Today is the official opening day of the Red-legged Partridge (RLP) shooting season in England, Scotland and Wales.
An estimated 10 million RLPs are released into the countryside every year, for shooting. They join an estimated 50 million released Pheasants – although the shooting season for Pheasants doesn’t start until 1 October.
The precise number of these non-native Pheasants and RLPs released each year isn’t known – research published recently by Guy Shrubsole demonstrated that shooting estates in England are failing to declare millions of released birds, and research published earlier this year by Wild Justice demonstrated that some shoots are releasing birds unlawfully, under the radar of the authorities.
Someone asked me this morning whether there was any evidence that shoots were releasing fewer birds this year, as a consequence of last year’s Bird Flu outbreak.
Well, according to the shooting press, apparently the opposite is true, at least with regard to RLPs.
Three shooting publications are reporting that game dealers have sent a warning to shoot managers this year, saying that there is a ‘a glut’ of RLPs being released this year; so many in fact that the game dealing trade (the people who process and sell on the shot birds) are concerned that the number of RLPs “go beyond what the trade can handle“.
The estimated number of predicted RLP releases seems to originate from a ‘market briefing note’ recently issued by Guns on Pegs, an online market place for selling shoot days. I haven’t been able to find a copy of that note so can only rely on what the shooting press is saying about the content.
But Shooting Times, Sporting Gun and the Fieldsports Journal are all reporting on the story, with quotes from two prominent individuals from the game dealing industry:
Leon Challis-Davies of the game meat organisation Eat Wild said: “To put it bluntly, shoots have stocked more partridge than usual and there just isn’t the capacity to cater for the volumes we’re expecting unless we all get our act together soon“.
Tristan Kirk of Lincolnshire Game said: “I encourage every estate that supplies partridges to the food industry to speak to their preferred processors as soon as possible, with accurate information about the numbers expected and dates. This allows us to have a forecast for sales or storage requirements until a sale can be found. This is crucial and should be normal practice“.
There’s also commentary about the poor condition of some gamebirds received by dealers, attributed to ‘bad handling’ on the shoot, which means that those gamebirds cannot then be processed for human consumption.
It’s all quite interesting, given the game shooting industry’s mantra (Code of Good Shooting Practice) that:
“Shoot managers must ensure compliance with relevant game meat and food hygiene regulations“
and
“Shoot managers must ensure they have appropriate arrangements in place for the sale or consumption of the anticipated bag in advance of all shoot days“. [Emphasis is mine].
Stand by for piles of shot and dumped or fly-tipped RLPs across the UK this season….
Now, where’s that evidence-gathering exercise on gamebird release and shooting, promised by Defra?
Raptor Persecution UK 
Released a few days ago near me in north Scotland. In the space of 50 metres, about 30 Pheasants and 10 R-L Ps. ON THE ROAD! Three Ps already flattened. I’d driven there an hour before and had seen none. So, presumably very recently released. Near a public road! No regard for road safety. Incredible.
A Google search reveals that there is a whole industry out there trading in incinerators for the destruction of excess game. This is a hidden element of the game shooting cycle which clearly anticipates regular excesses of birds.
One consistent viewpoint from within the shooting world on this decades long problem (of what to actually do with reared shot game that few people truly want to eat) is that this ridiculous industrial overproduction is just not their fault at all! When talking amongst themselves, they consider it to actually be the fault of the great unwashed British public – for being too blinkered / choosey and too ungrateful, to not embrace eating industrially farmed (though without government regulation) flying-protein-targets, then shot at and killed (forget about the high proportion cruelly wounded), then recovered and stored (again without government regulation), before a final processing that is regulated.
and then delicately seasoned with lead shot
“and then delicately seasoned with lead shot”
Whatever you do, do not tell the Food Standards Agency. The last thing they want is to apply the same regulations regarding heavy metals for ‘game’ meat which they strictly enforce for all other meats – it might upset the real rulers of this country:-(
How they are allowed to sell lead impregnated meat without specific and clear warnings for pregnant women and young children is beyond belief. the Food Substandard Agency needs to wake up and do their job.
“the Food Substandard Agency needs to wake up and do their job.”
Perhaps they see their job as protecting shooting interests, above that of protecting the public from lead poisoning in game meat sold over the counter?
Heather Hancock served as chair of the Food Standards Agency from 2016 to 2021. She and her husband Mark own a grouse moor, Threshfield Moor, in the Yorkshire Dales National Park.
“Soon after the initial walk through farmland the track rises to Threshfield Moor and a long line of shooting butts.”
https://where2walk.co.uk/walk/bordley-on-malham-moor/
Heather Hancock, Master St John’s College, Cambridge was then appointed as some Non-Executive Board Member of DEFRA in 2023, along with Tony Juniper.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/defra-register-of-board-members-interests/defra-register-of-board-members-interests-2023
Aye, buts its good for you is lead, it’s like a health supplement – it “puts hairs on your chest” etc, “my great grandad lived to 110 and he ate lead shot rabbits every day”, etc “I’d rather have that than supermarket chicken that’s pumped with chemicals” etc (though game farm pheasants are pumped with chemicals too, but no matter). How I wish I had written down all this type of stuff I’ve heard down the yearsđŸ˜€
While driving up the old military road above the Clatterin Brig, Glensaugh, towards the Cairn o’ Mount, in early hours of 18 August, I noted more than 60 RLPs sitting on the road and verges in pouring rain, apparently oblivious to traffic – I was dodging and managed not to hit any but the following day there were at least 10 dead and flattened, as well as Pheasant…
“I was dodging and managed not to hit any but the following day there were at least 10 dead and flattened, as well as Pheasant…”
It is a relentless supply of carrion artificially boosting scavenger numbers and radically unbalancing our natural wildlife, all care of the official agencies supposedly (not) looking after our environment:-(
I often wondered why estates would release Red legs instead of native Greys, apparently according to the Duke of Norfolk in the book ” the return of the Grey Partridge” Red legs will carry on flying straight over the guns where as Grey’s will turn and try to avoid the guns, It basically boils down to making it easy for the paying guest, building their ego by giving them an easier shot and pure greed on behalf of the shoot owner, more birds killed more money from the guillable
The rise of ‘affordable’ high numbers commercial redleg shoots over the past 30 years is indeed a grim chapter in the history of British game shooting. Not quite as grim as the disgusting commercial orientated driven shooting shooting of semi-tame mallards mind, but close. I was watching some YT videos recently of redleg shoots clearly trying to promote themselves to new punters for this season. It is shameful.
Once upon a time it was a part of the keepers remit to ensure that birds were flushed from appropriate distances to an appropriately situated line of Guns to provide them with a “testing” level of “sport”*, commensurate with their skill levels. And birds were flushed at correctly judged intervals to give them a chance to “show” or fly well and the Guns a chance to judge which ones to try and shoot, which to leave. Not on these videos. Literally clouds of redlegs are flushed continuously and without interval over inept Guns, who seemingly just blast away mindlessly at this rolling cloud of dots. Not selecting birds, not judging distance, not asking themselves can they really kill cleanly at X or Y distance. The wounding rate must be horrendous. But the birds are so cheap, so who cares?
There are supportive comments on these videos from excited idiots and patrons of this style, and in fairness occasionally critical comments from some disapproving more ethically minded shooters too. But there is no doubt that this is clearly the dominant established business model these days – the industry “bread & butter”. Just how the hell did we end up here – with the big shooting organisations effectively giving this cruel and ugly mess the cover of their PR machines? It is just pathetic.
*”sport” – being a toxic / debatable term itself, of course.
I have to disagree with your term “semi tame Mallards ” the videos I saw showed 200 to 300 fully tame Mallards following the bloke who had reared them as if he was mother, Duck, fully trusting him whilst he wrote beneath the video “who wants to come and have a go at these, bookings now being taken ” I’m going back some time but remember reading that Jackie Stewart the former racing driver along with the guy who brought down the bank of Scotland with friends shot 900 plus Partridges in Spain before lunch, At what point would you think when those numbers are involved that this is too easy?
You are right. I should ditch the “semi”! They are tame, no doubt about it. If a couple of teenagers were shooting at ducks on a town pond with air rifles or catapults, everyone would condemn it. Yet if their dads and their mates book up to go driven duck shooting it is fine, something appropriate to brag about – dress up like an Edwardian and post photos of it, class themselves as part of “conservation”.
Morally I can see no difference. The only differences are legal – in the fact private property is involved, and the dubious domestic (i.e. Schrödingers Pheasant) status of the ducks. The people in both scenarios should look themselves in the mirror and feel ashamed. But the teenagers at least have youthful stupidity as partial mitigation.
It is simple: the shooting industry is not interested in what happens to the carcasses, they can always use them as poison baits or stink pits. all they care about is how much money they can make out of the sickos who want to kill as many as possible.