Ban bonfires - flora a fauna is more important!


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#20 Magpie status.

Robbie you got me worried there I have shot hundreds of the buggers up to 1996. So I had to check, the following is from the RSPB website.

The UK government issues an annual general licence to kill these vermin, there is no need to apply for one. Any authorised person can shoot them an authorised person being a landowner or their agent. One of the reasons given for the licence being issued is the protection of wild birds. Apparently its the same few quite a few species including wood pigeon.

On my old shoot at Swingate we noticed a massive increase in magpies in the late 80s and a subsequent decline in song birds. Our solution was a high sided trailer in a field and a .22RF rifle with telescopic sights.

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I live in a suburban area in probably the most polluted city in England and yet people still insist on burning rubbish and garden waste. Despite the fact that we have blue bins and green bins that are collected every week.

It seems that our Romanian and Polish friends have a culture of burning rubbish in their back gardens.

I've complained several times to neighbours that we don't burn rubbish as a general rule and that the smoke they are generating is getting in peoples' washing on the line and into peoples' houses.

The number of times I've opened my window or patio door to be greeted by burnt air or grey smoke is getting ridiculous.

One guy said that he did it for a security measure to burn documents. I told him to get a shredder!

Now that Bonfire night is upon us we'll have about 2 weeks of bangs and burning fires.

That's an improvement on the situation a few years ago when it went on for weeks and weeks, but it seems that consideration for others is gone.

I used to love Firework night as a kid and I don't want to stop anyone else enjoying it , but it's supposed to be for one night a year only.

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I agree barclaycon, however , I love my chiminea but only burn dry wood. I've got two plastic bunkers of logs, sticks and pallet blocks.

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#31 NewBasfordlad, you are correct but this is worth a read.

You need a general licence or other authorised person to catch alive or kill wild birds to preserve public health or public safety (licence GL05). If you’re a land owner, occupier or other authorised person you can use this general licence to carry out a range of otherwise prohibited activities against certain wild birds. You don’t need to apply for this general licence but you must meet its conditions and follow its instructions.

You are an authorised person if you’re one of the following:
• the land owner, occupier or anyone authorised by the owner or occupier
• authorised in writing by the local authority
• authorised in writing by any England, Scotland or Wales conservation body, a district board for fisheries or local fisheries committee
• authorised in writing by the Environment Agency, a water undertaker or a sewerage undertaker
You can only use this licence to preserve public health or public safety.

You can’t use this licence to kill birds because they are damaging your property, such as your car or house, or if they’re a nuisance.
With this licence you can catch alive or kill
• crows
• collared doves
• jackdaws
• jays
• lesser black-backed gulls
• magpies
• pigeons (feral and woodpigeon)
• rooks

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Yep we did as authorised by the farmer.

Funnily according to the RSPB web site you can shoot to protect your crops which seems at odds with 'not if they are damaging your property'.

The general licence is supposed to be reviewed every year, but the list never seems to change.

The trouble I had was that I could really only eat the wood pigeon the rest had to be burnt to get rid of the carcasses. I don't like waste so tried to find a use for them some went to a taxidermist after all magpies, jays are a good looking bird. If we got a surplus of woodpigeon, that happened quite often we would freeze them and a freezer lorry from France would collect them for their market. No profit but it paid for the cartridges.

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