The thread above is not very accurate:
In the UK, a number of species have been controlled by shooting for various reason such as protecting crops, farm livestock, wildlife, and some health and safety reasons. These species included pigeons, crows and others. This was permitted under what was known as 'General Licenses'.
The legality of these 'General Licenses' was challenged by a pressure group called 'Wild Justice' which is partly fronted by a well known BBC wildlife programme presenter.
It became clear to Natural England (the Government body who administer and issue the licenses) that the current licences were badly drafted and would not stand up to legal challenge in court, so the licences were revoked on 26th April.
New licences are being prepared to replace these with altered wording (and probably more onerous on the shooter and farmer) to fully comply with the law. The first has already been issued and others are expected to follow in days. It remains to be seen how this will alter the ability to use shooting to control these problem species.
It is important to realise that these licences were in place to control pests - not for either sporting or hunting purposes.
I hope that the above is reasonably clear, but this has been a very sudden and rapidly changing situation, and there may be various aspects that are not yet apparent.
To summarise - there is no 'ban' as such; existing licenses were withdrawn, but replacements are being issued. The likely effect is a (few days) cessation of the ability to control pest species, but more onerous conditions applicable to controlling pest species in the future.
Last edited by JohnfromUK; 04/27/19 02:48 AM.
