Most country estates keep records of the game shot on their land in game books. Many of these reach back into the 19th Century and some even earlier. They provide a unique data set about the abundance of game before ecology became a science. Since the 1960s, game and wildlife have been recorded more systematically, and this information sheds light on how patterns of wildlife abundance change in response to land use or wildlife management.
We have an extensive database of these and other records. Recent advances in information technology means that we can subject these data to sophisticated analyses with Geographical Information Systems (GIS).