"But only implicitly illegal, so lots of people will ignore the new law, and some of those people will end up in jail."

£50 says nobody will. This doesn't make it a good law - just yet another addition to the NuLab pile of unnecessary laws that will never be enforced, and that diminish respect for the law in general...

"not only do you have to scare a pigeon before you're allowed to shoot it, but, if you want to avoid prosecution, you'd better get the pigeon to sign a sworn statement that it felt startled."

No no: you must show that "non-lethal methods" were ineffective and were driven to "deadly force" as a last resort. So you must get the pigeon to sign a statement that it didn't feel startled, despite your best efforts to scare it.

"records of scaring"... it's like something out of a Monty Python sketch.

No, Rob. If the pigeon admits that it wasn't startled, then you'll be accused of using inadequate methods of startlement. What you'll need is for the pigeon to admit that it was startled but so rock 'ard that it decided to face you down.

It is a tad Pythonesque, isn't it? Definitely one of those things that no-one would ever have believed could happen.

>>because they're disease-carrying vermin.

The pigeons or the government?

You have to ask?

Aha, DEFRA wording has changed to:

"This Licence can only be relied on [ie: a bird can only be shot] in circumstances where the authorised person [ie: a shooter] is satisfied that appropriate non-lethal methods of control such as scaring are either ineffective or impracticable". "...is satisfied that..." instead of "...can show that...".

So a shooter must be satisfied that scaring won't work, but doesn't have to produce proof of scaring.

Interesting. Still the thin end of the wedge, though. Will hunters ever have to explain the reasoning behind their satisfaction? I suspect so, sooner or later.