Larry, there is normally no form filling at all. Some forms are being issued as I understand it as an interim measure until it is all sorted out and reworded then it should be business as usual and back to no forms again. Certain normally protected species that become a pest can be shot after obtaining a license from Natural England. As a River Keeper I am granted an annual license to shoot goosanders and cormorants to protect wild trout stocks. I have to prove they are present and being destructive to wild trout. I then got a site visit to confirm and had to show what measures I had undertaken to prevent damage. All boxes ticked and license issued. Each year I have to fill in a return as to numbers shot. I had just submitted that the other day. Game don't require any license at all. An annual £6 license was required once but has been scrapped a few years ago. This covered game birds and deer and such; ducks and geese never required one. Game, ducks and geese are not affected by this temporary problem; most are out of season anyway except various deer species.

Scotland is administered by Scottish Natural Heritage. Someone with a problem there recently applied for a license to cull a few ravens. Checks were made and a license issued. The Licensee then received death threats from the animal rights lot as did S.N.H. so they caved in and revoked the license. The terrorists won in this case. Oddly, they will freely grant licenses to shoot deer at night to reduce numbers without any opposition. Many thousands were shot like this last year by forestry commission staff with carcasses left to rot in many cases.

Wales have caved in about allowing game shooting on Council owned land recently despite evidence to show that that other species benefitted by game preservation measures. I now understand that they are spending £600,000 of public money to employ Gamekeepers to protect certain waders on the land which had been carried out free of charge before by those who hunted the game they are no longer allowed to hunt.

We have a bit of a loony left animal rights lot here that seem to be able to freely make threats and people in authority just cave in. As they say 'empty vessels make most noise'. Lagopus….. Somewhat inconvenienced but in true British fashion it is 'Keep calm and carry on'.