Summary of the meeting of the Hawk Board held on 15th July, 2009
City Inn, Bristol.
The meeting was opened at 11.05am by the Chairman. Present were: Jim Chick(JC), Pete Eldrett(PE), Andrew Knowles-Brown(AKB), Gary Biddiss(GB), Derek Stotton(DS), Steve Halsall(SH)
Terry Large(TL), Nick Kester(NK), Miranda Stevenson(MS), Doreen Page(DP), Nick Fox(NF), Karl Leadley(KL), Roy Lupton(RL) and Mike Clowes(MC).
Apologies were received from: Gary Gabriel, Dale Johnson, Andy Barfield, Brian Morris, John Hill, Grant Dudley, James Legge and David Horobin.
The Minutes of the previous meeting were agreed and signed by the Chairman. There were no matters arising.
Treasurers Report: MC first produced the audited accounts for the HB and went through them. There were no questions and the Chairman signed them. He then proceeded to the CFF accounts. These were also agreed and were signed.
CFF update: TL stated that at the Festival the campaign paid for the T-shirts, as they were not in the festival budget. They sold well and over £4000 was raised from them, the old shirts and old pewter badges. After the CLA TL will be visiting new clubs, Humberside etc, He thanked AKB for assistance at Scone and JC concluded by thanking the CFF members for all their hard work.
Animal Health: Chris Auger and her team arrived and briefed the meeting.
Fees: WLRS have published guidance on how traders can take steps to minimize their costs. Nick Kester came across an ambiguity in the advice on exporting specimens and the guidance will be changed to:
"Businesses that deal in large numbers of the same items species of specimens which they sell in a single country outside the EU may be able to reduce their costs by applying for a number of permits or certificates under a single application providing they are of the same species, are being transported to the same importer and have the same source code and purpose code."
There are no refunds for refused applications as the payment is to cover administration / processing costs.
JC stated that as fees were not refundable, guidance on making an application should be improved. Chris Auger advised any member of the Hawk Board who found any ambiguities in the guidance to contact her so it could be amended.
Registration Wales/Scotland: From 23 July, Wales will fall completely into line with England in that peregrines and merlins may be registered by means of a valid Article 10 certificate issued by the UK Management Authority for CITES. The Schedule has been limited to the same 9 birds as in England since April.
Scotland have informed WLRS that Orders will be laid before the Scottish Parliament on 29 August and will come into effect on 29 September. These will bring Scotland into line with Defra and the Welsh Assembly. It will
reduce the number of birds on Schedule 4 to the same 9 species
allow the registration of birds under CITES compliant rings
allow peregrines and merlins to be registered by means of a valid A10 issued by WLRS
remove the need for re-registration every 3 years.
WLRS will confirm with Scotland what the arrangements will be for falconers taking their birds into Scotland before the changes are introduced.
COTES Review: Defra have just laid an SI which was done in advance of the general COTES review which closes an existing legal loophole identified in respect of Regulation 8 of the Control of Trade in Endangered Species (Enforcement) Regulations 1997 (COTES). The amending SI was laid before Parliament on 8 July and, assuming there are no objections from the House, should come into force on 11 August 2009. The SI introduces a presumption in favour of Annex A in cases involving ‘split-listed’ species where it is not reasonably practicable to determine whether a specimen belongs to Annex A or B of Council Regulation 338/97.
The full COTES review is now underway, with Kate Fouracre joining the Defra team from the WLRS enforcement team. Still in early stages yet, but one idea under consideration is incorporating the Ports of Entry Regulations into COTES, to make a consolidated piece of legislation. Defra is planning to go out to consultation later this year.
Nick Kester informed the meeting that he would be leading the formal response from the Hawk Board and requested details of the proposed timetable.
NK- Validity of semi-complete A10s in France – queries had been raised by the French CITES MA on the grounds that the issue date pre-dates the hatch date on the certificate. WLRS had confirmed validity of individual certificates and explained our implementation of Article 63 (865/2006) to France and it was hoped that this would be sufficient.
AKB- Importers were experiencing difficulty from AH offices across the country implementing Balai requirements differently. This was being taken up with Defra and it was hoped that guidelines would be issued to all offices soon. MS also asked for guidelines to be produced urgently for Zoos.
Ports of entry: It was requested that Dominic Whitmee provide an update on the Ports of Entry Regulations.
Integration of Import/Export Services within Animal Health: The international trade services for Animal Health are currently centred at Carlisle (Health export), Bristol (CITES import and export) and Chelmsford (Health imports) and procedures are being looked at to see where improvements can be made.
A successful workshop was held in Bristol during June, attended on the first day by stakeholders who gave some very forthright feedback on their frustrations with the current service. The second day saw officials from each office working together to come up with ideas on how these issues could be resolved. WLRS will be writing to all those who attended the workshop to thank them for their input.
WLRS are planning a programme of interchange visits of staff from all 3 offices, so that a better understanding of each other’s work can be developed. This will enable each office to give better advice to customers, and to know which case officer calls should be transferred.
At this early stage the following improvements are planned (but with no promises on timings):
Improved payment methods: BACS, customer accounts, working towards the ultimate aim of online applications and payments
A common telephone system to enable easy transferring of calls between offices
A single point of application with associated information flows within the agency so that customers make one joint application and do not have to supply the same information twice.
Feedback from Festival of Falconry: Attendance at the festival was thought to be a success overall, and Animal Health staff considered it worthwhile to have a presence. They were also grateful for the tickets to the banquet, which they thoroughly enjoyed.
There were however a number of problems, which will hopefully be avoided in future years:
Poor support leading up to the event – difficult to get a response from various people involved
Poor organisation on the first day – Countryside Alliance had set up in the tent allocated to WLRS
Programme entry was inappropriate, referring to farm animals and disease control rather than bird registration and CITES; Martine’s personal email address was included in the programme without her consent
John Hounslow’s planned seminar was omitted from the programme and he was not informed. It was impossible to contact the organiser (Mr Crane) to sort this confusion out
Educational day – confusion and conflicting messages about whether WLRS staff would be visited by groups of schoolchildren
Goodie bags – lack of communication on suitable content and numbers
NK thanked AH for attending the festival as it was very helpful.
Festival de-brief: JC stated that it had been very successful thanks to work by a small team backed by the clubs but it may not happen again. NF doubted if there would be any profit from it. DS stated that as the festival was organised by a Limited Company it left little for him to do but he praised the excellent publicity. NK suggested that the packs supplied to schools should be continued and TL proposed that the Education Working Group look into it. This was agreed.
Bell Pottinger (Abu Dhabi’s PR company) are gathering all photos and filming of the event. In 3 weeks it will be on U-tube and clubs will be able to link to it. Alan Gates`s website has all of the festival material.
NF informed the meeting that Kate Hoey MP had placed an Early Day Motion in the House as follows:
“That this House congratulates the organisers of the recent second International Festival of Falconry, held in Englefield, Berkshire, which brought together over 50 countries to celebrate the age-old practice of using birds of prey for hunting; recognises that in many parts of the world such activities are regarded as part of a country’s heritage; urges the Government to recognise the cultural and traditional importance of falconry and other natural forms of hunting; and suggests that the UK should sign UNESCO`s Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage.”
HB Income: GB informed the meeting that SH and himself were looking at ways of getting non-club falconers into the HB and SH suggested holding the dinner/auction every 2 years.
Club News:
PE- The Wessex club had enjoyed the festival. He thanked the organisers and the HB for paying for the tentage. They were looking forward to the coming season.
RL- Thanks for the opportunity to launch his club at the festival. They received lots of positive comments and he pointed out that it is not an invitation only club but is open to anyone who wants to fly eagles.
GB- echoed the thanks to all. The SEFG enjoyed the festival and are looking forward to the field meets ahead.
SH- The BFC are still going ahead with the Grey Partridge scheme. SH is now preparing the BFC Newsletter. They are arranging BBQs for members where Lanta assessments can be carried out and have been approached by the Shropshire HC to take over the club as a new BFC region.
MC commented that this would obviously increase the HB subs from the BFC next year!!!
Election: MC reported that all papers had been sent out, approx 970. Half the clubs had not complied and sent members details so they would not be able to vote. He thanked Dean White for assistance with the lists. The results are due at the end of August.
A.O.B.
NK requested that new Board members are briefed at their first meeting about protocols. This was agreed as very important and the Chairman would do it at the start of the meeting.
SH- Stuart Miller of the BFC is working with a conservation project on the Imperial Eagle project. How can he apply for a grant? Reply, contact TL.
NF- Has been working on artificial nest sites for Sakers in Mongolia as the UAE and Mongolia have threatened to withdraw from CITES if the Saker is moved to Appendix 1. They have arranged for 5000 of the artificial nest sites to produce 3000 young so that 300 females a year can be harvested, sustainable use for falconry.
NK- At the last HB meeting we discussed a document defence on the Peregrine and Sparrowhawk population. It will be finalised by winter.
