Doff your cap at woodcocks to revive species, shooters urged
FOR the game shooter, there is traditionally no greater feat of skill than bringing down a pair of woodcock with “left-right” shots from the same gun.
Those witnessed to have achieved it receive a celebratory bottle of gin and are invited to join the Shooting Times Woodcock Club.
However, the population of British woodcock is now so imperilled that a game-shoot owner turned conservationist has started a national campaign to save the dwindling species – and it also involves gin.
Charles Pinckney, a lifelong field sportsman from Shropshire and chairman of The Woodcock Trust, has called for a halt to the shooting of woodcock until the population revives.
He has promised that anyone who “doffs his cap” to a pair of the birds instead of trying to shoot them can expect a bottle of his estate-brewed sloe gin and membership of the trust. “If it’s a pair and you have two witnesses we’ll send you a bottle of gin,” he said.
Figures indicate the number of breeding woodcock males has shrunk to possibly fewer than 55,000, down 30per cent since 2003.
Experts are also concerned by anecdotal reports of a sharp fall in the influx of migratory woodcock from eastern Europe this winter.
Mr Pinckney, 54, believes a large proportion of the roughly half a million people who take part in shooting are unaware of the woodcock’s plight. “These incredibly special and beautiful birds are in real trouble,” he said.
“These days you’d be lucky to encounter three or four pairs for every 3,000 acres. The next woodcock population survey will be in 2023 so we can see what the numbers are then.”
He said shooting woodcock should not resume until there are at least 100,000 breeding males.
Experts suggest that numbers could also have been affected by collapsing insect populations, changes to migratory patterns due to climate change, and disruption from dog walkers.