A pilot study to examine the impacts of releasing non-native gamebirds (pheasants & red-legged partridges) into the Cairngorms National Park is due to begin this spring, according to an article published by The Ferret.
The pilot study looks to be the start of a wider and long-overdue assessment of the impact of these releases across Scotland, based on FoI documents from NatureScot compiled by journalists at The Ferret (well worth reading those documents, here).
The Ferret suggests that the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT) will be undertaking the study. This is a charity that relies heavily upon funding from the gamebird shooting industry. Talk about marking your own homework!
A GWCT spokesperson is quoted in The Ferret article:
“The pilot project to begin looking at the numbers of gamebirds released within the Cairngorms National Park has not yet taken place, but is due to start this spring once the plan for it has been finalised“.
I’ll be looking forward to seeing the GWCT’s proposed methods and justification for undertaking a pilot study in the spring – a time of year when gamebird numbers will be at their lowest after the end of the winter and the end of the shooting season, instead of planning to do it in the autumn when these birds are released in their millions and thus at their most abundant / causing the most damage.
There’s also a hilarious quote from NatureScot:
“Currently, there is little evidence to show that gamebirds are causing damage to protected areas in Scotland, but we will continue to monitor the situation closely“.
‘We will continue to monitor the situation closely’ can be translated as, ‘We’ve ignored this issue for years so of course we don’t have any evidence of damage, because we haven’t been looking!’.
The issue of releasing non-native gamebirds into the Cairngorms National Park has been the subject of a number of blogs on the excellent ParkswatchScotland website over the years (e.g. here in 2017 and here in 2020). Nick Kempe, the blog’s author, has repeatedly questioned why this issue hasn’t featured in the Cairngorms National Park’s Management Plans.
It was, finally, included in the latest Management Plan (2022-2027) despite objections from some members of the Park Authority’s Board in 2021 who just happened to have strong links to the game-shooting industry (see here – and if you’ve got the time it’s worth watching the video of that Board Meeting).
Here’s what the current CNP Management Plan says about gamebird management:
The Management Plan points out:
‘The regulatory framework around releases of species is not consistent at present, meaning that a licence is not required to release pheasants and partridges, but is required to release beavers and red squirrels‘.
Isn’t it about time this inequity between the release of millions of non-native gamebirds and the restoration of a few native species was addressed?
UPDATE 21 November 2025: New report on gamebird releases in Cairngorms National Park doesn’t tell even half the story (here)
Raptor Persecution UK 
the last time I was in the NYMoors I was staggered by the number of pheasants on the woodland and grassland below the Moors – no doubt feeding the predators that come out onto the Moors to predate species like Curlew
I predict the result wll show there is little to no effect upon native wildlife from this disgusting business……the only small comfort I suppose might be that if these primitive people feel the need to construct justification under the guise of a study, they must be somewhat worried that more people are on to them. Even if whatever is produced was remotely honest, I fully expect that no action would be taken. There’s far too much old boy network involved when it comes to murdering our wildlife and the poor game birds.
In what other country would it be routine to release tens of thousands of non-native birds in a National Park? Not just once, but annually. To rear them in conditions that would be legal for domestic fowl?
It doesn’t take much objective thinking to conclude that the whole enterprise is daft, not o mention undemocratic.
In case it’s not obvious that should be “conditions that would be illegal for domestic fowl”. Oops. I’m sorry about that.
“to rear them in conditions that would be *illegal* for domestic foul”
After the poults have been delivered by the hatchery they are put into release pens which can and usually are many acres in size, meaning they have much more space per bird than the majority of free range poultry farms. While they’re in the release “pen” they’re fed, watered, given plenty of shelter and protection. Now, how would that be illegal for domestic birds?
I have never seen a release pen that is acres in size. You must have some industrial shoots wherever you are.
I agree that pheasants in decently sized release pens do have more space than (a) most back garden chickens and (b) commercial free range chickens. But to many people that is only one aspect of their welfare and of the ethics of the end purpose of the process. But let’s park that debate for now. The interest I have is the impact that commercial pheasant shoots have on the natural flora and fauna. I don’t know how reliable the GWCT study will be – they are strongly biased in my personal opinion. When one does a bit of rough maths – based on GWCT own figures there should probably be a lot more release pen acreage than there usually is on most estates – to reduce the impact of an over-density of poults on the ground.
What I mean is this –
GWCT recommends 10sq.m per poult in normal conditions, and 14sq.m per poult on sensitive areas or “ancient woodland”.
So if a commercial shoot returns 10,000 shot birds in a season at a really good return of 40% (i.e. there was c.25,000 released) …that means that they should be utilising about 25ha/62 acres of total area of release pen(s). And much, much more if sited on those previously mentioned sensitive sites.
That strikes me as a heck of a lot more “pennage” than I have seen on the several commercial pheasant shoots I have been on down the years. Albeit I am maybe a few years out of date. Whether people are doing two or more cycles of releasing I don’t know, but it just doesn’t seem to add up to me. The critical thing about the GWCT study will be establishing and presenting the truth about how many poults are put into given sizes of pens and covers, and the ecology of the area – and also it would be good to know honest numbers of how many are returned (shot).
Thats an interesting question. The “English driven style” of reared pheasant shooting is gaining more and more popularity in Italy and France (not to mention partridges both wild & released in Spain & Morocco). British sporting and land agents are involved, and British gamekeepers are recruited regularly. The bag numbers quoted are fairly high which implies intensive management & large numbers released. It would be interesting to study some maps in detail and see if many/any of those landowners/estates offering the above are inside their National Parks boundaries. And more generally what the spectrum of opinions are regards the imposition and development of the “English style”, which is not the traditional way of game shooting in those places.
Long overdue, the garden is plagued with them and more importantly so is the neighbourhood, competing with native wildlife & spreading disease .
In the Dales you come across pheasants and red-legs all-year round up on the moors and presumably they’ll find the same in the Cairngorms in this study. It’s really worrying for native species like adders, which are predated by pheasants, and competing birds species as well as attracting more predators to a regular food source which can be relied upon. The release of these non-natives should be banned, particularly in our uplands where they are increasingly seen as replacement sporting birds for grouse which struggle in bad weather and with disease rife
It’s ridiculous and again grey n blue just trying to justify this ridiculous cruelty raising birds in cruel conditions and releasing them to be killed maimed pathetic just watching the news and there is still bird flu in the wild birds and poultry farmers being put under regulations again so how the hell can this be justified and legal going against
breaching all biosecurity
one sided anti shooting, like saying white tailed sea eagles don’t take live lambs.
a fact now proven
Not proven at all. The lamb in that video might well have been dead. It doesn’t show it on its legs before it’s carried off. Sea eagles collect dead lambs but if they predated loads of live ones where’s the evidence from camera traps etc? This blog wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for all the hundreds of incidents of raptor persecution every year with gamekeepers prosecuted for their illegal acts
Not another sheep to be seen in that video despite the driver travelling some distance , no Ewe or it’s alleged twin, seems strange!
I wouldn’t waste your time Stephen they don’t seem to like facts here that go against their anti-shooting agenda. This site is just an echo chamber of people who seem to think that every person who shoots is rich, land owning, blood thirsty, murdering, Tory supporter and that there can’t be any conservation reasons why some animals need to be shot.
what’s the conservation reason that some animals need to be shot by gamekeepers?,
what’s the “conservation” reason why some animals need to be shot by gamekeepers?
“seem to think that every person who shoots is rich, land owning, blood thirsty, murdering, Tory supporter”
Rich and blood thirsty, certainly.
“seem to think… there can’t be any conservation reasons why some animals need to be shot.”
Is that why you shoot so-called ‘game birds’ then? To ‘conserve them’?
isn’t that natural?
isn’t that natural?
What about the Canadian system for ducks..no artificial feeding by dumping in tons of barley..no shooting without permit, permit limits numbers, no farmers shooting 300 duck a night….to encourage birds you must then improve the habitat for the benefit of all nature.
However..far too complicated for UK politicians.
Are you really going to try and compare shooting in a country whos size could accommodate the whole of the UK in one of its counties.
It’s not even comparing apples to oranges, it’s more like comparing apples to cats since they’re not even in the same ballpark.
There are less than 2 million breeding pairs of all Corvids currently in the UK, These birds are culled on an industrial scale mainly because they predate gamebird eggs, there are other reasons however this was and still is the main reason these birds are culled. So now consider a bird that is bigger than a Raven, the biggest member of the Corvid family that is known to eat small birds and Mammals, Eggs, Reptiles and Amphibians, is extremely territorial and aggressive to other species and that has a higher breeding population than all the Corvids put together and then try to convince people these birds have no effect on other species. good luck to the GWCT on producing such bullshit we know your going to come up with after kicking the can down the road for the next few years and milking the taxpayer for it all to appease the landed tax dodging benefit scroungers
I wholeheartedly agree with the principles of this article.
Previous research showed that released gamebirds carry gut nematodes that infect and cause mortality in native grey partridges. Other previous research showed that pheasants can transmit the Lyme disease bacteria to ticks. Brand new research (not sure if it’s published quite yet) shows that this means that released pheasants do actually increase Lyme disease risk in the environment. I find it difficult to believe that such vast numbers of released birds won’t have zero effect on bird flu rusk to other birds. We all know that gamebirds have a terrible effect on predators, indirectly, via the actions of gamebird managers. I wonder what parameters will be measured in this new study?
I’m been saying for many years this research needs to be done and it is probably too late for two native gamebirds in particular, Red-listed and doomed Capercaillie and Red-listed Ptarmigan.
Over the past twenty-five years, I’ve seen Pheasants and occasionally Red-legs appear and continue to be present in all the many woodland areas where Caper used to be common but have declined to extremely low populations (well documented). It’s too late to show any causal connection here but the disease/infection factor must be high on the list.
Similarly in the Cairngorms I now see Red-legs regularly above 2500’ and sometimes well over 3000’. Again there are loads of other anthropogenic factors (climate, disturbance, dogs) but these birds are in Ptarmigan country.