CONSERVATION & ECOLOGY
There is also a small trade in 6-8-week old poults from France. This is likely to be no more than 1-2% of the pheasants reared. The maximum journey time of 12 hours for these birds makes much of the UK out of range for many French game farms, which limits this particular trade, providing transport regulations are followed.
Beautiful Golden Pheasants
surviving until spring. Thus, there is a wide range of estimates of the size of the industry. The upper limit equates to some 44,000 tonnes of pheasants!
It is worth pointing out that there are a small number of shoots in lowland Britain where the wild pheasant population is managed for shooting. In this scenario, no birds are brought in and a considerable area of habitat can be managed to yield a limited number of shooting days. An example of this
practice can be seen on the Sandringham Estate in Norfolk.
According to Game Farmers Association (GFA) data, around 40% of pheasants reared come from France, either eggs or as day- old chicks (the transport limit is 24 hours providing it is completed within 72 hours after hatching). The high level of imports is largely due to the competitive pricing of the French stock and the belief in some quarters that the French birds give “better sport”.
It is understood that hatchability is around 75% for pheasant eggs. Estimates suggest that around 5% of chicks die in the first 2 weeks and a further 5% die prior to being placed in the release pens. The Game Farmers Association (GFA) estimate that around 5-10% of the birds placed into release pens die between release and shooting. The Gamekeepers Conservation Trust (GCT) puts the figure nearer 25%. Birds can perish from starvation, exposure, disease, predation, natural causes or under the wheels of motor vehicles as they begin to range further. Most of the predation of adult birds is by foxes, but mink can be a problem in some parts of the country.
In studies of radio-tagged pheasants it was discovered that between 2.7-5% were killed on the road. This equates to between 0.9 and 1.8 million pheasants each year. The insurance and damage costs of these collisions are unknown, but likely to be substantial.
The world of game shooting is split to some degree in its views on importing birds. Many large commercially-run shoots,
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