Under threat: But land owners face prosecution if they shoot parakeets without good reason Changes to wildlife law do not mean it is an open season on parakeets and anyone shooting them without a good reason faces prosecution, a bird charity has warned.
Ring-necked parakeets have been added to the general licence by wildlife watchdog Natural England.
This means from January 1, 2010, land owners can kill the birds by shooting or trapping them, without obtaining special permission.
However, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) has warned the exotic birds are still protected and there must be a very good reason for killing them.
Grahame Madge, from the RSPB, said: “Headlines declaring an open season on parakeets are misleading.
“It is not a citizen’s charter for the people of Richmond to start killing parakeets in their gardens, they would quickly find that the law protected those birds.”
He said they could only be killed if they were damaging crops or posed a threat to health and safety.
“It is a bureaucratic change which means land owners do not have to go to the extent of filling out a form to get a licence to kill the birds, they must still have a good reason for doing so.”
He said anyone killing the birds without a good reason faced a £5,000 fine or a six-month prison sentence.
There is a large population of parakeets in Richmond Park, and in London alonw they thought to number more than 30,000.
A spokesman from Natural England echoed the RSPB’s warning.
He said: “It does not mean that people can head down to Richmond Park and start shooting any parrot that they see.
“They need the permission of the land owner. If the land owner can demonstrate that serious damage is being caused and there is no other course of action, then they can shoot the birds.”
The parakeets, which come from Africa and Asia, are not native to Britain. It is thought they started breeding in London in the 1950s.
One theory is that a flock of parakeets escaped from Shepperton Studios in Surrey from the set of the African Queen, starring Humphrey Bogart and Katherine Hepburn.