Avian flu hampers plans for the coming season
The knock-on effects of bird flu could have significant ramifications for shoots across the country. For some, the coming season will be severely curtailed, even cancelled, which could put their viability in question.
Supply chains of eggs from France for British shoots have been severely disrupted and in many cases halted because of measures put in place by the French authorities to contain the latest outbreak of bird flu.
In particular, the western departments of the Vendée and Loire-Atlantique, which are vital to the supply of eggs to the British gamebird industry, have been hampered by the lockdown. No eggs means no birds, which means no shoots.
James Robson, who runs the 3,000-acre Primrosehill pheasant and partridge shoot in the Lammermuir Hills in the Borders, said the problem was particularly acute with partridges, namely redlegs.
He said: “We have cancelled our entire let programme and our gamekeeper is turning to other things.”
With an average cost of £8,000 per day and a minimum of 20 cancelled days, the financial implications are obvious. As are the implications to the local economy. Mr Robson said that a lot of money from the shoot ripples into this, from buying feed to people helping on the shoot. At the moment, he is waiting to hear about his pheasants, which need to be in the UK by May and on the ground by July – and this side of the Primrosehill shoot is also in the balance for the coming season.
At the opposite end of the country is the Honeycombe Shoot in Dorset, run by Mike and Antonia Appleby (see p40). Mr Appleby said the current ban on exports of eggs from France would cause “issues” for dedicated partridge shoots. He said he was lucky as he had managed to procure eggs before the French lockdown came into force. He mentioned the homegrown option to counter the shortage, but said Britishreared birds matured later, which meant a curtailed season and subsequent loss of income.
Mr Robson said that the lesson from this situation was that “industry needs to adapt, shorten the supply chain and bring it onshore”.
Despite the difficulties, he said his shoot would survive and he took a sanguine view that the squeeze in supply would “deepen demand and put a value on the game, which has got to be healthy”.
• As we went to press the latest figures published by the French agriculture ministry were more positive and showing a downward trend. As of April 14 France had 1,278 outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza in breeding and commercial birds – 46 cases in wild birds, and 25 cases in backyard flocks.