This is evidence (2) DRAFT IN PROGRESS to be completed later today 31 October.

I’m thinking of how to respond to the Defra call for evidence – click here – on gamebird shooting (as readers of my monthly newsblast will know).

I’ve already penned something on the overall death toll of the tens of millions of released birds – click here.

Here are some words on distribution, numbers and dispersal of Pheasants, and their impacts on conservation issues.

The points made here are relevant to the sections of the call for evidence which deal with impact of gamebirds on biodiversity (including sites designated for their nature conservation value) and the role of gamebird as vectors or reservoirs of avian diseases.

Our starting point should be that Pheasants are everywhere and should be nowhere. This is a non-native species which only occurs in the UK because it has been released over a period of at least a thousand years, maybe two thousand years, and most numerously in huge numbers in the past 50+ years. 

Are Pheasants everywhere really? The periodic UK and Ireland bird atlases have documented the breeding distribution of birds in the UK, and therefore England, through harnessing volunteers (like me) to survey areas and record the presence/absence of bird species and their abundance in breeding season and winter periods. A breeding atlas was first carried out in 1968-72 and another in 1988-91. A winter atlas took place in 1981-84 winters. A combined breeding and winter atlas study took place in 2008-11 summers and 2007/08 – 2010/11 winters. In the latest atlas the proportion of British (E, W & S) 10km grid squares occupied by Pheasants was 83% in both summer and winter but this understates the occupancy in England as most of the unoccupied grid squares are in Wales or Scotland, mostly in mountainous areas. Pheasants appear only to be absent in central London and perhaps some other inner city areas. They are at lower densities in built up areas and in upland areas but, in essence, they really are everywhere in England. That’s what happens if vast (what else can we call tens of million?) and unregulated numbers of a non-native bird are released for decades. Comparison of the most recent atlas with earlier ones suggests that the distribution has increased in Britain (it hardly can increase in England!) and that breeding densities have increased or remained stable in almost all areas with very few seeing decreases. Thus, for England, we can say that Pheasants are, as near as dammit, everywhere and have increased in range and numbers during the lifetimes of all Defra ministers. These published atlases are readily available and many of them sit on the bookshelves of thousands of birdwatchers who as volunteers contribute the bird data on which Defra policy depends. 

Despite spending several hours reading the references referred to in this call for evidence I cannot find a figure on numbers of Pheasants and Red-legged Partridges which postdates those submitted to the High Court of Justice by Defra in 2020; 49.5 million Pheasants and 11.7 million Red-legged Partridges – click here for summary.  

Non-native captive-reared gamebirds are everywhere and in recent decades have been released in staggeringly large numbers. If a proposal were to be made now to release tens of millions of another gamebird into the countryside it would never be agreed and yet that is where we are now. 

The references provided in this call for evidence poorly summarise the types of impacts that these vast numbers of gamebirds may be expected to have, and the references provided in this call for evidence do not move our understanding of those issues forward very much. These impacts were summarised back in 2019 (by me actually) – click here or here – and can be summarised again as:

1. 1. 1. 1. impacts on native predators – released gamebirds are eaten by species such as the Red Fox which occurs in high densities in the UK, partly it is thought, because of what I have recently learned are called ‘anthropogenic resource subsidies’ or ‘loads of naive gamebirds that are available to be eaten and loads of gamebirds killed on the roads which can be scavenged by predatory species’ see https://markavery.info/2026/07/14/foxes-eat-gamebirds/. The assumption should be that predation by native predators on native wildlife is elevated by these resource subsidies on and off protected sites. This is the strong inference from the fact that millions of gamebirds are eaten by Red Foxes and that these are mostly available through the winter period when Red Fox mortality would be expected to be high. To refute this inference would, I think, require a large experiment where gamebirds were not released over large geographical areas for many years and the impacts on other species monitored over time and in control areas.
         2. direct impacts on reptiles and amphibians – there is plenty of observational evidence from herpetological experts that Pheasants directly attack and kill and eat reptiles (eg click here and here and here). This will be happening on sites designated for their nature conservation interest and those which are not.  I note that there is mention in the references provided of a PhD study that is imminently to be completed that has looked at this issue. That study may be helpful but it would surprise me if a single PhD would cover all aspects of this subject which has been neglected for years by game-releasing interests. There is enough observational evidence by experts to suggest that there is something to worry about and since more captive-reared gamebirds now seem to be released in upland areas it is likely to be a growing problem.
         3. direct and indirect impacts on vegetation – these include grazing and browsing, physical disturbance as gamebirds feed by scratching the vegetation, and nutrient pollution through defecation (of tens of millions of birds). Recent studies (see references in this call for evidence) tend to confirm such impacts occur though the studies carried out to date appear to me to be weak assessments of their importance (see below).
         4. direct impacts on invertebrates:  recent studies (see references in this call for evidence) appear to me to be weak assessments of their importance (see below).
         5. lead in food and in the environment: this appears to be being dealt with, at least, by changes to regulations about using lead shot. Much better monitoring of lead levels in gamebirds on sale to the public will be need to ensure that compliance is high because a ban on using lead ammunition for shooting waterfowl has been widely flouted by shooters.
         6. illegal killing of birds of prey: this is poorly addressed in the references supplied and is an outstanding example of regulatory failure across the UK – a failure of enforcement of existing regulation.
         7. acting as a reservoir for disease: addressed in this call for evidence

Of the small and rather random list of references of which Defra claims to be ‘currently aware’, six of these, (the 3rd (GWCT), 4th (NECR709), 5th (NECR707), 6th (Madden), 7th (AW1306) and 10th (AW1305)) are relevant to the issues of direct impacts of Pheasants in particular on vegetation and invertebrates either because they attempted some measurement of the impacts or because they looked at distances that gamebirds dispersed. 

These studies are not good guides to giving anything like a secure or even partially complete picture of the impacts of gamebird releases for the following reasons (expanded upon to some extent below):

1. 1. 1. 1. All of them use a range of study sites chosen by the researchers and there is no real attempt to show that they are representative of the situation as a whole. This is particularly serious when the studies have been carried out by researchers closely allied with the shooting industry who can be expected to have particular knowledge of the some of these sites and it is difficult for Defra, me or anyone else to assess their representative nature. This could have been somewhat addressed in the design of the studies (eg by identifying a larger number of potential sites and then selecting those studied at random (ideally by someone who does not know the sites and ideally who is notably neutral in their position on the issue of shooting gamebirds). It could also have been far better addressed by collecting more features to describe the sites (and control sites where appropriate) and showing statistically that the sites were representative). I look at the small number of sites studies, and their geographically limited extent, and wonder to myself who chose them and why?
         2. One of the measures which could (should) have been addressed was how long and to what intensity the sites studied had received releases of gamebirds in recent years. My expectation is that these sites were  on shooting estates with a long history of releases. This means they are not ‘pristine’ sites, so far unaffected by gamebird releases but are sites which (I guess) have a long history of gamebird releases, and so, since we have plenty of reason to fear impacts of released gamebirds (that’s what the studies were, in theory, attempting to measure, after all!) are sites which are damaged to an unknown extent before these studies actually took place. Would one attempt to measure the impact of smoking on a population of people without taking some notice of whether they were already smokers, and if so, for how long and at what number of fags/day? I think not. I hope my point is clear but in case not ask yourself how you detect damage to a site by a factor if that factor has been acting on that site for a long period and at a high intensity? This question was not addressed by the studies ‘of which Defra was aware’.
         3. These studies looked at measures such as vegetation cover and invertebrate numbers but were unable to look with any power at which species of vegetation and invertebrates were affected. It is well known to the researchers carrying out these studies, and perhaps to Defra too, that not all species are of equal conservation value – some are rare, others common; some are increasing, others decreasing etc etc. Using the methods employed in these studies it would be possible to decide that there were no impacts on these overall gross measures when there were important, perhaps harmful, impacts on species of highest conservation concern. I understand the difficulties of carrying out studies that would illuminate these issues more but that doesn’t lessen the fact, I claim, that these studies do little to illuminate the impacts.
         4. A Pheasant filmed eating a Swallowtail butterfly pupa far from a Pheasant release site…  https://markavery.info/2021/04/06/pheasant-predation-on-swallowtail-pupa-filmed/ 
         5. There can be no doubt that these studies ‘of which Defra is aware’ mentioned in this call for evidence do nothing to illuminate the impact of gamebirds on reptiles or amphibians – this was not addressed. Here are some links to the views of experts on herpetology which suggest that those impacts could be severe (I do not claim they prove that point) and there is certainly no reason to ignore it in thinking what to do to limit the impact of tens of millions of non-native gamebirds on sites of conservation importance or species of conservation importance in the wider countryside. See https://markavery.info/2022/08/23/les-faisans-et-les-squamates-evidence-from-belgium-that-pheasants-reduce-reptile-numbers/, https://markavery.info/2022/06/19/book-review-the-secret-life-of-the-adder-by-nicholas-milton/, https://markavery.info/2020/03/10/guest-blog-pheasants-and-adders-by-nigel-hand/
         6. There can be no doubt that these studies ‘of which Defra is aware’ mentioned in this call for evidence do nothing to illuminate the impact of gamebird releases on the numbers of Red Foxes and other predatory of carrion-eating species – this was not addressed but could very easily be one of the most significant impacts with knock-on impacts on a range of other species such as ground-nesting birds such as Curlew.
         7. Some of the studies of which ‘Defra is aware’ look at how far Pheasants travel from their release points. I think the best of these is that carried out by APHA which cost the tax-payer over £0.25m and points out that ‘Encroachment onto conservation areas increased over time and was more likely when those areas were relatively closer to release pens.‘ and ‘    Both points are interesting but it is worth noticing, with a raised eyebrow perhaps, that the independent publicly-funded study suggests gamebirds travel further than is suggested by studies funded by the industry. However, all the studies #or which Defra is aware’ are weakened by not looking at the whole year. All wind down after the shooting season. Of course, there are fewer and fewer birds left alive after the shooting season but around a third of the year is ignored (some time from Feb/Mar to July depending on study) and this must be a time when we would expect considerable movement of surviving birds and may be the time when their impacts of native species are highest. Artificial feeding on game estates is greatly reduced once shooting ceases (sometimes before the end of the season) because the recreational shooting industry has little or no interest in the survival of the birds they released once they cease for many months to be living targets and even less interest in paying to feed them to stay on their #home ground’. The impacts might ell be most severe on invertebrates and plants at this time of year and on reptiles too. we know that Pheasants  do not remain close to their releases sites all their living days because (see above) Pheasants are everywhere – and everywhere includes places far from release sites. Defra is, no doubt aware of this, as the point was made in the Wild Justice witness statement which was never seen in court because Defra caved in at the last moment.

 

 

Draft Draft Draft

 

 

 

 

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