The Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT) has today published a new report ‘Game for Nature: Why released gamebird management is a lifeline for farmland biodiversity’ which is based on decades of scientific research on pheasant releasing. In light of DEFRA’s recent call for evidence on the rearing, release and shooting of gamebirds in England, it usefully demonstrates the huge private investment in nature recovery that gamebird management represents.
The document explains, with reference to peer-reviewed science carried out by the Trust over 25 years, the many ways in which farmland managed for gamebirds has created space for nature. Most significantly, management associated with released game carried out by gamekeepers at the GWCT’s Allerton Project demonstration farm has bucked the national trend by more than doubling the number of breeding songbirds.
Another study showed 15 times more butterflies, 40 times more bumblebees and 90% more weed species in game crops in summer than in neighbouring arable crops, and a research project looking at the use of game crops in winter recorded up to 100 times as many songbirds per hectare. GWCT research also found up to 65% more hedgerow per square kilometre on estates with released-gamebird management.
A further study showed how songbirds account for one in four visits to feed hoppers for pheasants, helping support them in late winter/early spring when other sources of food are scarce, and surveys show how woodlands managed for pheasants have 32% more wild birds and twice as many butterflies than woods not managed for shooting.
Gamebird releasing is sometimes unfairly blamed for negative environmental impacts including increasing the fox population, reducing insect populations, or spreading Avian Influenza, but there is little evidence for this. Such claims ignore the fact that with careful siting of release pens, feeding sites and adherence to best practice guidelines, any damaging impacts can be mitigated, and the impact for invertebrates, songbirds and a host of other wildlife is overwhelmingly positive. The report shows how gamebird management is helping boost biodiversity alongside productive farming at the scale required for national nature recovery, and it will help policymakers, conservation organisations and the wider public understand the huge contribution to public goods it represents at no cost to the taxpayer.
You can download a copy of the Game for Nature report here.