New General Licenses Approved

Government issues two-year licences for protection of wildlife and game birds in England

SOME wild birds have been returned to the new general licenses list issued in January in order to protect game birds bred for shooting in England, the government has ruled, in an update to guidance on general shooting licences.

General licences give broad permissions to shoot certain species of wild birds to protect livestock, aid conservation, and preserve health and public safety

The new licences have been issued for two years rather than one, with officials saying this is to provide “stability and certainty” to shooters.

General licences are permissive licences, meaning users do not need to apply for them but must comply with their terms and conditions when undertaking licensed acts.

There has been considerable debate over whether pheasants, partridges and grouse should count as livestock, as they are wild birds, which raises the question of whether predators can be shot in order to protect them.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has released a new definition of

“livestock” to include some of these birds, to give explicit permission to shoot carrion crows, jackdaws, magpies and rooks.

The new definition reads: “Livestock is as defined in section 27(1) of the 1981 [Wildlife and Countryside] Act. For the purpose of this licence, this expression also includes game birds kept in an enclosure or which are free roaming but remain significantly dependent on the provision of food, water or shelter by a keeper for their survival. This does not include supplementary feeding.”

A Defra spokesperson said the change was made after gamekeepers asked for more clarity about whether game birds counted as livestock.

The RSPB’s head of site conservation policy, Kate Jennings, said: “If this update to the livestock general licence goes beyond a reclassification of terminology and implies that it will lead to an increase in the killing of wild birds to protect game bird interests, then, given the nature and climate emergency we find ourselves in, this would be a massive backward step for nature conservation in this country.” GTN