SurreySquireler

Really well reasoned and set out!

I have applied just to control magpies, Jays, Crows and jackdoors in the garden, to prevent damage to "Flora and Fauna". I quoted all the song birds we have regularly and then emailed in the application. As of yet I have had nothing back; not even a message saying the application was received. Having sent in the application I can't even continue to shoot them as there is no risk of "serious damage to crops or livestock" so I am not covered by the clause that says if you apply then you can shoot until the licence is issued as protection of Flora and Fauna isn't covered. If you require lethal control to be carried out before the determination of your licence application then you may not commit an offence provided that you do the following. You must be able to show that your action is necessary for the purpose of: preserving public health or public safety or air safety; preventing the spread of disease; or preventing serious damage to livestock, their foodstuffs, crops, vegetables, fruit, growing timber, fisheries or inland waters. You must also be able to show that there was no other satisfactory solution available for preventing such serious damage. With regards to the data, I don't think it is any more risky than them having our contact details for licencing: if the data is vulnerable to a leak from NE then I think it is probably vulnerable to a leak from the police. When I go in to the doctors for a jab ect in my notes it comes up on their screen that I am a shotgun certificate holder: so I think the data is probably rather more widely available than you might think!

Not as of 7:15☹️

Yeah but by posting it you have therefore applied and then are ok to shoot if these criteria apply: If you need to kill birds before you get a licence If you require lethal control to be carried out before the determination of your licence application then you may not commit an offence provided that you do the following. You must be able to show that your action is necessary for the purpose of: preserving public health or public safety or air safety; preventing the spread of disease; or preventing serious damage to livestock, their foodstuffs, crops, vegetables, fruit, growing timber, fisheries or inland waters. You must also be able to show that there was no other satisfactory solution available for preventing such serious damage. In addition you must have submitted the relevant application for a licence for the relevant purpose above and notified Natural England. If action is taken to prevent serious damage outlined above, Natural England must be notified as soon as reasonably practical after you have taken the action. This can be done by sending an email to birds2019@naturalengland.org.uk.

This is very much what I put in their complaints form as well! The fact that they didn't include the BASC response to his tweet, and that they seemed to suggest the person posting Packham's address (although it wasn't very sensible) was encouraging illegality, whereas in fact he was asking people to send letters to Packham seems pretty one sided

Ok sorry tightcoke I am more referring to their website, which as of 1400 had no articles about the removal of the licences, and now has an article about the crows on the gate (which I agree is completely counter productive) but that mentions the licences as a kind of footnote.

I am making a complaint, and would encourage everyone else to do the same, to the BBC about their completely biased reporting on this. On their website there has been absolutely no coverage of this issue at all, until it posted a pro packham article about the crows on his gate. It just shows that they really don't care about reporting countryside issues impartially.

I have tried as well - both Google and Change.org's own search facility. Both find the petition calling for the BBC to sack him (now at 82,000). The largest in support of him was less than 10% of that size (and there were several very small ones). I suspect it is journalistic license again https://www.change.org/p/bbc-don-t-sack-chris-packham This is the one they are on about although it has now closed which is rather fishy!

I couldn't agree more with this! Its the same way I feel when gamekeepers are found to have killed birds of prey illegally; I know just how frustrating it can be to watch them kill the birds you have put so much time and effort into, however it is not worth the risk of having all of shooting given a bad name from it! They need to see the bigger picture that beyond their season bag total they will, if they continue, get all shooting banned completely. Surely its better to lose a few birds, however painful it is at the time, than have all of shooting tared with the same brush.

And that thrust is possibly a corner stone supporting this whole debacle? But look at the stats with the amount of monetary damage pigeons can cause to crops: they estimate a loss of 10-40% loss of yield which works out as £125 per hector of oil seed rape (the biofuel that is meant to solve climate change), £250 per hector for peas, and up to £1250 per hector for barssicas (broccoli ect) . https://cereals.ahdb.org.uk/media/1191562/11-15_Woodpigeon_factsheet_web.pdf Without control of the pigeons the vegans, nor anyone else, would be able to afford to eat. And these are 2011 stats, so given that the pigeon population has increased in that time (it increased by 40% between 1995-2011) the monetary consequences could well be even worse! This is what we need to be putting across to the antis, along with the stuff about how all the moors that no longer have keepers doing controled burns now have a habit of catching fire (that wasn't there when they were grouse moors) and killing more grouse than a whole season's shooting in a single fire!

Our shoot uses a walk behind machine that comes with the operator, although it is eye wateringly expensive (£500 a day is what I've got in my head but I could be wrong), to do the tracks for the first time. Once they have cut a track it mulches the stumps, so the tracks can then be swiped annually with a tractor. They generally pay 2 people (normally me and a mate!) for a few days late september to go through with industrial strimmer/brush cutters to clear out some of the other brambles that can't be got at, and to cut single file paths for beaters through some bits. In my experience though, bramble just doesn't hold birds well so the sooner you can replace it with other stuff the better.

It really depends on what your soil type is with respect of what to choose to plant. Our shoot is on sand and laurel grows very well as does rhododendron, which are both brilliant for holding birds. We tend to have it as cover under trees: there is only one place we have it without trees over the top, which is a hedge we planted last year. We have "box hedge", which is probably more like that shrub honey suckle stuff, and the bottom of one of our pens in a wood. It is brilliant to push the birds in the pen into, and then trickle them out of the hedge at the bottom. I don't know how many birds it actually holds on its own. Bear in mind that if you plant them and we have a dry summer like we did last year then you are going to need to water them every other day- especially if they are in the open and able to be scorched by the sun. Be careful with the brambles: they very easily get very thick and only the most determined spaniels will go through it. The way we get round this on our shoot is by cutting paths through the brambles with a machine which divides them into 5 meter by 5 meter blocks, so you can reach in with a stick, and you can get dogs in easier. This works ok, but it never holds that many birds- but that may be due to the location/nature of the wood rather than the undercover.

311

now, if you attach the pipe to a drill somehow...

I've shot a fair few over the last year or so- maybe ten or so but sadly I haven't noticed a reduction in numbers. They seem to form a little colony near where they have been released and then not spread too much in my experience; we have them on the shoot but only in one small section of a valley, and not half a mile away in a woodland that is nearly identical habitat. I shoot them opportunistically with the air rife- a shot to the chest with a sub 12 ftlb tends to sort them as they seem to be relatively fragile at least in comparison to a pigeon or squirrel! I know you can use larson traps to catch them although who knows how you get the call bird!