Humans trump bird safety

MANY of you are agreeing with our David Hymers, and his article Into The Jungle, where he wrote about the problems of CaRT using wildlife as an excuse for not cutting back vegetation.

David wrote: It is obviously important for boaters that a cut should be done at the beginning of the boating season-but of course this will not be done since the interests of wildlife will once again trump the safety of human beings as this would coincide with the bird nesting season, which prohibits any vegetation management in the spring.

I confess to ignorance on matters wildlife. But I recently did some research for this, for an upcoming item in Waterways World, writes Andrew Denny.

RSPB

After speaking to the RSPB, what surprised me was the exact legislation regarding birds and veg management. The relevant laws are in the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981:
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1981/69
which only refers to 'wilfully disturbing nesting birds'.

I'd approached the RSPB about it after getting fed up with overhanging branches and other vegetation sweeping stuff off my roof as I went past, and in one case almost blinding me as I tried to save my camera (but lost my mi-fi mobile broadband into the water—luckily I had a spare).

Exact legal position

I wanted to know the exact legal position. So I called the RSPB. And as their spokesman said to me:

"It's a grey area. If you are satisfied there aren't any nesting birds there, it's okay to cut it back any time. And if you feel there's a safety issue for humans, it's okay to cut it back—even if there are nesting birds, although you'd need to prove that it's a safety issue."

They appear not to be fanatical, and do recognise that human safety trumps bird safety, and that if you are convinced there aren't any birds' nests you can also go ahead anyway.

Convenience and costs

In short, it's not so much the law that stops canal vegetation management, as convenience and costs for CaRT. It's easier and cheaper for them to assume a blanket ban because of birds nesting.

Of course, it make sense to leave vegetation control until everything has stopped growing in October. But it's also okay to expect CaRT to do spot control in early/mid-summer, for example if there's a problem at a blind bend.