In a blow to biodiversity and conservation efforts, Natural England has released its latest licensing regime for gamebirds in or within 500m of Special Areas of Conservation (SAC) and Special Protection Areas (SPA), which will further restrict shooting activities in many SPAs, all of this based on a remarkable absence of evidence.
Dismissing the scientifically proven conservation benefits of game management on other designated bird species, Natural England has decided that the risk of Avian Influenza being passed from migratory birds to released game birds and then on to woodlark cannot be ruled out in several SPAs including Breckland, and has therefore said that release licences for these SPAs are unlikely to be granted. This is despite there being no recorded incident of such transmission ever happening. Natural England have pinned their colours to the precautionary principle in making these decisions, perhaps out of fear for legal challenges from antis, and seem to have forgotten about the holistic or proportionality that also pertains to the principle.
This decision will cause significant socio-economic damage to local communities as well as removing several of the factors that have led to thriving populations of designated bird species in the first place. Unlike the purely hypothetical basis of Natural England's reasoning for withholding individual licences from these SPAs, there is a raft of robust, peer-reviewed evidence that shows that removing gamekeeping work from an area, especially predation management, leads to significant population crashes in other ground nesting bird species. It should be noted that the woodlark is a ground nesting bird.
Natural England has declined to publish its habitats risk assessments which informed their decision making to key stakeholders. This is despite their Chief Executive, Marian Spain, stating in a parliamentary committee that all of their decision making evidence was publicly available when quizzed on the subject by Labour MP Terry Jermy, whose South West Norfolk constituency is directly affected by this decision.
There is one SPA, Falmouth Bay to St Austell Bay, where shoots will likely be granted a release licence with normal mitigation, and twelve SPAs where shoots are likely to receive a licence with release delayed to either 1 September or 1 October. Shoots in all other SPAs are unlikely to receive a release licence unless in exceptional circumstances.
Shoots on SACs with no SPA overlap will be able to release pheasant and red-legged partridge under GL43, which NE has reissued, so long as they can adhere to the conditions prescribed by the licence. Those unable to comply with these conditions must apply for an individual licence.
The SPAs added to the list on which shoots are unlikely to receive licences are: Breckland, Sandlings, Thames Basin Heaths, Thursley, Hankley and Frensham Commons, and Wealden Heaths.
The SPAs where shoots may receive a licence with delayed release are: Ashdown Forest, East Devon Heaths, Great Yarmouth North Denes, Greater Wash, North York Moors, Northumberland Marine, Outer Thames Estuary, Peak District Moors, Porton Down, Solent and Dorset Coast, South Pennine Moors and Thorne and Hatfield Moors.