HL Deb 17 July 1923 vol 54 cc1100-4

Birds in Category I (protected at all times).

LORD SOMERLEYTON moved after "Hawk (all species except" to insert "Kestrel and." The noble Lord said: I believe that this Amendment will be accepted by the noble Viscount in charge of the Bill. My reason for moving it will. I have no doubt, be known to many noble Lords present. We know that kestrels, though they do not prey habitually on domestic animals or even upon game, are some of the worst poachers in the country, and such informants as I have been able to consult in the short time since this Amendment was put down have very strongly supported this view. I have actual proofs of the kestrel's poaching. A keeper of my own, on the 7th instant, shot two kestrels, one of which was carrying a young partridge while another was eating one on the ground. My agent found a kestrels' nest in a church tower a fortnight ago which contained a quantity of bones of game and poultry.

I have no doubt that all your Lordships are aware that kestrels kill game under certain conditions, but I do not base my claims to include kestrels with sparrow-hawks on the ground that they kill game, because many of your Lordships are not in the habit of shooting and would not be interested in that point. I base this Amendment upon the fact that they kill stock belonging to farmers. A tenant farmer of my own writes: Two years ago I found a kestrel's nest in a hollow tree containing the remains of seven pheasants and nine partridges of seven to twenty-one days old, and also a quantity of mice."— I admit that the kestrel does good as well as harm— Last year two pairs of kestrels started on my young turkeys and in all killed twenty-seven. They were about a month in taking them and took birds up to three or four weeks old. The kestrels were nesting at the time. One nest was located in a water mill, and I laid up and shot them. The other birds were nesting on the south side of Fritton Lake. I did not find the nest, but my shepherd shot the hen and I got the cock red-handed carrying off a young turkey. There have been a couple round the young turkeys this year, but so far as I know they have only killed three. I need not say that a bird which can carry off a turkey three or four weeks old is a very real danger to farmers.

I have also instances of chickens and ducks being taken, but I have not sufficient details to put before your Lordships. The only other point which I would venture to raise—and I think my noble friend in charge of the Bill will appreciate this—is that the kestrel is very common. No one has the least desire to kill it where it is not doing harm, but where it has taken to killing the farmers' stock it constitutes a real danger and ought to be classed with the sparrowhawk.

Amendment moved— Page 11, line 19, after ("except") insert ("Kestrel and").—Lord So[...]erleyton.)

LORD MONTAGU OF BEAULIEU

I desire to take up the brief for the kestrel. I cannot understand how the noble Lord on the Front Bench opposite can bring forward any accusation against the kestrel from an agricultural point of view, because if there is one bird that kills more field voles than another it is the kestrel. It certainly does more good than harm in the agricultural world. Possibly your Lordships know the oft quoted instance of how a clover crop was damaged by the killing of kestrels. The kestrel, as I have said, is very fond of the field vole; the field vole preys upon the bumble-bee; and the bumble-bee is the agency through which clover is fertilised. If you kill a kestrel you may affect your clover crop. This is a well established fact and, as noble Lords may be aware, it is a very interesting deduction. There is no bird more useful in keeping down field voles than the kestrel. I have seen kestrels take small birds of all kinds, but only very occasionally. On balance the kestrel does good, and I should be very sorry to see him included with the sparrowhawk, which on the whole does harm. IF you include the kestrel you will have people killing merlins, hobbies and other hawks by mistake. I think it is very dangerous to allow the killing of any hawk except the sparrowhawk, which everybody who has ever lived in the country knows and can easily recognise.

VISCOUNT GREY OF FALLODON

This is just one of those cases which presents a certain amount of difficulty. I think that what has fallen from Lord Montagu of Beaulieu is undoubtedly true, and that the kestrel is on the whole a useful bird. As a rule, he does good, and he only occasionally does harm. But, so far as my own experience goes, this is what has happened. I have described the general utility of the kestrel, but every now and then in the breeding season an individual kestrel turns rogue and, finding, it may be, a place where pheasants are bred or where water fowl are bred, or it may be a farm yard, as the noble Lord opposite has said, it proceeds to supply its young from that source. Under the Bill it would be Possible to apply for a licence in order to destroy kestrels in that particular neighbourhood, but it is very desirable that the necessity of applying for a licence should be confined, as it is in the Bill, solely to the case of birds which in most parts of the country are really rare. The kestrel undoubtedly is in no danger of extinction at the present time.

I think the danger of extinction to our birds comes not nearly so much from shooting as from the taking of eggs. It is very desirable that the Bill should excite as little opposition as possible, and that you should really be able to prove that it is not exposing people to danger from the protection of species that are not running the risk of extinction. We are, as regards owls, providing protection for all species except the little owl. The owl is one of the most effective means of keeping down field mice. I think that on the whole it will case the passage of the Bill if the Amendment of the noble Lord opposite be accepted. I therefore propose to accept the Amendment, merely observing that should there be any signs that the kestrel is becoming rare, there is power for the Secretary of State to replace the kestrel in Category I.

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

First Schedule, as amended, agreed to.

Second Schedule (Birds in Category II (specially protected during the close season)):

THE DUKE OF BUCCLEUCH

I have been asked to draw the attention of your Lordships to the inclusion in the Second Schedule of the wild goose (all species). I know very little about the habits of the wild goose, but I am informed that they do considerable damage in Perthshire, Fifeshire and other places, but especially in the two counties I have named. Well on into the month of April they eat the wheat down, the same as if a flock of sheep had been grazing, and it has been pointed out to me that it is a mistake to include them in this protection, as probably there is no particular reason except for the sake of the few to which the noble Viscount alluded as breeding in this country. The remainder of them breed in Nova Zembla and other places, where they are not protected in any shape or form. I do not wish to move an Amendment, but merely to draw attention to the matter and ask the noble Viscount to consider the point.

VISCOUNT GREY OF FALLODON

This is an Amendment which I do not think it would be possible to accept, consistently with the Bill. I would observe that the wild goose in the Bill is only protected in the close season. There are very few which breed in this country. The grey land goose is the only kind. Therefore the damage of which the noble Duke speaks is not done by those comparatively few individuals or their comparatively few young reared in any year, but is done by geese which, as the noble Duke has said, are bred much further north, in some cases in vast numbers, and which arrive in this country after the breeding season here. It is by these foreign geese that the damage must be done. Wild geese are protected only in the close time, and wild birds from abroad do not arrive till after the close time is over, and therefore the Bill will not prevent the occupier or owner or anybody who has a right to do so, from shooting the wild goose at any time of the year when they are here in large numbers and are doing damage.

THE DUKE OF BUCCLEUCH

But they are here in the month of April. That is the point. I am informed that they are here in that month and are doing great damage to crops.

VISCOUNT OBEY OF FALLODON

I did not realise that it was in the month of April. It is an entirely new point to me. I had no idea that they were in this country in any numbers in April, but I will enquire into the matter.

Second Schedule agreed to.

Third and Fourth Schedules agreed to.