Enquiry about NRW’s General Licences

Our General Licences clearly set out the purpose and circumstances in which they may be relied upon. This was one of the grounds of challenge in a recent unsuccessful legal case. The judgment is clear the current general licences are not unlawful and there is no legal requirement for them to specify, any further than they already do, the circumstances in which they may lawfully be relied upon.

We are currently undertaking a detailed and comprehensive review of our approach to all the permissions we give for shooting and trapping wild birds in Wales, this includes General Licences. We have committed that, as our licences are lawful and the review is underway, we will not be making any changes to our General Licences at this time.

The current General Licences are valid from 1 January 2021 until 31 December 2021.

The review will include a consultation later in the year, and we would encourage you to take part as it will shape our future approach to all the permissions we give for shooting and trapping wild birds in Wales. Further details about the consultation will be made available on our website and on our social media channels once available.

We are aware of the Newsletter from Wild Justice that suggested people contact us about our General Licences. We hope that our response provides you with additional clarity about our General Licences and the context of our ongoing review. We also wish to advise that we did acknowledge receipt of the original correspondence from Wild Justice and have responded to their letter to us in full.