Blogs

The GWCT is fielding increasing numbers of calls from gamekeepers, and especially part-time amateurs, as to whether they should carry on their duties during the current coronavirus lockdown.

Here's a round-up of all the news from the GWCT last week.

A new paper from the GWCT’s Head of Farmland Ecology, Professor John Holland, has been published in the journal Insects, discussing Conservation Biological Control – a component of integrated pest management that allows more sustainable farming, using insects as natural predator control to reduce the reliance on expensive and potentially damaging pesticides.

While we welcome the BBC highlighting the decline of grey partridge in Britain sadly the reporters have their numbers all wrong.

The game management community, like all others, is reeling from the impacts of the coronavirus crisis. There is much uncertainty across the sector about the potential impacts on game shooting over the next 12 months. Of particular concern are what the prospects are for the forthcoming shooting season.

GWCT Scotland is helping to run the PARTRIDGE project, part funded by the EU’s North Sea Region Interreg programme. This has ten demonstration farms across Scotland, England, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany, and in Scotland it is organised by Fiona Torrance.

These are extraordinarily difficult times. We don’t yet know what the next few weeks and months might have in store, but will be doing all we can to keep getting information to you as regularly as possible.