Tim Bonner: Wild Justice's failures mount

This week the High Court rejected a Judicial Review by the group Wild Justice which had argued that General Licences for the control of avian species such as pigeons and crows in Wales were unlawful. Judge Harman QC rejected all three of Wild Justice's claims against Natural Resources Wales' (NRW) General Licences and described the current approach as 'rational'. The ruling means that they can continue to be used to control listed pest bird species and has been welcomed by conservationists, farmers and pest controllers. We are grateful to our colleagues at BASC who had intervened in the case in support of NRW.

This is not Wild Justice's first failure, in fact in the two years of its existence it is very difficult to find anything positive that it has achieved. Its first legal foray, a case against General Licences in England, did cause Natural England to make a foolish and premature decision to withdraw those licences, but they were eventually reinstated and have just been renewed in very similar form to the original. Wild Justice's claim therefore resulted in nothing other than leaving livestock and vulnerable species open to avian predation during the breeding season. Strangely it is not that keen on promoting this achievement.

Wild Justice brought another Judicial Review this time against Defra in relation to the release of pheasants and partridges on or near special protected sites. The Alliance, along with our colleagues at BASC, the National Gamekeepers Organisation and the Game Farmers' Association intervened in the action and eventually the Secretary of State said that he would introduce an interim licensing scheme to allow the release of pheasants and partridges at sustainable levels. Such a scheme, if and when it is introduced, will have a marginal - if any - impact on affected shoots and when Wild Justice discontinued the case and applied for costs, the Judge rejected its application out of hand saying "Plainly, it cannot be said that [Wild Justice] has been wholly or even substantially successful in relation to its claim as originally pleaded…I am inclined to the view that it would not have been successful."

Nor has Wild Justice been successful when it has, briefly, moved on from its obsession with shooting. Its attempt to persuade the courts that the badger cull is inhumane fell at the first hurdle with the judge refusing to grant permission for a Judicial Review and concluded that "the Chief Scientist had rationally concluded that there was a high level of compliance" with best practice.

In fact, it seems that Wild Justice has achieved almost nothing of substance in the two years of its existence other than to waste significant amounts of government resource - and that of organisations forced to intervene on its pointless actions - whilst happily spending the money it has crowdfunded from gullible supporters.
Worse than the waste and pointlessness, however, is the lie. Wild Justice was founded on a blatant dishonesty that its purpose was to improve wild animal welfare. At its launch, one of its three principles, the BBC presenter Chris Packham, was granted a sycophantic interview on BBC Farming Today and made all sorts of grandiose claims about the issues it intended to address. In reality (and this was no surprise given the characters involved), Wild Justice has followed the classic animal rights agenda. Game shooting and badgers are its abiding obsessions, and its driver is hatred of the people who are involved. Unfortunately, pointless legal actions seem likely to continue until Wild Justice runs out of other people's money, but the Alliance and our colleagues will be working tirelessly to ensure that its record of failure continues.