Summary of wildlife licences issued by Natural England in 2020
Data on the number and type of licences granted and the updated list of licences to control birds from 2014 to 2020.
Applies to England
Documents
Details
Some species of wildlife have legal protection. Natural England issues licences on behalf of the government that allow activities affecting protected species that are otherwise prohibited.
Some licences allow lethal control. Before issuing a licence, Natural England carefully considers the circumstances of a case, the justification for it and the impact on the species as a whole.
This data does not include licences issued under the Protection of Badgers Act 1992 for the purpose of the prevention of the spread of disease. This information has been published on GOV.UK.
Wildlife licences issued in 2020
The first document shows the number of wildlife licences issued in 2020 for 4 main categories:
- mitigation licences for European protected species
- class licences
- science and conservation
- species management
Licences issued for the control of birds from 2014 to 2020
The second document shows the number of birds, nests and eggs covered on licences that may include lethal control. The data is from 2014 to 2020.
This document is an update to the information provided last year. Where an applicant has applied for an amendment to their licence, this will supersede the previous version of the licence. As a result, there may be some differences in the data provided last year compared to this year.
Where a licence reference number appears twice, this does not mean an applicant can control twice the number of birds. To analyse the data accurately, only one instance of the bird species and licence purpose should be used per unique reference number or site.
This document also includes a tab to show the number of birds, nests and eggs covered on individual licences as a result of the revocation of the Natural England general licence. These licences include a maximum figure for control across several methods on one licence. This does not mean there is a large number of birds to be controlled as it is not a cumulative running total.
For all bird licences, annual returns show that the actual numbers affected are significantly less than the numbers covered on the licences. Due to the complexity of return information it’s not possible to publish these figures.