How To Avoid 2021's Corvid Control Trap

Dealing with common predators is a tricky issue under the system of general licences so here are some of the potential pitfalls to avoid

- Dr Mike Swan

With the season all but over, my mind as usual turns to planning for the next. In just a few weeks, the pheasants will be setting up their territories, strutting their stuff and doing everything they can to keep their harems together. The corvids will be getting frolicsome too. Rooks start early, jackdaws a little later, and the crows and magpies will be getting increasingly territorial.

In two months from now, it will be Larsen trapping season — or will it? With the new rules under Defra’s open general licences for pest bird control, the central plank of my little wild bird rough shoot in Dorset is seriously undermined.

While I’m a passionate conservationist, the main reason for my predation control programme is to produce enough wild pheasants for four or five armed nature rambles with my friends. But the new licence for conservation purposes (GL40) is titled: “General licence to kill or take certain species of wild birds to conserve endangered wild birds, or flora and fauna.” Please note that word endangered — pheasants and redlegs are not on the endangered list.

Other than for reasons related to protecting livestock, you can only control crows and magpies for the conservation of red or amber-listed “birds of conservation concern”.

With the grey partridges on the more open part of the shoot, the farmland birds such as skylark, corn bunting and the odd turtle dove, and the woodland birds like song thrush, marsh tit, dunnock and stock dove, I have ample reason to be running my Larsens as normal. If challenged, I am sure I can build a defence, but why should I? Since 1997, I have run an ever-growing game and wildlife conservation programme around my little wild bird shoot.