DEFRA Authority needed to shoot Wild Boar????

Orion

Well-Known Member
I've found this little snippet from the Minutes of a recent meeting of the Devon & Cornwall Constabulary Firearms Liaison Committee to be a bit of a puzzler:

".........advised the meeting that any boar that had escaped from a farm were not classed as “wild” and could only be shot with permission from the owner. However, if any of these animals enjoying their freedom should breed then their offspring would be classed as wild. A certificate would need to be varied for the shooting of wild boar. The meeting was also advised that any certificate holder that wishes to shoot wild boar would have to contact DEFRA. Shooters would need to be authorised to shoot wild boar and would need a letter from DEFRA, authority from their owner and a suitably varied certificate."

Couple of points:

Firstly: If wild boar were 'escapees' and on A N Other's land why would you need the permission of the original owner, (if he could even be traced :rolleyes: )?

Secondly: Anybody posting on here have such a letter from DEFRA or even heard of such a thing being a requirement?
 
Had a look at the DEFRA website & can find nothing relating to authorisation to shoot Wild Boar.

I've always been under the impression that like Pheasants that a shoot puts down, once they stray onto other peoples land they are fair game for the land owner, I would have thought Wild Boar would be treated the same. (surely the name says it all - Wild Boar) :confused:

These documents might be of interest though.

Chris

http://www.defra.gov.uk/foodfarm/farmanimal/diseases/documents/csf-wildboarpres.pdf

http://www.defra.gov.uk/wildlife-pets/wildlife/management/non-native/documents/review-report.pdf
 
Yes Chris, like you I've been all over the DEFRA website, The British Wild Boar website and Googled like crazy, and I can't find anything, nadda, zilch that would give rise to the D&C comments.

I'm just emailing DEFRA & BWB to see if they can throw any light on it.

Worrying thing is that this gives an insight into how one police force makes firearms policy based on.......................

.................what exactly? :eek:
 
Whoever penned that document is an ass, boar aren't generally tagged so how do you prove ownership and in any case if you have boar on your ticket and the piggies are there it's sausage time.

If the document said something like:

'The meeting was also advised that any certificate holder that wishes to shoot must have the land owners permission and should contact DEFRA to advise them of the potential spread of the free living wild boar population.'

I might have gone along with that... :confused:
 
Orion said:
Worrying thing is that this gives an insight into how one police force makes firearms policy based on.......................

.................what exactly?

"On the hoof" is the correct answer ...... although in this case probably on the trotter?
 
I know at one time farmed boar were supposed to be tagged, same as domestic pigs, to prove place/stock of origin; would be surprised if it had changed now.
The big thing when I was manageing/culling them was the farmers where I was managing them wanted a shot one with an ear tag in, just to prove where they came from as the farmer who was farming them originally as he denied all knowledge of his boar being out and roaming free.
The "rumour"was he wasn`t making any money so he rounded them up loaded them onto trucks and sold them then he just turned off the electric fences and left the gates open, surprisingly enough he hadn`t caught all of them :rolleyes:
Everyone in the area knew whose they were and how they came to be wild, but unless one was shot with an ear tag in there was no proof at all, and by now I don`t know what generation they would be on now as the original ëscapees"escaped or were released in 1995/6
 
Orion said:
Yes Chris, like you I've been all over the DEFRA website, The British Wild Boar website and Googled like crazy, and I can't find anything, nadda, zilch that would give rise to the D&C comments.

I'm just emailing DEFRA & BWB to see if they can throw any light on it.

Worrying thing is that this gives an insight into how one police force makes firearms policy based on.......................

.................what exactly? :eek:
ANSWER..... PURE WHIM.
 
...not sure if David from BASC has seen this or can comment. Just out of interest are BASC or any of the other pro shooting groups ever invited to sit round the table at these meetings? I know that there are a number of forces but surely in the days of partnerships groups like BASC should be invited to these meetings, in order to clarify or correct any points raised, and put over any views from the shooting perspective.

You would like to think they know what they are talking about but........

ATB
 
There's a thing - according to the Minutes of the meeting, in attendance was a:

J Stewart – BASC Regional Director

Left and right hand comes to mind............... :rolleyes:
 
Yes, strange that he allowed the misinformation to be presented by the police like that. Maybe he hadn't boned up on what was available from his own organisation:

http://www.basc.org.uk/en/departments/deer-management/wild-boar/faq.cfm

I can't say I'm particularly impressed by the attitude of BASC to this one though:

11. I have wild boar on the land where I shoot and the land owner has given me permission to shoot them. Do I need to have my Firearms certificate endorsed by the police to shoot wild boar?

Yes you should get your FAC conditioned by your Firearms Licensing Dept. Although some people may argue that you can shoot wild boar under a vermin or general estate wildlife management authorisation, from a peace of mind it is best to get the authorisation first rather than risk a potential prosecution or difficulty in future renewals of your FAC.


Good to see BASC pushing the envelope and supporting holders of suitable calibre rifles and open FACs by insisting that wild boar should be included as 'other lawful quarry' - NOT!!!! :rolleyes:
 
I suppose its the old argument about 'self regulation' or having something pushed on us from the authorities....

most members of the public, soft and fluffy brigade, will only ever know pigs as the cute things in 'Babe' or in petting farms where they get to stroke them and look lovingly on them...

the problem then comes if they think 'us' hunters are just out for sport and there is no 'reason' to shoot pigs [to them - Wild Boar to us]. The old arguments will surface....'plenty of room out there in the wild for them so leave them be' - 'so what if someone has their land trashed its only land'
and if someone is hurt by one of these lovely creatures then it will probably have been their fault and not the animals....blah blah blah.

I would think if someone tried to class Boar as vermin there would be an outcry...in joe publics mind vermin are dirty things like rats [and thats probaby it as far as they care]

it is probably best to show that we are reasonable in the first case and are thinking about the issue??

what really sticks in the throat is that you can ask them for a simple thing like adding the condition to allow you to do it...and really it should be as simple as a phone call as long as it is land you already have or are on an open ticket, and your ticket is updated. But from many stories it appears that even adding a condition can set you back weeks before you get a response...

ATB
 
TokaS said:
what really sticks in the throat is that you can ask them for a simple thing like adding the condition to allow you to do it...and really it should be as simple as a phone call as long as it is land you already have or are on an open ticket, and your ticket is updated. But from many stories it appears that even adding a condition can set you back weeks before you get a response...

So, pursuing that argument - and I state from the outset that I am not in favour of classifying wild boar as 'vermin' - wouldn't it be far better and simplify the process if an 'open' FAC holder, who already has a suitable calibre rifle for which the primary 'reason to possess' had already been satisfied i.e. deer, should then be allowed to cull wild boar under the new catch-all condition that allowed 'any lawful quarry'?

Why complicate matters by having to jump through the hoops for another already 'lawful' quarry that has no special or specific legislation attached to it in the same way that deer, badgers etc have?

The HO guidance mentions having a condition for wild boar but that would apply to the initial good reason to possess if boar were the sole quarry.

The way this subject is being addressed, in the typically haphazard way by the various police forces up and down the country, means that you really are at risk of being a victim of 'postcode justice' if you shoot in a force area with radically different views on the licensing/conditioning of firearms for wild boar from your own issuing authority.

It would be very interesting to see what happened if they tried to follow-up with a proscecution on someone who shot a boar without a specific condition. I get the feeling that a good barrister would make mincemeat out of them. Until then it's all the usual mishmash with, apparently, BASC doing some kind of equivocation on the sidelines.
 
I agree there is so much red tape and none of it the same between forces...lets hope we get some kind of uniformity and perhaps a smidgen of common sense as well....though i am doubtful!!!

ATB
 
john.d.m said:
I know at one time farmed boar were supposed to be tagged, same as domestic pigs, to prove place/stock of origin; would be surprised if it had changed now.
The big thing when I was manageing/culling them was the farmers where I was managing them wanted a shot one with an ear tag in, just to prove where they came from as the farmer who was farming them originally as he denied all knowledge of his boar being out and roaming free.
The "rumour"was he wasn`t making any money so he rounded them up loaded them onto trucks and sold them then he just turned off the electric fences and left the gates open, surprisingly enough he hadn`t caught all of them :rolleyes:
Everyone in the area knew whose they were and how they came to be wild, but unless one was shot with an ear tag in there was no proof at all, and by now I don`t know what generation they would be on now as the original ëscapees"escaped or were released in 1995/6


blooming eck
when we looked at purchasing them
they were a bloody fortune to buy
worth more alive than dead, especialy a sow heavy in young
wonder what went wrong as dead weight they were worth £3 a 1lb in our butchers back then and still about that price in 2003
not sure what it is now thou, probally double
 
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