Game theory
Wild Justice has turned its attention to the release of gamebirds. Patrick Hook addresses the salient issues with regard to predators
Wild Justice recently announced that it was seeking a judicial review over the release of gamebirds, specifically, pheasants and red-legged partridges, which it wants stopped. Its argument is that these birds not only consume things that we don’t want them to eat, such as invertebrates, reptiles and vegetation, but that their droppings upset the chemistry of the environment. Further to this, it says that the birds attract predators that then also kill other wildlife, and that the Government has failed to act to prevent all of this, especially where Natura 2000 sites are concerned.
The first question I had to ask myself was what exactly were the Natura 2000 sites? It transpires that they’re composed of Special Areas of Conservation and Special Protection Areas as designated under the Habitats Directive and the Birds Directive. As these are pieces of EU law, I admit to wondering whether they are even valid since the UK has left the European Union. I’m not a lawyer though, so I will leave that to the legal experts.
While I can see that gamebirds could be responsible for eating the aforesaid organisms and producing unexpected levels of fertiliser, this is very much an evidencebased matter. In other words, without having demonstrable scientific data on hand, you can’t prove anything either way.
Wild Justice claims that the Government hasn’t done anything about gamebird release, but ignores the fact that before it can act, it needs to establish the precise situation. In order to do this, it must first get its scientists to collate all the relevant data, and that is not a trivial matter. Lots of sites spread across the country need to be monitored for a significant period of time – and that cannot be rushed simply to mollify a few rabble-rousers.
I am therefore unable to comment on that side of things. I can, however, reflect on the issue of whether the birds attract predators that then go on to kill other wildlife. Before launching into this subject, however, we need to consider just what the term ‘predators’ covers here. To my mind it means foxes, badgers, weasels, stoats, polecats, mink, corvids and various birds of prey. Not all of these necessarily attack the gamebirds themselves, but may instead target creatures like small rodents.
Predation
Of the ones on this list, it is the first two that are of by far the greatest relevance, and it therefore seems utterly bizarre to me that Wild Justice can wail about unwanted predation and yet completely ignore the fact that badgers are one of the worst offenders. Peer-reviewed scientific papers have shown beyond doubt, for example, that hedgehog populations recover incredibly quickly when brock is controlled. I don’t need to read about it, though, I see it first-hand; ever since the cull began in this area, hedgehog numbers have exploded. Since they are an indicator species – that is to say a barometer of the health of the local environment – we can see that other creatures would have benefited too. These include such things as skylarks, dormice, lapwings and hares.
One of the problems in attempting to answer the allegations is that there is little information to go on. No one knows, for instance, how many foxes there are in the UK. Attempts have been made to determine this but the results have, at best, been extremely vague. Assessments have been tried using gamekeeping records, the amount of road kill and so on, but none have been much more than wild guesses. I think we can all agree that the numbers in urban areas have increased dramatically in the past 50 or so years. But that doesn’t help us prove whether or not game estates harbour lots of foxes.
What I can be sure about is my own experience over the years. I have done the fox control on many different gamebird shoots, ranging from small farmer-run
affairs to massive commercial estates. There is no doubt in my mind that having lots of pheasants and partridges running about does draw the foxes in. There is also no question that this helps me to shoot them, as I know where they are likely to be and what they are going to be doing. I am not alone in this and most gamekeepers exploit their behaviour in much the same way. The end result is the very opposite of what is being claimed and that is fox numbers on shooting estates actually tend to fall instead of rise.
Truth
If Wild Justice was correct in its assertions, all game estates, however big or small, would be overrun by vulpines. The stark truth, though, is that where pest control is taken seriously, they aren’t. In fact, in many such places it’s really hard to find any foxes at all, even with the very best equipment and years of experience. Every now and then you tend to find one or two wily individuals that have outwitted the resident shooters, mostly because they’ve learned to recognise patterns in the keeper’s actions. They usually do this by associating danger with characteristic vehicle noises, trucks stopping in the same gateways and other habitual acts and thus manage to avoid taking a bullet.
Moves
I particularly enjoy tackling these problem animals. It’s like playing a game of chess
“On game estates where pest control is taken seriously, there aren’t many foxes”
– you have to think several moves ahead. Things like parking well away from the area of operations, working with the wind in your favour, mean that you can usually get close to your quarry without being detected. Even if these individuals do manage to get away, there only tend to be a few distributed across very big areas. In other words, Wild Justice doesn’t know what it is talking about.
There’s nothing new in this, though. Chris Packham once claimed that the reason for lapwing numbers plummeting was because specifically organised lapwing shoots were killing them. The reality, aside from the fact that these shoots don’t even exist, is where the predators are being controlled on their breeding grounds, lapwing populations actually increase.
Packham is now saying that Wild Justice is prepared to undertake court battles ‘on behalf of UK wildlife’. Hmm. If he really cared about the wild British environment, he’d spend less time chasing game shoots and more time supporting the culling of badgers, magpies and seagulls.