2 Amendment of section 11 of Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981.
(1)
Section 11 of the principal Act (prohibition of certain methods of killing or taking wild animals) shall be amended as follows.
(2)
In subsection (1)—
(a)
at the end of paragraph (b) “or” shall be omitted; and
(b)
“; or
(d)
knowingly causes or permits to be done an act which is mentioned in the foregoing provisions of this section,”.
(3)
In subsection (2)—
(a)
at the end of paragraph (d) “or” shall be omitted; and
(b)
“; or
(f)
knowingly causes or permits to be done an act which is mentioned in the foregoing provisions of this subsection,”.
(4)
In subsection (3)(a), after “position” there shall be inserted “or knowingly causes or permits to be set in position”.
(5)
In subsection (5), after “(e)”, there shall be inserted “and in any proceedings for an offence under subsection (1)(d) or (2)(f) relating to an act which is mentioned in any of those paragraphs”.
(6)
“(7)
In any proceedings for an offence under subsection (2)(f) relating to an act which is mentioned in subsection (2)(a) it shall be a defence to show that the article was set in position for the purpose of killing or taking, in the interests of public health, agriculture, forestry, fisheries or nature conservation, any wild animals which could be lawfully killed or taken by those means and that he took or caused to be taken all reasonable precautions to prevent injury thereby to any wild animals included in Schedule 6.”.