Defra is the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs which is a government department in the UK.

Defra's plan is to allow the destruction of Common Buzzard - Buteo buteo - nests on shooting estates and to permit Common Buzzards to be taken into captivity to remove them from shooting estates. There is no evidence that the Common Buzzard is a significant cause of loss to the Pheasant shooting industry.

The Pheasant shooting industry has been lobbying Defra to take action. Pheasants are not native to the UK. Around 40 million birds are released every year for shooting. The impacts of this practice on wildlife have been poorly documented, but serious questions have been raised about the impact such a large injection of captive-reared birds have on wildlife in the UK.