Tim Bonner made an extraordinarily brash claim on Today on Saturday;
There is no evidence whatsoever that Pheasant or Red-legged Partridge are doing any significant damage to these special sites. There is simply no evidence.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000p0fj
It is unlikely that DEFRA would have been forced to bring in regulation of gamebird releases (by Wild Justice’s legal challenge despite the wittering of the Countryside Alliance and BASC in the background) if there really were no evidence. Don’t you think?
But for Bonner’s remarkable statement to be true it would have to be the case that however hard we looked we would not find any evidence at all that gamebirds have impacts on sites of high conservation importance. He must be very confident to make such a claim, it must be very difficult to find any such evidence. Let’s see whether we can find any at all.
Well, that didn’t take long! The evidence review commissioned by Natural England and BASC and published in August says;
We found reasonable evidence for physical disturbance of soil, nutrient enrichment of water and soil, reductions in non-woody plants (especially those of conservation interest) due to damage or enrichment and reductions in abundance and/or diversity of at least some invertebrate species at or close to release sites. We found weaker, less or more ambiguous evidence that the released birds predated small vertebrates, posed a direct competition to non-game species, spread disease to non-game species, influenced the genotypes of wild conspecifics (in England) or that their carcasses supported increases in generalist predators.
http://publications.naturalengland.org.uk/publication/5078605686374400
Those words are very measured and, to my mind, understate the strength of the evidence, but they are enough to show that Bonner is wrong. There are piles more statements in the same review that would make the same point. The problem facing the likes of Tim Bonner is that there is evidence and the more that people look at the evidence and at the areas of concern then the stronger that evidence will become.
What did DEFRA itself say?;
The review has now concluded and found that the negative effects of gamebird releases on protected sites tend to be localised and that there are minimal or no effects beyond 500m from the point of release.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/defra-concludes-its-review-into-releasing-gamebirds-on-and-around-protected-sites
So DEFRA admit, rather reluctantly perhaps (which shows that the evidence is pretty strong actually) that there are negative impacts. These are the negative impacts which Bonner says, having had access to all the court papers and plenty of time to read the DEFRA position, don’t exist.
I didn’t hear DEFRA screaming (though they may have done) and I haven’t noticed them trying to kick Wild Justice (though they may have done) but they were dragged to this position by the law and by the evidence. The evidence is certainly a bit stronger than DEFRA admits here in its attempt to minimise the scale of their embarrassment for not spotting it themselves, and probably as a means to try to minimise the scale of measures they need to introduce. I will come back in quite some detail to that 500m threshold but not for a while as we need to do more groundwork first. But come back to it I will, and let’s just say that when DEFRA consults on their measures including that 500m distance the public should be well-armed to make the case for a larger distance being absolutely required.
What do Natural England say about evidence? We, and Tim Bonner, can read what they say in the papers published by DEFRA last week (but to which Tim Bonner has had access for longer as an interested party to the legal challenge);
The body of evidence confirms that released gamebirds can have direct and indirect effects on the fauna and flora of the habitats into which they are released. The six potential direct effects are: (1) nutrient enrichment (2) birds pecking or trampling on vegetation and harming in that way (3) competition for food (4) parasites, pathogens and diseases (5) foraging (6) attracting predators. In addition there are associated and indirect effects which include predator management, woodland management, carcass availability for small mammals, and supplementary feeding for over-wintering birds for example.
Over recent years the increasing numerical scale and spatial extent of releases and their associated management has the potential to exacerbate these effects.
The negative effects supported by the strongest evidence relate to eutrophication (1) and depletion of vegetation (2) immediately within and around release pens and feeding stations.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/931396/defra-witness-statement-gamebird-release-exhibit3.pdf
That doesn’t sound like ‘There is no evidence whatsoever…There is simply no evidence.’ to me. I think that Natural England understates the evidence actually, but we can argue about that scientifically, what is not in doubt is that there is plenty of evidence of harm to look at.
Also not in doubt is that Natural England is now taking action against a small number of individual game managers because of the impacts of gamebird releases on sites of high nature conservation value. Here is one example from the Minsmere-Walberswick Heaths and Marshes SSSI (which is also partly an SAC and largely an SPA). I expect that Tim Bonner is also aware of this assessment of the Lathkill Dale SSSI where Unit 3 is in unfavourable condition and declining because of ‘High phosphate levels recorded throughout with highest levels in and around pens and feeders. Vegetation much affected by nutrient levels and pheasant activity. Tree regeneration also heavily restricted (almost non-existant)[sic] as a result of pheasant activity.‘.
So, Tim Bonner was talking nonsense, as one would expect from a representative of an industry which is facing regulation because of its harmful impacts on the environment, when government finally realises it must act.
DEFRA is seeking to minimise the scale of the evidence (it appears) and therefore the scale of action it will need to take by playing down the scale of the known impacts and not even mentoning the expected impacts.
Natual England has, in my view, understated the scale of the issues and their impacts (but not as much as DEFRA has). All these points will be explored in following blogs and will be made by Wild Justice, and I hope by you, when it comes to a consultation on this subject.
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Evidence? Tim Bonner hasn’t seen any evidence, but that’s because he’s got his eyes shut to anything he doesn’t want to know, his fingers in his ears, and is shouting ‘la, la, la, la’. Like the good old north of England saying: there’s none so blind as them who won’t see.
I am convinced, based on my own observations, that the liberal feeding of pheasants at release sites provides food which supports, among other wildlife, wood pigeons which occur in huge flocks here in Yorkshire and are a major predator of pea crops, of which we also have a few. These flocks travel miles away from pheasant release areas so the argument that there is minimal impact more than 500m away is, in my view, spurious.
I think Karen, that in most cases such as you describe, the Peas / Oilseed Rape /Barley etc; have
the most impact in the equation.
Not wishing to pry, but were you once employed by a large wildlife charity ?.
Karen – there is good evidence that the feeding of pheasants supports woodpigeon, corvid and rat populations. A fairly recent paper from the GWCT (Sanchez-Garcia et al., 2015: ‘Supplementary winter food for gamebirds through feeders: which species actually benefit?’) showed that during the shooting season (when most feeding is done) gamebirds consume only about 39% of the grain put out in feeders, while rats take about 33% and other species (mainly pigeons and corvids) eat 29%. Interestingly, small songbirds take 0%. The weight of gamebirds greatly exceeds the weight of corvids, pigeons and rats in the countryside at that time, so if the amount eaten by gamebirds is enough to influence their survival, it probably has a big influence on the numbers of ‘pest’ species. This is not a study the GWCT draw attention to.
Unfortunately, there is also plenty of evidence that an untruth asserted confidently and often can quickly become an accepted ‘truth’ to those predisposed to believe it. Bonner may or may not become an MP in due course but I am sure he has the ear of many a conservative MP and will be working hard and in many cases successfully to convince them that pheasant rearing is utterly harmless. The only response to this is to keep shining the light as brightly as possible on the facts.
Absolutely right Jonathan, this is straight out of the Johnson/Cummings/Trump playbook. Tim Bonner is not interested in evidence. The whole point is to keep repeating the same untrue rhetoric over and over and to never admit that you are wrong.
Mark Twain was absolutely right when he said “A lie can travel around the world and back again whilst the truth is lacing up its boots”.
Part of the problem is the absolutely appalling state of most journalism these days which allows this sort of unmitigated guff to go unchallenged
Tim Bonner is the classic case of the wilfully blind being led by the wilfully blind.
Tim Bonner’s “line” about there being no evidence brings to mind the classic “Channel 4 at Goathland” feigned ignorance “line” about the Goshawk trap … “I know nowt about it.”
He knows. He obviously shoots and so obviously he has eyes.
Mark – well done again!! I think Bonner also said something about precautionary principle (as though it’s a bad thing!) and no need for proof (of no impact). Isn’t this also wrong? If this was a new introduction of a NN species (for whatever purpose) – surely the burden of ‘proof’ would be on the body wanting to release animals and they would have to demonstrate no negative impact on native spp., habitats etc. (or at least mitigation) – to the satisfaction of NE/ DEFRA et al. (and Habitats Directive)? When you see the arguments and hoops being jumped through to reintroduce native spp. such as Beaver – it’s quite extraordinary that shooters think they can just do this with no impact assessment or monitoring etc. As you say ‘we’ have let them get away with it for so long (and there’s presumably a problem of shifting baselines too – where do we look to see the “before” situation – when it started with small numbers, I imagine most ecologists and birders didn’t think there was much of a problem to look for). But should it not be for the shooters to have to prove their “no impact” position rather than the other way round?
Interesting that guidance on Avian Influenza bans the release of gamebirds within 10km of an infected premises. I wonder what science underpins that distance?
Lurker – indeed, I noticed that.
Who does the burden of evidence lie with? Isn’t it up to the people releasing the birds to provide the evidence that their lifestock will cause no harm with independant verification that the studies have been properly carried out?
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it” wrote the journalist Upon Sinclair in 1935.
I am interested in what amount of land area is now a no go for releasing pheasants and where exactly on the map it is.
DEFRA’s Magic Map App is useful for the locations.
Unit 4 of the Lathkill Dale SSSI has a quite similar assessment w.r.t. pheasants to that of Unit 3. Except is appears that unit 4 is where the pheasants are raised and the negative impacts as listed are more extensive.