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U-turn over gamebird licensing
A PROPOSAL to license the release of game-birds in Wales for the 2024–25 season has been withdrawn, it was announced by Natural Resources Wales (NRW) last week. The licensing scheme, first announced in March, was described by the Countryside Alliance as a ban on game shooting ‘in all but name’ and was met with fury by various other countryside organisations; at the time, NRW insisted that the plans were ‘not a consultation on whether or not shooting live quarry should continue to be allowed in Wales’.
However, following 42,000 responses to the consultation, NRW has decided that having a licensing system in place for the 2024–25 season would not be possible. It has instead suggested that ‘should licensing be required’, it would not come into force until the 2025–26 season, a full year later than planned. NRW said that it is analysing and considering ‘some very detailed and technical submissions’ to the consultation, hence making any decision for this year no longer ‘achievable’.
Shooting groups have reacted with joy at the news, with Tim Bonner, Countryside Alliance CEO, saying that he believes that the ‘vast bulk of those 42,000 cited responses came from the shooting community’ and that the proposals from the Welsh government ‘would have provided a vehicle for politicians to progressively restrict shooting’.
‘The overwhelming impression in rural communities is that this is
