GL26

[Jay_Russell]

I see wildjustice has now written a letter challanging the GL26 - and in part - for protection of pheasents and game from crows. and for the killing of  jays magpies etc they are contesting for the protection of song birds is not justifiable. 

 

indirectly no doubt an attack of what they see as a sport for the elitist/toffs. 

[Bobba]

Can you provide a link / source please? Thanks.

[Jay_Russell]

4 minutes ago, Bobba said:

Can you provide a link / source please? Thanks.

https://www.birdguides.com/news/wild-justice-launches-new-legal-challenge/  here 

[Bobba]

Thanks. 

Edited June 10, 2019 by Bobba

[ShootingEgg]

So they kick off, get it all fudged up then show true colours by saying the new one is not right either 

And say magpies and Jay's don't take song birds... 

 

Eyes wide shut comes to mind 

[Miserableolgit]

Sporting Gun posted this on their FB page a couple of hours ago. All credit goes to Sporting Gun...

Quote

EXCLUSIVE!
Questions Sporting Gun asked Dr Mark Avery on Monday 10 June 2019 following the latest legal challenge to general licences from Wild Justice, the wildlife campaign group that includes Dr Avery, Chris Packham, the TV presenter and naturalist, and Dr Ruth Tingay, the conservationist.

Seven weeks after Natural England revoked the general licences GL04, GL05 and GL06 on April 25, following a legal challenge from Wild Justice, the wildlife campaign group has submitted a further challenge.
This latest legal challenge has arrived while the shooting and farming world is still waiting for Defra and Natural England to decide on a permanent solution to the issue of the licences. In the meantime, Natural England has issued three new licences – GL26, GL28 and GL31. It is the new licence GL26 that Wild Justice is challenging the legality of through its solicitors, Leigh Day. In particular, it is focusing on the culling of carrion crows in relation to the protection of pheasants.
The nub of the issue relates to the interpretation as to whether pheasants are regarded as livestock or wild birds and whether, if the former, shooters have the right to cull carrion crows to protect their livestock.
It is an issue with many implications and we asked Dr Mark Avery of Wild Justice a number of questions relating to its latest challenge. Here are his answers in full:

Sporting Gun: You say that you would like Natural England to reflect on the legality of GL26 but surely that is what they have done by revoking the previous licences and issuing the new ones?

Mark Avery: Yes, but we think they’ve got them wrong – again. We ask Natural England, and Defra, to get this right in these and other forthcoming licences. But we ask them to remove the elements of GL26 that refer to gamebirds and start again. Maybe we need that full consultation to get this right. By the way, Natural England and Defra have not spoken to us about these matters.

SG: Your letter takes issue with the legal interpretation of ‘kept’ and that many birds that are currently regarded as being so are in fact wild and therefore not ‘kept’. How would you apply this interpretation to other livestock in view of Leigh Day’s definition of “free-living”, especially with regard to, say, ‘hefted’ sheep in Cumbria and how does that differ from your view of how pheasants are ‘kept’?

MA: Not quite – we think that Natural England have gone out on a limb with an unlawful definition of ‘kept’. We’ve never heard anyone claim that a pheasant in a field, or running about on the road causing accidents, is livestock because it might nip back for a couple of pecks of grain now and again. If your sheep is in my garden then I can probably have a good guess at who owns it and phone you up. If your pheasant is in my garden how do I complain to you about your livestock’s eating of my vegetables? If it’s livestock then we believe that the owner is responsible for it. Did Natural England dream this up on their own or were they pressured by shooting interests? And whichever it was, was this really a good idea?

SG: With regard to the purpose of control under the general licence, how would you propose that a legally practicable way of determining whether there were no alternatives to ‘lethal killing’ be implemented and enforced?

MA: We’re not sure. That’s Natural England’s job. We don’t want to do their job – but we do want them to do it properly. Natural England haven’t sought to speak to us about any of this – we believe they’ve had lots of chats with other organisations.

SG: Do you think your challenge will help focus Natural England and clarify matters for people who shoot to enable them to carry on doing so or is your ultimate goal to outlaw all shooting of game birds for sport?

MA: We aren’t trying to outlaw all shooting of gamebirds for sport, and if we were, this would be a very tortuous route. We are pretty sure that game shooting will continue for a very, very long time. But we do think that shooting needs to be better conducted in many regards. Recreational shooting of wildlife has not done a good job through self-regulation and we want Natural England to do its job in acting as a fair but firm regulator.

Lead shot should be replaced by non-toxic ammunition, stocking densities in release areas should be reduced to the levels of good practice suggested by the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust, illegal persecution of birds of prey should cease, the numbers of released gamebirds should be greatly reduced and lethal control of native predators should be directed at the appropriate species (certainly not Jay, Jackdaw, Rook and Magpie) by appropriate means. These are things that we often hear sensible shooters say but we see little progress on the ground. And if they all happened tomorrow then shooting would still be happening.

SG: In Wild Justice’s latest legal challenge to Natural England it focuses on the rearing of game (particularly pheasants). You seem to be targeting the shooting community. By singling out a small section of society (shooters) is this a cynical divide and conquer tactic?

MA: We feel shooting is very unregulated whereas farming is quite strongly regulated. There are things we don’t like about the licences already published and the parts of them that relate to farming, but we feel that these could probably be addressed through a review and consultation. It was, presumably, Natural England’s decision to link game rearing and sheep and piglets together in one licence. This may be because of extreme pressure on Natural England from shooting interests. Natural England don’t actually mention any evidence that carrion crows are a problem for game during the period before they are released! A consequence of that is that GL26 is under scrutiny from us for a variety of reasons. You are right to identify the fact that the interests of farming and shooting may not always and exactly coincide.

SG: Through your challenges of the general licences what do you want to achieve? Is it biodiversity, or something else?

MA: We want public bodies to implement the laws protecting wildlife properly – that is a fundamental part of nature conservation but also of the legal system. Shooting and farming interests exert massive pressure on the likes of Natural England in an attempt to get their way with things and they don’t always have wildlife at the front of their minds. Carrion crows can’t speak up for themselves and we are very happy to take up their cases for them.

SG: What’s next on the agenda for Wild Justice and when do you think you will have achieved your goals?

MA: We expect to be quite busy with general licences for a while. We can’t see that issue going away and we are interested to see what Defra comes up with – whatever it is, it’s overdue. We have taken legal advice about beaver culls in Scotland, though …

 

[panoma1]

I genuinely think NE employ a load of incompetent *** soles, it's their job to get these the GL's legally watertight! And it appears they have failed yet again?......why would WJ waste money on a problem they seem to have identified with GL26, if they had not found an issue?

NE seem to attract people with university degrees and Doctorates, in this or that! Book learning coming out of their ears, but no common sense, no experience of life, the countryside or empathy with the countryside and country people, they look at things from a biased protectionist viewpoint rather than a conservation viewpoint!........Because they appear to have little experience of wildlife the countryside or country life and consequently don't fully understand what real conservation is!

I can't see NE getting the GL licences right because they ain't got a ******* clue! They are cannon fodder for WJ.......because they don't really know or understand what they are doing, and WJ seem to have more of a grasp on the legal/technical nuances of wildlife licensing than they do!

 

[AYA117]

52 minutes ago, panoma1 said:

I genuinely think NE employ a load of incompetent *** soles, it's their job to get these the GL's legally watertight! And it appears they have failed yet again?......why would WJ waste money on a problem they seem to have identified with GL26, if they had not found an issue?

NE seem to attract people with university degrees and Doctorates, in this or that! Book learning coming out of their ears, but no common sense, no experience of life, the countryside or empathy with the countryside and country people, they look at things from a biased protectionist viewpoint rather than a conservation viewpoint!........Because they appear to have little experience of wildlife the countryside or country life and consequently don't fully understand what real conservation is!

I can't see NE getting the GL licences right because they ain't got a ******* clue! They are cannon fodder for WJ.......because they don't really know or understand what they are doing, and WJ seem to have more of a grasp on the legal/technical nuances of wildlife licensing than they do!

 

That is  more than likely why they had it taken away from them and it handed back to DEFRA.

[clay shooter]

Step up the house of lords.. The  Royal family..What a no hoper this is ..Ban Pheasant shooting just because really you cant tell the difference on a drive between WILD and REARED? Do they think that a wild pheasant does not use the feed hopper water drinkers ? can Mr Packham distinguish between them ? And what about the income to the industry. . Perhaps we should all just go clay pigeon shooting set / apply for shooting grounds /sights near RSPB reserves and spoil their day out.. stop contributing our Gov subsidy to them.. Take away their charitable status as well  well we are not like that we want to be legal open fair in what we do.WE MUST ALL BE ABOVE BOARD and take care to be  RIGHT.. .Noticed also on license application is there a SSSI.. or Wildlife reserve RSPB near to where you intend to use the  license. .NOTE  RSPB mention here

Edited June 10, 2019 by clay shooter

[Scully]

What people are failing to understand is that Avery and Packham aren't interested in 'conservation' or 'protectionism'; all they are concerned about is stopping the shooting of birds for pleasure. Magpies, crows etc etc have been killing other birds since the beginning of time; as have woodpigeons been raiding crops for as long as there have been crops.

All Avery and Packham want to achieve is the removal of humans from doing the same. Nature will take care of itself and will not go to hell in a hand cart simply because no one traps or kills corvids anymore. Forget about the protection of crops or other species; they aren't concerned with that. 

[panoma1]

14 minutes ago, Scully said:

'What people are failing to understand is that Avery and Packham aren't interested in 'conservation' or 'protectionism'; all they are concerned about is stopping the shooting of birds for pleasure. Magpies, crows etc etc have been killing other birds since the beginning of time; as have woodpigeons been raiding crops for as long as there have been crops.

All Avery and Packham want to achieve is the removal of humans from doing the same. Nature will take care of itself and will not go to hell in a hand cart simply because no one traps or kills corvids anymore. Forget about the protection of crops or other species; they aren't concerned with that. 

I think a majority of shooting people, RSPB and various other anti shooting organisations understand that...……..it's NE, the public and the government that don't!

[islandgun]

I think packam has over valued his popularity in his quest as saviour.. there are influential people out there that disagree with his non scientific knee jerks

https://www.songbird-survival.org.uk/news/sbs-corvid-research-new-paper-published

[mossy835]

the man will stop at nothing now,he will be happy when all is stopped.,

[greylag]

That is all they are concerned about.The shooting of birds,they don't give a fig about mammals they can go to hell in a hand cart.

[ShootingEgg]

If you listen to packham, curlew numbers falling are all due to farming grass cutting destroying the nests. He just said it on springwafch, along with Strachan saying its habitat loss. Just happened to flick through and it was showing a curlew on screen, blamed farming 100%. No other reason put forward

[old'un]

The big problem for pheasant/game shooting and controlling avian predators is the definition of wild and livestock, birds reared for shooting continue to be defined as livestock while they are confined in release pens but then reclassified as ‘wild birds’ when they are released, WJ  would argue that once they are reclassified as wild they can no longer be protected as livestock.

[ShootingEgg]

15 minutes ago, old'un said:

The big problem for pheasant/game shooting and controlling avian predators is the definition of wild and livestock, birds reared for shooting continue to be defined as livestock while they are confined in release pens but then reclassified as ‘wild birds’ when they are released, WJ  would argue that once they are reclassified as wild they can no longer be protected as livestock.

But would they then be reclassified as flora and fauna?

[old'un]

6 minutes ago, ShootingEgg said:

But would they then be reclassified as flora and fauna?

I am not sure if you can apply that criteria for birds that have been breed purely for shooting, that’s also another of WJ arguments.

[ShootingEgg]

10 minutes ago, old'un said:

I am not sure if you can apply that criteria for birds that have been breed purely for shooting, that’s also another of WJ arguments.

But some are wild broods. I know I'm being anal.. But getting fed up with WJ and their blatent agenda

[panoma1]

Doesn't a Pheasant, it's eggs and chicks whether wild or livestock deserve protection from predatory Corvids? Corvids are opportunists they will eat Pheasant chicks and eggs as well as Curlew chicks and eggs and songbird chicks and eggs!..........if you shoot Corvids it's protecting all the aforementioned species and many more, It's called proactive control!

Do you have to wait until the corvid is actually killing the chicks and/or eating the eggs (reactive control) of any and all species, before using lethal control?

Surely shooting corvids comes under the General licence term "protecting flora and fauna"?

 

Edited June 14, 2019 by panoma1

[AYA117]

2 hours ago, old'un said:

I am not sure if you can apply that criteria for birds that have been breed purely for shooting, that’s also another of WJ arguments.

But you can for lamb that has been reared for slaughter ? What is the real difference !

[Dave-G]

If released birds are encouraged to remain in a specific area by supplying feeders etc how can they not be considered livestock?

[Jacko3275]

Does GL 34 now cover this if packham and cronies say pheasants are wild 

[oowee]

 GL 34 is for protecting wild birds but in this case pheasants et al would not be classed as wild as they are unlikely to have been released for re population program (section 27(1) of the 1981 Act.). I reckon you might be able to use GL 36 (serious damage) for protection when they are in a pen prior to release although I guess then they can be protected with other measures. 

48 minutes ago, Jacko3275 said:

Does GL 34 now cover this if packham and cronies say pheasants are wild 

 

Edited June 14, 2019 by oowee

[Jacko3275]

But are WJ say they not live stock as they roam free and cannot be protected under gl26 so that surely means they are saying there wild