CONSERVATION & ECOLOGY


The presence of dogs causes wildlife to move away, temporarily or permanently reducing the amount of


available habitat in which to feed, breed and rest


Extra Large Ringneck Pheasant Chicks


partridge and some duck have been reared on game farms to re-stock shoots. In Britain today there are around 300 game farms, mostly rearing pheasants and partridges. Some retain a breeding flock to produce their own eggs, others buy eggs or day-old chicks and rear them on.


Melanistic Mutant Ringneck Cross Pheasant


The game farming year starts in February when laying birds are penned for mating and egg production. Eggs are collected daily from April onwards and are hatched in electronic incubators. The chicks are then reared on in purpose-built shelters, where they are provided with food, water, grit and all their other needs. As they grow, the chicks (now known as ‘poults’) are given access to outdoor runs where they can get used to the natural environment and ‘harden off’. In about August, when the birds are some eight to ten weeks of age, they are sold to shoots, where gamekeepers will take over their care, releasing them carefully into the countryside. The shooting season for pheasants in England, Scotland and Wales the season is from 1 October to 1 February (31 January in Northern Ireland). The shot birds enter the human food chain but not all the


birds released will be shot. The remainder live free in the wild, where some will breed naturally the following spring and contribute to the wild stock.


A distinction should be made between rough shooting and driven-game shooting. Rough shooting is where shooters use their dogs to flush game from hedgerows, woods or crops as they walk. Driven game shooting is where a group of shooters stand at given points or pegs across a piece of land and wait for game to fly up, flushed out by a team of beaters and dogs.


The Game Conservancy Trust (GCT) estimates that there are around 30-35 million game birds raised each year - roughly the same size as the UK commercial table egg production flock. The Game Farmers Association (GFA) put the figure for birds reared for release at 20-30 million, of which the majority (80%) are pheasants and most of the rest (16-17%) are Red-leg partridge. The final few percent are Grey partridge and ducks. Quoting the GCT as the source, the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) suggest that 20-22 million pheasants are released each summer, with more than 2 million


In the UK, 480,000 people shoot game. It is estimated that the industry supports the equivalent of 70,000 full-time jobs


128 PC December/January 2019


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