Natural England - General licence consultation follow up

General licence consultation follow up

Earlier this year, Natural England conducted a public consultation on changes to the General Licences that are issued every year under wildlife legislation. The consultation closed on 13 March 2009.

Natural England has now completed an analysis of the responses, and has published a summary, together with announcements of the decisions made. View our press release, announcing the launch. To allow licence users to read and understand the changes well in advance, we have also published drafts of the changed general licences, which will come into force on 1 January 2010.

The 35 stakeholder responses received are being published. Seventy nine ‘campaign type’ responses were also received. These are not published here because the majority were not completed using the standard response form, so respondents may not have been aware of the advice on confidentiality. However, their content has been taken into account in considering our response.

Stakeholder Responses

View the current suite of General Licences

View the consultation paper and supporting documents

Draft licences

Our decisions will result in changes to several general licences when they are reissued on 1 January 2010. We are publishing drafts of these licences now to allow users time to familiarise themselves with the amended details. Note, these documents are drafts and may be subject to revision prior to formal publication.

Licence to kill or take certain birds to prevent serious damage or disease - WML Gen-L05

Licence to kill or take certain birds to preserve air safety - WML Gen-L06

Licence to kill or take certain birds to preserve public health or public safety - WML Gen-L07

Licence to kill or take certain birds to conserve wild birds - WML Gen-L08

Licence to sell captive bred live wild birds - WML Gen-L24

Licence to sell dead birds - WML Gen-L22

Licence to take and release certain birds trapped in food production premises - WML Gen-L35

Licence to sell black-headed gull eggs for human consumption (where legally taken under a Natural England licence) - WML Gen-L36

Natural England is now publishing the remaining draft general licences, issued under the Wildlife and Countryside Act, 1981 - these will become valid on 01 Jan 2010.

Although these draft licences have been subject to fewer amendments than those listed above, some changes have been made, as described in Section 12.2 and 13 of the Summary of Responses and Decisions document. Presentational changes have been made, and all licences now contain a new condition preventing people convicted of wildlife crimes after 1 January 2010 from acting under the licences. We have taken the opportunity to merge a number of licences as a simplification measure to avoid the need for users to cross-reference very closely related licences:

WML Gen-L16 & 17 have been merged to produce a single licence permitting competitive showing of captive bred birds (both those that need to be ringed and a small number that do not).

WML Gen-L20 & 30 have been merged to produce a single licence permitting the release of certain species that are listed on Schedule 9 but are considered to be native species and have been included on Schedule 9 to prevent irresponsible releases. The 2010 licence permits release for two separate purposes, one birds that have been rehabilitated and another permitting release of birds that have been taken under licence e.g. for research purposes or ringing.

WML Gen-L01 Licence for the trapping and marking of shrews

WML Gen-L09 Licence to keep certain wild birds for the purposes of rehabilitation

WML Gen-L10 Licence to keep certain birds for the purposes of providing veterinary treatment

WML Gen-L11 Licence to keep certain birds, pending legal proceedings

WML Gen-L12 Licence for laboratories to retain blood and other tissue samples

WML Gen-L13 Licence to permit the incubation of eggs and rearing of chicks of Schedule 4 birds

WML Gen-L14 Licence to take birds' eggs

WML Gen-L15 Licence to take eggs of Anas Platyrhynchos (Mallard Duck)

WML Gen-L16 Licence to permit the competitive showing of certain captive bred live wild birds - This licence will cover birds that must be ringed and those that do not.

WML Gen-L17 (withdrawn/merged with WML Gen-L16)

WML Gen-L18 Licence to permit the sale and exhibition of captive bred Mealy Redpoll

WML Gen-L19 Licence to allow the keeping of certain birds in show cages for training purposes