World’s tiniest violin plays for shooting industry
Last week Yahoo News reposted a Daily Telegraph puff piece for the shooting industry which ran with the headline, “Gamekeepers face ruin after last-minute change to licences.” Lamenting a normally supine government for actually (finally) recognising the terrible threat of Avian Flu to wild bird populations and that protected areas ought to be – you […]
Gamekeeper Francis Addison convicted in dead goshawks investigation
On the 29th of June, Francis Addison (72) a part-time gamekeeper of South Park, Weeting, pleaded guilty at Norwich Magistrates’ court to NINETEEN charges in connection with a multi-agency raptor persecution investigation led by Suffolk Police, including the possession of five shot Goshawks. As Protect the Wild reported back in January this year, the bodies […]
Short-eared Owl shot and killed on Peak District grouse moor
The RSPB has released news of the shooting of a Short-eared Owl on Broomhead Estate, a notorious grouse moor in the Peak District National Park. The incident took place last summer but wasn’t publicised until police investigations had concluded. The shooting was witnessed and recorded on a mobile phone by an individual birding on the […]
Natural England’s Tony Juniper: overseeing the devastation of England’s biodiversity
The chair of Natural England (the government’s adviser for the natural environment in England) has hypocritically argued that England “is going to have to work much harder” if it wants to meet biodiversity targets. In his role, Tony Juniper is actively responsible for the loss of biodiversity. The Tories’ biodiversity targets have already been called […]
Dogs and the Law
Dogs and the Law We love dogs here at Protect the Wild, but through no fault of their own they are widely used by hunters, shooters, and wildlife criminals like badger baiters and hare coursers to fight, chase, retrieve, or kill wild animals. That means that we may well come across dogs (or packs of […]
Avian Flu: RSPB calls for ban on bird releases by shooting industry
“To help limit the catastrophic spread of Avian Influenza, the RSPB is calling for an immediate moratorium on the release of captive-bred gamebirds and Mallards for shooting in the UK this year. The call is for the UK and devolved governments and the shooting industry to take a precautionary approach to limit the spread of […]
Thanks to the shooting industry, your dog’s food might cause lead posioning
A new study into lead shot has confirmed what we already know – it’s creating toxicity in foods that reach supermarket shelves. But this study shows that it has affected dog food too. On 3 May, environmental research journal Ambio published a study into the levels of lead found in commercial dog food. Headed up […]
Avian Flu forces lockdown of largest pheasant rearing farm in UK
Avian Flu protection zones have been imposed around a massive pheasant and partridge breeding farm in north Powys. The family-owned Bettws Hall Game Farm, near Bettws Cedewain, which describes itself as ‘a market leader in the production of pheasant and partridge chicks and poults in the UK‘, says it raises more than 1.7m pheasant and […]
Family cat found dead in garden, a snare around his neck
Tigger, a domestic cat, died after a snare caught him around the neck. He was found in his family’s neighbour’s garden. But the RSPCA believe he actually died elsewhere. Tigger’s body was found on 11 April in Netherhall, on the outskirts of Leicester. A snare had pulled tight around his neck. However, Leicestershire Live reported […]
‘Slow strangulation’ and ‘organ damage’: SnareWatch report shows the gruesome reality of snare use
Scottish animal welfare charity OneKind has released its 2022 SnareWatch Report, and it’s distressing reading. Snares are primarily used on foxes on bird-shooting estates in an attempt to stop the mammals from predating on birds such as pheasants and grouse. They are wire nooses that trap and hold the animal until someone comes and shoots […]
Time for shooting and hunting to acknowledge the truth about ‘pests’
An article in The Guardian this week headlined, “Lichens, slime moulds and wasps: RHS lists top beneficial wildlife for garden” should be required reading for the shooting and hunting industries. Written by Helena Horton, it comes thirteen months after the same journalist wrote a Guardian article with the headline “‘Planet friendly’: RHS to no longer […]
Natural Resources Wales and one-sided ‘compromise’
As Protect the Wild’s Glen Black outlined in a March 31st news post, Natural Resources Wales (NRW) is asking the public for its thoughts on new regulations designed to licence the release of pheasants and partridges by the shooting industry. Glen wrote that we need to ‘keep our eyes on the prize’ and that ‘those […]
Wales is holding a public consultation on licensing parts of the shooting industry
Natural Resources Wales (NRW) is asking the public for its thoughts on new regulation for releasing pheasants, partridges and other ‘non-native’ birds killed by the shooting industry. At present, there are regulations around the release of birds inside Wales’ sites of special scientific interest (SSSIs). However, beyond those areas, there is almost no regulatory oversight. […]
Trespass (to Land) and the Law
Trespass (to Land) and the Law In England and Wales, trespassing is entering – or putting property on – land that belongs to someone else, without their permission (technically “unjustifiable interference with land which is in the immediate and exclusive possession of another”) unless there is: some right of access for the public (for England […]
The CRoW Act 2000
The CRoW (Countryside and Rights of Way) Act 2000 The Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 (CRoW Act) covers England and Wales and gives a public right of access to land mapped as ‘open country’ (mountain, moor, heath and down) or mapped areas of registered common land shown on official registers kept by the […]
GUILTY: Hunt supporter convicted after running down saboteur
On 15 March 2023, South Dorset Hunt supporter Stewart Masters was found guilty after running down a hunt saboteur from Weymouth Animal Rights (WAR). WAR said: “On 12th February 2022, three of our group were waiting on a pick up when one of them was deliberately run into by a South Dorset Hunt supporter, Stewart […]
Join protests against a shooting estate where snares have trapped dogs
National Anti-Snaring Campaign (NASC) is launching a series of protests to highlight the ubiquity of snaring on a West Sussex shooting estate. NASC announced that it is planning to hold a series of protests at Arundel Castle, West Sussex, beginning on 1 April. The group will hold further protests on 7, 15, 22 and 28 […]
Foxes and the Law
Foxes and the Law The Red Fox (the only fox species found in the UK) has the largest natural distribution of any land mammal except human beings. The UK population is around 375,000, and perhaps one-third are resident in our towns and cities. Data suggests that up to 50 per cent of the UK’s fox […]
National Trust bans grouse shooting from a Peak District estate
The National Trust has announced it’s banning grouse shooting from 1,600 acres of its land in the Peak District. And it comes after the charity voiced concerns over the shooting industry’s “management techniques”. On 3 March, Sheffield paper The Star reported that the National Trust had chosen not to renew its relationship with the shooting […]
Woodcock petition debate: through the looking glass with the shooting lobby
On the 27th of February, Parliament debated petition 619615 ‘Limit the shooting season of Woodcock‘, which was launched by Wild Justice and signed by 107, 916 members of the public. The petition asked that the (so-called) shooting season for Woodcock, a species in serious decline here, should be moved back from 01 October (it starts […]
“The Shooting Industry: it’s not just hunts that kill foxes”
A fox trots through a quiet wood. Suddenly a gun blast tears the air. Pheasant alarm calls ring out. The fox runs as birds are shot out of the sky… Those are the opening few seconds of a new 90 second animation we’re about to launch. It’s produced for Protect the Wild by Ben Sinclair […]
Cage Traps and the Law
Cage Traps and the Law Cage traps are widely used by gamekeepers on shooting estates to trap and hold (then later kill by shooting or clubbing) corvids (crows, including magpies). As distressing as finding wild birds trapped in a cage trap may be, their use is (currently) legal – but only under strict conditions and […]
DORSET: Gamekeeper slapped on wrist for multiple raptor deaths
Gamekeeper Paul Allen of Wimborne St Giles, appeared at Weymouth Magistrates’ Court on 16 February (2023) following a guilty plea last month relating to multiple raptor persecution offences. As we reported on Protect the Wild in January (Yet more dead buzzards and yet another gamekeeper in court) the bodies of six shot Buzzards and the […]
Wild Bird Eggs and the Law
Wild Bird Eggs and the Law The passing of The Protection of Birds Act 1954 made it illegal to take or destroy an egg of any wild bird and an offence unless “authorised by a licence granted under section ten of this Act” to sell, offer for sale or have in their possession for sale […]
Royal Agricultural University: Sick stunt as fox corpse tied to car roof
Protect the Wild and the Daily Mail don’t often agree on matters concerning wildlife, but their headline on Feb 7th “Outrage after students at Britain’s top agricultural university strap dead fox to the roof of a car for charity rally” just about nails it. As the Mail explained, “Students at a prestigious university dubbed ‘Oxbridge […]
Pheasant shooting ‘season’ ends today
The vast majority of birds that breed in or regularly visit the UK are rightly protected by law and can not be harmed or killed at any time of the year. For those unfortunate species that were long ago declared as ‘game’ or ‘quarry’ though (and there are no biological reasons for the choices that […]
BREAKING: Wales one step closer to ban on snare use
The Welsh Senedd just announced it is carrying forwards a plan to prohibit the use of snares. On 27 January, the Welsh Senedd’s Economic, Trade and Rural Affairs Committee published its Stage 1 Report on its upcoming Agricultural Bill. The 116-page document covers many subjects related to the future of agricultural legislation in the nation. […]
DARTMOOR: camping ban and pheasant shooting
On Saturday 21 January, Protect the Wild joined more than 3,000 people marching in protest on Dartmoor after a pheasant-shooting millionaire took action to prevent wild camping. Hedge fund manager Alexander Darwall, who owns the 4,000-acre Blachford Estate on Dartmoor, brought the case against Dartmoor National Park Authority (DNPA). The high court ruled in his […]
Five shot Goshawks dumped in Suffolk wood
On 17th January Suffolk Police’s Rural, Wildlife & Heritage Unit posted a request on their Twitter feed for information after the discovery of the bodies of five young (Northern) Goshawks dumped in Forestry England’s King’s Forest near Thetford in Suffolk. The large and powerful birds – fully grown juveniles likely to have hatched just last […]
Bird of prey poisonings: public at risk, says Lincolnshire Police
Aaron Flint, a wildlife crime officer from Lincolnshire Police, has warned of the risk to humans, dogs and cats from poisons used to illegally kill birds of prey. Detective Constable Aaron Flint, from the Lincolnshire Police Rural Crime Action Team, has featured in an article published on the BBC News website. The article makes clear […]
Hunt supporters attack a man in his seventies using a catapult and ball bearing
A hunt monitor in his seventies has been attacked by South Dorset Hunt supporters. This is the second time in less than a month that a monitor has been targeted by followers of the hunt. Protect the Wild spoke to North Dorset Hunt Sabs, who said: “We were sabbing the South Dorset Hunt at Tadnoll, […]
Where is shooting vulnerable
Where is shooting vulnerable? While many of us have come together to ‘protect the wild’ bird shooting is purely selfish and serves no common good. We will work to counter the ‘conservation’ greenwashing the industry employs. It uses birds as live targets. That shouldn’t be allowed. Non-animal shooting is now available, replicating the so-called ‘thrill’ […]
Common Pheasant
Facts about Pheasant Scientific name: Phasianus colchicus Bird Family: Pheasants UK conservation status: Introduced (on the British Bird List as a ‘naturalised introduced species’) At a glance A Eurasian species released here in huge numbers by the shooting industry. Up to 40 million pheasants are released every year to be shot for ‘sport’. In 2020 […]
Banning Snares: a parliamentary debate in name only
On January 9th MPs gathered in a room in Westminster Hall to debate e-petition 600593, which as the 102,616 people who signed it will remember was a demand by Animal Aid that “The Government should prohibit the sale, use and manufacture of free-running snares under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, putting them in the […]
Podcast 02: Snares and trailing a new campaign
A short podcast by Charlie Moores about snares – recorded the day before he headed to London to listen to a pro-hunt and pro-shoot government ‘debate’ last year’s petition organised by Animal Aid that called for a ban on the use, sale, and manufacture of snares… “If you’re a certain age you may remember […]
Why are you opposed to lead shot?
Why is Protect the Wild opposed to lead shot? Lead is a serious pollutant. Due to its high toxicity, most releases of lead into the environment are strictly regulated in Europe (e.g. see AMEC 2012). Here in the UK, lead was banned from water pipes decades ago, from paint in 1992, and finally fully banned […]
Ending Bird Shooting – let’s talk about foxes
How do you persuade an audience that is primarily interested in fighting foxhunting to become as concerned about the bird shooting industry? Oddly enough (and as a lifelong birder I’m writing this through slightly gritted teeth as it were), it’s probably not by talking about birds… Last year Keep the Ban, which was built […]
Why do you call bird shooting an industry?
Why do we call bird shooting an ‘industry’? Why does Protect the Wild call the ‘bird shooting industry’ (a blanket term for shooting estates, shooting syndicates, shooting lobbyists, gun and ammunition manufacturers and suppliers etc) an ‘industry’ exactly? Because that’s exactly what it is – an industry. And it’s huge. We all need to move […]
Why must the shooting industry have a ‘predator control exit strategy’?
Why must the shooting industry have a ‘predator control exit strategy’? The definition of an ‘exit strategy’ is quite simple. It’s a pre-planned means of leaving a current situation, either after a predetermined objective has been achieved or as a strategy to mitigate failure. It’s often said that “an organisation or individual without an exit […]
Does the shooting industry spread disease?
Does the shooting industry spread disease? Wild animals get get sick, of course, but intensively reared, stressed animals are especially susceptible to disease (as an aside it’s estimated that 73% of all the antibiotics used globally are given to farmed animals, leading to serious concerns of widespread antibiotic resistance). Shooting depends on rearing as many […]
Stink Pits
Stink Pits Anyone who comes across one of the shooting industry’s ‘hidden secrets’ will know immediately how stink pits got their name. Also known as middens, stink pits are built by gamekeepers on shooting estates and are pits or piles of dumped rotting mammal and bird carcasses which literally ‘stink’ and are used as bait […]
Why won’t you use the term ‘gamebird’?
Why won’t you use the term ‘gamebird’? Protect the Wild won’t use the term ‘gamebird’ because how we describe the living beings around us is hugely important. When it comes to our wildlife, we’ve all inherited a grubby pile of loaded, value-laden terms that have been handed down to us and that we now repeat […]
Why will you never be neutral on bird shooting?
Why won’t Protect the Wild ever be neutral on bird shooting? If we don’t speak out against the shooting industry, then no matter how much we might try to convince ourselves otherwise: we are supporting the killing of millions and millions of birds for ‘fun’, supporting the trapping and snaring of countless foxes and other […]
The Scottish government’s advisory group just came out strongly for a snare ban
Snares are cruel and indiscriminate, raising “significant welfare concerns”, an advisory board to the Scottish government has just announced. As a result, the board is recommending a blanket snare ban in Scotland. On 9 December, the Scottish Animal Welfare Commission (SAWC) published its position paper on using snares to trap wildlife. The evaluation was based […]
What is a bagged fox?
On 26 August 2022, ITV News published footage showing what appeared to be a ‘bagged fox’. The video showed a group of terriermen associated with the Seavington Hunt pulling a bag from a quad bike before dumping whatever is inside onto the ground. Huntsman Benedict Hood is then seen encouraging a nearby pack of foxhounds, […]
To survive we have to change the narrative
Headline statistics from the 2022 Biodiversity Conference (or COP15), which starts in Montreal today, are shocking. Over 1 million species are on the brink of extinction (an under-estimate as no-one knows how many species there actually are). Species are dying off at a frequency rate 1,000 times higher than before the arrival of humans. Wildlife […]
Leighton Hall Estate Investigation
Leighton Hall Estate Investigation Written by Head of Content and pro-wildlife/anti-shooting campaigner Charlie Moores. In September 2022 Protect the Wild was sent gigabytes of video and photographs filmed by investigators who had visited pheasant pens on the Leighton Hall Estate in Lancashire. We had a rough idea of what to expect, as the investigators themselves […]
Shooting Estates to publish a register of all mammals they trap and snare
Shooting Estates must keep a public register of all mammals they trap and snare. Go straight to sign Every day tens of thousands of traps and snares are laid by gamekeepers on shooting estates. Countless foxes and other animals are being killed every day to protect shooting’s profits – yet there is no legal requirement […]
No ‘licencing lifeline’ for Grouse Moors
No ‘licencing lifeline’ for Grouse Moors Grouse shooting is not a ‘glorious’ tradition. It is about death and destruction: the slaughter of up to half a million grouse a year, the killing of countless native predators in traps and snares, illegal raptor persecution, and the burning of internationally-scarce habitats. All so that a few people […]
No public subsidy of shotgun licences
No public subsidy of shotgun licences Go straight to sign Did you know that we taxpayers subsidise the true cost of shotgun licences? Funding for police forces in England and Wales comes from us, the taxpayer. Forces have complained for years about underfunding. Yet one of the police’s duties is to administer shotgun licences. Under […]
Protect the Wild End Shooting
A few weeks ago Keep the Ban became Protect the Wild. Our change is far more than just a re-brand. While foxes and enforcing the ban on foxhunting will always remain a key focus, with Protect the Wild we are expanding what we do. Part of that will see us bringing our drive, our commitment […]
Avian Flu: is the government serious about protecting wild birds?
Avian flu is spreading fast: Protect the Wild wonders whether the government is really serious about protecting wild birds, not just poultry. Avian Flu, or (HPAI) H5N1, is a highly contagious viral disease affecting the respiratory, digestive and/or nervous system of many species of birds. A disease originating in East Asia, Avian Flu infected chickens […]
