Blogs

In early 2021 Dylan Roberts, our Head of Fisheries, wrote a blog on the reintroduction of beavers entitled “Environmental Engineer or a waterway menace?”.  With the launch of the Species Reintroduction Task Force and in particular calls for beavers to be released freely into the wild getting louder, we felt now was a good time to revisit this often-controversial subject. 

Hedgerows are an essential part of the English countryside. To help safeguard the hedgerows we currently have and promote their growth, Defra have launched a new consultation that focuses on establishing effective and proportionate regulations to protect them.

On Wednesday 21 June, our Scottish Head of Policy, Ross MacLeod, and Scottish Advisor, Dr Nick Hesford gave expert evidence to the Rural Affairs and Islands Committee as they debated the Wildlife Management and Muirburn (Scotland) Bill.

GWCT are advising all shoots planning to release gamebirds on or within 500m of a Special Protection Area this summer to apply for a licence without delay. 

In recent weeks I have been revisiting the known causes of the declines seen in some of our bird species such as the Curlew, Lapwing and House Sparrow and so the recently published paper “Farmland practices are driving bird population decline across Europe” caught my eye.

The debate over the conservation of hen harriers is one of the most controversial and polarised and as a consequence has been widely used in social science analyses of conservation conflicts.  

On 16 May, final amendments were considered for the Agriculture (Wales) Bill in the Senedd. This bill outlines the Welsh Government’s proposal to prohibit the use of any snare (including licensed use) or other cable restraint. It is hugely disappointing that an amendment tabled to enable the strict licensing of Humane Cable Restraints (HCRs) for conservation purposes was not accepted.

The GWCT is all about science (indeed our charitable objectives include educating the public as to the outcomes of our science) and we regularly call for policy to be based on sound science. In the first quarter of 2023 the England policy team has sought to emphasise that message.

Please join us at Shropshire Conference Centre, Shrewsbury for our annual Game 23 Conference on Tuesday 28th March.

The GWCT supports the return of native species including by reintroduction – after all we have been party to some of them! However, we are of the view that all reintroductions must follow International Union of Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Guidelines.