On 3 February, in a House of Lords debate on bird control licences, the discussion turned quickly to game management. Challenging comments from Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle, Lord Benyon noted “In the vast majority of areas, there is a net gain for biodiversity by the moderate actions of shooting estates.
There are, of course, individual cases where they may be a net negative, but in the vast majority of the country, game covers and hedgerows and management of woodland create extraordinary habitats. That is an investment which does not cost the taxpayer anything but is of huge benefit to our natural capital”.
Baroness Bennett was raising concerns about the impact of gamebird releasing on reptiles and foxes, the former of which has been covered by What The Science Says here. We are also launching a study into the relationship between releasing and fox numbers.
“There are three legs to the stool of nature conservation: providing habitat, providing good feed sources and legal predator control”, noted Lord Benyon, “when those three are put in place, extraordinary things happen. It helps us hit our 2030 target of no net loss of biodiversity.” His comments were soon followed by Lord Harlech, who stated that “independent scientific research in numerous case studies by the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust shows that proper game bird management has a net benefit to songbirds and biodiversity in general.”
You can view the full debate here.