This year, the game shooting season ends not on the usual 1 February, but on 31 January, with the reasons for this going back to a statute almost 200 years old. In England and Wales many of the foundational laws governing what game can be shot and when are based in the Game Act 1831. The world has changed a lot since that Act was written and sections on the shooting of bustard and the right of lords to appoint one or more gamekeepers have been rendered obsolete, but the definition of game and their seasons is still very much the letter of the law.

'What shall be deemed Game' is the section where game is tightly defined as “hares, pheasants, partridges, grouse, heath or moor game, black game”. As such, this Act does not apply to quarry species like woodcock or teal. For the uninitiated, the latter terms apply to the red grouse (moor game) and black grouse (heath game and black game), the ptarmigan is defined separately to “grouse” in later acts, but might be considered a “grouse” in this Act – semantics!

'Days and Seasons during which Game shall not be killed' is where the current seasons for game shooting were first introduced. Before setting out the various close seasons, this section first sets out that the killing or taking of game on Sunday or Christmas day is forbidden. The seasons for the game are subject to this restriction. The seasons for game species are then defined by when they cannot be killed, not when they can. The law therefore states that pheasant and partridge must not be killed between the first day of February and the first day of October or September (respectively) in any year.  

What we can draw from this is that when 1 February, the usual last day of the pheasant and partridge shooting season, falls on a Sunday, the final day of the season cannot be pushed over to Monday 2 February, but is brought forward to Saturday 31 January. This is the case in 2026.

The Game Act 1831 does not extend to Scotland or Ireland (as was), and it should be noted that there is no law prohibiting the shooting of game on Sunday in Scotland, although the practice is not customary. In Northern Ireland, the taking of any wild bird or gamebird on Sunday is prohibited. Wildfowl are subject to other legislation in England and Wales and the restriction of their killing or taking on Sunday is on a county by county basis.