Gull Eggs Off The Menu For A Second Year - Campaign Update

So, just as I was about to report that Natural England had stopped communicating (again), I get a rushed email last night from their Head of Wildlife Licensing, acknowledging the questions I'd asked earlier this month.
However this was only after I'd submitted three freedom of information requests to get the answers I was looking for.
Co-incidence?
Still, it's very good to know the communication channels are still open.

Good news:
The annual licence data will be published, in full, later this month or early next month - with the caveat "this is subject to everything going smoothly with the reports".
I'll keep tabs on that.
The wildlife control licensing statistics, as you'll know, are now published every year, only after pressure from our campaign forced Natural England to release the (previously hidden) figures - making them freely available for public scrutiny.

More good news:
Black-headed gull eggs will be off the menu again this year!
Black-headed gulls are amber listed in the UK, that means they are a threatened species. Yet, for years, thousands of their eggs have been harvested for human consumption, under licences approved by Natural England - consumed in fancy restaurants and sold through high end grocers - hard to believe but true.
Licences have traditionally been issued to applicants in two areas of England - Hampshire and North Yorkshire, but pressure from our campaign secured the suspension of most of the licences in 2022, a great result, although a handful of licences were still approved in Yorkshire. 
I've now asked for the complete and total withdrawal of all the licences this year, and an end to this abhorrent and outdated trade. 
And I am happy to confirm that most of the licences have already been withdrawn...
Natural England tell me that they have not received any further requests for licences from Hampshire so far this year and that "in the unlikely event we do receive applications, these would most certainly be rejected".
​Excellent. This will secure the survival of thousands of the amber-listed gulls.
But they have not yet confirmed that they will suspend the Yorkshire licences, and say a further assessment is to be carried out first.
So I have now written to them and respectfully suggested that the logical and correct thing to do would be to discontinue the Yorkshire licences, especially given the absence of any backlash following the suspension of last year's licences in Hampshire.

I am hopeful that the government sponsored harvesting of gull eggs for human consumption will soon be a thing of the past, consigned to history, where it belongs.

I'll update you on this when I have further info.

The campaign continues!

Best,
Jase

Image by Norbert Rick from Pixabay