This month the Welsh Government has rejected amendments to the Agriculture (Wales) Bill to allow the licensed use of Humane Cable Restraints (HCRs) to protect breeding curlew. In response, Owen Williams, GWCT Chairman of Trustees, Wales, wrote the letter below to the Welsh Minister for Rural Affairs Lesley Griffiths.
Dear Minister,
It was with great concern for the future of curlew in Wales that I watched the debate in the Senedd Cymru/Welsh Parliament on 16 May and the motion passed on the banning of snares and humane cable restraints (HCRs).
The amendments tabled by Sam Kurtz MS would have enabled a very limited number of HCR licences to be issued solely for the purpose of protecting nesting curlew in the few locations left where they still breed in Wales. Sadly, this pragmatic amendment was dismissed by yourself and others as not necessary for the conservation of curlew. This was in spite of the fact that GWCT-submitted evidence to you based on years of peer-reviewed science pointing to the critical value of HCRs in the delivery of sustainable populations of curlew in Wales and across the UK.
The evidence supports the view that the banning of HCRs will make retaining what few curlew we have left in Wales virtually impossible. The decision to ban them is therefore contrary to your commitment as Minister to the Environment (Wales) Act 2016 and the Well-being and Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015. As Dai Thomas, a curlew conservationist who conducted fox control on a Welsh Government funded SMS (Powys Moorland Partnership) has stated, “If they ban HCRs I might as well give up trying to protect our four remaining pairs of curlew here on Beacon Moor, because fox control on this site is impossible just using shooting.” This example is one of many similar situations across Wales, where curlew breeding habitat renders fox control by shooting during the breeding season ineffective. Dai is only able to carry out his conservation work for curlew on a part-time and voluntary basis, which is why he needs HCRs to deliver the intended outcomes of Wales’ sustainable management of natural resources. Your description of shooting foxes in winter and early spring fails to understand the sheer effort required to reduce fox predation levels at the landscape scale required to save our last few breeding curlew. If we are going to see curlew recovery in Wales, we will need many other part-time voluntary Working Conservationists such as Dai supported with the full array of proven means to deliver this much desired outcome.
A moor in North Wales where HCRs are the predominant means of controlling fox numbers holds the highest density of breeding curlew anywhere in Wales. It also holds the last remaining stronghold for the iconic black grouse in Wales. In the interest of understanding the practicalities and efficacy of both shooting and HCRs in delivering curlew survival on the ground, the members of the Rural Affairs Committee should have made every effort to visit this moor and see at first hand why they have such a high curlew fledging success rate. Furthermore, have any members of the committee tasked with investigating HCRs visited any of the SMSs to get the views of those on the ground conducting predator control and to witness the shooting of foxes with rifles at night? Such a visit would have given them a more informed and balanced perspective of the efficacy and limitations of various means of predator control.
The GWCT has a very good understanding of predation management and vulnerable species conservation, based on its own peer-reviewed science and the practical experience of its staff over many years. I am disappointed the GWCT was not invited to give oral evidence to the Rural Affairs Committee, indeed it had to go to considerable lengths to engage with yourself to deliver its evidence-based perspective on HCRs. This is despite the fact that GWCT scientists developed the HCR through research and it is the leading scientific organisation researching predation of nesting waders.
I feel there is a contradiction here in so far as Welsh Government recognises the GWCT’s rigorous scientific approach and expertise to be able to plan and implement several SMSs, other studies and indeed head up the latest curlew recovery projects in Wales, but appears to ignore its evidence-based expertise on predation management.
I am deeply concerned that your views on the welfare of HCRs appear to have come from a non-peer reviewed report commissioned by a lobby group dedicated to the banning of snares (Harris 2022). This report refers to data from a Defra study conducted in 2012, during the development of HCRs. As such, it reflects the welfare standards of the old-fashioned and cruel running noose snare, which did not include improved features such as stops and breakaways incorporated in HCR design, which has made successor designs suitable for trapping and releasing foxes unharmed for scientific research. I fear you may not have made sufficient effort to explore all the relevant literature prior to legislation, and that this represents a failure of process.
As previously mentioned, the GWCT is a leader in the field of studying predation and waders and it is currently carrying out a study of foxes in Hampshire by trapping the foxes with HCRs, in order to fit satellite locator tags then release them unharmed to monitor their use of habitat. This research will facilitate a far better understanding of how we can protect threatened ground nesting birds such as lapwing in the Avon Valley and by proxy, curlew across the UK. Welsh Government’s refusal to allow any form of licensing to be written into primary legislation will prevent such important and site-specific research being conducted in Wales in collaboration with Welsh Universities. We remind you that to research animals, scientists sometimes have to catch them and having trialled other methods for foxes we found HCRs to be the best on both efficiency and welfare.
The GWCT understands welfare concerns but these need to be balanced against the conservation concern of saving curlew from extinction as a breeding species in Wales. HCRs are specially designed to immediately release non-target species (when set in accordance with the code). Welfare was a significant issue when there was low compliance with codes of practice, but it would be incorrect to suggest, as was done in the debate that this would be the case under a very limited licensing scheme. GWCT research shows that poorly set snares can result in entanglement and consequent injury. However, a properly run HCR licensing scheme would include just a few selected license holders who could be rigorously monitored to ensure the safest selection of trapping sites which would deliver the highest welfare standards whilst protecting curlew populations. Twice daily checks were proposed as part of a licensing system and operators could easily take and retain photographs to demonstrate compliance with the current code.
This is not just a matter of national concern. As part of the UK, Wales is home to a high proportion of the global population of curlew. Our legal obligation to do all we can to halt their extinction must be pragmatically balanced against the welfare levels associated with predator control, it is my belief that this has not happened.
It is now likely too late for our Welsh curlew, but in conclusion I would wish to echo Sam Kurtz’s words, “we would hate to be here in 15 years time saying we told you so”, but it is highly likely that I and many others will be doing just that.
Yours sincerely,
Owen Williams
Chairman of Trustees, Wales