Good morning! Good news on which to end 2022 - our petition to limit the shooting season for Woodcock passed 100,000 signatures yesterday evening so this issue should receive a debate in the Westminster parliament in 2023. Also some updates on other issues.
Woodcock petition: our petition gained its 100,000th signature ahead of 9pm yesterday evening - thank you!
Thank you to everyone who has signed and who has promoted the petition on social media and by other means. It has been a joint effort and we are grateful to a wide mix of people including birders, shooters and conservationists for getting this petition over the line well ahead of the 6-month deadline. It should now be debated in Westminster Hall. We have already persuaded Defra to consider changes to the shooting season and to consult with the other UK administrations on this matter.
This subject was not on the political agenda before we, with your help, put it there. Thank you!
The petition remains active until 25 January so if you can find some other people to sign it, please do! Here is the link to the petition - click here.
Gamebirds and avian flu: we wrote to Defra asking them what they are going to do about the issue of catching up of gamebirds such as Pheasants. 'Catching up' is where released gamebirds are enticed back into captivity at the end of the shooting season (from now to the end of January) to form breeding stock for next year's releases. This is a controversial issue at a time of high levels of avian flu in wild bird populations and in commercial poultry flocks. Defra's reply was uncommunicative and rather sullen - click here. It's almost as though the regulators hadn't given this matter any thought and don't want people talking about the issue. We will follow this up but our guess is that Defra will not regulate the shooting industry - they hardly ever do!
Lead levels in game meat: you'll hear quite a lot from us over the next few months about lead levels in game meat - we've been buying game meat from a variety of sources and those samples are being analysed for their lead content now. We'll bring you the news when we get it. But, by the way, despite our contacting them 10 days ago, the National Game Dealers Association website still maintains that their members are selling lead-free game meat - this simply isn't true - click here.
Northern Ireland: we are still waiting, with fingers crossed, for the results of our judicial review into a proposed Badger cull in Northern Ireland. We hope we'll have news, and we hope it will be good news, soon. Also in Northern Ireland, the general licences which permit killing of a variety of birds expire today and we expect new licences, and better licences, to come into existence tomorrow. However, we've been expecting these to appear for a while now and our experience of the Northern Ireland Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs is that they are usually late with their promises. We'll let you know what happens.
Sewage challenge: our biggest disappointment of 2022 was not getting permission for judicial review of Ofwat's failure to regulate sewage discharges. We are appealing that decision and received some information on that appeal just yesterday. What we don't yet know is when the appeal will be heard - we'll let you know when we know. But we have started further work on this important environmental issue in any case.
Birdwatch magazine Birders' Choice Awards: we've been nominated twice in the annual Birdwatch Magazine Birders' Choice Awards. First as Conservation Hero of the year and for the Campaign of the Year for our Woodcock petition and the work around it. You can also vote for the Guano Award for environmental harm - Chris Loder MP, 'Dorset is not the place for eagles to be reintroduced', must be a strong contender. You can vote in all or some of the categories, and you certainly don't have to be a birder, but polling ends today so you'll have to be quick - click here.
If you like what we do and would like to make a general donation which will be used across our range of work, then please consider donating through PayPal, bank transfer or a cheque in the post - see details here.
That's it for now. Thank you so much for your support throughout 2022.We couldn't do any of this without you. A Happy New Year from Wild Justice!
Thank you,
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