The National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) recently held a public consultation on the Open Seasons Order. The public consultation will inform any review of the Open Seasons Order and the bird species listed on it. Consideration will also be given to the actions needed to improve the management of the Open Seasons Order, with a view to ensuring that hunting of these species is on a sustainable footing. Following recently reported declines in populations at the EU level, an EU Taskforce on the Recovery of Bird Species has been established to consider actions to reverse the decline in bird species, and to review the sustainability of their hunting in the Member States. The NPWS are engaging with this forum.
A presentation was made to the NPWS Management Board in September 2022 by the internal NPWS Open Seasons Order working group. The presentation involved a review of the requirement of the Birds Directive; discussions of the EU Task Force on the Recovery of Bird Species; the available scientific data; potential framework in relation to certain Annex II species on the Open Seasons Order; and developing a draft framework for the consultation process with stakeholders.
The public consultation process – comprising both online surveys and in person meetings - allowed stakeholders and the general public to provide their views on policy issues. The preliminary outline deliberations of the NPWS working group were not fed into the public consultation process as to do so would have influenced the views of either the general public or of the specific stakeholders involved. The full suite of options has not yet been agreed and there is, as yet, no formal NPWS position on the next steps. The results of the public consultation are currently being analysed and no decisions have been taken with regard to any potential changes in the Open Seasons Order.
There is no question of data being unavailable to or withheld from stakeholders.
