§ Mr. Burdenasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if the Cambridge experimental laboratories obtained a licence to capture chaffinches which are protected under the Protection of Birds Act 1954; and if the application for the licence indicated that the birds were to be artificially deafened in an attempt to discover how they learn to sing.
§ Mrs. Shirley WilliamsLicences with specific conditions intended to protect birds have been issued by the Natural Environment Research Council to the Cambridge University Department of Zoology Sub-Department of Animal 27W Behaviour to take various wildbirds for scientific research including chaffinches. The application did not specify the particular facet of the bird behaviour to be studied.