Summary of the Minutes of the Wildfowling Liaison Committee

Summary of the Minutes of the Wildfowling Liaison Committee - 22/02/03

The minutes of the last meeting were signed and agreed.

The following items were discussed:

Standardised Wildfowling Returns

The committee heard that a meeting had been held with English Nature on 15th October 2002 to discuss best practice for recording wildfowling activities on SSSIs. It was agreed at the meeting that the Crown return form provides the best format for recording wildfowling activities. Each form should be filled in by an individual member and returned to the club. Summary information could then be used by the club in any consent/review process with English Nature. If appropriate, summary information could then be sent to English Nature for any consent/review process. The summary should include the number of visits made to each site, the number of guns on each occasion, the number and type of birds taken. Any additional information wildfowlers may wish to pass on to English Nature could also be included, this might include details of trespass or other unauthorised activities.

Wildfowl and Wetlands Officer

The committee was informed that interviews for the post of Wildfowl and Wetlands Officer will be held on 14th March. Five applicants have been selected for interview.

Wildfowling Conferences

The committee was reminded that the next Wildfowling Conference will be held on 11th October at the Ramada Hotel, Maidstone, Kent. The Northern Ireland Wildfowling Conference will be held on Saturday 8th March in Bangor, Northern Ireland and the Scottish Wildfowling Conference will be held on Sunday 9th March in Perth, Scotland.

The committee felt that there should be further discussion regarding the frequency of national wildfowling conferences and that this matter should be put on the agenda for the next Wildfowling Liaison Committee meeting.

Wildfowling Manual

The committee was informed that the chapters on conservation and land management and securing the future of wildfowling clubs (marketing and recruitment of members) should be complete by the end of this year. For the latter we have sent out a questionnaire to all wildfowling clubs from which we hope to extract useful information based on their experiences.

Dark Bellied Brent – Feedback from the Committee

At the last committee meeting on 5th October 2002, committee members were asked to canvas club members’ opinion as to whether BASC should pursue the restoration of dark bellied brent to the quarry list. The majority of members support the pursuit of reinstatement of brent to the quarry list. It was recognised that reinstatement would not be easy as the population dynamics would need to be looked at and at the moment it was unclear where funding for this work would come from.

Mechanical Decoys – Feedback from the Committee

At the last committee meeting on 5th October 2002, committee members were asked to canvas club members’ opinion as to the ethics of using mechanical decoys. Committee members reported that most clubs were totally against the use of mechanical decoys i.e. all decoys which had an independent power source

Terms of Reference for Committees

A copy of the Terms of Reference for BASC Advisory Committees was circulated to the committee. This paper is amended from time to time and has been passed by Council.

BASC – English Nature Ouse Washes Meeting

The Committee were informed that a meeting had been held between BASC and English Nature to review conservation needs and issues in general particularly pertaining to wildfowling.

The following notes summarise the points made by EN.

At present the Ouse Washes are in “unfavourable and declining” conservation status due to the quantity and quality of water moving through the site.
EN does not know who all the sporting rights belong to.
The non-consented shooting is due to EN not knowing who some of the occupiers are or notified occupiers disagreeing with the terms of the consents offered.
32 consents for wildfowling have been given over the years and the form of these varies considerably.
There are a small number of commercial operators on the site.
Although they had no evidence, there was thought to be some night time poaching taking place.
In general, habitat management was good.
EN would be keen to jointly fund a Project Officer, managed by BASC – something similar to the successful BASC/EN funded Project Officer on the Somerset Levels.

BASC responded:-

That we were there to listen and to be helpful, but not to make commitments.
EN would have to contact and deal with each syndicate/club/individuals etc over these issues direct.
That we recognise EN has statutory duties with regard to shooting.
That we recognised that the consents lacked consistency and were over complicated.
Following discussion, the committee supported the idea of a BASC/EN funded “Project Officer” on the Ouse Washes

Grey Geese in Scotland

The Committee heard a report on the studies in Scotland on goose shooting mortality. The Scottish Executive is contracting BASC again to develop the pilot work done last year to quantify the total shooting kill of grey geese in Scotland each year. Last year the study had two parts, a survey of all shotgun certificate holders in the Tayside region, and a survey of all BASC members in Scotland. This year the survey will be repeated in Tayside, to enable comparisons to be made, but also extended to Lothian and Borders, and Dumfries and Galloway. The survey of all BASC members in Scotland will also be repeated. A survey will also be conducted on a random sample of 10,000 BASC members in England, Northern Ireland and Wales to obtain information on those who travel to Scotland to shoot geese. Another part of the work this year will be to look at ways of obtaining information about goose shooters travelling from other countries to Scotland, and those who use goose guides and organised shooting parties for their goose shooting.

This work is particularly important for BASC to establish itself as the lead body for monitoring sporting shooting in this country.

There was a report on the current situation regarding pink-footed and greylag geese. The proposed hydro-electric developments in Iceland threatened important nesting grounds for pinkfeet but a concerted campaign by many bodies, including BASC, in many countries appeared to have been successful in reversing approval for the project. More details were awaited.

The Wetlands International Specialist Goose Group meeting in Spain (December 2002) had highlighted uncertainties in the size and fortunes of the greylag population, as well as the shooting pressure on it. As revealed by the current counting scheme, the population is slowly declining (although officially still regarded as 'stable') but it may be that birds are being missed. The WWT is reviewing its counting procedures. According to current estimates of the shooting kill (accurate for Iceland but poor for UK) the shooting pressure could be too high. This highlights the importance of BASC's work with the Scottish Executive on the Scottish kill figures. We could see growing calls for increased restrictions on greylag shooting. Discussion took place on possible measures to reduce shooting bags but it was considered premature to seek changes until the population situation is better understood.

This matter should be put on the Agenda for the next Wildfowling Committee meeting in August.

Severe Weather

There was a report on the application of the severe weather procedures during the past season. It was noted that the situation in Scotland was somewhat marginal but that it was important to follow the agreed procedures although, in the end, a pragmatic approach was adopted with the support of the other organisations involved.

Norman Seymour

The committee was advised that BASC is planning to run wildfowlers/members social evenings at which Professor Norman Seymour will give talks on his wildfowling experiences across the globe. Norman spoke at the last wildfowling conference and was very well received. Whilst the evening would be based in principle around wildfowling, other membership categories will be encouraged to attend which would help in the promotion of wildfowling clubs. Norman would like to do 8 – 10 such evenings and the first evening, which will be a trial, will be hosted by the Dee Wildfowlers.

Information on Wildfowling Clubs

The committee discussed the confidentiality of club information. Most clubs request that information relating to their club remains confidential. If a member wishes to contact a club they should send BASC a letter asking us to forward it to the appropriate club. Many clubs do allow their information to be published and these clubs will go into the magazine under the shoot finder section. Other clubs allow information to be published in the Permit Scheme booklet. The committee identified the need for passing information between clubs and the possible creation of web sites to help communication between clubs.

Clay Shooting and Noise

The Chartered Institute on Environmental Health has now published its document in connection with noise control for clay shooting. It was reported that this could generate problems for clay shooting in England and Wales.