BCT's Response to Proposed Amendments

Consultations from the government departments for England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland during summer 2006 outlined the proposed changes. BCT responded to each consultation (see following links).

Licensing possession of bats

BCT assisted Natural England and the Countryside Council for Wales (CCW) in canvassing opinions from bat workers on a proposed procedure for licensing the possession of bats. A document outlining the proposed procedure was circulated by BCT at the start of February 2007 (see Appendix 1 in the following response for the proposed procedure). Responses received from 67 bat workers were collated by BCT and sent to Natural England in time for a meeting on 14 February between the government departments and the SNCOs responsible for the Habitats Regulations amendments in England and Wales.

Following that meeting, Natural England clarified several points of the procedure:

Natural England and CCW are developing a Q&A on possession and they said that our feedback was very useful in producing issues they will need to cover in that Q&A. BCT will probably not produce its own Q&A.

Their intention is to reduce the licensing burden as far as possible whilst still offering the protection of a licence to those that need it.

There is no limit on the number of disabled bats that can be held for the purpose of tending them and releasing them when recovered. This should be a relief to the many bat workers who care for injured bats before releasing them.

The proposal is to licence long-term captives that can never be released. The idea of allowing batworkers to possess a small number of live bats (ie not disabled) is to allow for the occasional rescue, where a few bats may be held overnight.

They are not looking to restrict the number of dead specimens that people can possess. They don't envisage it being particularly hard to get a licence for possession of specimens found dead etc. These licences will, they hope, last for 25 years.

Please note: This is subject to change until officially published by the relevant government departments and SNCOs.

Our work is supported by Natural England and The Esmee Fairbairn Foundation