By Felix Meister, D.Phil., Advisor Scotland
In an effort to monitor and combat Avian Influenza, UK Government requires all kept birds to be registered. Separate registers exist for the devolved nations, the relevant one for Scotland being the Scottish Kept Bird Register.
Following recent outbreaks of High Pathogenic Avian Influenza, it was decided earlier this year to lower the minimum number of kept birds necessitating a registration from fifty to one.
While this change has been communicated widely among the poultry and gamebird-rearing sectors, it was not immediately clear how it would affect operators of corvid traps involving decoy birds.
We have sought clarity on this from Scottish Government and received confirmation that decoy birds kept in multi-catch corvid cages and Larsen traps are indeed considered kept birds and that it is now a legal requirement to register decoy birds with the SKBR.
However, as opposed to other kept birds, the deadline for registering decoy birds is not 1 December 2024. Instead, decoy birds must be registered within one month of the trap’s activation.
How to register decoy birds
Registration is done here. You will need to create an account and input personal details.
Locations where you keep birds: Submit one or several locations of areas where traps with decoy birds are active. Scottish Government have assured us that locations can be broad, reflecting land units rather than individual traps. If more than one trap is active within the same land unit, they do not need to be registered separately. Likewise, if a trap is moved within the same land unit, it does not need to be re-registered.
Details of birds kept: Select from previously submitted locations and specify how many decoy birds are kept across all the traps active within that location. For species, select ‘Other birds’. For ‘What do you keep the birds for’, select ‘Other captive birds’. Finally, for ‘More specific reason’, select ‘Hunting/pest control’.
Trap operators seeking further advise or experiencing difficulties are encouraged to contact scottishadvisory@gwct.org.uk.