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(not satire – it’s the UK today!)
Natural England thought their plans to allow the widespread destruction of robin and starling nests and eggs would go unnoticed.
In fact they hid their plans so well that most people only heard about them the day before the so-called public consultation period was due to end – yesterday.
However, Natural England seem to have been panicked into making a hurried defence of themselves after the widespread sharing of this article on the subject:
Here’s the real reason the Tories are allowing the destruction of robin eggs and nests
Here’s Natural England’s response, taken from their website:
Sounds reasonable?
Well it would if it were true.
Natural England is trying to pretend that they want to allow licences in cases where nests may pose a health and safety hazard.
This is a lie.
Because Natural England already allow licences to destroy nests in those cases.
What the organisation is actually proposing is to change the type of licence from the one it grants now:
to this:
As you can see, if this change is allowed to go ahead – Natural England will not know whether the destruction of a nest was to prevent health or safety hazard at all because they will not know who is destroying a nest or why it has been destroyed.
In fact, there will be no reporting, no evidence and no checking on the destruction or even what impact the destruction will have on the bird population.
All of these facts are in direct contradiction to what Natural England are saying in their defence. Or to put it another way – Natural England are resorting to lies to defend their deplorable actions.
Don’t let them get away with it.
.
One last thing.
Why did Tory Party ministers put a party donor with close links to developers – and with little experience of environmental or ecological matters – in charge of Natural England?
Answers on a postcard please to:
David Cameron
camerond@parliament.uk
10 Bridge Street
Witney Oxon OX28 1HY
.
Please feel free to comment.
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Pride's Purge 
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I think you don’t understand how the licence system works.
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Thought it was interesting that in the report they say the number of licences requested last year was the arduous total of 10.
Just 10 people asking for a licence. They don’t say how many of those 10 were turned down.
And they then claim it should be a general licence to speed up the process.
Can’t handle 10 a year? Is Natural England just one man in an office?
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I think the point would be why should you have to apply for a licence (with the time and cost to everyone involved) to remove the occasional nest and eggs of a species which is not in any way endangered or imperilled. I don’t need one to kill a mouse, let alone move it – what, the Robin has better PR?
Pointless bureaucracy.
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Whilst I agree these bastards in no way should get away with their lies and despicable greedy corrupt attempt here to change the law (& what are these health & safety issues exactly?), unfortunately the bloody developers often ignore this law anyway. I witnessed total destruction of an area of hedging next to a London rail platform last year during nesting season. I knew of and had seen several sparrows & blackbirds nesting there at the time and contacted the private contractor responsible who passed me on to Crossrail who had contracted them to do it. I then contacted Crossrail copying in the contractor and the RSPB, and guess who the only one I got a response from was?! The RSPB. As I would have to have gone to court in my name and provided solid evidence, which I did not have (& anyway due to chronic ill health reasons did not feel able to), it was not possible for the RSPB to pursue it. I have also had a run-in with a London Council about having large numbers of street trees severely pollarded during nesting season (& not for the first time either), which I knew had not previously been carefully checked for nests (I witnessed the whole rushing in and getting the job done as quickly as possible by the private contractor) – I received lies & pathetic attempts at fobbing off from the Council which I also eventually had to let go off at the time. This terrible change in the law will certainly make it easy for any Tom (apologies, not you Mr Pride!), Dick or Harry to destroy nests or eggs for fun, vindictiveness or any other shit reason, but I suspect the big developers will mostly carry on as before when they knowingly and quite happily ignored the law during nesting season. They don’t give a fuck about anything except their own greed and profits. Still, good to publicise Natural (haha, yeah right) England’s hypocrisy and stop some of what little protection our wildlife still has in this country, being removed.
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38 Degrees have a petition to stop this https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/stop-the-call-for-the-killing-of-birds
Sent from my BlackBerry smartphone from Virgin Media
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Reblogged this on sdbast.
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Reblogged this on Beastrabban’s Weblog and commented:
More on the Tories’ policy of culling our feathered friends so that their donors in the construction industry can made a quick buck. Of course, it’s not the first time the Tories and their donors have shown their absolute contempt for conservation and the environment. Way back in the 1990s Private Eye covered the mysterious poisoning of protected birds of prey on Lord McAlpin’s estate in Scotland. This was illegal, and never properly investigated. McAlpin was a big donor to the Tories. Strange coincidence, that.
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Additional to 38degrees Petition (above), there’s a Care2 one also –
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/877/675/729/dont-let-them-kill-the-birds-and-destroy-their-eggs/
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The only person lying here is Tom Pride. Here is the full statement from Natural England (which he edited to remove context and explanation):
“This is not true. The proposal in no way changes the narrow set of circumstances in which it is legal to take action. The removal of nests for development purposes is not a licensable activity under the Wildlife & Countryside Act. Proposal 2 on the consultation is quite clear that General Licences permit the destruction of pied wagtail, robin and starling nests where the location of those nests represents a potential health and safety hazard ONLY. This could be where the birds are nesting in areas of hospitals or food-handling premises – such as in ventilation flues – which have the potential to spread infection. It could also be where nesting in gas pipework or a railway signal box could lead to a serious accident. The proposed licence change would allow essential action to be taken more quickly. The destruction of a nest outside the circumstances proposed would remain illegal under the Act.”
And here is the consultation document which again has plenty of context and explanation (and curiously a slightly different definition of the General Licence to the one he presents…):
Click to access cl-consultation-document_tcm6-37389.pdf
In his last article Mr Pride made several statements which were directly contradicted by his own sources.
Try not to simply accept that which confirms your prejudices.
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Nice try Pete. But read my blogpost again.
How will Natural England even know if the nests are being destroyed for health and safety reasons if they don’t know who is destroying the nests and there are no inspections or records kept?
You – like NE – are avoiding answering the question.
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see also monbiots take on chair for NE.. http://www.theguardian.com/environment/georgemonbiot/2013/dec/06/andrew-sells-natural-england and also connections to the work program…
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Presumably in exactly the same way as those without an Individual Notice are now. Enforcement is not Natural England’s remit, they are the licensing authority here.
I take it back, you’re not lying, you simply don’t know what you’re talking about.
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Sorry, that should read ‘Individual Licence’ above.
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Reblogged this on Translation Scrapbook.
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What about the millions of non indigenous birds released each year so rich people can shoot them? They not only are a threat to our wildlife but also cause road accidents. Nothing is done about them. Yet our native wildlife is considered to be a nuisance and is killed. Sorry but this is unacceptable. Thanks for drawing attention to it.
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senua
you may find this link of interest…http://www.monbiot.com/2014/04/28/the-shooting-party/
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You are talking bollocks.
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They are now following the cuts, ahem, efficiency savings!
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It wouldn’t surprise me at all if Robert McAlpine & Sons is going to build HS2.
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No, Tom is talking blackbirds…..
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Exactly Pete, I can’t work out if it is willful ignorance or disingenuity on Toms part. But he clearly shows a complete lack of understanding on how the system works. NE are a statutory instrument, responsible in this situation only for licensing. The monitoring and enforcement of this is still under the WCA 1981 and breaches will be handled as criminal breaches of statute. Considering convictions under WCA 1981 have doubled in the last few years it seems to me that the reduction in difficulty is directly correlated with an improvement in monitoring and enforcement.
Thankfully the consultation is conducted with organisations such as RSPCA, RSPB and the Wildlife Trust (amongst many others) rather than lackadaisical, misinformed bloggers.
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You do know that starlings are red list, right? And that no-one has ever been killed or even slightly grazed by a robin, pied wagtail or starling nest?
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Pete – ‘in consulation with RSPB?’ Are you joking? http://www.rspb.org.uk/community/ourwork/b/biodiversity/archive/2014/05/20/we-re-standing-firm-on-protecting-the-icon-of-christmas.aspx and that’s just robins – not the red list birds
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