Natural Resources Wales (NRW) has made a minor amendment to General Licence (GL) 002, which allows authorised persons to kill or take feral pigeon or to take or destroy their nests or eggs for the purposes of preserving public health, public safety or preventing the spread of disease. 

The change made to the wording of the licence does not substantially change the licence, it merely seeks to remove an ambiguity regarding the use of live feral pigeon as decoys in traps. In NRW’s own words:

The modifications have been made to Part C Conditions to reduce the types of cage trap permitted under this licence to those designed to trap feral pigeon and to correct the inadvertent inference that this licence permitted the use of decoy birds within traps.

That is to say that the licence cannot now be read as permitting in any way the use of live feral pigeon as decoys in traps. It is worth noting that this is mirrored in the counterpart English General Licence GL41, which explicitly has not allowed the use of live feral pigeon as decoys in traps for many years.

This amendment to GL002 is not inappropriate or unjust, but the issue still remains that since 2024 it has been an offence to control magpie in Wales, after NRW removed them from GL001, having already removed them from GL004. A result of this poorly guided amendment is that livestock and rare species of bird have been attacked and predated by magpie, with farmers and conservationists unable to respond to the situation. If NRW are serious about increasing biodiversity in Wales and helping farmers through challenging times, they would be wise to review that decision and allow farmers and conservationists to control this nationally abundant pest species.

The modified licence has been published on the NRW website and replaces the previous version of GL002 which had been published for 2025. The licence can be read here.