Tag Archives: natural england

Farmers are set ‘impossible task’ over risk to birds from badger cull

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 See our comment below.

  • The Sunday Telegraph

  • 12 May 2019
  • By Helena Horton

NATURAL England has been accused of bowing to badgers’ rights campaigners after setting farmers the “impossible task” of proving the cull poses no risk to ground-nesting birds.

A High Court challenge by protester Tom Langton claimed that as badger culls increase numbers of foxes, rare ground-nesting birds preyed on by them are put at risk. The environment watchdog successfully argued that culling badgers can improve such bird totals but it agreed that people doing the culling would have to provide data.

Landowners said this is “impossible” as they were not asked to collect data before they culled the badgers, so they have no comparison for any new figures. One culling company in Gloucestershire has said it may have to stop operating because of the stipulations.

It comes after Natural England (NE) lost its power to issue bird shooting licences in a row with farmers who kill birds that attack livestock and crops, after legal action by BBC host Chris Packham and his campaign group Wild Justice. They argued the licences did not take into account welfare concerns.

Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, MP for the Cotswolds and chairman of the parliamentary group on shooting, said: “I don’t believe that by culling badgers you are increasing the fox numbers, but if that is part of the undertaking that Natural England is taking to the judge, it was a stupid thing to do as it was an impossible thing. The worry is that no one will be able to cull badgers. To stop them on a minor technicality would be a nonsense.”

The MP asked Michael Gove to fix the situation and the Environment Secretary admitted the decision has caused “confusion and disruption”.

Mr Gove said: “I agree unnecessary bureaucracy should not be imposed on companies carrying out culls, and understand their frustration in having to adapt to new information. I am aware that a supplementary badger cull company in Gloucestershire … has raised significant concerns and have been assured by NE discussions are ongoing.”

He said his department and NE are working as quickly as possible to resolve the issue, “in a way that avoids any further confusion or disruption for landowners and other stakeholders”.

He added that if Natural England’s review finds “legally relevant adverse effect on bird populations, they would introduce measures to reduce fox numbers within 2km (1.2miles) of protected Sites of Special Scientific Interest”.

Farmers argue that they have to cull badgers to prevent the spread of bovine TB. Mr Langton, who runs The Badger Crowd, said he would press for further restrictions on culling. A Natural England spokesman said: “We will continue to review and improve our work to assess the impact of badger control operations on protected sites.”

 

Comment from the Badger Crowd

Yesterday evening (11 May) the Daily Telegraph, who recently leaked the story about the government’s unlawful licensing of the shooting of wild birds, was given early tip off  of a government announcement, apparently scheduled for a few days time. We were not contacted by the journalist.  The matter relates to a part of our twin Judicial Reviews in July 2018  that resulted in August 2018 in a Natural England Draft Internal Guidance on evaluating the ecological consequences of badger culling on European Sites.

Following our court representations, this guidance accepted much of our factual arguments on the potential disruption to numbers and distribution of predators, to animals in lower trophic levels and potentially to habitat structure due to changing grazing pressure, once a dominant species such as badger is heavily depleted. One possible effect is that food (including large amounts of road-killed and discarded shot game birds) and underground burrows are more available for foxes and other predatory species, with potential knock-on effects.

Any increased predation resulting from shooting may disturb roosting or breeding birds and increase the predation of eggs, young and adult birds to a greater extent where systems are in constant flux, as opposed to more settled countryside, including land on or near to nature reserves. Other more subtle changes may go unseen or take several years to appear, or even be undetectable.

Government should and may well require the establishment of a measure of predator numbers across the cull areas, at least where nature reserves of international importance (such as RAMSAR, SPA and SAC) are within or near to cull zones on an area by area basis. This should really have been done before culling started as a baseline and is likely to be required for any new cull area in 2019 as well as existing ones. Then, in order to assess impacts upon other species, the fox numbers require monitoring through the cull years to detect change, and the fate of local ‘at risk’ bird populations properly monitored too.

In 2018 Michael Gove ordered badgers not to be killed around three sections of Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, where nesting Stone Curlew are holding on. He also required dozens of foxes to be shot in order to mitigate the influence of increasing or more mobile foxes moving in from further away. But it was unclear if natural England had sufficient resources to check if this was done, leading to confusion.

The new measures should better address the monitoring of rare bird numbers where natural communities are being disrupted.  Badger Crowd has battled to obtain a copy of the public-funded preliminary desk study of the Pilot cull areas, commissioned from the BTO* by Natural England last year. It has been strenuously withheld but is now likely to be released with any new announcement, probably concluding that it is impossible to detect change without actually doing the necessary fieldwork:

*Kettel, E & Siriwardena,  GM. 2018. Comparisons of breeding bird population and abundance trends within and outside two specified areas located in SW England. Report to Natural England. British Trust for Ornithology, Thetford, Norfolk, UK.

Badger Crowd awaits the report with interest and the new measures to be introduced. As the number of bovine TB confirmed herd breakdowns increased in response to Supplementary Badger Culling in both Somerset and Gloucestershire last year the pressure to suspend culling in these two pilot areas and not to start in Dorset seems more and more likely.

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Natural England censured by the High Court

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The latest BBC Wildlife Magazine has a short feature on our recent gruelling court battles to seek justice for badgers and the places where they live.  Natural England threw detailed legal arguments at us last autumn in a bid to try to stop crucial evidence from designated sites expert Dominic Woodfield being submitted to the Judicial Review. This skirmish added a permission hearing, a process that cost us an extra £16,000, that we somehow found due to the generosity and determination of The Badger Crowd.

Over the judicial process last year, NE had already indicated that some SSSIs had been inadequately assessed during issue of the 2017 cull licences. A new judge then ordered a sample of 45 SSSIs to be checked and in the run up to the March 2019 hearing, Natural England agreed to prohibit badger trapping on SSSIs within 100m of all watercourses where otters are a protected feature. NE also agreed it would prevent the placing of cage traps in the marsh/riparian wet areas, and to disallow the digging-in of cage traps at dawn and dusk. Our pressure resulted in NE confirming that when it said ‘’avoid’’ it meant ‘’prohibit’’, removing the ambiguity that may lead to avoidable disturbance and potential damage to wildlife. 

Readers should also know that potential problems with 25 of the 45 SSSIs were ‘parked’ and not explored in detail, partly because the judge invoked something called the Senior Courts Act 1981 (duty to refuse relief where outcome not substantially different). This means that even if we were proved right in our claims that assessments of these SSSIs were not done correctly, the judge accepted NE’s defence that this would have made ‘no difference’ to the safeguards they would have required when licensing. However the ‘no difference’ defence does not cover up the primary failure of assessment, and this is one reason why we are appealing. 

Natural England conceded that their assessments were defective on three SSSIs before we got to court. They also made several adjustments and amendments to their licence conditions in response to our claims. The judge then found we were right on a further 3 of 45 SSSIs. He relied on the ‘no difference’ defence to avoid getting into the detail on a further 25. Put all these things together and the magnitude of Natural England’s failures could  involve well in excess of 10% of sites. Bearing in mind that this is a sample, and that over 1,000 SSSIs in and around the west of England may be influenced by the direct and indirect impacts of badger culling, dozens of sites may be subject to damaging impacts right now.

We can only hope that we are allowed to appeal this section of our challenge and that Natural England will be found to be wrong over their view of how weak SSSI protection is in law.

This part of the legal challenges has been led by expert work from  Dominic Woodfield, who has again put in an enormous effort and for whom huge credit and thanks are due.

Please donate to help fund our work: Donate 

Another generous donation….

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The Badger Crowd had a major fundraising boost  this morning with a generous £5000 donation from a past donor. Now with permission to appeal aspects of last year’s cases, and Court dates of 2/3 July, we have a vital (and possibly last) opportunity to oppose the Secretary of State’s approval of Supplementary Badger Culling and Natural England’s dubious approach to eco-impact assessment. Find out more about other our other current and potential challenges by reading ‘Our Legal Cases’. Please take action and donate now if you can. Tell your neighbours, friends and family. We must make every effort to stem the tide of blood that is the unethical, unscientific failed English badger cull, based on flawed epidemiology.

THANK YOU TO ALL THE GENEROUS DONORS IN RECENT WEEKS. YOU ARE PART OF THE BADGER ARMY.

Please donate here: Donate 

What we’ve been doing……

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Last year we brought a High Court Judicial Review claim, that to keep culling badgers after a four-year cull was an unlawful, unproven approach to bTB control. In addition, we claimed that safeguards to nature reserves from ecological damage following badger removal were inadequate. Defra and Natural England continue badger culling in England on an increasing scale, killing 67,000+ badgers to date, based on what we say is wrong advice, decision making and procedure. We ended on the wrong side of the finely based decisions, but with advice that applying to appeal would be worthwhile.

Back in Court in March 2019, we successfully showed how Natural England had  breached their duty under Section 28 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 with many inadequate assessments prior to licensing culls. We showed how Natural England’s systems were at fault and how they have extensively changed their procedures since our challenges began in 2017.

We now have leave to appeal aspects of the 2018 judgments and need to raise £28,000 by July 2019 for this. We are also seeking permission to appeal the March judgment, where the Judge agreed that we were correct in some aspects, but ruled in favour of Natural England..

In addition, we are at various stages of challenge on several other issues including the 2018 Low Risk Area (LRA) badger culling policy, the Cumbria LRA 2018 Licence specifically, other 2018 badger cull licences and regarding Supplementary Culling in Gloucestershire and Somerset pilot areas where bTB rates are increasing. Several thousand pounds for each of these is required to establish feasibility and to determine potential outcomes even before applying to the court. 

Against very difficult odds, sufficient progress has been achieved for this work to continue. Our intention is to seek legal justice for wildlife and people by having all our arguments clearly heard in Court. Financial support has already generously been given by badger groups, trusts, charities and members of the public and together we are a major force for change. We hope that people not already part of The Badger Crowd will read this appeal and spread the effort by joining us and asking others to do so too. Every donation, no matter how modest, contributes to the total required. Thank you for caring and please help us if you can.