Seven sacks of dead Pheasants have been dumped by the side of the road at two locations (3km apart) near Stonehouse, South Lanarkshire earlier this month (many thanks to the blog reader who sent in photos and location details).
At the first location (on the Draffan Road, grid ref NS788448), two sacks were found. One was a black bin liner and the other, rather tellingly, was an orange-coloured ‘working dog’ feed sack.
Five black bin liners full of dead Pheasants were found at the second location just a few days later (Candermill Road, grid ref NS771472).
Regular blog readers will know that the dumping of shot gamebirds is a common and widespread illegal practice that has been going on for years, despite the repeated denials by the shooting industry. The disposal of animal by-products (including shot gamebirds) is supposedly 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), some more in the Scottish Borders (here) and again in Lincolnshire (here), in Nottinghamshire (here), even more in Lincolnshire (here), even more in the Scottish Borders (here), in Dorset (here) and in Cambridgeshire (here).
Unless someone was seen dumping these shot gamebirds there’s no way of knowing who did it or from which gamebird shoot they originated, and therefore there’ll be no consequences for the person responsible. 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).
Due to the ongoing concern about Avian Influenza, there’s currently an Avian Influenza Protection Zone (AIPZ) covering the whole of Scotland, with mandatory biosecurity measures in place for everyone, including those who run gamebird shoots. I’m pretty sure that dumping sackfuls of dead (presumably shot) Pheasants will be a breach of those conditions.
Raptor Persecution UK 