Unbelievably, the government could undo all the good work that's been achieved since the nineties to stamp out birds of prey being taken from the wild.

To save themselves a bit of money, they're thinking of scrapping the captive bird of prey registration scheme. At the moment, any bird of prey legitimately kept in captivity has to be registered with the government. If someone claims a bird they have is the offspring of captive parents, a DNA test can sort it out - no match, and you've got a wild bird. Of course, the authorities(police, wildlife organisations etc), are completely dependent on knowing where the legitimate captives are. If the scheme is ended, they won't have a clue.

The government's own scientific body, the Joint Nature Conservation Committee, plus loads of other conservation groups and the police are all against the scapping of the scheme.

Please find below a link that will take you to a page where you can sign a pledge against this:
http://www.rspb.org.uk/supporting/campai...rdsofprey/

Also, think about writing to your MP (You can do it easily enough when you sign the pledge - you should get an option to link to the 'write to them' web site). Thanks.

I didn't realise the scheme was in danger of being stopped, so thanks for pointing that out. It seems a terrible way to try and save a bit of money, what are the governments reasons for trying to get rid of it?

Purely financial, I believe.

That just makes it even worse, how can they even consider it just to save a bit of money? There are far greater costs that should be delt with, but we won't get into that!

Sadly, with the penny-pinching Gordon Brown in charge, we're going to see more of this sort of thing.

I have contacted my MP directly, but I doubt if he will give us any support. He's simply a yes man when it comes to the party line and will never support the electorate against his leader.

Depressing isn't it.:

This post was last modified: 12-11-2007 08:27 AM by wild canon.

Yes, it is depressing - my MP is exactly the same, I'm afraid

Thanks for the link, Lady Kestrel - I was also unaware that they were planning to stop this scheme

Thank you very much for pointing this out, I fear that our local MP will be the same but I will give it a go.