16/07/2019
At least
6,000 Brent Geese were shot while they
overwintered in England between 2014 and 2019 after Natural England issued
hundreds of licences to kill the Amber-listed species.
However,
it is thought the exact death toll could in fact be as high as 8,000, with
official data unclear. The number of geese to be killed on some of the
applications isn't listed, hence the confusion over the precise figures
involved.
Brent
Goose is somewhat localised in Britain in winter, with an estimated
100,000 migrating to our isles during the colder months, meaning that perhaps
some 8 per cent of the population has been killed since 2014. Natural
England claimed the species causes 'serious damage to crops, vegetable or
fruit', despite the geese having a varied diet, particularly eel-grass, but
also seaweed and grass.
During
winter, Brent Goose is almost exclusively coastal, with particularly large
concentrations of Dark-bellied
Brent across the estuarine habitats
of Lincolnshire, North Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, North
Kent and Hampshire. Pale-bellied
Brent has a more northerly range, with Strangford Lough and
Lough Foyle, both in Northern Ireland, and Holy
Island, Northumberland, holding significant numbers. The shootings
involved Dark-bellied Brent and took place in Essex, Kent and
Lincolnshire.
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