Academia... and the life of the pheasant

ing to raise £44,500 through crowdfunding to pay lawyers to take Defra to court alleging they know too little about the impact of the release of pheasant and partridge poults on protected areas of countryside. Wild Justice will presumably argue in court – if it gets that far – that Defra need to instigate some kind of research into the subject.

The group has already suggested the impact is negative. Shooting interests claim otherwise and some non-shooting interests, including the RSPB, seem to agree that properly University of Exeter does most of its work on pheasant ecology and cognition, through a group run by scientist Dr Joah Madden.

Its first interest is not in the impact of pheasant releases on wildlife and the countryside but on how natural selection and evolution act on cognitive processes like learning and memory and what shapes behaviour in wild-living animals.

As pro and anti-shooting interests have piled into the debate following Wild Justice’s latest call to arms Pheasants@Exeter – as it styles itself on Twitter – has offered some useful insights, pointing out that it has studied pheasants for ten years.

You get the feeling Dr Madden wasn’t joking when he tweeted: “Perhaps the money requested by @ WildJustic_org for legal challenge could be better used funding essential new research work? £44K could support one FT post-doc for a year or almost support 1 x 3yr PhD student (indust partner). We’d be happy to host such researchers...”

So there’s your challenge, Wild Justice directors. Pop down to Devon and take a trip to North Wyke where there are experts ready to help you spend your money more wisely!