If you are looking forward to The Game Fair this weekend, make sure you visit the Carter Jonas Game Fair Theatre and get the latest research and policy updates from our experts. Across Friday 24th and Saturday 25th there will be four GWCT sessions, detailed below.
Don’t forget - all GWCT supporters are welcome to enjoy light refreshments in our garden throughout the weekend, so why not come and say hello? You can find us on stand number E926. You can also get 20% off selected Game Fair tickets by entering the code GWCT20 when you book your tickets here. We hope to see you there!
Friday 24th July
12:35pm to 12:50pm - Unlocking the secrets to red grouse recovery.
GWCT Director of Scotland Nick Hesford, Senior Advisor Scotland Felix Meister and Upland Ecologist Leah Cloonan on GWCT’s Upland flagship project Maternal Grouse project. Red grouse have declined by 33% in recent years. With some moors producing consistent bags and others not shooting for several years, GWCT’s research team has set out to discover why. In the past factors such as louping-ill, worm burden and predation have been studied in isolation but this ground breaking project looks at a wide range of influences on grouse production in combination with other factors, from insect availability to heather quality, as well as historical data from the long term monitoring the Trust has been doing for the past 40 years.
2:00pm to 2:15pm - Return of the Black Grouse. (Please see Game Fair Theatre programme for confirmed times)
GWCT Director of Research Andrew Hoodless on the success of the GWCT’s black grouse range expansion project funded by Natural England’s Species Recovery funding, and additional money from BASC and donations. For the first time in 200 years birds translocated from the Pennines to the North York Moors have successfully been lekking and breeding for the past two years. The project has been so successful that funding for a further three years has now been given to translocate more birds. In addition, a new national survey of black grouse is planned for next year. The previous survey done in 2014 showed that though once present in every county in England, 97% of black grouse remaining are only found on the fringes of grouse moors.
Saturday 25th July
11:40am to 11:55am - Where do all the snipe go?
Wetlands ecologist Bleddyn Thomas reveals the first findings on a pioneering research project to discover where our wintering snipe go to breed. The initial findings have tracked migration routes to places as far away as Russia, Scandinavia and Iceland. Such a small bird requires tiny tags, which have only recently become available. This is a very mysterious bird which we know little about. Changes to Schedule 2 means it could also be off the quarry list in Wales. This research is vital if we want to map and understand the populations, both breeding and wintering, and gather evidence for what levels of shooting are sustainable.
12:30pm to 12:50 - Game for Nature: Why communicating the benefits to wildlife of gamebird releasing is the strongest defence against regulation.
GWCT CEO Nick von Westenholz and Director of Advisory Roger Draycott. Faced with the threat of licencing of releasing in England, GWCT has published a new report based on decades of research evidencing the huge contribution gamebird releasing continues to make to nature recovery in the midst of a biodiversity crisis. It is critical to communicate to Government and the public the massive private investment in public goods released gamebird management represents and the potentially catastrophic impact on wildlife of its restriction.