DEFRA rules against bird scaring on The Wash.

The Wash facts.

• The Wash is a huge 63,000-hectare bay lying between the Norfolk and Lincolnshire coasts.
• It is a Ramsar wetland site under the international Ramsar Convention, a Special Protection Area under the EU’s 1979 Birds Directive and a Special Area of Conservation under the EU’s 1992 Habitats Directive. It is a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) under the Wildlife and Countryside Act (as amended).
• English Nature classifies almost 25% of The Wash SSSI as being in unfavourable condition. The government has a target of achieving 95% of SSSIs in favourable condition by 2010.
• The RSPB believes that scaring birds to allow shell fishing to increase will accelerate the deterioration of The Wash.
• Over-fishing in the 1980s and early 1990s led numbers of naturally occurring shellfish to plummet. To continue fishing, shell fishermen created artificial mussel beds, in some places where shellfish used to thrive naturally. Stock for these beds is being taken from elsewhere in The Wash, where birds also feed, so further depleting shellfish stocks and slowing the recovery of those natural mussel beds.
• After similar damage to the Wadden Sea, off the Dutch coast, the Dutch government introduced measures to protect wild birds while allowing sustainable fishing to continue.
• The Wash is Europe’s second most important estuary for wintering birds, particularly wading birds and sea duck. It hosts internationally important populations of nine species of waterfowl, three species of gull, three species of tern and 15 species of wader. Species present in large numbers include oystercatcher, ringed plover, grey plover, knot, sanderling, dunlin, black-tailed godwit, bar-tailed godwit, curlew, redshank, turnstone, pink-footed geese, brent geese, shelduck, wigeon, pintail, teal, mallard, eider, common scoter.
• Eiders are Europe’s largest duck. They breed in Scandinavia, Iceland, Faroes and northern Britain and over-winter around the coasts of the UK, Belgium, the Netherlands and France. They eat submerged prey, especially mussels and cockles. There are about 3,000 on The Wash in winter. The UK winter population of 74,000 has been stable since 1994.
• Eiders congregate in a few important sites making large numbers vulnerable to a single threat, such as shell fishing or disturbance. This is why it is considered a species of conservation concern in the UK. Their numbers have declined elsewhere in Europe, making them more reliant on The Wash. Eiders have wintered on The Wash since 1965, when systematic recording of water birds on estuaries began.
• The four-day public inquiry was held in June 2006 in Boston, Lincs. It was called by then Environment Secretary Margaret Beckett after 14 fishermen appealed for permission to scare birds from their mussel farms.