25/7/2022

A ban on gamebird releasing would be bad for wildlife: our letter to The Guardian

Mark Glover’s view that gamebird releasing causes environmental carnage, “Slaughter of UK’s imported gamebirds carries a heavy price, 22 July”, is not supported by the scientific evidence.

He cites Stephen Harris’ report for the Labour Animal Welfare Society as proof that the release of pheasants is fuelling an increase in the fox population. However, records suggest the number of foxes increased threefold during the 1970s and 80s when releasing was at a low level. Since then, releasing has maintained an upward trajectory, whereas over the same period, according to British Trust for Ornithology mammal monitoring records, foxes have declined.

Mr Glover goes on to complain about the amount of wheat put out for gamebirds, but scientific studies show that songbirds make significant use of gamebird feeders, helping sustain them through the winter months. One study showed that a quarter of all wildlife visits to pheasant feeders were by songbirds and another showed that winter feeding gamebirds can increase songbird breeding densities the following spring.

Further research has shown 100 times more songbirds in crops grown for game birds than found in conventional crops and at the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust’s GWCT demonstration farm in Leicestershire, game management has restored farmland bird abundance to pre 1960s levels alongside a profitable conventional farming system.

At a time when there is little food or habitat for wildlife in the farmed environment, the impact on UK biodiversity of banning sustainable gamebird releasing and management would, paradoxically, be much more akin to the ‘environmental carnage’ he describes.

Yours faithfully
Dr Roger Draycott
GWCT Director of Advisory

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Comments

Unlevel playing field

at 20:36 on 26/07/2022 by Jonathan Holmes

It saddens me that everyone that doesn’t agree with shooting thinks it’s ok to question shootings environmental impact. In the time I’ve been keeping I’ve planted over 10,000 trees, dugout a couple of lakes and planted several hedges. There’s football on TV tonight and the pitch is really green showing no sign of the drought that’s 1000s of gallons of water wasted, there’s no wild flowers growing on it , they’ve probably used a huge amount of chemicals to keep it looking green. Fan’s have traveled 1000s of miles producing a huge carbon footprint and the stadium has no wildlife habitat and yet we are the ones that get critasized.

Game bird releases ……..

at 14:55 on 26/07/2022 by Alec

Evidence, logic and simple common sense will show that the environment which is created for game birds has the spin off effect that it is exactly the same environment which benefits ALL wildlife, both that which we would encourage ~ all so often the prey species, and that which we would manage and control - all so often the predators. …….. for those who would doubt my words, drive down through ~ France, Spain and Italy, drive through the areas where there is no effort made to promote game birds, and listen to the virtual silence ……..

GWCT

at 13:24 on 26/07/2022 by Brian Leggett

Keep up the good work!

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