An outbreak of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (Bird Flu) was confirmed yesterday at a large gamebird rearing farm in North Yorkshire.
A 3km Protection Zone and a 10km Surveillance Zone have been declared around Westfield Farms, near Cropton and all gamebirds on the premises will be humanely killed.
Westfield Farms Ltd, whose latest accounts show a value of over £5.3 Million, produces Pheasants, Red-legged Partridges, Grey Partridges and Mallards for the gamebird shooting industry.
Some of you may recognise the name Westfield Farms. In 2015, Director Michael Wood successfully overturned a conviction for permitting the use of a pole trap at this gamebird rearing facility.
North Yorkshire Police, assisted by the RSPB, had seized a total of five pole traps that had been placed around the rearing pens, and two employees received police cautions (they weren’t prosecuted).
However, Mr Wood’s conviction was later overturned on appeal because the prosecution couldn’t demonstrate that Mr Wood had seen the pole trap that he was filmed driving past in his vehicle (see here).
This is the 95th confirmed outbreak of Avian Influenza in the UK since October 2025 (the outbreak season is recorded from 1st October to 30 September each year).
This surpasses the 82 recorded outbreaks during the entire 2024/2025 outbreak season.
Defra will need to decide imminently whether it will issue General Licence 45 for this year’s shooting season. This is the General Licence that permits the release of gamebirds on or within 500m of a Special Protection Area (SPA), which was introduced after a legal challenge by Wild Justice about damage to protected sites by gamebirds.
Last year, Defra withdrew GL45 due to the high risk of spreading Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza. Given the high number of reported HPAI outbreaks since Oct 2025 (95 at the time of writing), I anticipate Defra will not issue GL45 this year.
If that happens, then it will fall to Natural England to make decisions about issuing individual licences to permit the release of gamebirds on/close to SPAs.
Last year, Natural England took a sensible and precautionary approach and refused licences at many sites (see here), although as we’ve seen, some shoot operators might think the law doesn’t apply to them and the consequences are so minimal it’s probably worth them taking the risk.
But at what cost to protected wildlife?
Raptor Persecution UK 
What exactly is humanely killed? They are not humanely killed when released to the wild and shot. I can well imagine how the poor darling birds will be disposed of “humanely” yea right.
“What exactly is humanely killed?”
Sadly, I do not think they are, in fact, ‘humanely killed’:-( I believe the ‘mass destruction’ of ‘game birds’ is done by gassing with CO2 (cheapest) within Containerised Gas Units (CGU) for smaller numbers and Whole House Gassing (WHG) for larger numbers.
https://www.livetecsystems.co.uk/our-solutions/on-farm-products/containerised-gassing-units/
“the European Food Safety Authority concluded that CO2 stunning is not optimal from an animal welfare perspective”
The Regulations are contained in what is referenced as Annex 1 (List of Stunning Methods and Related Specifications) of the Protection of Animals at the Time of Killing (PATOK), Table 1 (Mechanical Methods), Table 2 (Electrical Methods) and (mainly) Table 3 (Controlled Atmosphere Methods), which lists seven permitted gas/mixture methods:
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/eur/2009/1099
Publications such as the Government’s Animal Welfare Committee on HPAI refer constantly to Annex 1 (above):
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/65eae0965b652445f6f21a98/Advice_on_emergency_culling_for_the_depopulation_of_poultry_affected_by_high_pathogenic_avian_influenza__HPAI____consideration_of_ventilation_shutdown__VSD_.pdf
Same place where pole traps were used to catch owls a few year ago Sent from my Galaxy
This is the same business where there was an avian influenza outbreak and complete cull this time last year.
Many thanks.
I’ve just checked on the APHA website to confirm this, and you’re right, an outbreak was announced on 30 March 2025 (ref AIV 2025/37).
https://raptorpersecutionuk.org/2025/04/07/thousands-of-gamebirds-culled-at-breeding-facility-in-n-yorkshire-after-bird-flu-outbreak/
Ah, thanks, I’d forgotten about that!
Those canned game bird hunts are not good for the environment and probably are spreading all kinds of diseases to your natural environment.