Pheasant shooting banned on local Welsh Government land

Created on 21/09/2018 @ 16:22

By Elgan Hearn, Local Democracy Reporter

Pheasant shooting leases on Welsh Government land at Caersws and other locations in the county will come to an end next year.

The leases that are managed by Natural Resources Wales (NRW) on the Welsh  Government Woodland Estate (WGWE) at Maesmawr near Caersws, Bankwood near Llandrindod Wells and Cwmgwnen which stretches from north Powys towards Oswestry.

They will come to an end in March 2019 with NRW confirming there will be no lease renewals.

The decision was taken at an NRW board meeting this week and follows a three-year campaign by thy Animal Aid and the League Against Cruel Sports.

This included a petition signed by over 12,500 people urging the government body to ban the practice.

Bethan Collins, senior public affairs officer (Wales) at league against cruel sports, said: “NRW is to be commended in the strongest terms for ensuring pheasant shooting in the Welsh national forest is being brought to an end.

“This outcome reflects strong opposition to the practice from the Welsh Government, over 75 per cent of the public who oppose shooting birds for sport and an urgent need to reverse damage to wildlife and the environment on the public estate.

Fiona Pereira, campaigns manager at Animal Aid, added: “NRW can now use that land for positive activities that are kind to animals and to the environment, and importantly, set an example for other public bodies to bring about an end to the shooting of birds.

The decision by NRW, is part of its final position statement on the use of firearms on land it manages.

It had been expected to be discussed at a Board Meeting in July,  but the body was plunged into crisis with the resignation of chairwoman, Diane McCrea, over issues with timber contracts.

Continued  

Geese to be banned from Regent's Park Boating Lake because visitors keep slipping over

 Sara Spary 

5 MARCH 2018 • 6:30PM

Geese are to be banned from one of Britain's most popular public parks, because visitors keep slipping over. 

There are plans to erect a fence around the Regent's Park Boating Lake, to stop up to 400 Canada Geese flocking there in June to moult. 

Royal Parks, which runs the park, has been criticised by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) for seeking to push nature into "a smaller and smaller space". 

Canada Geese cannot fly during the six-week annual moulting process, which sees them shed old feathers and regrow new ones between June until mid-July. 

During this flightless period, the geese must be near open water so as to quickly escape any predators on land.

Regent's Park is understood to see goose numbers rocket over this period, from around 40 year-round to 400 in summer.

The RSPB hit out at the move and said it could cause "distress" to end access for birds who are have become used to returning to the same spot "for years."

Continued 

Bradford councillors vote to ban grouse shooting on Ilkley Moor

Bradford Council’s Labour Group votes by overwhelming majority to not renew grouse shooting rights for Ilkley Moor, a move that has been strongly welcomed by wildlife campaigners.

Bradford Councillors voted to not renew controversial grouse shooting rights for Ilkley Moor at City Hall tonight. The decision, which was taken by the Bradford Labour Group, is understood to have been supported by an ‘overwhelming majority’ of those councillors who voted.

Bradford Labour is the largest party on the Council and ending grouse shooting is also backed by Bradford Liberal Democrats, Bradford Green Party and the majority of Independent councillors.

Ban Bloodsports on Ilkley Moor (BBIM), which has lobbied Bradford Council to end grouse shooting on the moor since its formation in May 2014, has strongly welcomed the move. The group notes that over half of protected breeding bird species have declined or become locally extinct on Ilkley Moor, government figures collated by the RSPB Northern England office show. It has urged for efforts to now be focused on reversing the wildlife crash, which has negatively impacted on the moor’s population of specialist species, including Merlin, Dunlin and Short Eared Owl, could result in the loss of the site’s conservation designations if declines continue.

Continued 

Foie Gras Production Has Been Banned in the ‘Capital of Europe’

Good news! Foie gras production has been banned in the Brussels-Capital Region.

As the home to many European Union institutions, Brussels is setting a precedent for the demise of this hideously cruel industry with this move. With regard to the ban, Brussels’ Minister for Animal Welfare said, “[Foie gras production] is truly a kind of torture imposed on ducks, and we can hardly tolerate it”.

It’s hard to imagine anything more unethical than the foie gras industry, in which workers shove long metal tubes down ducks’ and geese’s throats in order to pump large quantities of grain into their stomachs several times a day. This causes their livers to swell to up to 10 times their normal size, and when they’re eventually slaughtered, the fatty, diseased organs are sold as foie gras.

Not only do birds endure the agony of force-feeding, they also live in squalid, cramped conditions. As their livers swell in the final weeks of their lives and press against their lungs, they struggle even to breathe. PETA’s eyewitness investigation of the industry helped show the public how cruel foie gras production really is.

It’s a huge step forward for Brussels – known unofficially as the “Capital of Europe” – to take a stand against this abusive industry, and PETA has written to Belgium’s Minister for Agriculture to urge him now to ban production across the country. Belgium is one of five European countries – alongside Bulgaria, France, Hungary, and Spain – still producing foie gras. Part of PETA’s letter reads as follows:

Foie gras production is illegal in the UK and more than a dozen other European countries – including Germany, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands – and more and more countries around the world are outlawing the cruel practice of force-feeding birds. It’s high time that Belgium followed suit.

Continued  

Arab sheikhs banned from bustard hunts by Pakistani province

Houbara bustard’s meat is prized for its supposed aphrodisiac qualities and the bird is considered to be at risk of extinction

Jon Boone in Islamabad

Monday 12 December 2016 17.24 GMT 

One of Pakistan’s four provinces has banned Arab sheikhs from hunting a protected species of bird, defying Islamabad’s longstanding policy of giving hunting licences to key regional allies.

Swaths of habitat used in the winter by the migratory houbara bustard are allocated in blocks to the some of the most senior people in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states, who come armed with specially modified vehicles and radar systems to track the birds.

But an official in the government of the north-western Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province said it had rejected a request from a party of Qatari princes to shoot houbara bustards and would no longer allow such hunts. 

On Sunday the politician Imran Khan, whose Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) partly runs the province, had said he would not allow anyone to hunt houbaras “as it is a protected bird and hunting them is illegal.”

Arab hunters first started coming to Pakistan in the 1960s after houbara stocks in the Arabian peninsula were decimated. 

Pakistan’s three other provinces all permit hunting, in spite of opposition from conservationists who say the fast-dwindling houbara population will not survive the annual onslaught.

Although the hunters are only permitted to kill up to 100 birds each, it is difficult to control powerful visitors who reportedly hand out gifts of cash and jewellery to local notables.

Continued 

Pigeon champion expelled for life over cheating claims

12 August 2016

A pigeon racing champion has been handed a lifetime ban from the sport following allegations he cheated to win a race from France.

Eamon Kelly, 52, was accused of cheating in this year's Tarbes Grand National, a blue riband event.

He allegedly registered 14 birds for the race, but kept them at home while sending decoys to Tarbes, France.

The National Flying Club said the 52-year-old, from Didcot, admitted to senior members that he cheated.

'Sad day for pigeon racing'

In a statement the association said: "This follows the falsification of [his] race entry for Tarbes Grand National race dated 19 July 2016.

"Mr E Kelly admitted [cheating] in telephone conversations with the president, chairman and secretary of the National Flying Club after the falsification was confirmed."

Mr Kelly won the 2015 Tarbes Grand National and was also an official race controller for the National Flying Club.

Before the allegations were uncovered, he was due to receive £1,500 in prize money and a £10,000 Ford Fiesta for defending the title.

Continued    

Environment Ministry to maintain ban on goshawk trade after bird exits endangered list

JAN 27, 2016

The Environment Ministry will maintain a ban on capturing and trading the goshawk even after it removes the bird from a list of rare endangered species, sources said.

The goshawk was put on the list under the nation’s conservation law, which entered into force in 1993, after its population across Japan dropped to as low as 300 in 1984 as housing development encroached on nesting sites.

The ministry has been considering removing the bird from the list since 2013, after the population recovered to 5,818 in 2008 in the Kanto region and nearby areas following conservation efforts.

In October 2014, subcommittee members of the Central Environment Council, which advises the environment minister, agreed to remove the goshawk from the rare species list under the conservation law.

In the ministry’s latest Red List of threatened species, the goshawk has been removed from the category for species at high risk of extinction.

Continued ...

Now, ban on bulbul bird fight in Assam temple

Wednesday, January 13, 2016, 20:07 [IST] 

The Gauhati High Court has banned the traditional bulbul bird fight at the Hayagrib Madhab Mandir, an ancient pilgrim centre at Hajo in Assam. Vacation bench judge Rumi Kumari Phukan passed the order yesterday after considering various provisions of the Wildlife Protection Act 1972 and Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act 1960. 

The judge modified the earlier order passed on December 22 whereby the ban of bulbul fight imposed by Kamrup district administration was kept in abeyance. The application was filed by Animal Welfare Board of India. The order triggered reactions in Hajo and across the state with the temple priests claiming the bird fight was part of a religious ritual in which obeisance to Lord Vishnu began with it. 

The priests were also in dilemma as how to conduct the religious ceremony going on for centuries in view of the court order.

Read more at: