If anything sums up the disgraceful ‘normalisation’ of killing birds in England, it’s surely the ‘raffle’ that shooting lobbyists BASC (the British Association of Shooting and Conservation) are holding to “win two days’ guided wildfowling for you and a friend at Lindisfarne National Nature Reserve.”
BASC notes in its sickening promotion that “Lindisfarne is renowned for its remarkable birdlife and breathtaking landscapes. Recent counts recorded up to 13,000 pink-footed geese and 23,000 wigeon at the site. You’ll have the opportunity to enjoy the challenge of the sport at its finest, against the backdrop of stunning sunrises and sunsets.”
In other words, the organisation that grew from ‘wildfowling’ roots and has rebranded itself as all about ‘conservation’ is fundraising off the back of sending guns into a nature reserve famed for hosting “huge flocks of wintering waterfowl” – to kill ducks and geese…
Lindisfarne NNR
Lindisfarne National Nature Reserve is a 3,541-hectare (8,750-acre) Ramsar site, a wetland of international significance, founded specifically to help safeguard internationally important wintering bird populations. Six internationally important species of wildfowl and wading birds winter here, including Amber Listed Pale-bellied Brent Geese (Branta bernicla hrota, Lindisfarne is by far the UK’s most important regular wintering site), the Amber Listed Pink-footed Geese, and the Amber Listed (Eurasian) Wigeon.
Natural England’s ‘official guide’ to Lindisfarne National Nature Reserve, says that “in autumn and winter the mudflats host huge flocks of wintering waterfowl, which arrive from the Arctic to feed on the extremely rich supply of marine creatures and vegetation living in and on the mud.” It urges visitors “to keep to existing routes to minimise damage to this very sensitive habitat.” Of the Pale-bellied Brent Geese it says “the Reserve is the largest wintering site in Britain and holds approximately half of the world population.”
Over and over again, we are told just how important Lindisfarne NNR is for biodiversity. In a section on “Help us to look after the Reserve”, Natural England asks that visitors “keep dogs on a lead or at heel at all times to avoid disturbance to birds” and not to “disturb wildlife, remove animals or plants or touch nests and eggs.”
On the last page of the pdf it says that “England’s National Nature Reserves are among the best wildlife and earth heritage sites in the country and many are important in an international context.”
And how does BASC celebrate this internationally important wildlife? By raffling it to its gun-toting members…
BASC
The so-called British Association of Shooting and Conservation began life as a wildfowling group. It was founded in 1908 as the Wildfowlers’ Association of Great Britain and Ireland (WAGBI) to (In BASC’s own words) “Address the growing need to defend wildfowling, largely against the growing enthusiasm of extremists seeking the total protection of wild birds.” In other words, set up to counter a surging RSPB (which in 1904 was awarded its Royal Charter) and the fledgling conservation movement which was looking to stop the exploitation of wild birds by shooters.
WAGBI was joined in 1975 by the Gamekeepers’ Association of the United Kingdom and changed its name to BASC in 1981. Again, in its own words, it has since grown to “become the largest fieldsports organisation in the UK, campaigning to promote and protect country shooting”.
It is BASC that in recent years has fought to keep the use of lead shot, fought against a ban on snares, fought against limits on shooting Woodcock, and in June 2025 was key to the parade of Conservative MPs who shut down any discussion about the grouse shooting industry. It was BASC that boycotted the first meeting of the Raptor Persecution Priority Delivery Group, claiming along with other lobbyists that it favoured “anti-shooting groups” and wasn’t balanced. It was BASC who just a few months ago derided the RSPB’s report on Hen Harriers.
That hyperbolic ‘If they’re not with us, they’re against us’ mentality still dominates the shooting industry of course. There is no compromise to be had, because shooting wants one thing and one thing only – to be allowed to shoot wildlife.
Even on a National Nature Reserve…
Wildfowling
‘Wildfowling’ – the going into some of the most important sites for ducks and geese in the UK and shooting them dead – wraps itself in remarkably self-aggrandising language.
In a 2023 post, ‘The wildfowling wonders of Lindisfarne’, BASC says
“The tide is out, and the mudflats start to shine as the sunrise creeps forward, backlighting the castle on the Holy Island. This is a rare opportunity in the modern world to truly be in the moment, to listen to the bay waking up, to hear the calls of the wildfowl against the distant breakers, to pit one’s wits against a truly wild quarry and follow a tradition hundreds of years old.”
Somewhat analogous to the braggardicio of the trophy hunter, wildlfowlers constantly talk about ‘tradition’ and the ‘challenge’ of using modern vehicles and modern firearms to go and kill ducks and geese that having flown thousands of km to the UK are finding fewer and fewer safe spaces here. They seem to think that they are the only people in the country getting up early. That the only way to enjoy some remarkable wildlife spectacles – and noisy, social flocks of ducks and geese arriving onto estuaries and mudflats from remote regions like Svalbard, Greenland, Arctic Canada, is without doubt a spectacle – is to shoot a bird dead.
Seeing flocks of birds on our nationally important wetlands is a spectacle enjoyed by everyone from birders and joggers, to cyclists, artists, and writers, none of whom need to feel ‘connected’ to nature by killing the birds they will swear up and down they ‘respect’.
Everyone can appreciate the solitude of a remote nature reserve, the sound of wind, waves, and bird calls. Only one group has to detonate all of that with shotguns and lead shot…
Natural England is licencing this slaughter
There are 221 NNRs in England covering c105,000 ha. Natural England manages 135 of them, including Lindisfarne.
Wildfowlers are allowed to shoot on Lindisfarne National Nature Reserve because ‘wildfowling’ is managed under a permitted scheme by Natural England and overseen by a BASC wildfowling warden. For its deathly jolly at Lindisfarne, BASC is teaming up with the Newcastle Wildfowler’s Association and grizzled ‘countryman’ Johnny Scott.
End Bird Shooting wrote to the managers of Lindisfarne on August 21st (11 days ago) asking the following questions:
Does this promotion have the support of Natural England?
Do competitions like this breach the permits given to kill birds on NNR sites in any way?
What bird species will these shooters be killing?
How many individual birds will be shot?
What checks will be made that no birds of conservation concern will be killed?
What efforts will be made to ensure that no lead shot will be used on the NNR or any of the nearby wetlands?
What efforts will be made to clean up the expended cartridges from the NNR?
We feel these are fair and legitimate questions that would be of interest to the public. As of publishing, we have not had a response though.
We have no way of knowing what the NNR’s managers feel about BASC raffling off the wildlife the reserve was set up to protect, but we suspect they won’t have much say on what will go on.
Licences to kill wildlife tend to be historic, and authorities and governing bodies tend – until pushed very hard – to opt for the easy life rather than upsetting what they see as a vociferous lobby with deep roots in parliament.
Which is how we end up with an organisation with ‘conservation’ in its name baldly selling tickets for a day out gunning down wild ducks and geese on a national nature reserve as if it were the most normal thing in the world…
- Header image Holy Island, Lindisfarne NNR Photo by John-Mark Strange on Unsplash
- Wigeon. Photo by Bob Brewer on Unsplash