In the latest Shooting Times, gamekeeper Alex Keeble writes about the dubious practice of catching up gamebirds after the shooting season for captive breeding purposes. He advises caution as this is a potential source of diseased birds.
Ahead of the expected DEFRA consultation on gamebird releases next week, this gamekeeper writes:
You may think that your stocks are clear, but pheasants have the ability to walk miles, and you may have birds from an infected area.
Alex Keeble, Shooting Times, 3 February
So, how does that square with there being no impact of non-native gamebirds on native wildlife over 500m from their release site? It doesn’t.
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Well spotted Mark. Of course saying that pheasants only venture up to 500 metres from their release point is utter rubbish as I have said previously. In the Chilterns they can be seen almost anywhere and in good numbers. In fact they are probably the commonest bird.
Also on RSPB Otmoor, well away from any pheasant shoot, they are reasonably frequent..
So yet again the falsehoods put about by a good many of the shooters are being shown up for what they are.
35+ years of data on our site says different!
Edward – how many birds do you release? And how close is the nearest SPA/SAC?
By the way, I’m sorry yu’ve had so little support from your shooting friends for your e-petition but I noticed it got quite a boost when featured here and by Wild Justice. Do you think that is because many in the shoting world didn’t want hare coursing to be banned and would like to see it come back? I’ve signed yours https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/560065 – have you signed mine https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/333693 ?
Not for you to worry about, Mark. We have a nice piece of paper from Natural England!
Interesting, you must have missed the articles in shooting times etc, oh and the farmers weekly pod cast, or the piece in the times?!….
Funnily, whilst you were swiping the other day, myself and several other keepers were out dealing with coursers, which is a daily occurrence!
Ed – yes but your community isn’t supporting your petition very well is it? You dodge the point. Do you think you misjudged it and that there is actually quite a yearning for hare coursing to come back again? And did you sign the Badger petition? And how far from an SPA/SAC are you?
Oh yes, and GWCT have failed to come up with a single scientific reference that supports the 500m myth buffer zone.
Btw that’s your 100th comment here and your first since April 2019 – where did you go?
1) It is
2) absolutely not
3) no
4)none of your business
Ed – touchy! Well it kind of is relevant to your point about how far your Pheasants go whether they are or aren’t in, near or far from one of the sites for which DEFRA is proposing increased protection from your birds thanks to Wild Justice’s successful legal challenge. It would also tell us how much of a vested interest you have in that answer.
It’s good to know that Mr Coles upholds the law and “deals with” hare coursers. Perhaps he could share his experience of applying that same approach to illegal Fox hunters?
I hope you are going to publish your data then Edward Coles. How can you tell none (or a very small percentage?) of your pheasants wander more than 500m from your site? Unless you meant something different.
Surely (Mark) the main problem will be to distinguish wild living pheasant from newly released ones, amongst the ones people see >>500m from any release sites?
So let me get this straight: they are livestock then they are wild birds then they are livestock again? All very confusing!
I presume that the rounding up of gamebirds “after the shooting season” is performed before the 1 February – if not would it not be illegal?
Jonathan – you’re very sharp – I wondered the same.
I am miles from any pheasant release site and pheasants are all over the fields and gardens here. Seen at least 22 birds in a flock from my garden and they come in daily hoovering up all the food which would otherwise feed native species. They are totally habituated to humans, not “wild” at all.
Carole – sorry to hear it but there must be tens of thousands of people like you. I hope that you will have the ability, and take it, to input tp the DEFRA consultation. I have no idea what it will look like but DEFRA have assured Wild Justice that commenting on the #500mmyth will be part of the consultation.
More “skin in the game” than you’ll ever have, Mark!
35+ years of data, and an agreement with NE says otherwise.
ed – yes, very touchy and a vested interest in shooting. You didn’t answer the question again.
Presumably you are taking issue with Alex Keeble and the Shooting Times too. Does he have skin n the game or is it only you?
And then there is the GWCT’s Head of Advisory – he’s wrong as well is he?
We live in mid Wales in the middle of a commercial pheasant shoot although those pheasants are these days released well over 500 from our small holding and the adjacent wildlife trust reserve. Yet we and the reserve are often inundated with these unwanted long tailed aliens to the point where my partner who does most of the gardening has to net the winter crops to stop the bloody things eating them all. Some of course end in the pot but that is hardly the point. My personal preference would be a total ban on release but I know that is not going to happen the shooting lobby is too powerful and far too wedded to this canned form of shooting, it is certainly not hunting a natural quarry and taking a little of the surplus. What is particularly galling is the fact that those who shoot or release these birds think it perfectly OK for them to populate everywhere else too whatever the feelings of the rest of us or indeed the ecological effects. I for one would like to see all pheasants marked ( ring!) with who released it and that they are responsible for what it gets up to even if they are not property but “wild.” As to protected sites if one pheasants wanders on to them it is one too many and rules should be set accordingly. I’d also like to be able to go into the countryside as I did as a child and teenager many moons ago at weekends without the incessant sound of the bloody shotguns killing birds without thought or respect for the quarry, they are just living targets or other folk.
Up until relatively recently, and the almost universal practice of game farms supplying shoots with birds for release,
catching up after the season was the usual practice for the majority of estates, certainly those with sufficient manpower to rear their own birds. We stopped twenty years ago.
Technically illegal ( i used to think my gamekeepers licence had it covered), it was a sort of grey area ( like organised shots on the 1st of Feb), that nobody really questioned.
Obviously important, it was a very satisfying job, proper keepering, and along with Heather burning one of my favourites.
On balance, i think Pheasants should be livestock, with possible exceptions on genuinely wild bird shoots with no releasing.
They catch lots of them up here, many of the cocks are used to feed the local hunt dogs apparently.
They made it regularly on to the reserve I used to manage in East London. The nearest shoot to Leyton would be considerably further than 500m I would think.
Showing lack of knowledge of pheasants shoots, shoot habitat and shooting again here Mark and co. Picking apart a small part of an informative article by a random keeper in ST. Really!? . . More folk are more cautious about catching up this year because of bird flu. Simple common sense. . . More folk can see you have shown your true colours and how mush you hate us! Nowt to do with conservation is it? Why are you obsessed with thinking and pushing the idea every pheasant must of been released and keeper bashing? There is plenty of wild birds and wild bird shoots. Last year was really good for early broods and english partridges on ground where they are looked after! Maybe you should spend more time in the field and studying what you clearly know little about. If you really cared that is! You would also see that all wildlife is under more pressure with more people in the countryside now. All getting disturbed and pushed around by more poaching, walkers and out of control dogs. . . . . . Paul V Irving. Having also read some of your comments in past it must be hell for you living where you do? Why knowingly move to or stay in such a place if you find it so bad? You say birds in your garden end up in pot? What method of dispatch do you use to kill these birds? If as bad as you claim the keeper will not be around long. If there is one? Did you ask why birds were fed to hounds and not put in food chain? Could be free food for you as you like eating pheasant? Save you having to kill them? Some shoots have been tagging birds for years! . . . .As for the rise in illegal hare coursing and poaching. Why have a go at Ed Mark? Least he doing something! We ant all obsessed with bloody petitions. Some of us are out there making a real difference! Until you have witnessed it or been confronted/threated yourself you will not understand! Why aren’t WJ tackling it? Or more of you speaking up? Plenty of info out there being shared. You must of seen the vids and pics of animal suffering if you follow the likes of Ed? Chris certainly don’t get it! When asked other week by a keeper ( yes he did actually reply) he said it not such a problem now as there was not a market for the meat. Wrong! It’s got nothing to do with meat! Much more than that! Proper criminal And getting worse! . . . Not shooting or easy target though is it! Shame on you!