Here we go again, one of the most disgusting consequences of releasing approx 60 million non-native pheasants and red-legged partridges into the countryside in their millions. They’re shot for a bit of a laugh and then some of them are simply dumped. Undoubtedly this is driven by an over-supply of birds and little demand by consumers for purchasing game bird meat, especially when it’s contaminated with toxic lead shot.
Unfortunately for the game shooting industry, desperate to portray itself as responsible and law-abiding with the utmost respect for its quarry, this is yet another ongoing, criminal and widespread problem associated with gamebird shooting and such a PR disaster is drawing even more attention to an industry already under intense pressure to clean up its act.
Previous examples include dumped gamebirds in Cheshire, Scottish borders (here), Norfolk (here), Perthshire (here), Berkshire (here), North York Moors National Park (here) and some more in North York Moors National Park (here) and even more in North Yorkshire (here), Co. Derry (here), West Yorkshire (here), and again in West Yorkshire (here), N Wales (here), mid-Wales (here), Leicestershire (here), Lincolnshire (here), Somerset (here), Derbyshire’s Peak District National Park (here), Suffolk (here), Leicestershire again (here) and Liverpool (here).
Yesterday, four bin bags stuffed full of dead pheasants were found dumped behind a hedge in Tremeirchion, in Denbighshire, North Wales. Judy Oliver Hewitt posted these photographs on social media:
This obscene behaviour will continue to receive attention on this blog for as long as the gamebird shooting industry demands licences to kill protected birds of prey for the purpose of ‘saving’ gamebirds.
Raptor Persecution UK 
How on earth is this vile business still allowed. Same every year and nothing changes. Poor poor creatures.
Disgusting behaviour. There is no excuse for this. Chucking the birds out in plastic bin bags that won’t biodegrade compounds the offence. As you point out,this dumping is in itself a criminal offence. It is certainly not the behaviour of people with any genuine interest in being ‘custodians of the countryside’.
Looks like fly-tipping to me. I hope Judy did that poor landowner a favour and reported it to the council so they can find the culprits and stop them doing it again.
Fly-tipping is the ‘new narcotics’, run by organised criminal gangs apparently: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-60031410
Here’s an idea: when I worked with pigs we would tattoo them with an ID number. Why not issue each shoot with an ID number that has to be tattooed onto each of their birds for release so they can be traced back to the origin? Because the governments north and south of the border will do naff all to stop this disgusting behaviour because it is their friends, families, donors and wannabees that do it.
“Because the governments north and south of the border”
Which border is that, then? Or, doesn’t Wales count anymore?
You obviously know plenty about the Scottish Government, their friends and families (no less), their donors and ‘wannabees, that nobody else in Scotland knows.
I wonder if they had had the breast meat removed, even so this is a terrible thing to do to any shot game bird, what a waste of good meat, even though it has lead in it, the lead ban is coming in in a few years and steel will be the new lead. Big article in this weeks [Ed: not prepared to provide a promotional platform for that seedy rag] about it, a lot of people have only themselves to blame if further shooting restrictions come in. With a change of government the whole thing could be altered .
I think it’s also worth emphasising that the 60 million number is likely a pretty substantial underestimate, given how little real information we have on it (all done through a bag census) and where the figures come from (GWCT, who are a ‘charity’ in name only a lobby group in reality). Just another sickening display of greed, waste and complete disdain for the natural environment, which shooters are supposedly deeply connected to! Any shooter with even an ounce of integrity should be calling out UK’s shooting industry for what it is; an out of control, purely profit driven monopoly that is directly opposed to the good of our wildlife and environment. They won’t do that, though, because they’ve been spoiled and catered to by successive governments for so long that any type of mild reform is seen as an ‘outrage’ and dismissed out of hand. This is why you can’t reform driven shooting, it needs to be completely banned.
Steve Grant said he reads this blog daily. I wonder if he has any comment to make.
Considering whos evidence this comes from the rspb who electricute wild animals to apparently help birds and yet they still have basically nothing on their reserves compared with shooting estates how about shut up and learn from those estates
There is no proof it’s anything more than feathers and bits of carcasses that can’t be eaten or INFACT IT WAS A SHOOT THAT LEFT THEM EITHER mind when did antis care after all antis have broken down pens and left poults in the open when they’re not old enough to fly and fend for themselves but let’s not let facts get in the way
I agree those photographs are not proof of anything in particular – except (a) if they are whole birds = disrespectful waste and irresponsible/illegal disposal, (b) if they have been breast filleted = irresponsible/illegal disposal. By businesses and/or persons unknown. But the combined accumulation of these instances has helped to cement the popular opinion that commercial pheasant shooting is a wasteful industry. Do you think that it is not a wasteful industry? Consider the release-to-bag returns of even the best run big shoot that you know of (I have), and also the percentage of those within the return (ie included in the seasons bag) that were too badly shot for human consumption. It is hard (impossible, actually) to convince an interested ‘neutral’ that the industry as it stands today does not depend upon the huge collateral loss of life of tens of millions of pheasants and natural wild species of various types – the deaths of which none are useful to human food supply.
Not breast in sight, the usual fake news from the antis.
Everyone’s favourite plastic countryman’s back.