T
his spring, talk has mainly been over the
revocation by Natural England of a number of
the general licences that the farming, pest control
and gamekeeping sectors use to protect
livestock, prevent damage to crops, protect
wildlife and stop the spread of disease.
This was an unprecedented act taken by a
government quango without ministerial approval.
Stakeholders were not consulted and only
forewarned by email 48 hours before the licences
were going to be removed. The whole affair was
badly managed and badly executed and, in my
opinion, should have been managed far better by
NE. In the months to come, somebody needs to
take responsibility, apologise and resign.The impact
However, if we look at the bigger picture, things
are even more serious for our wildlife – unless you
are a corvid or a pigeon that is. The licence that
allows gamekeepers and others to control certain
species for the protection of flora and fauna
(wildlife to you and I) was revoked at the very
worst possible time. The end of April is
when most of the sensitive species
that gamekeepers protect are
starting to or have made their
nests and laid their eggs, so
to have the only toolavailable to us to control the avian predators (who
are specialists at taking eggs and chicks) removed
has been devastating.
An assessment of 8,000 species shows that
1,199 species are at risk of disappearing from
Great Britain, according to ‘The State of Nature
2016 ’ report, which was compiled by 53 nature
organisations and led by the RSPB.
More intensive agriculture has affected nearly
half of the species studied and is responsible for
nearly a quarter of the total impact on wildlife, the
report claims. The report said that farmland birds
have declined by 54% since 1970, and butterflies
by 41% since 1976.
On shooting estates as a whole, the decline is
somewhat less. As part of the HLS environment
scheme, farms are using brood rearing cover for
pheasant and partridge, which has a benefit to
other farmland birds as well as insects.
But it goes further than that: it is all about the
‘three-legged stool’ of habitat, food/water and
predator control. If you can provide your birds all
three of those things, they should start to recover
and eventually thrive. To have one leg of
the already wobbly stool taken away
from us this year will prove to be
a disaster and not just for our
gamebirds. In the uplands, the
grouse moors are the bestplaces to see waders and some of those are very
rare in most other parts of Britain, but they do well
on a keepered moor. Grouse keepers are pretty
hot on controlling the likes of crows and magpies
and as a result they have very diverse wildlife on
the moor. There is a similar story on the downland
in southern England. The keepered ground has a
far greater abundance of farmland birds as well as
a small number of curlews that fledge each year.
Again, this is mainly because of predator control.
It doesn’t take long for corvids to cotton on to
where a nest is and destroy it, hence the decline
in lapwing numbers in southern England.
I think Wild Justice, who brought the legal
action against NE, were just poking with a stick to
see what fell out; they never imagined that NE
would have such an overreaction. It was very
interesting to see Mark Avery (a founder of Wild
Justice) back-peddling on their victory. He stated
that they didn’t ask NE to remove the licence, just
to review it, and he is telling the truth. I think it’s
very interesting to see that protectionist groups
didn’t all celebrate the cessation of what they call
“the wanton destruction of Britain’s wildlife by
farmers and gamekeepers,” because they knew
that it was going to have a detrimental effect on
wildlife as a whole and more so on the amber-
and red-listed species like the curlew, stone
curlew and lapwing. Wildlife woes
As we wait with baited breath for Defra to make its move on the general licences issue, Tim
Weston analyses the impact Natural England’s decision to revoke them could have on wildlife
PICTURE:
DAVID KJAER
INSET:
LAURIE CAMPBELL
KEEPERING
WITH TIM WESTON
Tim is Development Officer for the
National Gamekeepers’ Organisation (NGO)Predator control helps declining
species such as the lapwingTo see sights like these, predators must be controlled