‘We had no option but to revoke general licence’ says Natural England

Natural England has defended its decision to revoke general licences for controlling certain pest bird species on 25 April, but insists it is now “business as usual” in terms of shooting pigeons and crows.

Giving evidence to the cross-party Environmental, Food and Rural Affairs (Efra) committee in London on Tuesday (21 May), Natural England deputy chairman Lord Blencathra admitted that “no one saw it coming” when the licencing system was challenged.

See also: Licence for shooting pest bird species – where do farmers stand?

Natural England had taken Queen’s Counsel twice, and consulted with Defra lawyers, since campaign group Wild Justice had first given notice of its intention to mount a legal challenge of general licences in mid-February.

“We had to act quickly because the legal advice was so assertive,” said Lord Blencathra.

“Although Wild Justice had said ‘we only want to stop the licences from January next year’, we couldn’t continue for the next eight months with a system which we were advised was unlawful.”

Lethal control

Interim chief executive Marian Spain explained that, to stay within the law, Natural England had to satisfy itself that lethal control was necessary (because the pest bird species had caused damage and that alternative means of control had failed), rather than delegating that judgement to the licence user.

She insisted that Natural England had acted quickly to ensure that new individual licences were available on the same day the old general licences went down, and that a new general licence for carrion crows was available just 24 hours later.

New general licences for controlling woodpigeons and Canada geese came through a week later, she added, though since then, Defra had taken responsibility and control arrangements for other pest species are still pending.

Ms Spain agreed that the new general licences looked more burdensome than the old one, but that was only because they had more detail, spelling out the circumstances in which lethal control would be appropriate.

“We say to the user that, if these are your circumstances, then you are good to go.”

Lord Blencathra added that it was not the case that the farmer had to get his bird scarer out before he could shoot pigeons eating his crops.

“If his experience is that these things have been tried in the past and haven’t worked, then he can go straight to shooting immediately.”