Summary of the meeting of the Hawk Board held at Animal Health, Bristol,
28th April, 2010.
The Vice-Chairman, Andrew Knowles-Brown, opened the meeting at 12.10pm.
Present were: Andrew Knowles-Brown(AKB), Derek Stotton(DS), Caroline Rigg(CR), Chris Augur(CA), Nevin Hunter(NH), Gary Biddiss(GB), Pete Eldrett(PE), Gary Gabriel(GG), Mike Macdonald(MM), Mike Roberts(MR), Graham Irving(GI), Nick Kester(NK), Steve Halsall(SH), Paul Gray(PG), Jim Collins(JC), Doreen Page(DP), Brian Morris(BM), John Hill(JH), & Mike Clowes(MC).
Apologies were received from Jim Chick, Mike Nicholls, Andy Barfield, James Legge, Dean White,
Nick Fox, Terry Burden, Roy Lupton, Nick Havemann-mart and John Hounslow.
The minutes of the previous meeting were agreed and signed by the Chairman.
Treasurers Report: MC went through the statements of income and expenditure for the HB and the CFF pointing out that both had a deficit this year but explaining the reasons were one-off events and everything should be back in the black next year. The audited accounts will be ready at the next meeting.
Animal Health: Wildlife Registration Service (WLRS) is reviewing its practice of issuing pre-issued (semi-complete) certificates. This is due to a number of factors, including a number of compliance cases indicating WLRS’ systems for issuing, recording and monitoring pre-issued certificates are insufficiently robust; some elements are in breach of the EC Regulations and there is evidence of some misuse of the facility (whether intentional or unintentional). WLRS felt the meeting with HB representatives(at the earlier working group) was useful in identifying reasonable and workable options for dealing with the issues involved. There is no requirement for full formal consultation since there are no proposals to amend legislation simply to tighten up procedures. WLRS now therefore intend to carry out a limited informal consultation exercise (i.e. placing the consultation paper on the Animal Health website and contacting all current holders of pre-issued certificates). The consultation period will be from September to November to enable consideration of responses to take place in December, with a view to bringing in any changes with effect from the following breeding season.
CR then continued with fees and charges:
Animal Health continues to look at amending the fees and charges made for CITES. This is in the context of a wider body of work within AH looking at introducing fees and charges on an agency-wide basis. Only the preliminary work has so far been undertaken on CITES fees, which has entailed detailed examination and analysis of the costs to AH in delivering all aspects of CITES licensing (the overarching principle is that Government bodies’ fees and charges may only be made in line with actual costs incurred). Public consultation is unlikely to take place for at least 6 months, possibly longer given the general election. WLRS is happy to offer the HB a “focus group meeting” as part of the consultation process. AKB asked if there was any idea of the increase and CR replied that she couldn’t say but that it would cover cost recovery.
No work has yet been carried out on amending fees and charges for bird registration but this will also take place in due course. WLRS agreed the importance of ensuring working practices and procedures were properly cost effective if these were being used to analyse appropriate levels of fees and charges, and confirmed that wider reviews of working practices and procedures (including for instance the review of pre-issued certificates) were underway in WLRS with just such issues in mind. JC asked if costs were going up are AH also looking to see if they were giving value for money. CR replied that this was being looked at.
Eagle Owls:
WLRS confirmed the advice on the AH website that Article 10 Certificates are now required for Bengal Eagle Owls before they can be used commercially. This is due to changes introduced when the last EC Annexes were published, after CoP14, which inadvertently resulted in Bengal Eagle Owl being included in Annex A to EC regulation 338/97. This will hopefully be resolved later in 2010 when the Commission drafts new regulations to implement changes brought in at CoP15. In the meantime it is illegal to use these birds commercially without a CITES certificate. Neither is there any defence in law to plead anticipated amendment of the EU legislation.
WLRS is not charging for A10s for existing live birds or taxidermy specimens and is taking a commonsense approach when assessing applications, recognising that keepers may not have all the information or breeding records which would normally be expected of an Annex A specimen (although keepers and breeders were asked to help by supplying as much information as possible). WLRS confirmed that the mitigating circumstance involved would be taken fully into account on any associated cases reported to Compliance.
Using sub-species names on CITES and Bird Registration paperwork:
WLRS has been considering requests from some bird breeders to identify species down to sub-species level on permits and certificates (e.g. Finnish Goshawk, red-naped shaheen etc.) and has decided against this to preclude involving AH in possible “trades descriptions” arguments. In future WLRS will use only the accepted CITES term (i.e. scientific and common names as listed on CITES) on all documentation. WLRS will be writing to the HB explaining this.
AKB asked if an Article 10 certificate came into the country with the sub species already on it what would AH do? CR: we would only use European Goshawk, not Finnish.
Levels of bureaucracy arising from EU regulations:
The EU Commission has in place a target to reduce bureaucracy by 25% by 2012, and people can input ideas for achieving this at http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/policies/better-regulation/index_en.htm. Defra (CITES policy) is considering whether to let a consultancy contract to look at the costs and levels of “stricter measures” as defined in EU CITES legislation. The HB confirmed they’d like WLRS to put them forward as a suitable organisation to be interviewed by the successful contractor should Defra decide to proceed with this.
Use of Article 48 of EC regulation 865/2006:
Under Article 48(2), importers can use import permits in place of Article 10 transaction certificates if they request this at the time of importation. If requested to do so, WLRS can apply a condition to the import permit removing the necessity for the importer to apply again for a transaction certificate. Advice on this is in WLRS’ web guidance on charging (http://www.defra.gov.uk/animalhealth/Charges/citesfees.htm - see Annex on Minimising Application Costs, section D) but for birds is limited to importation of birds for non commercial purposes only, in light of the need for bird importers to use purpose code B (breeding in captivity or artificial propagation). WLRS agreed to look into also including this advice in the web guidance on importing birds of prey.
The issue of when hybrids can be regarded as pure-bred remains unresolved due to conflicting views (although under CITES this is F4). The HB asked for an update on whether pulled feathers and/or mouth swabs could be used in preference to blood samples for DNA testing. WLRS report back.
After the lunch break, the second half of the meeting began minus NH, CR and CA.
English Nature: NK had not yet met with them due to the approaching election but had attended a meeting with DEFRA with JC in an effort to save money on bureaucracy. GI mentioned that there is a difference between England and Scotland with quarry licences and that the licences for gulls is to be reduced from 50 to 25.
Lantra: As neither Mike Nicholls nor Julie Murphy was present MC outlined the proposed modules 3 & 4 on hawking quarry. These were discussed and it was agreed that Mike had done a good job. Whether ALL of the assessors were qualified to assess the new modules presented a potential problem. This will be discussed at the next meeting when Julie and possibly Mike will be present.
NK pointed out the benefits of using the Lantra award to demonstrate that falconry was continuing to put its own house in order in relation to animal welfare. SH: The BFC system is working and spoke in support of the awards.
CLA Game Fair: MC informed the meeting that all was going well with the arrangements for the parade. The only slight problem was the certainty that there would be enough costumes but Jim Chick was arranging this.
CFF Update: As Terry Large was not present DP informed the meeting that the CFF had held a meeting at the Kelmarsh Show. She asked MC to take the CFF fleeces off the website as they were all sold. They were slowly reducing the amount of clothing they had but there was still an amount at Honeybrook. The CFF also thought that First Aid books should be provided by the Lantra assessors and it might be worth providing hard copies of the nutritional booklet which is on the Honeybrook website.
CA Update: The Sunday Express newspaper featured the Countryside Alliance Foundation funded project “Falconry for Schools” in a full-page colour article on 28 March. It reported that the Falconry for Schools project aims to teach young people some of the skills of falconry and in doing so learn about the environment, conservation and enhance literacy, communication and number skills in the process.
The CPS has issued guidance on the use of evidence gathered by covert surveillance by animal rights groups which has not been authorised under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act. The guidance confirmed that "Where the police are aware of the intention of the NGO to conduct covert surveillance and intend making use of the surveillance product in the event that it reveals evidence of a crime, it would be appropriate to seek an authorisation".
A.O.B.
NK suggested that a wild goshawk survey be carried out by impartial and independent professionals to refute claims by the RSPCA/RSPB that there were only 400 breeding pairs in the UK, and that therefore, they were endangered. It should be put out to tender to see how to do it, costs etc and once completed it would be up to date and valid. PE reported that in the New Forest alone 22 goshawk chicks were rung last year and 28 the year before. After discussion it was agreed to give the go ahead for the tender.
PE asked how the Heritage Fund was progressing with the Hawk Conservancy? SH replied that they were having problems at the moment with the lottery committee so there was no movement at the moment.
SH- The BFC grey partridge scheme is going well and they now have a M.O.U. with the Game Conservancy, putting funding into it to ensure hunting continues. He would like the HB to donate towards the project and will submit a business plan for the Board
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Next Meeting: 11.00am Wednesday, 14th July, 2010. Temple Quay House, Bristol
