice remains ready and willing to take legal action against Defra if it issues flawed general licences to apply in England next year. We suggest that Defra looks hard at the approach taken in Wales.
We sent the following letter to the Defra legal team yesterday. As you can see, they are either in some disarray or are simply mucking us about. Either way, they’d better get on with things…
Dear Mr ***********,
Thank you for your email, received at 17.32pm on 29 August. Our client finds your position perplexing and wholly unsatisfactory.
Our client’s Pre-Action Protocol letter was sent on 10th July and generously offered an extended period of 21 days for reply. You replied on 30th July (the day before your response was due) and requested a further 4 weeks (until 28th August). At the end of that seven week period you asked for a further day and at the end of that day you requested a further extension until 11th September. This will represent a period of some nine weeks simply to respond to our PAP letter.
In the event that we do not receive your substantive response to our PAP letter, or a satisfactory explanation for the reasons for this extended delay (and acceptable reasons would not, in our view, include the usual holiday period and/or simply being busy) by 11th September, our client reserves the right to issue proceedings without further notice to you.
We are thrilled by the support that our e-petition has received – thank you to all our supporters.
This matter should receive a response from Defra in due course and should be debated in a Westminster Hall debate in the Westminster Parliament eventually. But rather more importantly, the number of signatures, and the speed with which they were amassed (at 5,000 signtures a day), will be noted by politicians in parliaments across the UK.
Although we understand that our e-petition will be closed when parliament is suspended – probably in a week’s time – it is still open for signing until then.
Comments Off on #HHDay2019 (4)Fraser reads his poem. Photo: Guy Shorrock/RSPB
To somewhat use the words of one of my favourite Bob Dylan songs, at Hen Harrier Day at Carsington the only persons on the scene, missing, were the 600 gamekeepers. Eh?
In setting up Hen Harrier Day there were lots of things to worry about, or at least to consider. Things like power supplies, promoting the event with an ever-changing list of speakers, whether Chris Packham’s travel plans would get him to the event and as we neared the actual day, the weather. It’s all part and parcel of a pop-up event at a new venue run by amateurs!
But when your event is a celebration of Hen Harriers, a species which everyone claims universally to love, one has to put up with nastiness from members of the game shooting industry too. We are used to this (see here and here for recent examples), it is part of being environmental campaigners who touch the issues that affect game shooting.
And so as soon as we announced the venue and the date we found social media comments about coach loads of gamekeepers arriving to disrupt our event from across the country. Various shooters, possibly in their cups, promised direct action against the event. Severn Trent Water, who were fantastic, and who run Carsington Water, had phone calls objecting to the mere existence of an event which praises the Hen Harrier (that illegally persecuted bird that everyone loves!). And the rumour was circulated that 600 gamekeepers would arrive with megaphones and chants.
They would have been very welcome and it would have been interesting to see them storming the stage, and filming them, as 9 year old Fraser was reading out his poem or when Superintendent Nick Lyall was, in uniform, spelling out that raptor persecution is a crime, or when the Derbyshire Police and Crime Commissioner was saying that in his county, and in his mind, fighting wildlife crime is a police priority.
But the messages, some of which certainly came from current and former gamekeepers, amount to another example of nastiness and attempted intimidation. We consulted the police and, of course had many police officers on site since Hen Harrier Day is largely about upholding the law, and were advised to take certain precautions but that the threats were not credible. A bit like what much of the grouse shooting industry says.
And so the only people on the scene, missing, were the 600 gamekeepers. But we did have the pleasure of Amanda Anderson from the Moorland Association keeping an eye on us, and she was very welcome.
And by the way, our e-petition calling for a ban on driven grouse shooting passed 70,000 signatures last night after just over a week – only 29,900 to go!
Please sign this e-petition to ban driven grouse shooting – click here.
Wild Justice is playing its small part in working on general environmental issues with the wider conservation community. We were very happy to be a signatory of the letter reproduced below.
We notice that Wild Justice’s name sits alongside many prestigious organisations from a variety of perspectives but that some organisations which we might have expected to be present (most notably the Wildlife Trusts and National Trust) are absent. Interesting.
The Rt Hon Theresa Villiers
Secretary of State for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs
Seacole Building
2 Marsham Street
London SW1P 4DF
8 August 2019
Dear Secretary of State,
We are writing to express our concern at the proposed prohibition
on disclosure of information in the draft Environmental (Principles and Governance)
Bill, published in December 2018.[1]
The draft Bill is partly intended to replicate the scrutiny
functions of the European Commission and European Environment Agency after
Brexit. However, some of the new arrangements would be subject to more severe
restrictions on the public’s right to information than currently apply under both
UK and EU law. [2]
The bill would establish the Office of Environmental
Protection (OEP) whose functions would include investigating complaints of
serious failure by public authorities to comply with environmental law.[3]
The OEP would normally have to make public the fact that it
is investigating a public authority or has concluded that it has failed to
comply with environmental law.[4] However,
the disclosure of large classes of related information would be restricted:
• The OEP would be prohibited from
disclosing information obtained from a
public authority under investigation unless the authority consented[5]
• The public authority being
investigated would be prohibited from disclosing correspondence or formal notices from the OEP unless the OEP consented[6]
• The OEP would be required to copy
its correspondence with a public authority to the relevant minister but could not disclose the minister’s reply
without the minister’s consent.[7]
Although the OEP would be free to publish such information
if it wanted to,[8]
it could not be required to release
it. The restrictions would continue after an investigation was over and any
enforcement action concluded. The approach is wholly at odds with the public’s right
to information under the Environmental Information Regulations (EIR).
If the purpose is to protect the OEP’s ability to carry out investigations,
the prohibition is not necessary. Regulation 12(5)(b) of the EIR provides that
‘a public authoritymay refuse to disclose information to the
extent that its disclosure would adversely affect…the course of justice, the
ability of a person to receive a fair trial or the ability of a public authority to conduct an enquiry of a criminal
or disciplinary nature’.
This exception is not absolute. The EIR require that: (a) disclosure must be
shown to have an ‘adverse effect’ on the
authority’s ability to conduct an enquiry (b) the exception must be interpreted
in a ‘restrictive way’,[9] (c) a ‘presumption in favour of disclosure must be
applied’[10]
and (d) the public interest in maintaining the exception must outweigh ‘the public interest in disclosing the
information’.[11]
None of these important conditions would apply under the
draft Bill. If the OEP, public authority or minister (as the case may be) did
not wish the information to be released, it would be withheld. There would be
no need to show that disclosure would be harmful. The public interest in the
information would be irrelevant. This
would reverse decades of progress in opening up environmental information.
It provision would impose a degree of secrecy which does not
apply to any other UK environmental regulator. The restriction would be even more
onerous than that under Europe’s access regime. The right of access to European
Commission documents excepts information about investigations unless there is an overriding public
interest in disclosure.[12] Moreover, the point of the restriction is to
ensure that member states comply with their European treaty obligations, a
consideration which will not apply to the UK after Brexit.
The prohibition raises a wider concern. Regulation 5(6) of
the EIR provides that the right of access to environmental information cannot
be restricted by any other law. [13] If this
remained in place the proposed prohibition could have no effect. The government
must therefore intend to amend or repeal regulation 5(6). This would not just
affect the OEP. It would mean that any
legal restriction on disclosure would override the EIR right of access,
regardless of which public authority held the information. This would be a fundamental limitation the
EIR.
Clause 28 of the bill envisages a damaging and unjustified restriction on the public’s right to environmental information. We call on the government to omit it from the proposals.
[9] This requirement is found Article 4(2) of the Aarhus Convention on Access To
Information, Public Participation In Decision-Making And Access To Justice In
Environmental Matters, which will continue to apply to
the UK after Brexit,
[12] A public right of access to
documents held by the European Commission, Council and Parliament exists under
EC Regulation 1049/2001. One of the exceptions is found in the third indent of
Article 4(2) which states: ‘The
institutions shall refuse access to a document where disclosure would undermine
the protection of…the purpose of inspections, investigations and audits. Although the General Court of the Court of
Justice of the European Union has held that in relation to this exception a
general presumption of confidentiality applies, the provision nevertheless
allows access where ‘there is an overriding
public interest in disclosure’. The Court of First Instance has held that
for this exception to apply it must be ‘reasonably
foreseeable’ that the protected interest would be undermined. Moreover, the protected interest ‘is not to protect the investigations as
such, but…to induce the Member State concerned to comply with Community law’. Case
T-36/04, Association de la presse international ASBL (API) v Commission of the
European Communities.
[13] Regulation 5(6) states ‘Any enactment or rule of law that would
prevent the disclosure of information in accordance with these Regulations
shall not apply’
Leave a CommentBird Fair Saturday lunchtime. Photo: Guy Shorrock/RSPB
Wild Justice was quite busy at the Bird Fair over the Friday-Sunday.
Friday morning started at 09:30 with a talk from Ruth Tingay. This is not a much sought-after slot on the Bird Fair programme – first talk on the first day?! But it was standing room only – people were turned away.
Then on Saturday lunchtime, on the main events stage in front of 600+ people, the whole Wild Justice team was interviewed for 30 minutes by Charlie Jacoby of the Fieldsportschannel. Remember that Chris Packham and Mark Avery were banned from the Game Fair at the last minute after having been invited to face questions from Charlie Jacoby. The Bird Fair was kind enough to give Charlie and Wild Justice the chance to meet and ask and answer questions in front of a much bigger audience and you can watch the recording here;
We’d say that it was more knock-about fun than piercing interrogation but all credit to Charlie for turning up and all shame to the Game Fair for not letting two such interviews go ahead as they had planned.
After Charlie left the stage Chris was joined by three of the young people whose writing about Hen Harriers had been featured at Hen Harrier Day, six days earlier;
And on Sunday morning Mark Avery gave a talk similar to Ruth’s to another packed marquee.
It was a very busy Bird Fair for all of us, incredibly busy (as always) for Chris, but we’d like to thank all the attendees, all the organisers and volunteers, and all the people who came and shook our hands or heard our talks, for their help and support, and for making it a really special Bird Fair.
Oh yes, and we were promoting the e-petition all the time and that now stands at an amazing 66,900 signatures.
Please sign the Wild Justice e-petition to ban driven grouse shooting – click here.
You can get a copy of this postcard by coming to the Events main stage for Chris Packham’s midday session where Wild Justice directors Mark Avery, Ruth Tingay and Chris will be answering questions from Charlie Jacoby of the fieldsportstv channel (because Chris and Mark were banned from answering questions at the Game Fair), three young people will be reading their poetry and prose about Hen Harriers and more. On leaving that event please take a postcard which you can use to publicise this e-petition calling for a ban on driven grouse shooting.
More postcards will be available to the general public later next week. Today (and if stocks last, tomorrow) please just take one card.
Comments Off on Please support Wild Justice’s petition to ban driven grouse shooting.
The three directors of Wild Justice have a 5-year track record of calling for a ban of intensive Red Grouse shooting. Yesterday, late afternoon, this latest UK-wide e-petition calling for a ban on driven grouse shooting appeared, and by bed time it had already passed the 10,000 signatures which will trigger a response from the Westminster government (they’ll say ‘no’).
But the first 10,000 signatures are the easiest 10,000 – although these came very, very quickly. We need to get to 100,000 signatures in order to trigger a debate in the Westminster parliament – open to backbench MPs from all parts of the UK – and that is a mountain to climb.
It’s a mountain to climb and we’ll have to run up the slope as time is short. Such petitions run for 6 months (and, completely by chance, this one closes on the first birthday of Wild Justice’s launch (is that a sign of some sort?)) but they can be curtailed by the announcement of a general election. That is very likely long before the end of the 6-month period. So time is short, maybe very short.
We’ll be blogging about why we’d like you to give this e-petition your support over the hours and days and weeks ahead, but, for now, please support this e-petition calling for a ban of driven grouse shooting if you trust Wild Justice to have thought about it, weighed up the pros and cons, and so, basically, if you trust us.
What wonderful speakers there were at Hen Harrier Day! We don’t have images of them all, but here are some. If you have images of any of the missing ones (!) we’d love to be able to use them and credit them to you.
Iolo Williams opens Hen Harrier Day 2019. Photo: Guy Shorrock/RSPB.
Thanks Iolo for coming over from Wales – and we know you’ve got a very busy life (and car problems to cope with). You are a star and we really appreciated you being with us all.
Hardyal Dhindsa, the Derbyshire Police and Crime Commissioner. Photo: Guy Shorrock/RSPB
Hardyal Dhindsa – the Police and Crime Commissioner for Derbyshire – the only man in a suit and tie and another person with a busy life. Thank you Hardyal for coming, and thank you for making wildlife crime a priority for the police in Derbyshire. And it is worth saying that it was great to have the Derbyshire Police Rural Crime Unit with us, talking to the public, all through the event.
Gill Lewis – with wings! Photo: Guy Shorrock/RSPB
Gill travelled a long way to be at Hen Harrier Day 2019 – her first HHDay! Gill’s books Sky Dancer and Eagle Warrior are doing a lot to spread the word about raptor persecution to younger people. She’s a great supporter.
Tim Birch of Derbyshire Wildlife Trust. Photo: Guy Shorrock/RSPB.
Tim is a great campaigner and conservationist. He’s only missed one Hen Harrier Day and that was because he was recovering from heart surgery – which is a pretty convincing reason. Great, as always, to have Tim’s passion on stage (and we’ve already thanked the Derbyshire Wildlife Trust for their support in many ways).
Ruth Tingay of Wild Justice. Photo: Guy Shorrock/RSPB.
Ruth opened the second session of talks and, after making sure that her mum could have a selfie with Chris Packham, she talked about the wilful blindness of politicians in Westminster and Holyrood over the subject of wildlife crime. Politicians – the #slightlysoggy1500+ expect you to do more.
Dan Rouse. Photo: Guy Shorrock/RSPB
Dan Rouse from Wales was a new face to many attendees – a Welsh language TV presenter and conservationist, it was great to have both her and Iolo’s accents and knowledge on stage.
Cathleen Thomas. Photo: Guy Shorrock/RSPB
Cathleen Thomas from the RSPB Hen Harrier Life project has been immersed in this subject for several years. She spoke with great authority as well as passion about her work with Hen Harriers and how they must have a better future in our uplands.
Ian Thomson. Photo: Guy Shorrock/RSPB
Ian Thomson brought a Scottish accent and decades of experience from investigating wildlife crime in Scotland to the stage. He was the token man in this session but he did OK! Thanks Ian – you are a star!
Superintendent Nick Lyall. Photo: Guy Shorrock/RSPB.
Superintendent Nick Lyall is the chair of the Raptor Persecution Priority Delivery Group and is a breath of fresh air to the scene. His presence, and his words, showed that the future of the uplands and the part that wildlife crime plays in their present, are not just subjects for raptor enthusiasts, or even for environmentalists, but for senior and serious police officers. Killing Hen Harriers or other protected wildlife is a crime – it’s a crime that is common – it must end, and if the shooting industry can’t end it themselves then it is a job for law enforcement agencies. Nick showed that he was very determined to end wildlife crime.
Tessa Gregory, lawyer from Leigh Day. Photo: Guy Shorrock/RSPB.
Tessa Gregory‘s name would not have been familiar to many in the 1500+ crowd of attendees and so they weren’t prepared for such a brilliant speech. Wild Justice has worked with Tessa since before we were Wild Justice so we know what a star she is – and now a lot more people do. She talked very clearly about how how difficult the approach which Wild Justice is taking in legal cases really is – we can’t expect to win that many of them because we are shining a light on the murky areas of law in order to clarify and change what is happening. And Tessa made it quite clear why Mark Avery had had legal advice that brood-meddling of Hen Harriers was unlawful and why the team still believes that, and is seeking to appeal that case. And the presence of Tessa, Hardyal and Nick made it abundantly clear that what the Hen Harrier is facing is a crime wave on the grouse moors. The absence of Hen Harriers from much of our uplands isn’t an accident – it is due to serious, organised crime and the killing must stop!
Dominic Dyer. Photo: Guy Shorrock/RSPB.
We had been promised thunder and lightning on the day but they arrived in the form of Dominic Dyer whose voice reverberated across the grass. I noticed a couple of people step back from the speakers! Lots of passion about Hen Harriers, a bit about badgers and a lot about the need for change. Thanks Dom!
Natalie Bennett, Green Party. Photo: Guy Shorrock/RSPB.
Natalie Bennett has become a regular speaker at Hen Harrier Day events and it’s not that easy to find a politician that cares – but we’d be hard-pressed to find one better than Natalie anyway. Although, it is worth recording that the Westminster Hen Harrier Champion, Angela Smith MP, from nearby Penistone and Stocksbridge had been hoping to attend but was, in the end, unable – but we know that she would have said ‘The killing has to stop’ because she always does and it really, really should stop. But Natalie speaks to the issues that concern most HHDay attendees as well as the issue of wildlife crime – carbon emissions, flood risk, water quality – the wider unsustainability of grouse moor management. We need more politicians like Natalie and perhaps we are seeing more emerge.
Chris Packham. Photo: Guy Shorrock/RSPB.
Chris Packham arrived back in the country on Sunday morning without much sleep, with a bad back and feeling ill – but no-one can do it better than he. He produced a great finale to the event and sent people home with hope in their hearts and determination in their heads.
We’ll be posting links to moving images on this blog later this week. If you want to use any images from this blog post (all by Guy Shorrock/RSPB) then please email us and we will put you in touch with Guy about any fees and details of crediting them.
But here are a few more images for now. We’ll be posting a few more blogs on #HHDay2019 today and tomorrow.
Photo: Guy Shorrock/RSPB. Photo: Guy Shorrock/RSPB. Photo: Guy Shorrock/RSPB. Mark Avery trying to make it look as though the day was going to plan all the time! Photo: Guy Shorrock/RSPB.
The Derbyshire Wildlife Trust were wonderful partners at yesterday’s Hen Harrier Day event at Carsington Water. Not only was Tim Birch an inspiring speaker, and not only did Derbyshire Wildlife Trust members turn out in large numbers, but they also produced a fantastic book of writing about Hen Harriers (pictured above being waved around by Chris Packham).
Diane Gould getting a deserved round of applause at Hen Harrier Day. Photo: Guy Shorrock/RSPB
Diane Gould brought this collection together and four of the children who contributed read out their marvellous words on stage.
It looks like a small thing, but the 12 pages are packed with moving and beautiful words about Hen Harriers.
Photo: Guy Shorrock/RSPB
Thank you to the Derbyshire Wildlife Trust and thank you to:
Maxwell and Zahra (aged 7)
Fraser, Holly and Rosie (aged 9)
Sarah, Hamish, Hattie, Poppy, Kaya, Lucy and Charlotte (aged 10)
Emily (aged 11)
Lucy, Jack and Kitty (aged 12)
Meri (aged 13)
We may well feature some of their work on this blog in future.
Yesterday’s Hen Harrier Day event was a great success. Here are just a few images of the day (all by Guy Shorrock).
A small part of the 1500+ crowd. Photo: Guy ShorrockA part of the same crowd later in the day. Photo: Guy ShorrockThe three Wild Justice directors. Photo: Guy Shorrock
Hen Harrier Day 2019 was a very special event – it was the first one organised by Wild Justice and the biggest ever. And it was a pile of fun.
More blogs on this during the day but first, some thanks:
HUGE THANKS to Severn Trent Water for letting us, and helping us, have this event on their site. Severn Trent were brilliant to work with and very helpful throughout. And they also shrugged off some nastiness from anonymous phone callers who self-identified as being from the shooting community (more on this later).
MASSIVE THANKS to all the speakers who gave up their time, expertise and passion freely (more on this later).
1500++ thanks to attendeees – for many of whom this was their first Hen Harrier Day attendance. There could easily have been 3000+ attendees over the whole day as, obviously, people were coming and going all the time. It was a fine turnout on a day when the weather forecast was not wholly for fine weather and so…
…thank you to the heavens for not opening up on us and the few showers that happened early on in the day were balanced out by the fine weather and sunshine later.
Join Wild Justice (Chris Packham, Ruth Tingay and Mark Avery) on the UK’s 6th Hen Harrier Day. Learn more about our Hen Harriers, discover the TRUTH behind their disappearance in the UK and find out what you can do to help.
Hen Harrier Day was established in 2014 and events have been held at locations from Northern Ireland to inside the M25 and from the south coast of England to the highlands of Scotland. It is now a recognised part of the ornithological and conservation scene and continues to raise awareness of the persistent illegal persecution by the grouse shooting industry of this beautiful, important and iconic bird.
On Stage
The speakers will be grouped in three blocks spread through the afternoon (programme subject to change):
Early speakers: Iolo Williams Conservationist and broadcaster), Hardyal Dhindsa (Derbyshire Police and Crime Commissioner), Gill Lewis (author), Tim Birch (Derbyshire Wildlife Trust).
Mid-afternoon speakers: Ruth Tingay (Wild Justice and Raptor Persecution UK), Cathleen Thomas (RSPB Hen Harrier Life project), Dan Rouse (conservationist, Wales), Ian Thomson (RSPB Investigations, Scotland)
Late afternoon speakers: Nick Lyall (Police Superintendent, chair Raptor Persecution Priority Delivery Group), Tessa Gregory (lawyer, Leigh Day), Dom Dyer (conservationist), Natalie Bennett (Green Party), Chris Packham CBE (Wild Justice, broadcaster etc).
Derbyshire Police Rural Crime Team will have a stand and be delighted to talk to you about wildlife crime issues. Other standholders: RSPB, West Midlands Bird Club, League Against Cruel Sports, Extinction Rebellion and others.
Derbyshire Wildlife Trust have produced an amazing small book of children’s writing on Hen Harriers – on sale on the day.
This is an outdoor event adjacent to the Carsington Water Visitor Centre which has a cafe, toilets, shops. Large pay and display car park. Unfortunately, no buses run to the site on a Sunday. If you would like a lift or can offer one please add your details here. Phone reception is poor and live-streaming has proved too expensive to contemplate. We will be filming the event and edited highlights will be available next week.
Chris Packham, Gill Lewis and Mark Avery will be signing books in the RSPB shop after the event (530pm).
All welcome. We thank Severn Trent for their support and enthusiasm in letting, and helping, us stage this event. Derbyshire Wildlife Trust and RSPB each have a daily presence at this site and have been enthusiastic supporters of Hen Harrier Day 2019.
Hen Harriers
Their stunning beauty and the ugly truth.
The Hen Harrier is also called the ‘Skydancer’ because of its acrobatic displays in the breeding season.
A gamekeeper who was caught on camera shooting a Hen Harrier on a grouse moor in Scotland escaped prosecution because this video footage was deemed inadmissible.
Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, representatives from
the grouse shooting industry claim that the illegal killing of Hen
Harriers is an “historical controversy”.
by Paul Thomas
Scientists calculate there is habitat to support c2600 pairs of Hen
Harriers in the UK – in the last national survey (2016) there were only
545 territorial pairs.
Photo: Gordon Yates
The latest scientific research says there should be c500 pairs of Hen
Harriers nesting on grouse moors in the UK – in recent years there have
been fewer than 20 pairs.
There should be 300+ pairs of Hen Harriers nesting in England – last
year there were only 14 nests. Ludicrously, this was hailed as being
‘successful’ because there were more nests last year than in the
previous decade.
Hen Harrier. Photo: Gordon Yates.
Losing over a quarter of the Hen Harrier population in just 12 years is a matter of serious conservation concern in Scotland.
A recent Government-commissioned study has shown that 72% of
satellite-tagged Hen Harriers are likely to have been illegally killed
on or next to grouse moors.
Hen Harriers are ten times more likely to die or disappear in suspicious circumstances on or near to a grouse moor than in any other habitat.
Heather is regularly burned on grouse moors across the UK – burning damages blanket bog habitats, increases carbon emissions, reduces water quality and increases flood risk (as well as all that persecution of Hen Harriers)
The Hen Harrier is one of the most persecuted birds of prey in the
UK. It is relentlessly shot & trapped on many grouse moors because
it eats Red Grouse as well as Meadow Pipits, voles and many other
species.
But it’s not only Hen Harriers – here is RSPB video footage of a male Peregrine Falcon being caught in an illegally set trap, at a nest, on a grouse moor, in Bowland in Lancashire in 2016. The caught case collapsed because this evidence was deemed inadmissable. As well as footage of a trap being set thee is sound and video evidence of the female leaving the nest followed by the sound of shots.
Hen Harriers are not even safe inside some of our National Parks.
Grouse moors in the Yorkshire Dales, the Peak District & the North
York Moors National Parks are notoriously dangerous for Hen Harriers.
The Nidderdale Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) is another
notoriously dangerous place for Hen Harriers, and for other birds of
prey such as Red Kites. They are poisoned, trapped and shot on grouse
moors in this so-called protected area.
A gamekeeper who was caught on camera setting illegal traps on a grouse moor escaped prosecution and just received a police caution instead. The police later admitted they’d made a mistake & should have charged him.
The main prey of Hen Harriers are small birds and mammals such as
Field Voles and Meadow Pipits, but they also eat Red Grouse which is why
they are illegally persecuted by the grouse shooting industry.
c600,000 Red Grouse are shot each year in the UK for ‘sport’. It will cost paying ‘guns’ an average of £75/bird to shoot Red Grouse. The record ‘bag’ for a day’s grouse shooting was set a long time ago – 2929 dead birds on the Abbeystead Estate in Lancashire on 12 August 1915. Photo: Tim Melling
Female Hen Harriers incubate the eggs and chicks – the males bring food which they pass to the female in mid-air close to the nest.
Hen Harrier food pass (male (above) pases food to the female in mid air. Photo: Gordon Yates
Some Hen Harriers travel to France and Spain in winter before returning to the hills of the UK to nest.
Hen Harrier, Photo: Geoff Harries.
In winter some Hen Harriers remain in the hills but many are found in
coastal habitats far from the moorlands where they were hatched.
The normal Hen Harrier clutch size is 4 or 5 eggs which are incubated for 34 days. They nest on the ground in moorland areas.
Hen Harrier chicks. Photo: Mark Hamblin
Hen Harriers are one of three harrier species which nest in the UK – the other species are Marsh Harrier and Montagu’s Harrier.
Hen Harriers normally first breed at two years of age.
Hen Harrier female and chicks at the nest. Photo: Peter Cairns
A satellite-tagged Hen Harrier hatched in Lancashire travelled to the
north of Scotland and roamed widely in northern England before being
shot in a grouse shooting area of Yorkshire.
Those who illegally kill Hen Harriers on grouse moors are getting away with their crimes because the Westminster & Scottish Governments have consistently failed to address the problem, largely due to vested interests.
Listen to A Distant Call by The Artisans – downloadable on Monday.
Read Mark Avery’s book, Inglorious, on why we should ban driven grouse shooting.
Comments Off on Getting very close to fully funded
Our crowdfunder is £4000 short of being fully funded – that’s amazing. Thank you to all who have contributed.
This will allow us to take our legal action all the way through the courts and use the legal system to make Defra review the impacts of unregulated gamebird releases on our wildlife.
They have been in receipt of our Pre Action Protocol letter (which sets out the details of our claim against them) for three weeks. We were generous – they should reply in two weeks but we gave them three weeks – after all Michael Gove was trying to be Prime Minister and we were approaching the holiday period.
There is a protocol set out for this type of thing – you can read it here. Wild Justice always intends to stick to the protocol and so far we have, but public bodies such as Natural England and Defra often don’t.
Not meeting deadlines is sometimes due to inefficiency, sometimes because the other side is struggling to come up with a cogent answer and sometimes is because they are mucking you about. But the rules are clear:
Defra should have replied to us on Tuesday this week after we had given them three weeks, rather than two weeks, to come back to us with their response and they did respond, but they asked for another four weeks on top of the three weeks they had already had. This is not the action of a government department which is certain of its case. Where the proposed defendant is confident they often slap back a response quickly just to show that they aren’t the least bit bothered by the proposed legal action. But that’s not what Defra has done.
Now, it might be that a new ministerial team, with Theresa Villiers, who has some background in animal welfare issues so may be interested in this case simply because it is about captive-bred birds destined for shooting, and Zac Goldsmith, who is more of an environmentalist than most Defra ministers of the last decade, is engaging with this action. Or it might be that the government legal department has nipped off to the south of France for a month.
Once we can let you know what is happening then we will.
The Daily Telegraph published a story about the absence of Chris Packham and Mark Avery from the Game Fair on their website last Friday evening.
We wrote to the Daily Telegraph as follows on Saturday:
Sir, Your report of our banning from the Game Fair (25 July) is wildly inaccurate – perhaps because you didn’t speak to us. We had both been invited to the Game Fair to be interviewed by a presenter of a pro-shooting news channel. Your report did not mention this and falsely gave the impression that we were planning to gate-crash the gathering. Having been invited weeks ago, we were ‘uninvited’ a couple of days before the event. The organisers of the Game Fair were nervous about an audience hearing our very reasonable views about how game shooting needs to reform to survive. Wild Justice is not an animal rights campaigning group. No Wild Justice directors are involved in a Panorama programme on grouse shooting. We have invited Charlie Jacoby of the Fieldsports Channel to the annual Bird Fair at Rutland Water on Saturday 17 August to ask us the questions that the Game Fair wouldn’t allow to be asked. We hope he can attend.
SIR – We had both been invited to the Game Fair (report, July 25) to be interviewed by a presenter of a pro-shooting news channel. Having been invited weeks ago, we were “uninvited” a couple of days before the event. The organisers of the Game Fair were nervous about an audience hearing our very reasonable views about how game shooting needs to reform to survive.Wild Justice is not an animal rights campaigning group. No Wild Justice directors are involved in a Panorama programme on grouse shooting.We have invited Charlie Jacoby of the Fieldsports Channel to the annual Bird Fair at Rutland Water to ask us the questions that the Game Fair wouldn’t allow to be asked.
Comments Off on Natural England conduct – unacceptable
On Friday, our lawyers sent the following letter to Natural England regarding their evidence to the Efra Committtee and their conduct towards Wild Justice.
This is a follow-up to our earlier letter. Clearly there was a response from Natural England in between but that is up to Natural England to publish if they wish – we’d be happy with that.
Wild Justice is going to meet Natural England in August to discuss a range of issues.
On Friday, Wild Justice’s lawyers wrote to Defra and Natural England about general licences. The beginning and end of the lengthy letter are reproduced below – please read these extracts, but the summary is as follows. Because of the passage of time, and the time-limited nature of the general licences, and the apparent fact that a consultation will be issued on these matters ‘soon’, and the speed with which the legal system operates, Wild Justice does not have time to mount a sensible challenge of the legality of the general licences this time around. But we will mount such a challenge next year if any new licences issued by Defra and/or Natural England fail to address the legal points that we have made.
So if our legal challenge is a car, we haven’t scrapped it. In fact it is almost fully fuelled (the crowdfunder), the driver is sitting at the wheel and the engine is revving. We are ready to set off again at a moment’s notice.
Anyone wanting to rely on general licences in 2020 please take notice that Wild Justice will take legal action if Defra/NE do not heed our legal case. Be aware that any revocation, removal, delay of licences next year will depend on Defra’s/NE’s appropriate response to the legal points that we have made.
Dear Sir/Madam
Re: General Licence WML – GL26: To kill or take Carrion Crows to prevent serious damage to livestock including poultry and reared gamebirds
We write in response to Natural England’s (NE) letter of 5 July 2019 and the Secretary of State’s (SS) letter of 11 July 2019.
Those letters do not in any way change our view that Wild Justice would have a strong basis for a challenge to GL26 as issued by NE on 26 April 2019, on the basis explained in our letter of 4 June 2019. As for the points made in your letters, in outline only:
We’ll not reveal the detail of our legal case here. But the summary of the letter is important.
Overall 13. Accordingly, as above, we remain of the view that Wild Justice’s claim here would be a strong one. 14. However, we are mindful of the fact that an application for judicial review made now would be unlikely to be considered and determined by the court much before the end of 2019 and quite possibly later. Certainly, there would be little if any of the life of these particular licences left at that point. We also note that you (SS/NE) are currently reviewing all such licences with a view to fresh and different licences in 2020. If that is right, then even if the court were to agree with Wild Justice on the points in issue here, that would have little if any continuing impact when it came to the 2020 licences and beyond. 15. On that basis, and that basis only (namely without any implication that its claim would not be strong in law) Wild Justice is proposing not to proceed with a judicial review challenge to the 26 April 2019 GL26 licence, or the others produced at the same time which rely on the same flawed approach. However, to be clear, by doing that Wild Justice is not in any way to be taken as compromising or prejudicing its ability to challenge the legality of other licences, including any licences produced following the review for 2020. Indeed, Wild Justice will scrutinise all such licences carefully and if any repeat the errors we have identified here, then Wild Justice will take all necessary legal action at that point. 16. In the meantime, Wild Justice looks forward to the consultation process(es) which will presumably form part of that review including consultation on proposed new licences. It will enthusiastically take part in those processes. Meanwhile, we trust that, while presumably outwardly maintaining your stance on the points above for the moment, you will nonetheless take them into account within the review and when considering any further licences (in a similar way to the approach you took to Wild Justice’s previous judicial review, namely outwardly maintaining that Wild Justice was wrong, long after you had accepted privately that Wild Justice was entirely correct). 17. To that end, our client would be willing to meet with Natural England and/or DEFRA to discuss any of the above.
Wild Justice directors Chris Packham and Mark Avery were supposed to be having a grilling from the Jeremy Paxman of shooting, Charlie Jacoby, this morning at the Game Fair, and they were quite looking forward to it, but a couple of days ago the invitation was peremptorily withdrawn, apparently on the instruction of the Countryside Alliance, BASC and GWCT.
Today, Chris Packham, on behalf of Wild Justice and with the agreement of the Bird Fair invited Charlie Jacoby to come and ask his questions in front of a much larger Bird Fair audience on Saturday 17 August.
Three weeks ago Chris Packham posted this image – it’s the three Wild Justice co-directors, Mark Avery, Chris Packham and Ruth Tingay – giving our support to Henry Morris and friends who were running across grouse moors in northern England to highlight the plight of Hen Harriers and to raise money for Wild Justice. By the way, their crowdfunder has raised over £12,000 already and has just a few more days to run.
Our photograph was then posted on Facebook by Andy Richardson who describes himself as an ‘ex-headkeeper come conservationist’.
There then followed a stream of abusive comments from a variety of people, most of whom self-identify as members of the shooting and/or fishing community. We post these comments here just to illustrate the type of abuse that the three of us get routinely – the examples posted below are the tip of a very large iceberg and no doubt will be written off by others as being just a few bad apples.
This type of abuse is made on open access social media and can be read by anyone. That means that the authors of the following comments are quite happy, in theory, that their girlfriends, wives, mothers, grandmothers children, workmates, friends and anyone else in the world should read them.
It also means that the friends, relatives, workmates and children of Wild Justice co-directors can read them.
If you read them, then prepare to be shocked at the nastiness, the misogyny, the aggression and the rudeness of what follows. But the authors are clearly happy for attention to be directed to their words as they have written them in a public place. Imagine walking down the street and having these vile comments being directed at you.
Here is some information about some of the authors of these comments:
Steve Evans – lives in Sunderland, is proprietor of Owl Tree Works and seems to have a son who plays football.
Shaun Freke – quite keen on shooting by the looks of it, and manages a Blues band in which he sings.
Peter Onslow – a MD/CEO of a small company and seems to like horses
John Edwards – an artist that produces models of fish.
Chris Walker – man in tweed who looks like a gamekeeper
All these people may have perfectly normal and productive lives but when they get onto social media they use language that they probably (but we don’t know them) wouldn’t use in polite society. We wonder how many of them will gather together at the Game Fair tomorow, Saturday and Sunday?
If you would like to support the work of Wild Justice despite these abusive comments, or maybe because of them, then you can donate to our work here.
And by the way, the comments immediately below illustrate why we don’t permit comments on this blog.
Wild Justice’s Mark Avery and Chris Packham had both been invited to Friday’s Game Fair in Hertfordshire to present our views in front of an audience of hunting, shooting and fishing supporters (to a large extent). At almost the very last minute, they were both ‘uninvited’.
Both Mark and Chris had been perfectly happy to face what was expected to be a sceptical, even hostile, audience but it seems that the shooting organisations ran scared from debate.
The Wild Justice crowdfunder to raise funding for a legal challenge of Defra (until yesterday actually of Michael Gove but now of Theresa Villiers) will complete its first week at 10am this morning. We are aiming to force Defra to carry out an ecological assessment under the Habitats Directive of the impacts of releasing 50 million non-native gamebirds, Pheasants and Red-legged Partridges, into the countryside every year.
These two species of non-native bird make up half the biomass of birds in the countryside. If this completely unregulated situation had not crept up on us over the years, and from scratch someone suggested that we release these birds into the countryside, then surely government would have said ‘Hang on a second, that’s bound to have a fundamental impact on the ecology of the countryside. We ought to check this out.’. Our legal challenge is to get this checked out.
Thank you for amazing support from over 1100 individuals. In 23% of the time allowed, we have raised 66% of the funds needed. We have 23 days to raise the remaining £14,974 to reach our £44,500 target.
Please consider donating to our crowdfunder – click here – thank you.
On Thursday morning, at 10am, Wild Justice launched its current crowdfunder to raise the massive sum of £44,500 in order to fund a legal challenge to force Defra’s Michael Gove to assess the ecological impact of the annual release into the countryside of 50+ million Pheasant and Red-legged Partridges.
After c70 hours (ie we’re still in Day 3 of this appeal) the amount of money we still need to raise doesn’t begin with a 4, or a 3 or a 2 but is £19,930. That’s still a lot of money, but we are well over half way there. Thank you to 1000 supporters for getting us so far, so quickly.
The three Wild Justice directors, Chirs Packham, Ruth Tingay and Mark Avery spend a ridiculous amount of time checking on progress of the crowdfunder – it becomes quite addictive. So to keep putting smiles on our faces, if you’ve been meaning to donate but haven’t quite got around to it yet, then please have a look at our crowdfunding page on the Crowdjustice site.
Here are some of the messages that we have been sent by supporters:
I’ve just been reading The Times (Chris Packham starts legal challenge over release of 35m pheasants and partridges) and I think what Wild Justice are all doing is great. You don’t have to be vegan or even particularly tuned-in to realise something’s going horribly wrong on so many fronts. And, as many campaigners have shown before, the law can be a very powerful tool if it’s brought to the defence of those who cannot defend themselves.
Excellent news, thank you for tackling this on our behalf and on behalf of wildlife. I work in the countryside and whilst there is some good conservation work and local employment done in the course of managing shoots I think the degree to which the countryside is altered to support game shooting is unjustifiable and unsustainable. Huge swathes of land are just pheasant and partridge farms and shooting ranges.’
I like many shooters in the UK who have no interest in killing wildlife either for food or reprehensibly for fun, but are railroaded into BASC membership to get insurance cover for our target (as in paper target) shooting hobby, but are getting sick and tired of the BASC’s continued bollox about ‘shooting under threat’ in the UK as their standard response to good people like yourselves standing up for our wildlife.
As a 20 year vegan who happens to enjoy the relaxing yet challenging hobby of target shooting – the BASC’s vocal assertion of speaking for all shooters in that ‘all for one and one for all ‘ diatribe of theirs has just gone too far and I will be canceling my membership and looking for an alternative forthwith.
Comments Off on Wild Justice crowdfunder enters Day 3
Wild Justice is crowdfunding so that we can take our legal challenge of Defra all the way through the courts. We are trying to force Michael Gove to assess the impact on UK wildlife of the release of 50 million non-native gamebirds (Pheasants and Red-legged Partridges) by the shooting industry.
Wild Justice says that these vast releases of birds at this time of year must be assessed under the EU Habitats Directive legislation and that Defra has failed to do so.
48 hours ago we launched a crowdfunder to raise the £44,500 we need to take on the big guns of Defra. The response has been amazing – thank you to the 850+ people who have generously donated to this appeal. We are almost half way to our target and, although there is a long way to go, it’s a great start.
If you would like to learn more about Pheasants in particular, 43 million of which are released into our countryside every year for shooting, then email info@wildjustice.org.uk and put PHEASANTS as the subject of your email, and we’ll send you some information.
If you would like to support our legal case using your credit/debit card then please have a look at the crowdfunder page – 50 million non-native gamebirds damaging UK wildlife – then please click here.
Alternatively you can donate using PayPal, or by bank transfer, or even by sending us a cheque in the post and the details for those options are on the Wild Justice website – click here.
Comments Off on GWCT stung into limp, unconvincing defence of their members.
GWCT is clearly rattled by the Wild Justice legal challenge – even though it is to Defra. Rarely do we hear the thoughts of GWCT Chief Exec Teresa Dent; we only usually get the spin of her right hand man, Mr Gilruth. So it must be something momentous to get Teresa to utter.
This is what she said;
We [GWCT] found that the releasing of lowland gamebirds can be done in a way that minimises or avoids negative effects on habitats and other wildlife, and maximises the potential of management practices associated with releasing to deliver broader biodiversity benefit.
The critical word above is a small one – the word ‘can’.
I ‘can’ live a life of perfection, in theory, but ‘do’ I?
The GWCT ‘can’ speak without a forked tongue – but ‘does’ it?
Natural England, of which Teresa is a Board member, ‘can’ use all its might and power to conserve the Hen Harrier, but ‘does’ it?
So, yes, Pheasant releases, in another and wholly imaginary world, ‘can’ be done in a way that minimises or avoids negative effects (how wise to admit that negative effects exist) but are they?
Elsewhere on the GWCT website you will find more concrete evidence for harm, from their own work – this is (as I said in my recent British Birds paper) a good summary of the situation:
There are legitimate questions relating to the release of pheasants for shooting and impacts on habitats and wildlife. The Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust research in this area over the last decade or so has been substantial but has still tackled only some of the issues. It has highlighted so far a number of possible unwanted impacts, which are usually a result of the released birds themselves, and a number of positive effects, which are usually associated with habitat management work for game.
Unwanted impacts that are usually a result of the birds themselves – and the number of birds being released has increased dramatically, as best illustrated by this graph from the GWCT website;
How high is that graph in 2019? I’m pretty sure that it is higher than when this graph stops in 2010. How odd that GWCT haven’t updated it.
There is plenty more one could say, but let us just point out that Teresa relies on shoots sticking to the Guidelines for Sustainable Gamebird Releasing. These are the GWCT’s guidelines – not government guidelines, and not enforced in any way. But maybe GWCT members (and everyone else flinging Pheasants into the countryside) is a paragon of virtue when it comes to sticking to the guidelines? How likely do you think that is?
Well the GWCT themselves give us part of the answer here;
The GWCT suggest that around 700 birds per hectare of release pen is an appropriate stocking level (Sage & Swan, 2003) but releases in the order of 8,000 birds per hectare of release pen, have been documented. The mean stocking density reported in Sage et al. (2005) is currently 1,800 birds per hectare of pen.
The recommended stocking density is 700/ha but the average is more than twice as high as that (1800/ha) with an admitted example of more than ten times the recommendation (8000/ha). What a great example of self-regulation by Pheasant shooters. It’s a good job GWCT members aren’t ‘self-regulating’ on drink-driving isn’t it?
The Wild Justice legal challenge asks Defra to comply with the Habitats Directive and assess the impacts of Pheasants – such examples will make any independent assessment take a closer look at everything else going on in the world of Pheasant shooting. And rightly so.
Comments Off on Wild Justice challenges gamebird releasesP28PYW Seven week old pheasant chicks, often known as poults, after just being released into a gamekeepers release pen on an English shooting estate
Last week Wild Justice sent a Pre Action Protocol letter to Michael Gove at Defra requiring him to assess the impacts of the release of the vast and increasing numbers of non-native gamebirds into the countryside. This, we argue, is a legal requirement under the EU Habitats Directive. Please support our crowdfunder.
Every year 43 million captive-reared Pheasants (and 9
million Red-legged Partridges) are released into the countryside. The numbers released have increased about
10-fold in the last 45 years and, like most of the rest of the shooting
industry’s activities, are not regulated by government. More paperwork is
needed to reintroduce native UK species into the countryside for conservation
purposes than to release non-native omnivorous birds on a vast scale to fuel
recreational shooting.
Gamebird releases and associated shooting are of concern
because:
Pheasants and Red-legged Partridges eat a wide variety of native plants, invertebrates, reptiles and even small birds and mammals. These impacts must be properly assessed particularly since release numbers are unregulated and increasing.
One in three released gamebirds are shot for recreation but the rest die of disease, on the roads, from starvation or are killed by predators. This bonanza of prey and carrion feeds the numbers of a range of generalist predators and scavengers. High UK populations of Red Foxes and Carrion Crows may affect the numbers of some ground-nesting birds such as Curlew and Lapwing.
Gamebirds can carry diseases that affect native wildlife, commercial poultry stocks and people. Pheasants often have high burdens of the ticks which transmit Lyme disease to humans.
Pheasants are shot with lead ammunition, the vast majority of which is discharged into the countryside and accumulates. Lead is a poison for wildlife and people.
The illegal persecution of birds of prey continues at a high level in the UK and over 60% of those convicted of offences are gamekeepers – most of whom will be employed by shooting estates which release Pheasants and Red-legged Partridges.
Pheasant numbers are increasing most rapidly in upland areas where their impacts on heathland wildlife through direct predation (eg of Adders and Common Lizards), through their droppings and browsing affecting sensitive plant communities and through altering predator numbers are of growing concern.
Gamebirds on country roads cause serious road traffic accidents each year.
Increasingly, shot gamebirds are being dumped or buried in the countryside because the market for food consumption is saturated but the market for recreational shooting is booming.
Although the shooting industry claims that management for gamebirds benefits other species there is increasing evidence that they are actually a problem for farmland birds because they compete with them for food resources in winter.
The density of released Pheasants in woodlands is often 10-times that recommended to safeguard invertebrate populations.
There are very real welfare concerns around the breeding, transport and release of gamebirds including in regard to their importation in their millions from European breeders.
For all these reasons, and probably many others, we believe that gamebird releases ought to be regulated. The Habitats Directive requires the UK to assess ‘plans or projects’ which may affect protected sites of nature conservation importance. There is no doubt in Wild Justice’s mind that the release of 50+ million non-native gamebirds into the countryside is a plan or project which has ecological impacts and which must be assessed.
Please support our crowdfunder so that we can take this case through the courts and compel Defra to act.
Chris Packham, a
director of Wild Justice, said ‘The UK’s shooting industry is one of the
least regulated in Europe with no centralised collection of any data. No one
knows how many birds are released or shot, whether wild or captive bred. So how
on earth can that shooting industry claim to be making informed decisions about
sustainable harvesting, stocking or conservation? What is blindingly obvious to
anyone with even a basic understanding of natural sciences is that dumping at
least 50 million non-native birds into the UK countryside will have a profound
effect on its ecology – it’s about time we measured what that effect is.‘.
Ruth Tingay, a
director of Wild Justice, said ‘It’s
worth noting that the 50+ million figure is only a guesstimate, made by the
shooting industry six years ago. For all we know there could be 100 million Pheasants
and Red-legged Partridges being let loose in the countryside every year. The
fact that the Government doesn’t know or care how many are released, and its
previous refusal to assess the extent of the environmental damage caused, will
come as no surprise to conservationists who have watched this Government put
vested interests ahead of wildlife conservation time and time and time again.‘.
Mark Avery, a
director of Wild Justice, said ‘Let’s
take a step back: if we had never seen a Pheasant or Red-legged Partridge in
the countryside and someone suggested releasing over 50 million of these
omnivorous non-native gamebirds annually would we just nod it through with no
concerns? No! It’s only because this situation has crept up on us through lack
of regulatory control that we are in this position. Government has been lax and
now Michael Gove must act.‘.
Carol Day, solicitor at Leigh Day, said ‘The aim of the law is to ensure that plans and projects that could have a significant adverse effect on important wildlife sites are properly evaluated before permission is given to carry them out. Our client is arguing that the scale of gamebird releases and the potential impact on the UK’s most important wildlife sites is such that a process for assessment must now be provided.’.
It’s over a fortnight ago that I drove for three hours to Yorkshire to be interviewed by Countryfile about Wild Justice’s successful (and ongoing) legal challenge over the general licences.
I spent several hot hours in the sun at Wheldrake Ings and talked to Charlotte Smith (right, above) and was filmed by the BBC film crew. There was lots of walking up and down, quite a lot of leaning on a gate, some time waiting for the local flying school planes to move on and some time seeing some birds and lots of Painted Lady butterflies.
On the same day, the team interviewed my mate Tony Juniper, now Chair of Natural England, a local farmer and some time later they talked to Andrew Gilruth of GWCT. I knew all that was happening but not what had happened. So I was as interested as everyone else to see the programme when broadcast. Well, actually I’ve only just looked at it because the Cricket World Cup Final was much more interesting and then I had some work to do and some family phone calls to make and take, so I’ve only looked at it this morning.
You can look at it now too on BBC iPlayer – it starts c14 minutes into the programme. It’s a pretty fair piece and I don’t have any complaints about the treatment of Wild Justice. When you do several takes of the same thing you tend to think ‘They’ve missed out some of the best bits I said’ but that’s life. And the piece has certainly gone down well with many, as Wild Justice has received many emails and donations directly linked to the Countryfile programme – thank you!
Having said that of course, it isn’t the programme that Wild Justice would have made about the subject but that’s not really the point. We know that Countryfile has form in leaning towards the opinions, however ungrounded in facts, of farmers and shooters and we all have to take that as read.
There is one passage that I would have liked to be included where I listed the things wrong with the general licences, not just their unlawfulness as pointed out by our challenge, but also the species on them (there is no excuse for Jackdaw, Rook, Jay or Magpie being listed for their impacts on wildlife), for the fact that they are not understood by the people that use them, the fact that bird identification sklills by users of the general licences are often very poor, the fact that there is no monitoring of the numbers of birds killed or of what species and no enforcement on the ground of the provisions of the licences. But there you go.
The section with the farmer was interesting – I wonder whether he has been meeting the actual conditions of the general licences all these years? And of course he is killing birds to protect birds – that is the party line even though it is barely grounded in science at all. He may well believe what he says even though he has been misled on the science.
Andrew Gilruth just made the outrageous suggestion that some unnamed species are ‘entirely reliant’ on people using the general licences – really? Which species are entirely reliant on Jays being killed, Andrew – and what is the evidence? And are even Curlew ‘entirely reliant’ on gamekeepers killing birds, Andrew? How about Foxes? The exaggeration slips so easily off the tongue of the GWCT spin doctor who I tend to think of as the ‘Grand Insinuator’ these days.
There was a piece not used by Countryfile where Gilruth was banging on about his insinuation that Wild Justice had been offered a deal to go away by Natural England. I know they were planning to film this because they asked me questions about it which I answered on camera before they spoke to Andrew. Charlotte Smith asked me a question and I said something like ‘I don’t know what he’s on about. Do you? Where is this information which GWCT claims to have got through a Freedom of Information request but hasn’t published? Have you seen it because I haven’t’. When I was shown the smoking gun, which would have been pointing at Natural England not Wild Justice, I pointed out that was simply NE’s letter conceding the challenge and they had to say something but they certainly didn’t say what GWCT seemed to be suggesting. Natural England behaved badly enough in this case (see here) but to offer a ‘deal’ when they knew that the law was against them would have been a sacking offence. It’s hardly surprising this did not appear in the programme. By the way, the CEO of GWCT is Teresa Dent who is also a Board member of Natural England…
And then there was Tony Juniper. Tony’s first day as Chair of Natural England coincided with the revocation of the general licences but he had played no part in the decision-making process leading up to that decision. I had to laugh when he said that it would be good if everbody sat down and talked about things – I’m sure that that’s what was said of Tony when he was laying about government and industry in his good old days at FoE! And we haven’t had a phone call from the Chair of Natural England to come round for a cup of tea yet but we’ll certainly answer the call if he makes it, and is serious. In fact there are some matters on our list which, after a bit more research, we may want a chat about. Watch this space.
But Tony ended with the alarming news that NE can’t do its job properly because of lack of resources. That is probably true – lack of resources and lack of will have been two of the big handicaps that have held back NE in its work for many years. It is to be hoped that, together, Marian Spain (who has had a torrid time but is more of a nature conservationist than her predecessor) and Tony Juniper (who is certainly a nature conservationist) will be able to remedy the lack of nerve. Unless NE demonstrates some balls then no amount of money will help them deliver what they should do for the public. I am hopeful that things will change but the jury is still out – it’s obviously too soon to tell.
Countryfile asked me, on camera, what I thought of Natural England, perhaps expecting a rude response but from memory I said something like this ‘I think they are wonderful. Obviously Tony Juniper, their new Chair is a mate, and I have many other friends who work in Natural England, so of course I think they are wonderful. But they are nowhere near as wonderful as they used to be. And they need government support and resources to be really wonderful once again.’. Something very close to that anyway. But Countryfile, for their own reasons didn’t broadcast that. If they had stuck that on the end, then the piece would have ended on a note of agreement. No criticism of Countryfile intended, but, as you can see, the editor is in a very powerful position to create a narrative with the pieces recorded in completely independent and unsighted interviews, and it’s what is left on the cuttting room floor which is as important as what is included. That’s why my preference is for live broadcasts – then you live with your mistakes and triumphs and nobody controls the message.
So Tony, you’d have had that call for more resources from Wild Justice – but Countryfile cut it out.
Event: a family-friendly, open-air celebration of the threatened Hen Harrier
Speakers: will include children’s author Gill Lewis, Wild Justice director Ruth Tingay, RSPB Hen Harrier Life Project’s Cathleen Thomas, Wales raptor enthusiast Dan Rouse, Hen Harrier Westminster Parliament species champion Angela Smith MP (tbc) and Green Party former leader Natalie Bennett [and a similar number of men].
Weather: bring sun-screen and a raincoat – we don’t know!
Advantages of location: Severn Trent have been very welcoming and they are used to hosting similar events; toilets, loads of parking (pay and display), shops and a cafe on site. Equally inconvenient to reach from many parts of England and Wales.
Disadvantages of location: intermittent phone reception but Vodaphone is best. No bus service runs on a Sunday.
Cost: to you it’s free, to us it’s an expense – but we are having fun setting it up.
We are looking at setting up livestreaming of the event but it doesn’t look completely easy – but a team of techies is working on it.
Stewart Abbott is attempting to set up a car-sharing service which is very kind of him.
We are looking to set up a book-signing in the RSPB shop at the end of the event.
The results of a childrens’ creative writing exercise will be read out from the stage.
From a sixth form college in the south of England – thank you very much indeed. We’re very grateful for this type of support. When we get a letter or a card in the post it’s often this type of lovely surprise.
We won’t publicise the name of the sixth form college or individuals partly because, sad to say, we find that not only the three Wild Justice directors but also supporters of our work, are certain to be trolled on social media by people who almost always are clearly from the shooting ‘community’. More on that at a later date.
It’s a crazy world with a mixture of good and bad people in it.
Comments Off on Henry Morris raises awareness of wildlife crime and supports Wild Justice
On Wednesday morning at 8am in a remote part of the Forest of Bowland Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty in Lancashire, Henry Morris (second from right above) and his brother Ed, and friends Tim and John set off on a journey. Henry’s aim was to run 200km, in four days, across the grouse moors of northern England to publicise the illegal killing of Hen Harriers and to raise money for Wild Justice. Wild Justice director Mark Avery was there to wave the gang off and wish them well.
A pair of Hen Harriers; the grey male is passing some food that he has caught to the brown female who will take it back to the chicks in the nest. And all this happens at speed in mid-air. Photo: Godon Yates.
On Saturday at 2pm, in Nidderdale in Yorkshire, Wild Justice directors Ruth Tingay and Mark Avery, and a crowd of friends and family of Henry and the other runners, gathered to welcome them to the end of their journey.
What an achievement! As Henry and his relay team ran through villages they were greeted by supporting honks from passing motorists, cheers from people along the route and some puzzled looks.
Henry was carrying a satellite tag, a bit like the ones that are used to study birds and their movements, and so it had been possible to follow his progress across the remote uplands of Lancashire, Cumbria and Yorkshire. Henry had planned his route to visit the areas where Hen Harriers, also carrying satellite tags, had ‘disappeared’ in recent years. A recent analysis of the Hen Harrier data was entitled ‘Patterns of satellite tagged hen harrier disappearances suggest widespread illegal killing on British grouse moors.‘ and confirmed the open secret that Hen Harriers are gunned down, totally illegally, on grouse moors because Red Grouse form part of the birds’ diet. In other words, a protected and beautiful bird is killed illegally to protect Red Grouse stocks so that people can shoot the grouse for fun later in the year.
Henry Morris and his satellite tag.
Henry, like most normal people, was amazed and incensed by this rampant wildlife crime in the National Parks and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty in northern England and planned his run to ‘join the dots’ of locations of Hen Harrier disappearances.
On Friday the runners visited the spot where a famous Hen Harrier, hatched and fledged in the Forest of Bowland where Henry’s run started, was illegally killed, shot, in Nidderdale near where the run ended. That Hen Harrier was named Bowland Betty by local school children and she travelled far and wide in her first two years of life, visiting moorland in the north of Scotland and many sites in the north of England before meeting her end in Nidderdale before she had the chance to rear any chicks herself. Bowland Betty’s story is a famous one, a typical one, but a sad one – and there’s even a book all about her short life and its untimely end.
Henry Morris is amazing! A few months ago he had never seen a Hen Harrier and he knew little about wildlife crime affecting them and other birds of prey in the English uplands and now he is a Hen Harrier fan and a leading advocate for their proper protection. He has been inspired by this marvellous bird and the wildlife crimes that threaten its existence – but his marathon run inspires the rest of us to keep on campaigning for a better deal for wildlife. See his Hen Harrier website here.
Henry has also been raising money for Wild Justice through his run and he is fast approaching £10,000. If you feel inspired by Henry’s marathon run then please contribute to his crowdfunding page which you can access here.
We’ll be agreeing with Henry how we should spend the money raised. It is likely that some of it will go to the costs of setting up the Hen Harrier Day event in Derbyshire on 11 August, some may go to spreading the word about Hen Harriers to schools and some may be added to rewards for information to help the police catch wildlife criminals. It all depends how generous you are!
By the way, Wild Justice will be sending out its next newsletter overnight so it should be in your inbox tomorrow morning – subscribe here.
Henry Morris is running through the grouse moors of the north of England this coming week to raise money for Wild Justice, to publicise the fate of Hen Harriers and because that’s what he does as an ultra-marathon runner. See his website for more details.
He’ll be carrying a satellite tag, much like some Hen Harriers have done, and you’ll be able to see whether or not he disappears on the moors as have many, many Hen Harriers including the sad case of Hen Harrier Rannoch which emerged last week – slowly killed in an illegal trap on a Scottish grouse moor.
Hen Harrier ‘Rannoch’ died on a Scottish grouse moor.
Wild Justice has talked to Henry about how to spend the money that he is raising and options include: funding Hen Harrier Day events, donating books about Hen Harriers to public and school libraries and funding more satellite tags to study this endangered bird.
Henry’s doing an amazing thing – please support his crowdfunder.
The speakers confirmed so far are the three Wild Justice directors (Chris Packham, Ruth Tingay and Mark Avery) and Iolo Williams (TV presenter), Gill Lewis (author), Tim Birch (Derbyshire Wildlife Trust), Superintendent Nick Lyall (chair of Raptor Persecution Priority Delivery Group) and Cathleen Thomas (RSPB Skydancer project) – but there will be more.
Odd isn’t it? Natural England consulted with Defra in April and revoked these licences and then Defra consulted with Natural England in June and reinstated them. We wonder whether they know what they are doing.
Wild Justice is most interested in the licences which authorise killing protected birds for the purposes of nature conservation. On the science; the licences are flawed. On the law; our challenge to GL26 is lodged and we await Natural England’s response by 4pm on Friday next. We are also consulting our lawyers over the new licences issued today. And on the politics; Michael Gove probably won’t be Environment Secretary for much longer and he is leaving a mess for his successor to clear up.
Wild Justice looks forward to the promised consultation on general licences but that seems a long way away. Defra should move much quicker.’
This is the section in the Licence Determination document received from Natural England to justify the publication of General Licence GL26 to ‘authorise’ control of Carrion Crows to prevent serious damage to livestock including gamebirds (Pheasants and Red-legged Partridges).
We’ll come back to this ‘evidence’ but once you read it carefully you will see that it is does not amount to much. That either means that there is no strong evidence which could amount to a justification for issuing a general licence of this type or that Natural England have done a poor job in finding it and summarising it here. For serious damage to sheep we suspect that it may be the latter – but what do you think? For gamebirds we think it is the former – what do you think? But in both cases the evidence presented by Natural England does not justify the widespread, unmonitored, unregulated killing of Carrion Crows under a general licence.
Just one more thing – note that this Natural England document is dated ‘February’. See where this sits with respect to the timeline of Wild Justice’s legal challenge. When Natural England responded to Wild Justice’s legal challenge with an evasive and ambiguous letter, on 13 March, they were already preparing this replacement general licence…
Just to be a little picky, Wild Justice has not challenged the crow shooting laws – we like the laws that protect wild birds. We are challenging Natural England’s licensing of lethal control of crows and other species because, specifically because, we do not believe that they implement the laws that have existed for decades.
That’s a technical but massive difference. Our success in our first legal challenge showed that the statutory agency, Natural England (and its predecessor bodies) had for decades, failed to implement the existing laws through a lawful licensing system. We haven’t changed the law, and we aren’t calling for the law to be changed. We want Defra and Natural England (and devolved adminstrations elsewhere in the UK) to give effect to the existing laws properly.
If the licensing authority, the statutory regulator, isn’t implementing the law correctly then questions need to be asked of it. These questions have not yet been asked of Natural England and Defra.
And another day has passed without Defra announcing its plans for lethal control of the species formerly listed on the General Licences GL04, GL05 and GL06. They are more than three weeks overdue and they have been ‘imminent’ for over a week.
Because the magazine/website Sporting Gun was unique among shooting magazines in actually asking us about what we were doing when Natural England revoked the General Licences GL04, GL05 and GL06, and because they asked some sensible questions and printed our answers faithfully, we have a bit of a soft spot for them. That doesn’t mean that we agree with them and it certainly doesn’t mean they agree with us, but they have certainly made an effort to be fair and we appreciate that.
So we contacted them over the weekend to give them advance notice of our announcement of our second legal challenge. And that’s why they have this exclusive Q&A with us on their Facebook page and that’s why presumably the Q&A will eventually appear on their own website and perhaps in their magazine – and it’s why the likes of Shooting Times do not have this information.
The comments on this Q&A from people who look as though they are mostly shooters show how difficult it is to reach out to this community. But there you go.
We also contacted Farmers Weekly over the weekend because farmers are the other main group affected by changes to, and challenges to, the general licences. They’ve asked us some questions, they’ve ask for our comments, and they have taken them on board. They’ve treated us straight too. So you will soon see some reporting of our new legal challenge in Farmers Weekly too.
We also contacted a national newspaper on this subject but they haven’t covered our legal challenge yet (as far as we’ve noticed). This is hardly surprising as, in the big scheme of things, this is rather complicated stuff and small beer in national news terms. But we tried. And guess what, the newspaper wasn’t the Daily Telegraph.
In our first, and successful, legal challenge we did not name the public body (Natural England) whose decision we were challenging, nor the subject on which the challenge was based (General Licences GL04, GL05 and GL06) until over a month after launching it. We gave Natural England the time and space, unpressured, to consider their position. We believe that Natural England handled the matter badly and we will, when we get round to it, be writing to them and to the Efra Committee on that subject.
You might have thought that a public body which had conceded a legal challenge to an entity might want to talk to that entity to check whether its new plans were going to be challenged again but we haven’t heard from Natural England. So, we didn’t feel any compunction about publicising this new legal challenge and publishing our Pre-action Protocol letter yesterday. We believe that the licences that Natural England published have a similar legal flaw in them as did the previous general licences. If Natural England thinks not, then we are prepared to take this case through the courts to have the legal arguments decided by a judge. If Natural England concedes again then the world will wonder what on earth they were doing issuing more legally flawed licences. We’ll have to see what happens.
We’ll also have to see what happens with Defra’s much-delayed plans to issue new licences. We understand they had 4000+ responses to their rushed consultation but they will now also have had to scrutinise and think about Wild Justice’s new legal challenge. We are interested to learn their plans. When is the promised consultation going to happen? And when will a Defra minister appear in front of the Efra Committee? We keep hearing from others that Defra’s annoucement is ‘imminent’ – it’s been imminent for a while now.
Last, but not least, many thanks to our friends at Birdwatch and Birdguides for promptly putting our news out to birders yesterday. Much appreciated!
Comments Off on Our new legal challenge: General Licence GL26
On Friday morning Wild Justice launched a new legal challenge of general licences issued by Natural England.
The formal legal letter is reproduced in full below.
Wild Justice is challenging two aspects of GL26 (and only insofar as it relates to the killing of Carrion Crows to protect Pheasants), namely Natural England’s approach (1) to “alternatives” for the purposes of section 16(1A) Wildlife and Countryside Act (WCA 1981), and (2) to “kept” for the purposes of section 27(1) WCA 1981.
Mark Avery of Wild Justice said;
Licence GL26 is a shoddy document. It is scientifically threadbare and, we contend, legally flawed. It does not form a sound basis to justify widespread, unmonitored, unlimited control of Carrion Crows to protect livestock. We are glad that Defra has promised a proper review of licensing of the killing of wild birds because, on the evidence of this licence, that killing often amounts to unjustified casual killing. We call upon Defra to announce the date and substance of that review as quickly as possible so that these matters can properly be examined before 2020’s licences are issued. We also repeat our call to Defra not to issue any general licences to allow the lethal control of Jay, Jackdaw, Rook or Magpie for the purpose of protecting wild birds. But now we are asking for the elements of GL26 which relate to protection of Pheasants and other gamebirds to be quashed and those elements which relate to other livestock to be thoroughly scrutinised in the review of general licences promised by Defra.
We intend to announce shortly how we will proceed on general licensing, following an evidence-gathering exercise undertaken by Defra over the course of the last month. We received more than 4,000 responses to the call for evidence, and we have since been carefully considering all the evidence received in order to determine next steps, alongside additional evidence. As part of our evidence gathering we have sought the views of user groups on the useability of different potential licensing options.
We appreciate the urgency of getting a working licensing system in place as quickly as possible. A final decision has not yet been taken on the way forward, but we will be setting out next steps shortly.
Comments Off on Hen Harrier Day 2019 #HHDay19 Male Hen Harrier. Photo: Gordon Yates
It looks like there will only be one Hen Harrier Day event in the UK in 2019 – but everyone who cares about this bird and wants to see an end to its persecution is invited.
Hen Harrier Day events started in 2014 and have been held at locations from Northern Ireland to inside the M25 and from the south coast of England to the highlands of Scotland. They are now a firm part of the ornithological and conservation scene.
This year on the afternoon of Sunday 11 August, Wild Justice is organising a Hen Harrier Day event, with Severn Trent Water, at Carsington Water in Derbyshire. This is a large venue and can probably cope with what we hope and expect to be a sizeable crowd.
Hen Harrier Day 2019 at Carsington Water will be a family-friendly event (bring your picnic if the weather turns out fine) with a host of great speakers. The event will celebrate this fantastic bird and highlight the ongoing illegal persecution that it faces on grouse moors.
You may remember this handy visual aid published by BASC a while ago – it shows the scale of revocation of permission to use lethal means to kill particular bird species (listed down the side) for particular legitimate reasons (listed along the top). BASC basically called for all the red areas of the table to be coloured in green by Natural England and/or Defra so that life could be as it were before Wild Justice’s successful legal challenge of the General Licences GL04, GL05 and GL06. This seemed to ignore the unlawful nature of the previous licences. And we took the mickey, gently, out of BASC for calling for the reinstatement of Collared Dove killing for the purposes of preventing serious damage to fisheries.
The cells in the table coloured green (Priority 1), yellow (Priority 2) and brown (Priority 3) were Natural England’s plans for issuing new licences in pretty quick time. Then Defra waded in and took over the process of issuing new licences with five working days consultation period starting on the Bank Holiday weekend at the beginning of May (Saturday 4 May). That consultation ended on 13 May and Defra said that Michael Gove would take a further week to review all the information and come to a decision – that would take us to the 20 May.
Here’s a simple summary of what has, and more importantly what hasn’t, happened.
Now we appreciate that ‘from 29 April’ includes all of the rest of time in the universe but five weeks later only three of the allegedly high priority 10 new licences have seen the light of day (and they aren’t very good – but we’ll come back to that later this week).
Not surprisingly, the progress on the Priority 2 licences has been as follows:
We’ve been waiting for three weeks to see any of these…
And given the above, it is not surprising that progress on the Priority 3 licences has also been non-existent:
None of this can be blamed on Natural England – the responsibility for this was wrested from them by Defra in early May. And Defra promised that Michael Gove would make his decisions by 20 May. That is now two weeks overdue:
So, if BASC wanted to update their handy visual aid at the top of this post they could colour everything in red except the three general licences published by Natural England before Defra decisively stepped in and did … nothing so far.
Comments Off on Read or watch Natural England’s evidence to the Efra Committee
If you are interested in what Natural England had to say about general licences and the revocation of GL04, GL05 and GL06 then you can watch the video or read the transcript.
Wild Justice was founded by Dr Mark Avery, Chris Packham CBE and Dr Ruth Tingay in October 2018. It exists to use the legal system on behalf of wildlife and to advocate for changes to laws to benefit wildlife. Our first legal case was a successful legal challenge of three long-standing general licences which ‘authorised’ lethal control of 16 bird species in England.
On the day that Wild Justice was launched to the public, 13 February 2019, we sent a formal Pre-Action Protocol letter to Natural England challenging the validity of General Licences GL04, GL05 and GL06.
We now learn that Natural England received legal advice, on 21 February, that the Wild Justice challenge was correct. From that date Natural England knew that it must address the legal failings of its licensing regime. Whether two months of silence followed by a shock announcement of a sudden revocation of General Licences GL04, GL05 and GL06 will be regarded as a satisfactory response by a public body to finding that it was acting unlawfully is for others to judge. Three months after Natural England received its legal advice, the way ahead is still unclear and Defra has ‘taken control’ of the subject of licensed bird killing.
In Scotland, following Wild Justice’s action in England, Scottish Natural Heritage is bringing forward a consultation on their very similar general licences and as yet no change to the licensing system has been introduced.
Much of the outcry by certain shooting organisations and the media over Natural England’s actions has been ill-informed and ill-judged. Wild Justice does not think that the issue has been handled particularly well but we recognise that Natural England was unlikely to be praised by all however they dealt with revising an unlawful but long-standing licensing system.
The transition period from an unlawful licensing regime to a lawful one which is fit for purpose started on 21 February but it is worth considering how a statutory regulator of wildlife law, Natural England, allowed an unlawful system to persist for so long. Species protection law is a fundamental cornerstone of nature conservation and Natural England’s job was to implement it properly. This is a failing of a public body that should be investigated. In Natural England’s recent evidence to the Efra Committee it was suggested that in 2014 Defra leant on Natural England to prevent changes to the bird-killing licensing regime. This goes to the heart of Natural England’s role and independence. We believe that this should be investigated. Owen Paterson and Liz Truss each occupied the role of Defra Secretary of State for parts of 2014.
Wild Justice will be writing to Natural England asking them to clarify and correct certain aspects of their evidence to the Efra Committee and to explain their conduct to Wild Justice following the legal advice they received on 21 February. We will also write to the Efra Committee with information that they may find useful.
But turning to the future. There is a gaping hole which the unlawful General Licences GL04, GL05 and GL06 used to fill. Now that Defra has taken responsibility for the licensing regime we await their proposals. Natural England had made a good start in issuing a timetable for the publication of a series of new general licences which would be both species-specific and issue-specific but this timetable is already in tatters thanks to Defra’s intervention. Three new general licences were issued by Natural England and have been criticised on a number of grounds by a variety of users of the licences. Without getting into the details, we can see that some criticisms of those new licences are valid and others are not. But having a series of licences that regulate the killing, only where necessary, of particular species is a difficult administrative task. Wild Justice will wait with interest to see what emerges from Defra’s cogitations and we have no fixed view at present, but it may be that general licences are a rather blunt instrument to deal with the complexities of this issue. We’ll have to see what Defra come up with.
In any case, Wild Justice reiterates that there is no justification for new general licences which allow the lethal control of Jays, Jackdaws, Rooks or Magpies for the purpose of conserving fauna or flora. Killing those species for that reason is not scientifically justified.
We envisage that there may be a long way to go before the issues identified as a result of our successful legal challenge are resolved satisfactorily. Wild Justice will play a constructive part in the necessary discussions that must follow but reserves its right to take further legal challenges on this subject if necessary. Defra now has the opportunity to end the casual and unlawful killing of millions of birds and to restrict lethal control to those circumstances allowed by the law.
Wild Justice noted with interest the Efra Committee meeting which took evidence yesterday from Natural England.
Wild Justice will make a fuller statement in the next few days.
Meanwhile, we learned with interest that Natural England had legal advice on 21 February that the General Licences GL04, GL05 and GL06 were unlawful. We note that this was not mentioned in NE’s response of 13 March to our formal Pre-Action Protocol letter of 13 February. We also note that NE announced the revocation of these licences on 23 April with effect from 25 April which was two months after they received that legal advice.
Natural England’s Deputy Chair Lord Blencathra (who was Acting Chair at the time of the decision to revoke the General Licences GL04, GL05 and GL06), interim Chief Executive Marian Spain and new Chair, Tony Juniper, appear before the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (EFRA) Committee on Tuesday 21 May 2019 (see here).
Wild Justice contacted the EFRA Committee last week and offered any help that we could give, including that our lawyers were available to give evidence on the legal aspects of the case.
We also suggested that the following questions would be germane to the Committee’s enquiry;
Had Natural England or Defra, before receipt of the legal challenge from Wild Justice on 13 February, ever had cause to be concerned about the lawfulness of General Licences GL04, GL05 and GL06? If so, what were the nature of those concerns and why weren’t they acted upon?
At what point after 13 February, when the Wild Justice Pre-Action Protocol letter was sent, did Natural England come to the view that the General Licences GL04, GL05 and GL06 were unlawful?
What communications occurred between Natural England and Defra over the legal challenge?
What legal advice did Defra give Natural England on the legal issues raised by Wild Justice between 13 February and 23 April?
What information was the Natural England Board given about the legal challenge at its meeting of 20 March?
What information was the Natural England Board given about the legal challenge at its meeting of 15 April?
When, and in what form, will the promised consultation on general licences take place and how will it differ from the rushed consultation by Defra which closed last Monday?
We will watch with interest to see how this session goes.
Wild Justice is pleased, but not remotely surprised, to see that the RSPB has followed our lead on the general licence consultation and recommended that lethal killing of Jay, Jackdaw, Rook and Magpie should only be authorised by specific individual licences and not by new general licences.
The science simply doesn’t exist which would justify widespread, open unmonitored lethal control of these four species.
It’s hardly surprising that the RSPB opposes general licences for the lethal control of these four corvids as RSPB does not cull these species on its 150,000ha of UK nature reserves (the area of a smallish English county).
Michael Gove is under considerable political pressure from shooting organisations, not as far as we have seen so far from farming organisations, to issue scientifically ill-founded general licences for lethal control of Jay, Jackdaw, Rook and Magpie but we trust he will stick with the science.
A few days ago we thanked BASC for their response to the Defra consultation on general licences because it clarified how ridiculous was their call for a reversion to the General Licences GL04, GL05 and GL06 which were revoked after Wild Justice’s successful legal challenge.
Today we must thank the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT) for their submission which also appears to favour a reinstatement of the three discredited general licences although not in any way as positive or strident a way as that of BASC. In fact, it is somewhat difficult to find a recommendation for action in the GWCT response.
Where GWCT say in their Summary ‘We highlight scientific evidence that predation control carried out under General Licences can lead to annual increases in breeding densities of a range of red-listed birds (e.g. grey partridges 35% increase per year, curlew 14% increase per year). We also highlight numerous case studies where farmland birds have responded positively to predation control.‘ they fail to disclose that the predation control to which they refer usually involved control of mammals as well as birds and rarely was able to distinguish between impacts of different bird species. The studies cited by GWCT, taken with other important studies which GWCT have neglected to cite, form no basis for any call to reintroduce a licensing regime for bird killing which allows the lethal control of Jay, Jackdaw, Rook or Magpie – the science for an impact of these corvid species on wild bird population levels is weak or non-existent.
What follows is an evaluation of the GWCT argument, carried out by Wild Justice with the help of other scientists, and an assessment of the evidence against four corvid species.
An assessment and evaluation of the GWCT evidence:
GWCT present
a number of lines of evidence to propose that predator removal generally can
improve breeding success and sometimes the population sizes of other species,
but there is little evidence that deals with corvids explicitly and almost
nothing on the impacts of individual species of corvid. Furthermore, GWCT give
no consideration to other predator reduction methods. One of the conclusions of
a recent major review of predation impacts (Roos et al. 2018), cited by GWCT,
was that “Much more attention needs to be paid in future to landscape-scale
measures to reduce predation impacts, such as changes in land-use
configurations (e.g. removal of commercial forest plantations…), habitat
management … and the re-establishment of populations of apex predators …, as well
as a critical test of the environmental sustainability of intensive gamebird
releasing that may cause trophic cascades…” [references replaced with ellipses].
A further general comment is that predator reduction or removal experiments of
the kind that form the crux of GWCT’s evidence are often inherently biased by
being undertaken largely in areas where it is supposed that there will be an
impact; hence it is difficult to generalise their findings to other situations.
We address GWCT’s
arguments in turn here.
GWCT cite as a “key reference” the study of Macdonald & Bolton (2008) [Predation on wader nests in Europe. Ibis 150: 54-73]. This exhaustive review of a large number of studies from across Europe documents around 3,000 nest predation events recorded by a variety of methods. The majority of predation events could not be assigned to individual predators, and were frequently recorded as nocturnal vs diurnal, or avian vs mammalian. Of those that could be assigned to individual species or species groups, corvids (specifically or generically) were implicated in just 38 (Magpie 1, “crow” 16, “corvid” 21). Of 200 nest predation events, predominantly in wet grassland, identified using nest cameras in which the identity of the predator could be established, 132 (66%) were by Foxes, 21 (10.5%) by Stoats, 15 (7.5%) by Crows, 12 (6%) by Badgers, 8 (4%) by Hedgehogs, and small numbers (2%) by other predators. The study concluded that “The use of temperature loggers initially, and nest cameras more recently, has shown that the widely held belief that birds (particularly corvids) are the major predators of wader nests is frequently not true.”
GWCT cite their Salisbury Plain and Otterburn predator removal experiments in defence of their stance on the issuing of General Licences, and showed that predator removal led to an increase in breeding success and populations of Grey Partridges (Salisbury Plain) and a number of upland breeding species (Otterburn). However, predator removal at both sites included mammals (Fox, Stoat, Weasel and Rat), as well as corvids (Carrion Crow, Magpie, Jackdaw and Rook). In both experiments, predator control significantly reduced densities of Foxes and Carrion Crows, but there was no assessment of the identity of nest predators before, during or after either experiment, so the impacts of corvid removal could not be assessed explicitly.
Corvid removal studies are cited as evidence that “the ability to apply targeted corvid control at short notice can be beneficial, where breeding hedgerow nesting and probably other songbirds are exposed to breeding corvids”. They cite three lines of evidence:
“In their recent comprehensive review Roos et al. (2018) state (in the abstract) that they found little evidence that predation limits populations of passerines but that they [sic] do limit waders. This, however, is not a full and balanced reflection of the results, and a key finding of the review, highly relevant to this call for evidence, is easily overlooked. Table 5 [actually Table 6], which refers specifically to experimental predator removal studies, shows songbirds increased in 40% of 20 studies following predator removal. For waders, it was similar, at 44% of 29 studies. The conclusion from this is that the science available prior to 2017 tells us that corvid removal can lead to an increase in songbird population size.” [our emphasis] We consider this conclusion to be an egregious misinterpretation of the data shown in Tables 5 and 6 of Roos et al., which relate to predator control/removal generally, and not corvid control/removal explicitly. Figure 4 of the same article indicates that the evidence that corvids alone can limit their prey numerically is no different from zero, and Table 7 shows that in only 13.6% of over 360 cases in which the effect of corvids on populations of their prey species have been assessed were the impacts found to be negative (and in 12% it was actually positive).
The study of Sage & Aebischer 2017 is cited as evidence of a negative impact of corvids on nesting success of hedgerow passerines, although nesting success was measured only indirectly. This study, a rare example of a predator control/removal study that apparently controlled only corvids (though other predator control activities at the sites is not quantified), recorded very modest increases in apparent nesting success of 10-16% across all species with corvid control, but not for open nesters or hole nesters separately and with results that varied between sites – at some sites, nesting success was higher in the absence of corvid removal. The authors concluded that the impacts of this difference in nest productivity on overall population size of songbirds fell somewhere between unlikely and unquantifiable.
The third piece of evidence is in the form of an unpublished PhD thesis, which we have not seen and therefore upon which we cannot comment, other than to note that one chapter appears to use artificial nests as a surrogate for real nests, a methodology that has come in for severe criticism (e.g. Moore & Robinson 2004, Ecology, 85: 1562-1567).
GWCT cite their research at Loddington, Arundel and Royston, but this shares the same problems as the Salisbury Plain and Otterburn projects described above, in that predator control was general, including mammals as well as birds, that the identity of nest predators was not known, and that the impact of individual corvid species on populations of other species cannot be evaluated. White et al. (2008) concluded from their study of blackbird nesting success that “Although predator control appeared to have a positive influence on Blackbird breeding population size, the non-experimental set-up meant we could not eliminate other potential explanations”. There is a suggestion in White et al. (2014) (Loddington study) that the contribution of corvid control to the broader patterns noted was negligible: “Sporadic corvid reduction had a positive effect on nest survival only for common blackbird (at the nestling stage only) and a negative effect only for yellowhammer (across both stages)”.
GWCT describe an unpublished study from the Avon Valley which suggests that unidentified daytime predators (presumed but not proved to be corvids) of Lapwing nests account for 41% of observed predation events or for 41% of all nests (the results are ambiguously presented). They describe a correlation between Lapwing nest survival and Carrion Crow density, but rightly point out earlier in their evidence that “statistically significant correlations do not indicate cause and effect and can be caused by unmeasured factors”. We have not seen this unpublished work so cannot comment further.
GWCT describe an unpublished study from across the UK on breeding Curlews, finding that general predator control was associated with higher numbers and breeding success of Curlews. It is suggested that there is a negative correlation (the strength of which is not reported) between Curlew nesting success and Carrion Crow density. This evidence is used to “outline[s] the potential fate of one of the UK’s most threatened bird species if corvids are not legally controlled”, with the conclusion that “expanding predator management, particularly of corvids, currently done routinely on grouse moors, to peripheral unkeepered areas is a practical step that could quickly help stem the current rapid decline of curlew” [our emphasis]. It is not possible to assess from the data presented whether or not the presumption that crows are primarily responsible for the observed differences in numbers and breeding success is justified. However, the results appear to broadly support those of Douglas et al. (2014) [J. Appl. Ecol. 51: 194–203], who concluded that: “direct predator control may also be important to conserve ground-nesting birds in these landscapes, for example, where moorland management and forestry coexist as major land uses”.
We cannot comment on the Member Responses as the claims made therein are not supported by empirical evidence.
The GWCT consultation response does not cite a number of other relevant studies:
Thomson et al. (1998) The widespread
declines of songbirds in rural Britain do not correlate with the spread of
their avian predators. Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B 265: 2057-2062. This paper analysed population trends
of songbirds from 1965-1995 and assessed the likely impact of Magpies and Sparrowhawks.
They concluded that: “magpies and sparrowhawks are unlikely to have caused the
songbird declines because patterns of year-to-year population change did not
differ between sites with and without these predators”.
Newson et al. (2010) Population
change of avian predators and grey squirrels in England: is there evidence for
an impact on avian prey populations? J. Appl. Ecol. 47: 244–252. This paper, co-authored by GWCT,
concludes that “Analyses of large-scale
and extensive national monitoring data provides little underlying evidence for
large-scale impacts of widespread avian predators and grey squirrels on avian
prey populations, although we cannot exclude the possibility that a small
number of negative associations between particular predator and prey species
reflect causal relationships or that predators affect prey species at smaller
spatial scales.” Writing explicitly of the impacts of corvids, the authors
stated that: “For the corvids no
significant negative associations were found.”
Madden et al. (2015) A review of the
impacts of corvids on bird productivity and abundance. Ibis 157: 1-16. The authors of this review of 42
different studies found that: “Experimental
studies that removed only corvid species were significantly less likely to show
a positive impact on productivity than those removing corvids alongside other
predators (16 vs. 60%). This suggests that the impact of corvids is smaller
than that of other predators, or that compensatory predation occurs” and
concluded that “These results suggest
that in most cases bird populations are unlikely to be limited by corvid
predation and that conservation measures may generally be better targeted at
other limiting factors. However, negative impacts were found in a minority of
cases, and those may require further investigation to develop management tools
to mitigate such impacts where they are of economic or conservation concern.”
Assessing the impacts of individual
species: Jackdaw, Rook, Jay and Magpie
It is very
difficult or impossible to extrapolate from the many studies listed above the
impacts of individual corvid species. In most studies on the effects of
predator control, no information is given on how many of each species were
controlled and none on the identity of nest predators, and hence it is often
hard even to separate out the effects of bird vs mammal predation, let alone
the contributions of individual bird species.
Below we
summarise the results of three key recent reviews (Macdonald & Bolton 2008,
Madden et al. 2015 and Roos et al. 2018 – full references given above) on the
potential impact of each species on the productivity and numbers of potential
prey species.
Jackdaw. Photo: Tim Melling
Jackdaw:
This species
is largely granivorous in winter and largely insectivorous in the breeding
season, but in some situations, highly specialised individuals may take the
eggs of other birds (Handbook of the
Birds of the World).
Macdonald
& Bolton (2008) contains no explicit mention of Jackdaw, which was not
identified as a wader nest predator in any study. Madden et al. (2015) identify
one study of the possible impact of Jackdaw on productivity and four studies of
the possible impact of Jackdaw on numbers of potential prey species; in all
five cases, no impact was detected. Roos et al. (2018) also do not mention
Jackdaw in the list of species whose impact on other species was assessed.
Conclusion: GWCT do not make a case why Jackdaw
should be killed under an unregulated open general licence. They do not present
evidence that shows any serious impact of Jackdaw on bird populations, and we
can find no such evidence. Without such evidence Defra cannot issue a
scientifically valid general licence.
Rook. Photo: Tim Melling
Rook:
Main food
items include earthworms (Lumbricidae) and grain; a wide range of other small
invertebrates also taken, notably beetles (Coleoptera) and cranefly larvae
(Tipulidae), also such vertebrates as small lizards, frogs and small mammals,
and eggs and nestlings of small birds (Handbook
of the Birds of the World).
Macdonald
& Bolton (2008) contains only one explicit mention of Rook, from an
unpublished doctoral study that suggested that while wader nest predation rates
were higher near to rookeries, they were lower on sites with rookeries than on
sites without rookeries. Neither Madden et al. (2015) nor Roos et al. (2018)
identified any studies of the possible impact of Rook on the productivity or
numbers of potential prey species.
Conclusion: GWCT do not make a case why Rook
should be killed under an unregulated open general licence. They do not present
any evidence that shows any serious impact of Rook on bird populations, nor can
we find any. Without such evidence Defra cannot issue a scientifically valid
general licence.
Jay. Photo: Andy Rouse
Jay:
Chiefly eats
invertebrates during breeding season, notably caterpillars and beetles
(Coleoptera) gleaned from foliage of trees; diet also includes eggs and
nestlings of a range of birds up to size of a Sparrowhawk (Accipiter), much
less frequently killing adult passerines, and is among the most frequent
predators of other small birds’ nests in some areas; wide variety of seeds and
berries eaten, especially in autumn and winter, including grain, beech mast,
chestnuts and acorns. (Handbook of the
Birds of the World).
Macdonald
& Bolton (2008) identified no studies of the possible impact of Jay on the
productivity of wader nests, though differences in habitat selection are
unlikely to bring Jays into contact with breeding waders. Madden et al. (2015) did
not include Jay in their review. Roos et al. (2018) identified 59 cases where
the evidence that Jay can limit prey species has been assessed. Of these, 3
(5.1%) indicated a negative impact of Jays, whereas 13 (22%) indicated a positive
impact.
Conclusion: GWCT do not make a case why Jay
should be killed under an unregulated open general licence. They do not present
evidence that shows any serious impact of Jays on bird populations, nor can we
find any. Without such evidence Defra cannot issue a scientifically valid
general licence.
Magpie. Photo: Tim Melling
Magpie:
Omnivorous, but chiefly a carnivorous scavenger. Diet varies according to local habitats, basically comprises invertebrates, especially beetles (Coleoptera),
and small mammals and lizards, frogs, bird eggs and nestlings, as well as carrion and rarely even adult birds.
Macdonald
& Bolton (2008) identified Magpie as a predator of wader nests in just one
study, in which it accounted for a single nest predation event. Madden et al.
(2015) identified 41 cases where the impacts of Magpie on the productivity of
potential prey species could be assessed, of which 4 showed a positive effect,
5 a negative effect and 32 no effect. Similarly they identified 96 cases where
the impacts of Magpie on the numbers of potential prey species could be
assessed, of which 6 showed a positive effect, 4 a negative effect and 86 no
effect. Roos et al. (2018) identified 104 cases where the evidence that Magpie
can limit prey species has been assessed. Of these, 6 (5.8%) indicated a
negative impact of Magpies, 16 (15.4%) indicated a positive impact and 82
(78.8%) indicated no effect.
Thomson et
al. (1998) concluded that Magpies were not implicated in the decline of
songbirds across the UK. Sage & Aebischer (2017) found a small effect of
corvid (Carrion Crow and Magpie) removal on the nesting success of hedgerow
passerines but could not demonstrate whether this was the result of the removal
of Magpies or of Carrion Crows, suggesting that the former was more likely on
ecological grounds.
Conclusion: GWCT do not make a case why Magpie
should be killed under an unregulated open general licence. They do not present
evidence that conclusively demonstrates a serious impact of Magpie on bird
populations, nor can we find any. Without such evidence Defra cannot issue a
scientifically valid general licence.
Summary
We consider
that the GWCT evidence fails to alter the case against the issue of General
Licences for the control of corvids for the following reasons:
The evidence of the GWCT’s own research does not and cannot, in almost all cases, distinguish between the impacts of corvids and the impacts of other bird and mammal predators. Other scientific literature is in several places misconstrued by GWCT to indicate an impact of corvids whereas the evidence being referred to relates to the impacts of general predator control
Recent research indicates that mammals are generally much more important predators of birds’ nests than are corvids, but even for mammals there is scant evidence that nest predation influences subsequent population sizes
The evidence of a number of key recent reviews is not considered in the conclusions reached; these generally conclude that there is no effect of corvids on the populations of other species
The case against corvids generally is weak, but the case against individual species is either entirely lacking (Rook, Jay, Jackdaw) or almost so (Magpie).
Nowhere in their submission do GWCT actually state that there is sufficient or strong evidence to justify lethal control of individual corvid species under the past or any future licensing system. Their review of the science insinuates that view but does not provide evidence for it.
Useful visual from BASC consultation response.
As Defra officials and Michael Gove look carefully at each cell in the Table usefully provided by BASC they must decide, on the basis of the science, whether there is scientific evidence to justify the issuing of licences for lethal control of each species, one by one, for the purpose of conserving wild birds etc. The GWCT response to the consultation will aid them in that it shows how poor is the case for lethal control of many corvid species.
Leave a CommentCollared Dove – a serious threat to fisheries? Photo: Tim Melling
We are grateful to BASC (British Association for Shooting and Conservation) for providing a very helpful visual aid to guide the progress of a review of the future of the general licences. It is their Table 4 reproduced here – don’t bother with the details at the moment but just look at how Red the Table is.
The table shows the magnitude of change that Wild Justice’s legal challenge has already had on licensed bird killing. Ignore the details for a moment and just look at the colours. The White areas were never covered by the revoked General Licences GL04, GL05 and GL06 and NE’s (Natural England’s) plan is that they wouldn’t be covered by the new ones either so we can regard them as ‘No Change’. There’s a lot of Red in the Table – these are areas where NE, after 10 weeks of consideration from receipt of our legal challenge could not come up with any argument for new licences. BASC and GWCT (Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust) want all of the areas marked Red to be coloured Green – well it ain’t going to happen because there is no legal or scientific justification for that. Both GWCT and BASC largely ignore the fact that NE has conceded that the previous licences were unlawful and ask for them to be reinstated.
Let us consider what that would mean; BASC and GWCT apparently want a general licence which authorises unlimited and unsupervised killing of Collared Doves to prevent serious damage to fisheries! Under the wholly unlikely exceptional circumstances that Collared Doves ever do cause serious damage to fisheries then individuals could always apply for a specific licence to carry out lethal control of those Collared Doves just as they can at the moment under the equally unlikely circumstances that Willow Warblers are causing serious damage to fisheries!
What Mr Gove needs to do is to look at every single Red box in the BASC table and ask his civil servants if there is any strong reason to change it from Red to Green – for most of those boxes he will find no justification whatsoever.
Presumably NE have already done the equivalent of looking at this table and examining each cell dispassionately and rationally, that’s why this table has an awful lot of Red on it. The cat is out of the bag – much of the rationale behind the revoked General Licences GL04, GL05 and GL06 was scientifically and legally flawed and it is right that it should change.
Let us look at the three right hand columns which cover the ‘conservation’ justifications for general licensing of lethal control under the previous GL06. Let us take the middle of those three columns which relates to conserving wild flora. We have checked with other wildlife conservation organisations and they have not submitted an angry and strident call for the Jay to be returned to a general licence to protect flora. Nor has anyone else in the real conservation community. No, it is only BASC and GWCT who think that the conservation of flora requires an immediate return to the licensing regime of three weeks ago – and they are utterly wrong.
Mr Gove will not need
much Green ink when he comes to colour in his blank chart and decide on
a future licensing scheme – he can leave most of the Red in place.
Wild Justice’s own submission on the general licences dealt with the left hand of the three columns which related to the former GL06. This column is one of the most varied in colour with White, Red, Brown, Yellow and Green cells. Our submission dealt with whether it is appropriate to issue new general licences which authorise the lethal killing of Jays, Jackdaws, Rooks, Magpies and Carrion Crows for the purposes of conserving wild birds. Jays, Jackdaws and Rooks were clearly not regarded by NE as a serious threat to wild birds as they categorised them as Priority 3, coloured Brown in the Table, which indicated to us that NE themselves weren’t at all keen on issuing a new general licence for their widespread and unregulated killing. And that’s because there is no scientific justification for their widespread and unregulated killing in order to protect wild birds.
If Mr Gove and his officials read through the submission from GWCT and BASC they will find no justification for colouring those cells for Jackdaw, Rook, or Jay in any colour than Red. NE were presumably too scared by the rural shooting lobby actually to colour those cells Red but they did the next best thing if you are a civil servant which is to colour them Brown, park them, and hope no-one notices. Well, we have noticed! We haven’t yet seen any submissions from the BTO and the RSPB but we would be amazed, and quite frankly shocked, if they were asking for Jackdaw, Rook and Jay to be coloured in anything other than Red by Mr Gove.
We believe that the scientific argument for not reinstating general licences for Jay, Jackdaw and Rook is unassailable and Mr Gove will find nothing in the BASC and GWCT submissions that would support such a move. And yet that is what BASC and GWCT demand alongside the reinstatement of landowners’ right to cull Collared Doves because of their serious impacts on fisheries! These submissions are not conservation submissions, nor are they scientific submissions, they are submissions aiming to take licensed killing of corvids back into the nineteenth century where much of it resided until 23 April 2019.
What about Magpie? Magpie is coloured Green in the table as NE had planned to issue a general licence for their lethal control. The Wild Justice submission argued that there is no strong evidence for such a general licence and we stand by that. However, there is some evidence and most of it is laid out in the GWCT submission. We don’t believe that the science stacks up though to a case for a general licence for Magpie control. If we have time, and we may not as Mr Gove, in his rushed consultation has not allowed proper time for these matters to be examined or the facts to be laid out before him, but if we have time, we will set out a more detailed case for removing the Magpie from any general licence to conserve wild birds. But in short much of the literature reviewed by GWCT relates to control of Foxes and Carrion Crows as well as Magpies and we know that Magpies are the species for which there is least evidence of any impact on wild bird populations. And the Loddington case study falls into the category mentioned in our consultation response where we stated ‘Nor can it be a ‘problem’ if Species A causes a local and/or temporary decline in numbers of Species B if those impacts are balanced out by other local or temporary recoveries in numbers elsewhere or at other times. Only if Species A is responsible for a sustained decline in Species B can this be regarded as a conservation problem‘. We stated this with studies such as Loddington in mind. As an antidote to Loddington is the RSPB experience at Hope Farm where no predator control is carried out and songbird populations have increased thanks to simple and effective habitat improvement that still allow that farm to operate at crop yields comparable with the local average. One of the differences between Loddington and Hope Farm is that Loddington’s predators and carrion eaters have the advantage of large numbers of released gamebirds to feed on as carrion through the winter which is presumably an important driver for their high densities.
Whereas BASC and GWCT ask for the whole table to be coloured Green (so that the massive damage to fisheries caused by Collared Doves can be averted – yes, we are taking the mickey but only to illustrate the ridiculous nature of the demands from these two shooting organisations) Wild Justice recognised that the Carrion Crow cell (in the column for conserving wild birds) should stay Green as there is some evidence for this species causing population level impacts on other species. That is where the science leads us. But Mr Gove should not just skip over this species without some thought. As our submission makes plain, the reasons that the UK has such high Carrion Crow densities is that activities in the countryside over which his department has control have caused that to happen. Changes to agriculture policy, absence of regulation of the number of non-native gamebird corpses available to carrion eaters, and the restitution of top predators to the countryside would all be measures that would reduce, perhaps completely eliminate, the everlasting need for lethal control of native wildlife.
So the task in front of Mr Gove this week is not to colour in the table Green but to examine every cell in that Table and decide what colour the law and the science allow and demand. That is what a proper review would entail and this important subject demands nothing less. Mr Gove should also remember that specific licences are available to deal with any unforeseen, occasional, unlikely, departures from the general situation (and so anyone can apply for a specific licence if they feel that they have a case to control Collared Doves because of their serious impact on fisheries).
Comments Off on Wild Justice response to consultation on general licences.
Today Wild Justice submitted a response to the Defra consultation on general licences – it is copied below.
Wild Justice said:
There is no scientific justification for general licences to be issued to kill Jackdaws, Rooks, Jays or Magpies for the purpose of conserving wild birds. The science doesn’t show that these species have an important impact on native bird populations. All four species were listed under the General Licence GL06 which was revoked by Natural England on 25 April in response to Wild Justice’s successful legal challenge.
Response to Defra call for evidence on general licences – by Wild Justice
Wild Justice
Wild Justice is a not-for-profit company founded by Dr Mark
Avery, Chris Packham CBE and Dr Ruth Tingay.
Our legal challenge demonstrated the non-compliance of Natural England
when issuing the now-revoked General Licences GL04, GL05 and GL06. This has prompted an urgent review of the
licensing system. We are pleased that such a review is taking place as the revoked
general licence regime was not only unlawful but also not scientifically robust
and there is an urgent need for the licensing of bird killing to be overhauled.
Our legal challenge
Wild Justice sent, on 13 February, a Pre Action Protocol
letter to Natural England claiming that the licences GL04, GL05 and GL06 which
they had published on 1 January 2019 were unlawful as they did not allow Natural
England to ensure that individual birds of the species listed were only killed
after non-lethal means had been tried and/or properly assessed nor ensure that
birds were only killed for the limited set of purposes set out in law. After
considerable delay by Natural England, and an inadequate and ambiguous legal
response by them (on 13 March) we lodged legal papers with the court seeking permission
for judicial review of their decision on 21 March. On 23 April, Natural England
announced the revocation of the General Licences GL04, GL05 and GL06 (from 25
April). Wild Justice had not asked for the revocation of these licences but had
requested that once they expired on 31 December 2019 they would be replaced
with a lawful alternative. If Natural England had simply complied with our
request then the confusion of the last few weeks would not have occurred.
Our successful legal challenge showed that Defra (and its
predecessor departments) and Natural England (and its predecessor bodies) had
been running an unlawful licensing regime since 1995. We recognise that the current incumbents at
Defra and Natural England did not bring this highly unsatisfactory state into
being but that they are the people left holding the baby now. However, species protection is a fundamental
part of nature conservation and the fact that the government department and its
agency with responsibility for wildlife protection have been operating an unlawful
bird-killing regime is jaw-droppingly negligent.
The legal background
The laws protecting birds are the same today as they were three
weeks ago when GL04, GL05 and GL06 were in place. Our successful legal
challenge has not changed the law. What is happening now is the government is
rushing to try to give effect to the law accurately in its licensing system.
All birds are protected by law and have been for
decades. The legislators have been wise
to do this but they also recognised that there must be circumstances, not the
rule but occasional circumstances, when lethal control of protected birds is
necessary and acceptable. Some might
argue even with this, but Wild Justice does not. We accept that lethal control of some
individual birds is at times necessary and that the existing laws allow this as
an exception to the general protection given to all bird species. The law stipulates that lethal control is to
be used where there is no satisfactory alternative and there is an obligation
on statutory agencies and government to ensure that non-lethal means are
properly assessed.
For the vast majority of bird species it is necessary to
apply for a specific licence in order to carry out lethal control and, in
England, Natural England operates that licensing system. The specific licences
require an individual or entity to apply for a licence to kill a specific
species (or species plural) up to a limited number of individuals for a
specified purpose, eg a supermarket may apply for a licence to kill a single bird
that has entered its premises, cannot be caught or encouraged to leave and is
defecating on food. This approach means
that lethal killing is examined on a case by case basis and the statutory
agency responsible has to make an assessment on the merits of each case. In
contrast the General Licences GL04, GL05 and GL06 were simply published on the
government webpage and were relied upon by an unknown number of individuals who
killed an unknown number of birds but allegedly only for the purposes allowed by
the law. Our challenge was not against the principle of general licences, but
it is clear that the level of control of bird killing offered by specific
licences is much greater than that for general licences. We do not contend that
general licences cannot provide an efficient and effective way to regulate what
would otherwise be unlawful bird killing, but it is obvious that the general
licence approach has some drawbacks.
This year, the scale of licensed killing of protected
wildlife under specific individual licences emerged thanks to information
requests by Mr Jason Endfield 7.
The numbers of birds killed every year under the revoked General
Licences GL04, GL05 and GL06 are a matter of speculation but probably number
millions of birds every year4.
Wild Justice is sceptical that all of this killing was legal. Wild Justice believes that the licensing of
killing of wildlife is such a fundamental part of Natural England’s public
duties that it should report in some detail annually on the scale of killing that
it has authorised through specific and general licences.
In the past, previous governments and agencies have seen it
convenient to exempt some species of protected bird from the specific licensing
system and set up the now-revoked General Licences GL04, GL05 and GL06 for bird
killing. Until April there were 16 species listed on three now-revoked General
Licences GL04, GL05 and GL06 which covered different conditions under which
lethal control was authorised including serious damage to crops or livestock,
protection of wild birds, human safety etc.
These are the same conditions that apply to the specific licensing
system and Wild Justice recognises that these are lawful and generally
acceptable reasons for lethal control after non-lethal methods have been
tried/assessed as the law requires.
The revoked General Licences GL04, GL05 and GL06 did not
allow Natural England to ensure compliance with the law. Any new system of licensing must do
that. We will set out our thoughts on
the way forward below.
The licensed killing of otherwise protected birds has fallen
into disrepute and disrepair. Many in the farming and shooting communities have
wrongly believed that the species listed on the revoked General Licences were
‘pest species’ and that they had free rein to kill them at any times and
without any specific justification. This is not what the law allows and, we are
sure, has led to the casual and unlawful killing of millions of birds over
recent years. The blame for this
situation lies squarely with successive governments and statutory agencies who
have not given sufficient priority to enforcing wildlife laws, publicising
their content or ensuring compliance with them.
Thoughts and issues –
towards a lawful and working licensing system
All the above is by way of introduction to our comments on the
request by the Secretary of State for evidence that will enable him to provide
clarity for the future. We almost restrict our comments to the possibility of
the Secretary of State issuing general licences that would authorise the lethal
control of five species of corvid (Carrion Crow, Magpie, Jay, Jackdaw and Rook)
to protect wild birds, as that is
our particular area of expertise. However,
we make some general comments at the end and a specific point about the
shooting of Woodpigeons. In all that
follows Wild Justice reserves its right to take a legal challenge on any future
or past decisions by the Secretary of State or Natural England (depending on
who is in charge at the relevant time).
It is notable that most of the ‘problems’ addressed by the
solution of killing otherwise-protected wild birds, under either general or
specific licences, are human-bird conflicts. Serious damage to crops is where
birds cause damage to human economic interests, likewise with livestock, spread
of disease, human safety, human health etc. However, issuing a licence to kill
one species of bird to protect another species of bird is another matter
altogether. These species have evolved together (where native species) over
thousands of years. Generally speaking,
we should let them get on with it and not pick winners and losers, and not side
with either the predator or the prey. But at the very least there must be some
identified ‘problem’ to be solved. That ‘problem’ cannot possibly be that
Species A eats Species B if that is what they have evolved to do – that’s nature.
Nor can it be a ‘problem’ if Species A causes a local and/or temporary decline
in numbers of Species B if those impacts are balanced out by other local or
temporary recoveries in numbers elsewhere or at other times. Only if Species A
is responsible for a sustained decline in Species B can this be regarded as a
conservation problem, and even then one would have to question how and why the
ecological balance between the two species, which presumably has lasted for
thousands of years, has been disrupted in our time – and the reason for that is
likely to be caused by human intervention of some sort (eg habitat destruction
or degradation).
This may sound rather philosophical in nature but luckily we
can park this argument for a while, as we consider the first four species one
by one, as there is no good scientific evidence that Jackdaw, Rook, Jay or
Magpie cause long-term sustained declines in population levels of their prey
species and there is therefore no justification for issuing general licences
which would allow for their control on the grounds of protecting wild birds: no
general problem = no general licence in our view.
Let us now take these species one at a time:
Jackdaw. Photo: Tim Melling
Jackdaw: we know of no evidence that
would justify issuing a general licence for the lethal killing of Jackdaws for
the purpose of conserving wild birds. Jackdaws are not causing declines in the
population levels of other bird species. Newson et al2,12 did not even include this species in
their list of predators to be considered in their analysis even though they
would have had the data to hand.
We know of no land-owning conservation
organisation which killed Jackdaws regularly or in any numbers under the
revoked General Licenceseg 9.
We recognise that there might, unknown to us,
be circumstances under which Jackdaws cause problems for species of
conservation concern but if there are, these should be dealt with under the
existing specific licensing system. We recommend that no general licence should
be issued for the purposes of killing Jackdaws to protect fauna or flora.
We recognise that there may be a
case for authorising lethal control of Jackdaws because of serious damage to
crops or livestock but that case, for serious damage, is for others to make. If
such a case can be made then Defra must ensure that it is not used as a cover
for more widespread casual killing of Jackdaws through prejudice.
Rook. Photo: Tim Melling
Rook: we know of no evidence that would
justify issuing a general licence for the lethal killing of Rooks for the
purpose of conserving wild birds. Rooks are not causing declines in the
population levels of other bird species. Newson et al2,12 did not even include this species in
their list of predators to be considered in their analysis even though they
would have had the data to hand.
We know of no land-owning conservation
organisation which killed Rooks regularly or in any numbers under the revoked
General Licences eg 9.
We recognise that there might, unknown to us,
be circumstances under which Rooks cause problems for species of conservation
concern but if there are, these should be dealt with under the existing
specific licensing system. We recommend that no general licence should be
issued for the purposes of killing Rooks to protect fauna or flora.
We recognise that there may be a
case for authorising lethal control of Rooks because of serious damage to crops
or livestock but that case, for serious damage, is for others to make. If such a case can be made then Defra must
ensure that it is not used as a cover for more widespread casual killing of Rooks
through prejudice.
In addition Defra must ensure
that only Rooks killed under the provisions of the law (eg to prevent serious
damage to crops) can pass into the human food chain. Shooting Rooks for Rook Pie is not, as we
understand it, legal under current legislation.
Jay. Photo: Andy Rouse
Jay: we know of no evidence that would
justify issuing a general licence for the lethal killing of Jays for the
purpose of conserving wild birds. Jays are not causing declines in the
population levels of other bird species. Newson et al2,12 found little evidence that predation by
Jays affected the population levels of a large suite of potential prey species
(mostly songbirds but also pigeons and Lapwing) and where there was any
relationship it was often positive rather than negative.
We know of no land-owning conservation
organisation which killed Jays regularly or in any numbers under the revoked
General Licences eg 9.
We note that in a recent blog, the Chief
Executive of the BTO, Dr Andy Clements, who is also a Board member of Natural
England, wrote that ‘there may be
insufficient scientific evidence to merit the inclusion of Jay on the licence
list in order to conserve birds’1. We agree with this view although believe that
there is no ‘may be’ about it and that the same argument applies to Jackdaw and
Rook (above).
We recognise that there might, unknown to us,
be circumstances under which Jays cause problems for species of conservation
concern but if there are, these should be dealt with under the existing
specific licensing system. We recommend that no general licence should be
issued for the purposes of killing Jays to protect fauna or flora.
We do not recognise any case for
authorising lethal control of Jays because of serious damage to crops or
livestock.
We recommend that no general
licence is issued for the killing of Jays and that any rare circumstances that
might arise when there is any such case should be dealt with under the specific
licensing system.
Magpie. Photo: Tim Melling.
Magpie:
we know of no evidence that would justify issuing a general licence for
the lethal killing of Magpies for the purpose of conserving wild birds. There
have been several large correlative studies of impacts of Magpies on various
species of potential prey, mostly songbirds, but none has found any strong
evidence for impacts – indeed there are often as strong evidence for positive
impacts as negative ones2,6,12,15. Where it has been possible to
attempt to disentangle the impacts of Magpies and Carrion Crows on prey
species, these very strongly point to the Carrion Crow having a much greater
impact than the Magpie, and the Fox is a bigger problem than the Carrion Crow11.
We know of no land-owning conservation
organisation which killed Magpies regularly or in any numbers under the revoked
General Licences eg 9.
We recognise that there might, unknown to us,
be circumstances under which Magpies cause problems for species of conservation
concern but if there are, these should be dealt with under the existing
specific licensing system. We recommend that no general licence should be
issued for the purposes of killing Magpies to protect fauna or flora.
We do not recognise any case for
authorising lethal control of Magpies because of serious damage to crops or
livestock.
We recommend that no general
licence is issued for the killing of Magpies and that any rare circumstances
that might arise when there is any such case should be dealt with under the
specific licensing system.
Carrion Crow. Photo: Tim Melling
Carrion Crow: there is, in contrast to
the four species above, evidence that Carrion Crows can cause problems for some
species of conservation concern11 and Wild Justice recognises that,
as a last resort, lethal control is allowed by the law and is sometimes
warranted for nature conservation purposes.
In contrast to the position with the four
corvid species above, several conservation organisations do carry out lethal
control of Carrion Crows on their land and receive criticism from many sides
for doing so eg 9.
However, the species on which Carrion Crows
have a population-level impact are few in number and in all these cases the
evidence points to Foxes being a larger problem than Carrion Crows11. The evidence suggests that songbirds are not
seriously affected by Carrion Crows; their impact seems particularly manifest
with ground-nesting birds, but not all ground-nesting birds. The main species of ground-nesting bird where
some control of Carrion Crows appears to be justified, on conservation terms, by
the science, are Curlew, Lapwing and Grey Partridge. These three species do not
occur in all parts of England or in all habitats and so we question the wisdom
of any nationwide general licence.
Killing Carrion Crows in Cornwall, for example, is of no value to the
conservation of Curlew, Lapwing or Grey Partridge and such a general licence
would be disproportionate.
We would be prepared to play a part in discussions
to find a sensible way forward on this issue.
But part of any sensible discussion would
have to consider how it is that Carrion Crow and, for example, Curlew numbers
now appear to be in conflict.
We should first recognise that Carrion Crow
numbers (and Fox numbers, for similar reasons) are much higher in the UK than
in most European countries. Our
populations of generalist predators are noticeably out of step with those in
other European countries.
There are three main reasons, all of which
are to do with man-made changes to the landscape, and all of which the
Secretary of State has the power to reduce and/or ameliorate. Indeed, we would
argue that addressing these issues at a strategic level amounts to a
‘satisfactory non-lethal alternative’ that the law requires, and that these
measures are ones which only government can take. We would therefore suggest
that the Secretary of State has a duty to implement these changes rather than
authorise widespread lethal control of native species because their populations
have been artificially inflated by man-made factors which are threefold;
Agriculture: intensive agriculture has
made the landscape more attractive to successful generalist such as Carrion
Crows at the expense of specialists like Curlew. For example, silage making
will increase feeding opportunities for Carrion Crows and reduce breeding
success of Curlews. There are other
examples.
Massive releases of non-native gamebirds:
Over 50 million Pheasants and Red-legged Partridges are reared and released
into the UK countryside each year. Around a third of them are shot so tens of
millions each year die of other causes and are killed by predators or perhaps
scavenged by predators after dying in road traffic accidents, of disease or
other factors. This food bonanza, particularly over the winter period, is very
likely to maintain high numbers of Carrion (yes, the clue is in the name
‘Carrion’) Crows, Foxes etc which then may predate species of conservation
concern the following spring. Feeding
the problem and then attempting to control it through lethal means is
ridiculous. Defra were asked in March 2014 by Labour MP for Corby, Andy
Sawford, ‘What research has been done
that addresses the range of ecological costs and benefits of rearing and
releasing Pheasants for shooting? Does native wildlife benefit or is it harmed
by Pheasant shooting? Does Defra have plans to do any such research?‘ and
answered, ‘Defra has not assessed the
impact of releasing pheasants or red-legged partridges on biodiversity and is
not currently planning any research in this area due to other biodiversity
research priorities.‘.
Lack of native predators: , if the UK had
a more complete fauna of large predators then species like Goshawk would reduce
Carrion Crow numbers and alter their ranging and feeding behaviour and reduce
their impacts on species such as Curlew.
The flooding of the countryside
with non-native gamebirds, the continuing illegal killing of native predators
and the conditions created by modern intensive agriculture are the ultimate
conditions which have given rise to species declines whose proximate cause
might be high predation by Carrion Crows (and Foxes). The solution may, in the
short term be some targeted lethal control of some predator species in some
places but the strategic solution, almost wholly in Defra’s gift, is better
management of the countryside for wildlife (a vast subject but relevant to the
National Park review currently being carried out by the Glover committee),
strict regulation of gamebird releases leading to a very large reduction in
numbers released each year and effective enforcement of the existing laws which
protect predatory birds (and mammals).
Conclusion: of
the five corvid species considered above there is no good scientific evidence
that four of the species (Magpie, Jay, Jackdaw and Rook) cause any
population-level problems for nature conservation whatsoever. There is
therefore no scientific justification for issuing open general licences for
their lethal control in order to protect wild birds. For the Carrion Crow there
is scientific evidence of a problem in specific circumstances but lethal
control of Carrion Crows is addressing the symptoms of mismanagement of the
countryside rather than their causes.
Defra is uniquely placed to address these underlying causes.
General points:
Failure
to comply with Gunning principles: This consultation fails on two of the Gunning
principles: Principles 2 and 3. On Principle 2 this consultation does not give
sufficient information to allow intelligent consideration as it is vague about
what it covers, it does not set out Defra’s plans or options, it does not state
whether the Defra timetable or general intent for issuing licences resembles or
has diverged from that set out by Natural England since 25 April and it makes
no attempt to explain what the promised further consultation later in the year
will cover that this consultation does not.
It’s a mess. It also fails on
Principle 3 as an announcement on a Saturday that responses must be received by
the following Monday week when there is a Bank Holiday intervening leaves only five
working days to consider this complicated subject. For postal submissions this
leaves less than four full working days, depending on the time of the last
post. Wild Justice could have prepared a more comprehensive response without
these two failings in this consultation and we suspect that the urgency is more
to do with Defra wanting to appear to be in control of things rather than any
particular urgency on the ground now we have reached mid May which is after the
main lambing period and after the period of damage to crops by most birds.
Woodpigeons:
an unforeseen consequence of our
successful legal challenge is that a spotlight has been thrown on the shooting
of Woodpigeons. As far as we can make out, the shooting of Woodpigeons for
‘sport’ or for food is not authorised under any current legislation. Woodpigeons that are legally shot, eg for the
purpose of preventing serious damage to crops, may be sold as food. Any cursory
reading of the shooting press will reveal that there is a lot of shooting of
Woodpigeons for sport or commerce outside of the terms of the law. This is presumably why, buried away in the
recently-published GL31 is the phrase ‘IMPORTANT:
this licence does not permit the killing of woodpigeons solely for commercial
and/or recreational purposes, and only activities conducted in accordance with
this licence are authorised. If there is evidence that this licence is being
used inappropriately then Natural England may review this licence.’. We believe that there is plenty of evidence
that Woodpigeons were being shot for the purposes of commercial and
recreational purposes before the revocation of GLO4, GL05 and GL06 and would be
amazed if this is not continuing now – at a time when shooting of Woodpigeons
to prevent serious damage to most crops is long gone (especially for Oil Seed
Rape). Now it may be that society thinks
that Woodpigeons should be a species that can be shot for recreational or
commercial purposes but that is not the current legal position as we understand
it. Defra should take urgent and active steps to make this clear to
stakeholders which go far beyond two sentences buried in GL31. Defra may wish
to consider legislative change on this matter and if it does then it should take
that opportunity to specify that only non-toxic shot should be used for these
purposes in line with the recommendations of the Lead Ammunition Group report
of 201510and the science laid out in the Oxford Lead Symposium of
201513.
Non-native
gamebirds: much lethal control of corvid species under the revoked General
Licences Gl04, GL05 and GL06 was by gamekeepers rather than farmers. And much
of that lethal killing will have been to protect non-native gamebirds (Pheasant
and Red-legged Partridges) which are released into the countryside in their
tens of millions each year4.
The legal status of these species is
problematic: whilst in captivity (eg rearing pens) they are classed as
livestock. When released into the countryside they are classed as wild birds
and form the stock of birds which are shot as gamebirds during their respective
open seasons. These wild birds (or at
least the survivors after the shooting season) may be taken back into captivity
at the end of the shooting season and revert to being livestock again. Natural
England has already published a licence, General Licence GL26 which is a
general licence for authorising lethal control of Carrion Crows, which treats
gamebirds which are released but still being ‘tended’ as livestock.
Of course, many gamebirds released in
previous years survive as wild birds in the countryside and nest as ‘wild’
birds despite the fact that if it were not for annual massive releases of more
of their conspecifics their populations would quite possibly dwindle away. If Defra intends to issue general licences to
kill large numbers of native birds largely to protect non-native birds which are destined to be shot
at later in the year then it should make this perfectly clear in its licences.
Mammals:
Although the implementation of laws relating to killing of wild birds has been
grossly inadequate the law has been clear and has a logical framework. In
contrast the legal protection given to wild mammals in the UK is a hotchpotch
with little clear rationale behind it. Defra might wish to look at these
matters in the Environment Bill or elsewhere.
Poor
regulatory framework for killing of wildlife: sport shooting is largely
unregulated in the UK in contrast with many European countries where hunters
and shooters need to be licensed, or the landholdings on which they shoot need
to be licensed. No quotas are set for quarry species and there is no reporting
of species-specific annual bags. The game shooting industry is the major source
of wildlife crime against protected birds of prey. Government must do more to
provide a strong regulatory framework, meaningful enforcement and publicity for
good and bad practice.
Bird
identification: many land managers (not all, by any means) have poor bird
identification skills and will be uncertain about how to tell a Rook from a
Carrion Crow (or even a Jackdaw, and probably a Raven). There may well be many farm workers who do not
know the difference between a Woodpigeon and a Stock Dove. This is an
unsatisfactory state of affairs under which to issue general licences where the
issuing authority cannot be sure that the users of the licences are capable of
identifying the species correctly.
Wild
Justice should have a seat at the table: we have seen much mention of
meetings and phone calls between Defra and Natural England and stakeholder
groups – we have had no communication from either Natural England or Defra on
this matter (except a general email to stakeholders announcing this consultation)
since we received Natural England’s email conceding the correctness of our
legal challenge on 23 April.
Gooch, S, Baillie, SR and Birkhead, TR, 1991.
Magpie Pica pica and Songbird
Populations. Retrospective Investigation of Trends in Population Density and
Breeding Success. Journal of Applied
Ecology 28: 1068-1086 DOI:
10.2307/2404226
Newson, SE, Rexstad, EA, Baillie, SR, Buckland,
ST & Aebischer, NJ. 2010. Population changes of avian predators and grey
squirrels in England: is there evidence for an impact on avian prey populations.
Journal of Applied Ecology 47: 244-252
doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2664.2010.01771.x https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1365-2664.2010.01771.x
Roos, S, Smart, J, Gibbons, D and Wilson, J,
2018. A review of predation as a limiting factor for bird populations in
mesopredator‐rich landscapes: a case study of the UK Biol Rev 93: 1915-1937 https://doi.org/10.1111/brv.12426
Comments Off on Mr Gove, please stop the casual killing of JaysCommon Jay (Garrulus glandarius) collecting peanuts from ground (under feeder) UK. Photo: Andy Rouse
Michael Gove has taken back control of issuing general licences from Natural England (possibly because Gove’s predecessors as Secretary of State had depleted Natural England’s staff resources so much that they couldn’t possibly cope with the work) and has issued a consultation on general licences.
It is a muddled consultation issued on the Saturday of a Bank Holiday weekend and closing at 5pm tomorrow, Monday.
At Wild Justice, we are preparing a formal, technical response to the consultation which we will submit tomorrow and which we will publish on this blog, and through our newsletter, tomorrow after the consultation closes.
The consultation asks that membership organisations seek the views of their members and collate them – Wild Justice is not a membership organisation so we are asking members of the public to respond to the consultation with one simple ask, as follows:
‘Please Mr Gove, don’t allow the killing of Jays under any future general licences. There is no scientific or economic case for allowing this beautiful bird to be killed. On the previous discredited and revoked general licences the Jay was listed on all three of them suggesting that it might be a hazard to crops, livestock, human health, nature conservation etc. I note with pleasure that in the documents issued by Natural England before Defra grabbed back responsibility for these matters, that the plans for licensing of lethal control of Jays had shrunk to the possibility of licensing control for the purpose of protecting wild birds. There is no scientific case for this and I ask you not to issue a general licence for Jay-killing.
The BTO Chief Executive Dr Andy Clements, who is also a Board member of Natural England, wrote that ‘there may be insufficient scientific evidence to merit the inclusion of Jay on the licence list in order to conserve birds’ and I agree with him, except I think it is even now obvious that there is no ‘may be’ about it.
The RSPB, which manages over 150,000ha of land, and carries out limited predator control on its nature reserves, does not kill Jays because it sees no need and no conservation value in killing them.
The science does not allow you, Secretary of State, to authorise an open general licence to kill Jays as there is no evidence of any conservation problem that such killing could possibly help to prevent.’
Comments Off on The Wild Justice legal challenge to the general licences GL04, GL05 and GL06
Wild Justice’s first legal case was a challenge of the General Licences GL04, GL05 and GL06 which ‘authorised’ the lethal control of 16 species of bird. Similar licences have been issued each year, for many years, on 1 January. We initiated a formal legal process where we challenged the decision of a public body, in this case Natural England. The decision we challenged was the issuing of those three general licences. The legal system requires such challenges to be made in a formal way and completed within three months of the decision being challenged. So, in essence the clock started ticking on 1 January for any challenge of these general licences.
Wild Justice’s legal success against Natural England had the following chronology:
1 January – Natural England issued General Licences GL04, GL05 and GL06 on website.
4 January – an information request was sent to Natural England about the decision-making process of issuing the licences.
25 January – Natural England replied saying that no further assessment or consideration had been made for 2019 because no issues had arisen in 2018.
13 February – “Pre Action Protocol” legal letter sent from Wild Justice’s lawyers to Natural England setting out why we considered the General Licences issued on 1 January, which ‘authorise’ killing of 16 bird species, to be unlawful. In essence, these birds can only be killed under certain legal conditions and NE has to be satisfied that those conditions are met before issuing the licences. NE had not satisfied itself of those things and so the licences are not lawful.
Here is the letter;
26 February – Natural England respond, a day ahead of the normal deadline for response, asking for two more weeks
27 February – Wild Justice says – no, Natural England can have one more week.
1 March – Natural England ask for an off-the-record, without-prejudice meeting with Wild Justice without lawyers present.
11 March – Chris Packham, Ruth Tingay, Mark Avery and two lawyers meet Natural England for an off-the-record and without-prejudice meeting; Wild justice insisted that lawyers were present and we’re glad that we did, as our lawyers are wonderful and the discussion after the meeting would have been difficult without them having heard the discussion, and indeed been part of it. We cannot disclose the details of the meeting as we had agreed Natural England’s request for confidentiality, but we are probably not pushing our luck to say that the meeting was polite and business-like.
13 March – Wild Justice receives confused and ambiguous written legal response from Natural England which does not concede the legal argument, nor provide evidence for the legality of current system.
Here is that letter:
You can make your own mind up about this letter from Natural England. And remember, this letter was received after four weeks when it should normally be sent after two weeks, and after a meeting with Wild Justice. Try these little tests of the letter. First, does it say anywhere that Wild Justice was wrong and that Natural England was going to fight this case through the courts with all its might? Second, does it say that Wild Justice was right and that Natural England was going to admit that the General Licences GL04, GL05 and GL06 were unlawful and undertake not to issue similarly unlawful licences in 2020 as requested by Wild Justice? We couldn’t find either position clearly stated in this letter and on the basis of the legal advice we received; and on the basis of the ticking clock which meant that we had just two weeks to complete the next stage of the legal process to put into place actions that would allow us to continue with the legal challenge.
15 March – Wild Justice launches crowdfunder on CrowdJustice platform to raise funds for legal challenge (this was the first public mention of what the case was about). Wild Justice gave Natural England over a month of quiet contemplation to work out the implications of our challenge and its response.
Mark Avery, one of the three co-directors of Wild Justice wrote on his blog ‘Our lawyers wrote to Natural England on 13 February but they only replied on Wednesday (after four weeks) and their response was confused and evasive. We’re not sure whether Natural England are admitting that they are presiding over an illegal licensing system or not! It may be that they are playing the Theresa May game of kicking the can down the road and hoping that something like a miracle happens but it’s terribly difficult to be sure. And the clock is ticking as we must file our arguments with the court in the next two weeks to be within time. In fact, it will be around my birthday, Brexit Day (perhaps) on 29 March that the legal case has to be filed. For me, this is a question of why the agency whose job it is to protect wildlife and uphold wildlife law, and its parent government department which has similar responsibilities, have allowed millions of birds to be killed unlawfully (according to our legal advice) for nearly four decades.‘.
21 March – legal claim forms were issued in the court on behalf of Wild Justice asking for judicial review.
25 March – crowdfunder reaches target of £36,000 in 10 days.
23 April – Out of the blue Natural England announces revocation of three General Licences on 25 April and that, at least for now, anyone wanting to kill any of the species formerly listed on those General Licences will need to apply for and receive an actual licence from Natural England. A review of the General Licences is planned.
That’s how we got to the sudden, unexpected, and actually unrequested revocation of the three general licences GL04, GL05 and GL06 and the start of a process which should lead to better licences that authorise those actions which are allowed by the law. It appears that the licensing of lethal control of those species formerly included in the species lists og GL04, GL05 and GL06 is now very much up for review in the short and medium term. This must be a good thing and is actually long overdue.
Wild Justice is pleased that its actions have stimulated a serious and urgent review of a flawed licensing system. Wild Justice will play a constructive part in that process, as you will see when we publish our response to the government consultation on general licences on Monday. However, even now we are looking at other cases where we can use the legal system on behalf of wildlife.
