(1)A licence may be granted to any person by the appropriate authority specified in the next following subsection authorising that person, notwithstanding anything in, or in any order made under, the foregoing provisions of this Act and notwithstanding anything in section eight of the Protection of Animals Act, 1911, or section seven of the Protection of Animals (Scotland) Act, 1912 (which relate to the placing on land of poisonous matter), but subject to compliance with any conditions specified in the licence—
(a)for scientific or educational purposes, to kill or take within any area specified in the licence by any means so specified, or to sell or import alive or dead, any number so specified of wild birds of any description so specified or of the nests or eggs (including blown eggs) of such wild birds ;
(b)for the purposes of falconry, to take by any means specified in the licence, or to sell or import alive, any number so specified of birds of prey of any description so specified;
(c)for the purposes of the protection of any collection of birds maintained at any place by any person, or for the purposes of transfers between such collections, to kill or take at that place by any means specified in the licence wild birds of any description so specified;
(d)for the purposes of killing or taking such wild birds included in the Second Schedule to this Act as may be specified in the licence, to use poisoned or stupefying bait of any description so specified ;
(e)for the purpose of taking wild birds in order to ring or mark, or examine any ring or mark on, all or any of the birds taken and then release them, to use within any area specified in the licence any form of artificial light or a rocket-propelled net.
(2)The appropriate authority for the grant of a licence under the foregoing subsection shall be—
(a)in the case of a licence under paragraph (a), (b) or (e) of that subsection, the Secretary of State after consultation with the appropriate advisory committee ;
(b)in the case of a licence under paragraph (a) or (e) of that subsection which is required for the purposes of scientific or educational work carried out by, or on behalf of, or with the aid of grants from, the Nature Conservancy, the Nature Conservancy ;
(c)in the case of a licence under paragraph (c) of that subsection, the Secretary of State ;
(d)in the case of a licence under paragraph (d) of that subsection, the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries or, in Scotland, the Secretary of State.
(3)A licence granted under this section may be revoked at any time by the authority by whom it was granted ; and, without prejudice to any other liability to a penalty which he may have incurred under this or any other Act, any person who contravenes or fails to comply with any condition imposed on the grant of a licence under this section shall be guilty of an offence against this Act.
(4)The Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries and the Secretary of State shall from time to time consult the appropriate advisory committee with respect to the exercise of the powers conferred on them by this section to grant and revoke licences under paragraph (d) of subsection (1) thereof; and those powers shall for the purposes of section seventy-two of the Agriculture Act, 1947, or, as the case may be, section sixty-nine of the Agriculture (Scotland) Act, 1948 (which relate to the delegation of functions to Agricultural Executive Committees) be deemed to be functions relating to agriculture.
(5)For the purposes of the application of this section to Northern Ireland with respect to importation—
(a)for the reference in paragraph (a) of subsection (2) thereof to the Secretary of State there shall be substituted a reference to the Minister of Home Affairs for Northern Ireland;
(b)the expression " appropriate advisory committee " means the Wild Birds Advisory Committee for Northern Ireland established under section eleven of the Wild Birds Protection Act (Northern Ireland), 1931.