End Bird Netting: Stop the Suffering Above Our Streets
Protect the wild and Humane wildlife solutions team up to end bird netting
Protect the Wild and Human Wildlife Solutions are joining forces to launch a brand new campaign, End Bird Netting, calling for an immediate end to the cruel and unnecessary use of bird netting across the UK.
Every year, thousands of birds become trapped, entangled, and injured in the nets strung over buildings, bridges, and shopfronts. Many suffer for hours or even days before dying, alone, exhausted, and terrified.
This isn’t “pest control.” It’s suffering, plain and simple.
The Hidden Cruelty Above Our Heads
Walk through any town or city and look up, you’ll see bird nets draped across eaves, ledges, and roofs. These nets are meant to “deter” pigeons and other birds. But in reality, they often become deadly traps.
Birds caught in netting can hang helplessly for days, their wings or feet twisted in the thin strands. They break bones. Tear feathers. Starve. Many die before anyone even notices or cares.
This isn’t a one-off tragedy, it happens every single day in communities across Britain.
A Legal Failure
Under the Animal Welfare Act (2006), businesses have a legal duty to prevent unnecessary suffering to animals, including wild birds. Yet enforcement is practically non-existent.
Guidelines state that trapped birds must be freed within 24-25 hours of being reported. But too often, nothing happens. Reports go ignored. Birds are left to die, their bodies hanging as grim reminders of how little compassion some companies have for wildlife.
There Are Humane Alternatives
Companies claim bird netting is the “only option.” It isn’t.
There are effective, humane alternatives, deterrents that don’t harm, maim, or kill. Humane Wildlife Solutions has been using them for years, working with nature rather than against it.
It’s time for businesses to catch up, and for the public to demand better.
Take Action
We’re calling on councils, developers, and businesses to end the use of bird netting and remove existing installations.
We’re calling on local authorities to enforce the Animal Welfare Act and hold negligent companies accountable.
And we’re calling on the public, on you, to speak up when you see birds trapped or suffering. Report it. Document it. Share it. And demand change.
Email Kevin to report trapped birds, dead or alive on: info@humanewildlifesolutions.co.uk
Together, we can end this lazy, lethal practice. Compassion shouldn’t stop at convenience.
Want to support our vital work protecting British wildlife?
We’ve still got a few packs left of our beautiful Christmas cards, featuring an exclusive design by hunt saboteur and artist Kate Louise Powell.
Printed by our friends at Anglia Print using vegan inks and sustainable materials, each pack includes 8 cards and envelopes, with the Protect the Wild logo proudly displayed on the reverse.
I am amazed, I did not know this took place, perhaps it's because I do not go to these areas, I was working on a house, many years ago and through a broken "air brick", was a birds nest, the owner asked me to "fill it in", I "refused" and argued with the man and said, when the "young" have flown, I will come back and "fill it in", I watched that house and air brick, to make sure the owner did not "fill it in", otherwise I would have reported him, then I "filled it in" when the young had flown and was sure no birds were in their, it amazes me how some people "think".
I have often seen this in Berwick Upon Tweed whilst on holiday. None of the staff in the shops seem to care, just one of those things in a seaside town. Absolutely appalling. I shall report on the email given in future.