The government has changed the rules for shooting on Salisbury Plain "without warning". 

According to Devizes MP Danny Kruger the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs announced on June 1 that shoots which operate in or near to Specially Protected Areas (so designated because of rare bird species) would have to apply for an individual licence from Natural England in order to release gamebirds - rather than relying on the General License (GL43) which had regulated them previously.

He says the reason given is the danger of Avian Influenza - bird flu - getting into the rare bird population via gamebirds infected by wild birds from abroad.

Mr Kruger says the announcement came "at the worst possible moment", as shoots order birds in October for release in June or July. 

The Wiltshire Gazette and Herald: Danny Kruger

This means some birds have been paid for and delivered or are on their way from suppliers. 

"Natural England, which was immediately deluged in applications for individual licences, is currently taking up to six weeks to process each one, and many are being refused", he says in a post on his website. 

Mr Kruger says there are half a million young birds in England which are currently homeless. They can’t be released without a licence or be kept indefinitely in pens, or be culled legally yet.

The only future for these birds, he says, if they are not to be released into the wild as planned, is for gamekeepers to wait until they grow too big for their pens and start attacking each other, at which point - on welfare grounds - they can be culled.

Mr Kruger had a meeting on the plain on Friday where he heard from a representative from the British Association for Shooting and Conservation (BASC), where he was told that Avian Flu is in retreat across England and especially so on Salisbury Plain where the conditions it needs - lakes and marshlands - are absent.

"There is no evidence that gamebirds increase the risk of bird flu among wild birds. Whereas there is compelling evidence that rare birds are protected, not put at risk, by the shooting industry." 

He adds: "The General License to release must be renewed for this season. Licences are needed which allow for immediate release, so the birds which the shoots ordered in good faith last October can be set free, rather than penned up until they are big enough to cull.

"Then Defra must lead a proper consultation with stakeholders - meaning the people who farm and steward the land, not just the sentimentalist lobby - to get the licensing arrangements right for next season and the future.

"I’m not a member of a shoot and I have no personal interest here. But I care very much about the community of soldiers, veterans, their families, and all the many people who live and work around Salisbury Plain. I want to see its rich social history and its amazing ecology preserved for the next generation. I will lobby Defra with all my might to save the Army shoots."