With a Welsh consultation on shoot licensing currently taking place, Charles Grisedale considers the impact its outcome may have
Welsh consultation on shoot licensing
Most of you will have heard, I’m sure, that Natural Resources Wales (NRW) launched a 12-week consultation on 27 March this year that, if agreed upon, will limit pheasant and partridge release numbers by licence. It is a fairly direct attack on large shoots. Some of you might say, “So what?” But any shoot that releases birds will be affected. Any 1,000 released pheasants will require a hectare-sized release pen, so by law your small 500-bird shoot will require half of that. That’s around 1.25 acres.
If this happens, I have no doubt that, eventually, full records of birds moved and birds recovered will be required. You may, as in abattoirs, end up with a vet’s bill to examine birds pre- and post-death to allow them to enter the food chain.
What started as an initial, successful attack on fox hunting and coursing in the UK is now developing into a proposed ban on any dog chasing anything in Scotland. This includes rabbits, rats, mice, squirrels and presumably gamebirds….
