England’s Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs) are the “finest sites for wildlife and natural features” in the country, according to the public body responsible for their protection, Natural England. Nonetheless, a Freedom of Information request has revealed that hunting is being permitted in some of these precious Nature sites.
Precious pockets of Nature
England has more than 4,000 SSSIs covering over one million hectares of land. These sites are afforded legal protection due to their ‘special interest features’, such as the geology, habitats or species contained within them variously being unique, rare, or threatened. As the Woodland Trust has highlighted, around half of England’s SSSIs are considered “internationally important for wildlife.”
In other words, SSSIs are precious remaining pockets of Nature in one of the most Nature-depleted countries on Earth.
There are over 26,000 owners and occupiers that have SSSIs on their land, according to the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. Many SSSIs are managed by major landowners, such as public bodies, water companies, and large conservation organisations, with others on private land.
Natural England identifies and protects SSSIs. This means that when a landowner wants an activity that is formally considered risky to take place on an SSSI, they have to request written consent from Natural England.
Considering how important SSSIs are, people might expect that they are entirely off limits to hunting activities. However, this is not the case. In response to a Freedom of Information request, Natural England has revealed that it received eight requests from landowners and occupiers between January 2022 and December 2024 for consent to have hunting activities carried out on SSSIs on their land.
Of these eight requests, which are referred to as notices, the body gave written consent for seven hunting activities on SSSIs.
The full extent of hunting on SSSIs
While the number of notices and written consents revealed through the Freedom of Information request are small compared to the thousands of SSSIs in England, these figures do not show the full extent of hunting on these precious sites.
As Natural England has explained in response to prior requests, landowners have to ask for written consent for hunting only when it is formally recognised as a risk to the site. Each SSSI has a list of ‘operations requiring Natural England’s consent’, known as the ORNEC list, which details activities that have the “possible potential to damage, disturb or destroy any of the special interest features” of a site.
Hunting is considered a ‘recreational activity’ for the purposes of the ORNEC list, according to Natural England. One ORNEC mentions hunting specifically, but this seems to be related to bird shooting activities, rather than hunts. So it appears that only landowners with ‘recreational activities’ on their ORNEC list must ask for consent from the public body for hunting activities on their SSSIs. Those landowners without recreational activities in their ORNEC list are not obliged to seek consent.
Moreover, some hunt saboteur groups have reported witnessing hunts utilising SSSIs during their activities and when the groups asked Natural England whether these hunts had consent to use the land, they found there was none.
For instance, in November 2024, Wiltshire Hunt Saboteurs reported that the Tedworth Hunt hunted a fox on an SSSI called King’s Play Hill. The group sent a Freedom of Information request to Natural England to ask if the landowner had asked for consent for trail hunting on the site. But no consent had been given.
Law is letting down these ‘finest’ Nature sites
Hunting is an activity that arguably should be wholly prohibited on SSSIs. Wildlife persecution by hunts continues to be rife, despite hunting with dogs being outlawed some 20 years ago. This alone makes the activity seem inconducive with the protection of these Nature sites.
Even without any persecution of wild animals, its hard to see how subjecting these precious places to hunt activity, which typically includes several riders on horseback, a pack of hounds, and oftentimes terriermen on quad bikes, will not be harmful to them.
However, there is a fairly narrow criteria for determining whether activities like hunting can take place on SSSIs, as Natural England outlined in response to a Freedom of Information request in 2023. This request was made by someone who said they had witnessed a hunt with quad bikes in tow causing “complete and utter mayhem” on an SSSI in Cornwall.
In its response, Natural England stressed that it assesses what impact hunting will have on an SSSI’s ‘special interest features’ only, not the site as a whole. It continued:
“If Natural England has given Consent for hunt-related activities to occur on a SSSI, it is because the assessment of the proposed activities found that there would be no damage to any of the SSSI’s special interest features, in which case we have no legal basis to not give consent.”
Offering an example, Natural England said if an SSSI’s special interest features did not include ground flora, “an assessment may conclude that there will be no damage to the SSSI interest features by foot fall, quads, or horses.”
