I looked up the numbers and in 2022 Natural England approved 49 of these licences.
Natural England also said that they assume there is no impact on the species being hunted, which sounds a bit crazy to me.
In the context of 60 million birds killed in the UK every year by domestic cats, 25,000 falconers are small beer. Also, the rarer the bird the less likely it is that a falcon will come across it.
The majority of falconers are flying to lures most of the time, relatively few are hunting regularly. In many cases the licence is just there to cover the owner in case a flying bird goes off-piste for a target of opportunity.
Given how few wild falcons there are the songbirds are still a lot more protected from this particular threat than they would be if we hadn’t hunted and poisoned falcons close to extinction.
Having said that if falconers are intentionally targeting rare birds that is out of order.
It’s small compared to the impact of cats, declining insect populations, climate change and habitat loss though. It is something that should be dealt with, however it is hardly the main cause of their decline and should not be the issue dealt with first, nor the issue the most money and time is spent tackling.
That’s horrible, awful.
I was alarmed to see in the news that 50-60 European wild cats are to be released into parts of Devon and Cornwall. 60!
I once observed a Dorset blackbird and sparrows constantly looking upwards scanning the sky rather than concentrating on the grass as they moved unnaturally hurriedly along the ground beneath hedgerows, never venturing out into the open grass for fear of gulls. And now hunted for sport and dozens of fertile wild cats.
5 comments
I looked up the numbers and in 2022 Natural England approved 49 of these licences.
Natural England also said that they assume there is no impact on the species being hunted, which sounds a bit crazy to me.
In the context of 60 million birds killed in the UK every year by domestic cats, 25,000 falconers are small beer. Also, the rarer the bird the less likely it is that a falcon will come across it.
The majority of falconers are flying to lures most of the time, relatively few are hunting regularly. In many cases the licence is just there to cover the owner in case a flying bird goes off-piste for a target of opportunity.
Given how few wild falcons there are the songbirds are still a lot more protected from this particular threat than they would be if we hadn’t hunted and poisoned falcons close to extinction.
Having said that if falconers are intentionally targeting rare birds that is out of order.
It’s small compared to the impact of cats, declining insect populations, climate change and habitat loss though. It is something that should be dealt with, however it is hardly the main cause of their decline and should not be the issue dealt with first, nor the issue the most money and time is spent tackling.
That’s horrible, awful.
I was alarmed to see in the news that 50-60 European wild cats are to be released into parts of Devon and Cornwall. 60!
I once observed a Dorset blackbird and sparrows constantly looking upwards scanning the sky rather than concentrating on the grass as they moved unnaturally hurriedly along the ground beneath hedgerows, never venturing out into the open grass for fear of gulls. And now hunted for sport and dozens of fertile wild cats.