Our latest undercover investigation exposes sick birds bred to be shot.
It’s obvious that they don’t care about the birds they send out to be shot, but you would think that they would at least properly look after the young birds in their care before then.
In fact, as footage taken by the Hunt Investigation Team (HIT) this summer clearly shows, the shooting industry doesn’t even care about ‘their’ birds when they’re young and still growing.
The video we’re publishing, filmed during the heatwave on an estate in Derbyshire though it could have been taken almost anywhere the shooting industry has set up shop, shows the reality.
It shows young Pheasants and Red-legged Partridges in the rearing pens typically used by the shooting industry. In under 90 seconds we can clearly see how poorly maintained pens leave young birds trapped in loose netting, unable to escape. How diseases like ‘bulgy eye’ (infectious diseases caused by micro-organisms called mycoplasmas) are rife within the industry. How the industry’s casual approach to the proper disposal of dead bodies is risking even more disease – including the spread of the highly pathogenic virus that causes Avian Flu – by leaving them for swarms of flies, or even for other young birds to eat.
WHO CARES? NOT THE SHOOTING INDUSTRY.
Given that shooting estates make money selling live birds for the gun, you’d think they’d take more care wouldn’t you?
But then the industry releases a staggering 40 million or more Pheasants into the countryside every year, and a massive 10 million Red-legged Partridges.If they lose a few along the way, well, there’s plenty more where they came from. And they can factor in the cost of those young corpses anyway – by charging more to the very shooters who line up to kill the birds that do survive.
If they lose a few along the way, well, there’s plenty more where they came from. And they can factor in the cost of those young corpses anyway – by charging more to the very shooters who line up to kill the birds that do survive.
So who cares about a few dead birds?
We do.
That’s why Protect the Wild is building a movement to shut this appalling industry down.
Join us and help fight the shooting industry’s cruelty, illegal persecution, and destruction of so much wildlife.
