A blog reader has sent in this photograph of shot pheasants that had been dumped by a roadside in Lincolnshire.
Regular blog readers will know that this is a common and widespread illegal practice that has been going on for years. The disposal of animal by-products (including shot gamebirds) is regulated and the dumping of these carcasses is an offence.
Previous reports include dumped birds found in Cheshire (here), 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), Somerset again (here), Liverpool (here), even more in North Wales (here) even more in Wales, again (here), in Wiltshire (here) in Angus (here), in Somerset again (here), once again in North Yorkshire (here), yet again in West Yorkshire (here), yet again in mid-Wales (here), even more in mid-Wales (here), more in Derbyshire (here), Gloucestershire (here) more in Cheshire (here), some in Cumbria (here) and some more in the Scottish Borders (here).
The latest example was found on 22 January 2025 on Long Hedge Lane, Lincolnshire, on the edge of the Lincolnshire Wolds National Landscape (previously known as the Lincolnshire Wolds Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, AONB). Shot and dumped pheasants were also found in the area in 2019 (here).
The blog reader found these two birds tied together with baler twine which is indicative that they’d been killed on a nearby shoot (gamebirds are often tied together in a brace with baler twine and hung up to allow the air to get to them). It’s likely this particular brace was given to a shoot participant to take home and he/she decided to dump them instead. The carcasses have been well eaten, presumably by scavengers but still look relatively fresh, definitely this season’s birds.
Unless someone was seen dumping these shot gamebirds there’s no way of knowing who did it or from which gamebird shoot they originated. There’s no requirement for shoot managers to fit identifying markers to their livestock, which would make them traceable, because gamebird ‘livestock’ absurdly changes legal status to ‘wildlife’ as soon as the birds are released from the rearing pens for shooting (see Wild Justice’s blog on Schrodinger’s Pheasant for details).
What’s particularly concerning about this latest dumping incident is the location. Prior to the nationwide Avian Influenza Prevention Zone (AIPZ) being declared across the whole of England (and Scotland) on 25 January 2025 in an attempt to mitigate the risk of further outbreaks of a highly contagious disease (see here), Lincolnshire was already subject to a regional AIPZ, declared on 21 December 2024, mandating enhanced biosecurity measures and housing requirements for all captive birds (this mandatory housing order was extended to some other counties on 25 January 2025).
Here’s DEFRA’s map showing the mandatory housing AIPZ covering Lincolnshire and other areas:
And here’s the location of the shot & dumped pheasants, right in the middle of the mandatory housing AIPZ:
This casual disregard for maintaining biosecurity during a time when the risk of an outbreak of highly pathogenic bird flu is so high should be shocking.
Unfortunately, it isn’t shocking at all. It’s just yet another example of the selfish entitlement displayed by the so-called ‘custodians of the countryside’, time and time again. An industry that routinely breaks the law and rarely suffers the consequences, whether that be illegally killing protected species by poisoning, trapping or shooting, or using lead ammunition in habitats where its use is banned, or dumping shot gamebirds in rivers, woodlands, fields or roadside laybys because the birds are surplus to what they can sell or eat.
This is what happens when you release 60 million+ non-native gamebirds (pheasants and red-legged partridge) into the British countryside every year.
Raptor Persecution UK 
Didn’t Lord Benyon and Ian Botham say this doesn’t happen?
I don’t know about Botham but gamebird-shooting Lord Benyon denied knowing about it:
https://raptorpersecutionuk.org/2022/02/04/lord-newby-to-pursue-defra-minister-lord-benyon-on-pheasant-dumping/
And then he stopped saying he didn’t know about it and instead said he imagined such cases were ‘very rare’:
https://raptorpersecutionuk.org/2023/02/05/defra-minister-responds-to-house-of-lords-question-on-avian-flu-risk-posed-by-shot-dumped-game-birds/
Sickening, but sadly not shocking. Driven shoots exist in a new medieval era, where the wealthy make and enforce the law. There’s going to be no change in this state of affairs until the whole lot, moorland and lowland alike, is banned.
Part of the problem being that these people have a total dis-regard for the law (and clearly biosecurity also) they believe that they are above the law and can do as they please.
Their belief seems to be well founded, most of the time.
Well said Ian and Tim hit the nail right on the head custodians of the country side bollocks out for themselves with no regard for welfare or biodiversity or the consequences of their actions definitely ban driven grouse shooting and hunting backward and unnecessary.
Thank you Karen disillusioned + well said you too. They are the opposite of biodiversity + shooting / shooters, hunters / hunting are extremely backward (not to mention sick + sick in the head)
What this makes clear is that no-one wants to eat these birds. They are shot for fun and dumped because they are unwanted, like dirty trash. Killing them was the ‘fun’ bit. Unfortunately a lot of other birds and animals end up dead because they are on grouse moors.
This on-going carnage shows that these estates, and the people who own and manage, them have no morals, no shame and, sadly, no fear of the criminal justice system.
Absolutely right, 4wildlife.
I think this disrespectful chucking away of animals they have killed says it all about these people.
It’s bloodlust.
I doubt very much that anyone managing a shoot / handing over shot birds, sees to it that shooters are informed / reminded that it is illegal / morally wrong to dump carcasses on public land.
The hard fact that the shooting industry cannot overcome is that there is either no market at all or a very weak market for about 75% of shot pheasants in most parts of the country. Despite quite a lot of efforts put into campaigns & initiatives to get the great British public to eat more of it, it just isn’t wanted on the scale it is produced. Therefore once the birds have been shot “sportingly” by paying Guns (including being recovered, and laid out for admiration and photos at the end of the day) they are a problem, a burden, a headache for most estates. The industry can’t fathom a solution to this problem.
But the answer is obvious to everyone – shoot a lot less birds – basically consign the numbers-orientated Victorian/ Edwardian “English driven style” that has grown even uglier into an inflexible and brutish industry to the dustbin of history and develop a different shooting “product’ to sell to punters, a more ethical model that treats birds with a bit of respect in their short lives from egg to corpse.
Well said everyone again good valid points. I mountain bike around north yorkshire moors and on numerous occasions came across the smell and site of piles of burning pheasant carcasses because no one wants them. Its so sad and unnecessary jut shoot clays and go to the pub afterwards with yer mates and leave everything alone xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxx xxxxx