Ministers bow to Packham on pheasant shooting
PHEASANT shooting will be curtailed across vast swathes of the countryside after the Government bowed to a wildlife campaign run by Chris Packham, the BBC presenter.
The number of birds released each year is likely to be dramatically reduced, with game bird releases to be licensed by officials at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
Next week, Packham’s judicial review against Defra was due to be heard in the High Court, as he pushed for a ban on releasing pheasants around Britain’s Sites of Special Scientific Interest ( SSSIS). However, the Government bowed to the demands and announced it would ban most releases within 500 metres (1,600ft) of SSSIS, with all other game birds allowed to be released only subject to licence.
The British Association of Shooting and Conservation estimates this covers up to 10 per cent of the land used for game bird shooting.
Packham’s group, Wild Justice, has been criticised for using legal loopholes to “damage” shooting.
Accusing the group of “time wasting”, the Countryside Alliance and the British Association of Shooting and Conservation said in a joint statement: “If Defra is to secure co-operation from the shooting community, it must do better. At the moment, there is a great deal of scepticism that an unknown licensing system run by an underfunded public body can fix something that is not known to be ecologically damaging.”
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-brown, the Tory MP for the Cotswolds, said: “Many parliamentarians are concerned to ensure that shooting is not damaged by whatever Defra does. We will be fighting for a sensible, evidence-based and proportionate outcome.”
However, Packham’s group argued it had a legitimate reason to campaign against the releases. At their peak, nonnative game birds make up almost half of Britain’s bird biomass. Some 57 million pheasants and red-legged partridges are released each year, and a recent report commissioned by Natural England found that releasing them in high density caused problems for local songbirds and other native animals.
A spokesman for Wild Justice said: “Thanks to our legal challenge, the shooting industry faces its largest dose of regulation since a ban on the use of
lead ammunition in wildfowling in England in 1999. Pheasants and red-legged partridges are now recognised by government as problem species where their numbers are too high.”
In 2018, Wild Justice managed to force Natural England to withdraw all licences for shooting “pest” birds, meaning farmers were left without permission to shoot pigeons and birds during the sowing season for spring crops.
Shooting groups worry that the same could happen with these new rules.
Tim Bonner, the chief executive of the Countryside Alliance, said: “Game farmers will already be making decisions about their production for next year and the whole industry will need certainty that there will be a workable licensing system in place for SPAS and surrounding areas for the 2021- 22 shooting season.”
However, conservationists believe it will mean a large reduction in the number of game birds released. Duncan OrrEwing, RSPB head of species and land management, said: “This is a positive announcement and an important step in recognising that releasing 57 million non-native game birds into our countryside every year is not sustainable.”
George Eustice, the Environment Secretary, said the negative effects of game bird releases on protected sites tended to be localised but there was a “need to gain a better understanding of how any localised impacts might be mitigated”. The i nterim l i censing regime “will enable us to manage any potential impacts while gathering more information where evidence gaps exist”.