FROM PROTECT THE WILD—GUGA HUNT IS SET TO BE REFUSED

Forwarded this email? Subscribe here for more Guga hunt licence set to be REFUSED The science says the hunt can't go ahead. DEVON DOCHERTY JUL 29 READ IN APP If you haven’t already seen the news on our social media, NatureScot has published the papers for its upcoming board meeting on 3 August, and its own licensing and marine ornithology experts have made a clear recommendation: The 2026 Guga hunt licence should be refused. I hesitate to celebrate too soon, but this almost certainly means the Guga hunt will not be going ahead this year. Let me explain what’s happened. NatureScot has carried out the most comprehensive scientific assessment of the Guga hunt ever undertaken. The results from that were published today, along with a summary by their licensing and marine ornithology team. Drawing on updated population modelling, the latest evidence on avian influenza and the legal tests required under the Habitats Regulations, they concluded a licence should not be given this year. In their assessment, the marine science experts considered three possible options: Grant the full licence to kill 2,000 gannets as requested by the hunters; Grant a reduced licence to kill 500 gannets; Refuse the licence. Officials rejected the first two options. By law, NatureScot cannot grant a licence for something that undermines the integrity of a protected site. And the science showed that a kill limit of 2,000 Gannet chicks would negatively affect the population over the long term and undermine the integrity of the Sula Sgeir Special Protection Area where the hunt takes place. Crucially, the papers reveal that even reducing the hunt to 500 birds would still leave "reasonable scientific doubt" that it would not adversely affect the site, which is home to internationally important seabird populations. The recommendation by NatureScot’s licensing and marine ornithology team concludes: “On the basis and rationale summarised above, the recommended option is to refuse the licence application this year.” This would be the first time NatureScot has refused a licence for the Guga hunt. You made this possible This announcement came on the very same day our petition to NatureScot surpassed 250,000 signatures. Sign the petition That is no coincidence. Over the past few months, together we’ve transformed the Guga hunt from a little-known event into one of Scotland’s biggest wildlife controversies. We’ve put NatureScot under unprecedented public scrutiny, forcing it to confront questions it had never properly answered, commission more robust scientific analysis and revisit long-held assumptions about the hunt. Every signature, every email, every donation, every protest, every share, like and comment helped make that happen. Thank you. But as the saying goes, it’s not over til it’s over. NatureScot’s Board will make the final decision this Monday, so we can’t be 100% sure the hunt won’t be going ahead til then. We’ll be observing that meeting and will let you know the outcome immediately. But it would be genuinely unthinkable for them to ignore their own science. Either way, our work wouldn’t stop there. We’ll immediately begin campaigning to abolish the outdated legal exemption that allows this hunt to take place at all. More on thats soon. One way or another, the days of the Guga hunt are numbered. Stay tuned, and thank you again to all the incredible people reading these posts, taking action, and helping us to abolish Britain’s last seabird hunt. We’re so close to stopping the Guga hunt but we need your help to get it over the line. Become a Gannet Guardian today with a monthly donation and help give this campaign the strength to keep going until the Guga hunt is ended for good. The next stage of this campaign is to secure a change in the law so that the Wildlife and Countryside Act no longer allows the Guga hunt to be licensed in the first place. Become a Gannet Guardian If you set up a recurring donation today, we’ll send you a Gannet plushie as a reminder of the birds you’re helping to protect :) SHARE LIKE COMMENT RESTACK © 2026 Protect the Wild Protect the Wild, 71-75 Shelton Street Covent Garden, London, W2CH 9JQ Unsubscribe Start writing

WILD JUSTICE—A COMPLETE UPDATE

Good morning, Today we bring you a few updates including a guest blog on our recent legal action about overgrazing on Dartmoor, news of a brilliant campaign to restore the incredible and valuable natural landscape of Dartmoor and also share some news about 'Wild Justice on Sea' and this year's 'Wild Summit'. Our Dartmoor grazing case – a deep dive into the judgement In March of this year, we finally received news that we had won our legal challenge, ruling that parts of Dartmoor had been mismanaged. We had argued that the Dartmoor Commoners’ Council (DCC) had failed to carry out its statutory legal duties to safeguard protected sites on Dartmoor, allowing overgrazing to impact wildlife and damage habitats. You can find out more about the initial stages of the case here and the court’s ruling here. Tony Whitehead, an environmental campaigner and a member of the Dartmoor Nature Alliance has written a brilliant in-depth overview of the judgement and what it means going forward for grazing on Dartmoor and for the wider governance of England’s common land. To read the blog, follow this link. Our legal challenge has put the issue of grazing on Dartmoor, and the urgent need for improved assessment and regulation of habitat management, squarely on the government’s agenda. Last month, you might have seen the whirlwind of media around the spurious claims that Dartmoor ponies would be culled under new government plans. Despite the media fanfare and airtime this story received, these allegations were utterly false. You can read the Dartmoor Nature Alliance’s response to the media furore here and Natural England’s blog which gave detailed responses to all claims made in the media. As a result of the misleading press coverage, Natural England published a press release on 15 July revealing a sudden decision to introduce new protective legislation for Dartmoor Ponies. You can read the press release here and the Dartmoor Nature Alliance’s response by clicking this link. Bring back Dartmoor’s rainforests - Dartmoor Nature Alliance campaign Still on the subject of Dartmoor and its incredible habitats… Dartmoor is home to three temperate rainforests – all remnants of once larger woodlands. These fragile, ancient Oak woodlands support an extraordinary diversity of wildlife, including rare mosses, lichens, ferns and fungi. Once widespread across Britain, temperate rainforests are now one of the rarest ecosystems in the UK, making their protection and restoration a vital part of nature recovery on Dartmoor. In May, the Dartmoor Nature Alliance (DNA) launched a campaign to help expand and improve Dartmoor’s rare temperate rainforests. If you’d like to learn more about these incredible ecosystems, and how you can support the campaign to bring back Dartmoor’s rainforests, follow this link and read Guy Shrubsole’s blog by clicking here. Wild Justice on Sea Thank you to all of those who expressed an interest in joining us for a boat trip in Poole Harbour - nearly 500 of you applied for tickets! On Friday we sent invites out to a group of randomly selected applicants - please check your junk box to make sure you didn't miss it. If there are any outstanding places as of Friday 31st July, we'll be drawing some extra names out of the hat. Keep an eye out! Wild Justice at Wild Summit Wild Summit returns to the Bristol Beacon on 9 September 2026 and Wild Justice will be there. We’ll provide more information nearer the time but as well as having a stand, our CEO Bob Elliot will be speaking on the main stage, and we’ll be putting on another entertaining stage show, following last year’s roaring success! We’ll also be launching an exciting new joint project with some of our colleagues. Tickets for Wild Summit are on sale now and we hope to see you there! Thank you, Wild Justice (CEO: Bob Elliot. Directors: Chris Packham and Ruth Tingay). This is the 272nd Wild Justice newsletter. This email was sent to you because you subscribed to it through the Wild Justice website or through an e-action or a petition where you ticked a box. Thank you. We will only use your personal details to send you the Wild Justice newsletter. We will not give or sell your details to anyone else. You can unsubscribe at any time: there is an unsubscribe button at the foot of this email or you can reply to this email and ask us to remove you from the list (the former will happen immediately, the latter might take a few days). 124, City Road London Greater London EC1V 2NX UNITED KINGDOM Unsubscribe | Change Subscriber Options

WILD JUSTICE—PART THREE—WILD JUSTICE AT SEA & BRISTOL BEACON

Wild Justice on Sea Thank you to all of those who expressed an interest in joining us for a boat trip in Poole Harbour - nearly 500 of you applied for tickets! On Friday we sent invites out to a group of randomly selected applicants - please check your junk box to make sure you didn't miss it. If there are any outstanding places as of Friday 31st July, we'll be drawing some extra names out of the hat. Keep an eye out! Wild Justice at Wild Summit Wild Summit returns to the Bristol Beacon on 9 September 2026 and Wild Justice will be there. We’ll provide more information nearer the time but as well as having a stand, our CEO Bob Elliot will be speaking on the main stage, and we’ll be putting on another entertaining stage show, following last year’s roaring success! We’ll also be launching an exciting new joint project with some of our colleagues.

WILD JUSTICE—PART TWO—RAINFORESTS

Bring back Dartmoor’s rainforests - Dartmoor Nature Alliance campaign Still on the subject of Dartmoor and its incredible habitats… Dartmoor is home to three temperate rainforests – all remnants of once larger woodlands. These fragile, ancient Oak woodlands support an extraordinary diversity of wildlife, including rare mosses, lichens, ferns and fungi. Once widespread across Britain, temperate rainforests are now one of the rarest ecosystems in the UK, making their protection and restoration a vital part of nature recovery on Dartmoor. In May, the Dartmoor Nature Alliance (DNA) launched a campaign to help expand and improve Dartmoor’s rare temperate rainforests. If you’d like to learn more about these incredible ecosystems, and how you can support the campaign to bring back Dartmoor’s rainforests, follow this

WILD JUSTICE—PART ONE—OVERGRAZING ON DARTMOOR

Today we bring you a few updates including a guest blog on our recent legal action about overgrazing on Dartmoor, news of a brilliant campaign to restore the incredible and valuable natural landscape of Dartmoor and also share some news about 'Wild Justice on Sea' and this year's 'Wild Summit'. Our Dartmoor grazing case – a deep dive into the judgement In March of this year, we finally received news that we had won our legal challenge, ruling that parts of Dartmoor had been mismanaged. We had argued that the Dartmoor Commoners’ Council (DCC) had failed to carry out its statutory legal duties to safeguard protected sites on Dartmoor, allowing overgrazing to impact wildlife and damage habitats. You can find out more about the initial stages of the case here and the court’s ruling here. Tony Whitehead, an environmental campaigner and a member of the Dartmoor Nature Alliance has written a brilliant in-depth overview of the judgement and what it means going forward for grazing on Dartmoor and for the wider governance of England’s common land. To read the blog, follow this link. Our legal challenge has put the issue of grazing on Dartmoor, and the urgent need for improved assessment and regulation of habitat management, squarely on the government’s agenda. Last month, you might have seen the whirlwind of media around the spurious claims that Dartmoor ponies would be culled under new government plans. Despite the media fanfare and airtime this story received, these allegations were utterly false. You can read the Dartmoor Nature Alliance’s response to the media furore here and Natural England’s blog which gave detailed responses to all claims made in the media. As a result of the misleading press coverage, Natural England published a press release on 15 July revealing a sudden decision to introduce new protective legislation for Dartmoor Ponies. You can read the press release here and the Dartmoor Nature Alliance’s response by clicking this link.

REFORM LED COUNCIL WANTS TO DESTROY ANCIENT WOODLAND

Forwarded this email? Subscribe here for more Reform-led Council votes to push ahead with destroying ancient woodland #9 - Eye on the Wild PROTECT THE WILD JUL 25 READ IN APP Welcome to the ninth edition of Eye on the Wild, our new weekly roundup designed to keep you up to date with the latest stories concerning British wildlife. If you have a story you think we should cover, email us at contact@protectthewild.org.uk Reform-led Council votes to push ahead with destroying ancient woodland Kent County Councillors have voted 37–31 to approve a plan to extend a quarry. It will destroy at least 41 hectares of Oaken Wood, near Maidstone. The existing Gallagher Aggregates quarry site has already resulted in the loss of approximately 31 hectares of ancient woodland. The amount of ancient woodland lost would be more than the losses from HS2 and the Lower Thames Crossing combined. The Kent Mineral Sites Plan, which the council has approved for independent government examination, is a planning framework that identifies potential locations for sand, gravel, and hard rock extraction. The plan controversially includes the extension into Oaken Wood for extracting Kentish ragstone. It defies all logic that Reform would sacrifice ancient woodland, which are irreplaceable habitats covering just 2.5% of the UK. Oaken Wood is home to turtle doves, nightjars and dormice. Nightjars migrate from Sub-Saharan Africa to Oaken Wood each spring to breed and feed. Dormice are critically endangered in this country; their numbers decreased by 52% between 2009 and 2018. KCC Green councillor, Stuart Jeffery, opposes the plan to destroy the wood, saying: "Ancient woodland cannot be replaced or moved. Once it is lost, it is gone forever. Reform's plans are an act of ecocide." Friends of Oaken Wood states: “Oaken Wood is designated as a ‘plantation on ancient woodland site’ (PAWS). PAWS are a category of ancient woodland protected in the government’s National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF). This woodland is legally defined as ‘irreplaceable’ and has equivalent protection to ‘built heritage’, such as nationally listed buildings and scheduled monuments. The council are citing ‘wholly exceptional circumstances’ and a ‘compensation strategy’ as grounds for the woodland to be quarried.” There will be a public consultation, giving everyone another chance to object to plans. A government inspector will also examine whether the plan is 'sound'. Campaigners have been fighting this battle for over a decade, and it certainly isn’t over yet. To stay updated, follow Friends of Oaken Wood and join the Save Oaken Wood Facebook group. 7,550-acre estate that trained gundogs for bird shoots to be rewilded Emblehope, an estate in Northumberland, is set to be taken over by the rewilding business Restore. The Kennel Club has owned the site since 2016, employing gamekeepers and running bird shoots, while also permitting beef and sheep farming. Restore has exciting ambitions to completely restore and transform the peat bog, inspired by the “great bogs of Estonia or Finland.” The company says the land will now be dedicated entirely to nature, making it England's largest single, unbroken stretch of land under one owner given over to restoration as its sole purpose. Over the next thirty years, the plan is to re-wet around 2,000 acres of degraded peatland, restore lost vegetation, and introduce low-intensity grazing to build a mosaic of open water, bog, scrub, dwarf trees and flower-rich glades shaped by natural processes. Restore's founder, Benedict Macdonald, says that while many upland estates treat nature as a by-product of commercial activity, Emblehope is: “destined to become a biosphere-level reserve where nature itself is the driver.” However, Restore intends to shoot deer. It says deer management is a practice it will be “focusing on very heavily” for the regeneration of wildflowers, saplings and nightingales. RSPCA reports five-year high in reports of wild bird cruelty The RSPCA has recorded its highest number of summer cruelty reports involving wild birds in five years. Between July and August 2025, the charity logged 359 such incidents across England and Wales. This was nearly twice the 179 reported over the same stretch in 2024. Roughly 40% of all wild-bird cruelty reports reach the charity during summer, which the RSPCA says is due to more people being outdoors in the warmer months. Among the worst-affected species were pigeons, gulls, swans, ducks and crows, many of them hurt or killed with airguns, catapults and slingshots. This year, too, violence towards birds is continuing. So far in 2026, the RSPCA has already received 474 reports of cruelty. The overall total for the whole of 2025 stood at 876. The charity’s wildlife partnerships manager, Mike Scargill, stated that the real figure is almost certainly far higher, since so much cruelty goes unwitnessed and unreported. Follow Protect the Wild to get involved with our upcoming campaign to legislate against catapults, which are being increasingly used to murder birds throughout the UK. More than 2,000 pigeons shot at railway stations and depots in 16 months Horrific figures have been obtained by Freedom of Information requests and published in the BBC. Pigeons are shot at railway stations and depots at night by professionals with air rifles, in what the ‘pest’ control industry says is an effort to stop droppings becoming slip hazards or a source of illness. Among stations run by state-owned companies, York was the worst, with 608 birds shot between January 2025 and April 2026, 152 of them on a single day. But the figures don’t cover private firms, so the true death toll is likely much higher than the confirmed figure of 2,019. The worst offender was train operator LNER, with over 800 birds shot at its stations, while Network Rail ordered the killing of 600 pigeons across Bristol Temple Meads, London Euston and Edinburgh Waverley stations. Meanwhile, South Western Railway ordered the shooting of 250 pigeons. Transport for London was responsible for killing 147 pigeons, and Northern ordered the shooting of 143. A society that guns down thousands of pigeons and calls it acceptable is deeply broken. If you like the work we do at Protect the Wild, please consider donating a couple of pounds per month. Donate here SHARE LIKE COMMENT RESTACK © 2026 Protect the Wild Protect the Wild, 71-75 Shelton Street Covent Garden, London, W2CH 9JQ Unsubscribe Start writing

FROM PROTECT THE WILD—YOU POWER THE FIGHT TO HELP WILLIFE

Forwarded this email? Subscribe here for more YOU power the fight for British wildlife ROB POWNALL JUL 24 READ IN APP We’re pushing hard to finally end hunting with hounds for good. I stood in the Makerfield by-election in order to directly tell (the now) Prime Minister Andy Burnham that we need meaningful action for wildlife. Nothing but strengthening and enforcing the 2004 Hunting Act is good enough if we are to finally see an end to people ripping wild animals to pieces for the sheer fun of it. We helped ensure tens of thousands of responses were submitted to the recent Govt consultation and now thousands more have sent our letter outlining concerns that ‘drag hunting’ could be used as the new smokescreen. We’re funded entirely by people like you, our wonderful supporters. We don’t have any Govt funding or big corporate backers and due to the nature of our work we’re not eligible for most grants! Emails like this are crucial to continuing our vital work fighting for British wildlife. By picking up this beautiful and hard-hitting pin badge set you are helping the fight continue. Pin Badge SHARE LIKE COMMENT RESTACK © 2026 Protect the Wild Protect the Wild, 71-75 Shelton Street Covent Garden, London, W2CH 9JQ Unsubscribe Start writing