By Felix Meister, D.Phil., Advisor Scotland
General Licences for 2025 were issued by NatureScot in December 2024 and are in effect as of 1 January 2025.
It was previously expected that the 2025 Licences would involve significant changes following the wider species review that was to be undertaken by NatureScot in 2024. However, as the review is currently still in progress, 2025 Licences are largely identical to their 2024 counterparts. Noteworthy changes are:
Registering decoy birds
General Licences 1 and 2 now include a requirement for all decoy birds kept in multi-catch cage traps and Larsen traps to be registered with the Scottish Kept Bird Register. Advice on the registration process can be found here.
Methods for controlling feral pigeons
General Licences 2 and 3 include, among the legal methods for controlling feral pigeons (Columba livia), “shooting with the aid of any device for illuminating a target or any device for night shooting”. This method had been included in previous General Licences, but was omitted in 2024.
Definition of ‘wildlife crime’
The definition of ‘wildlife crime’ in General Licences 1, 2, 3, 4 and 14 now includes a reference to The Wildlife Management and Muirburn (Scotland) Act 2024. A previous reference to The Protection of Wild Mammals (Scotland) Act 2002 in General Licence 14 is removed.
Minor changes
General Licences 1 and 2 previously stated, among general animal welfare requirements, that “authorised persons must use the permitted method of taking or killing which has the least impact”. ‘Must’ is now replaced with ‘should’.
Detailed advice on the stipulations contained in these Licences, and how they are to be implemented in practice, is offered in our Approved Training Courses, which are run across Scotland in February 2025. Though demand is high, places can still be booked.