Earlier this month, researcher, writer and campaigner Guy Shrubsole blogged about his latest examination of reported Pheasants numbers in England.
As he’s done in previous years (e.g. see here), Guy submitted a Freedom of Information request to the Government’s Animal & Plant Health Agency (APHA) asking for the official figures on the number of Pheasants being bred, reared and released in England. It’s a legal requirement for keepers of captive birds, including gamebirds, to register.
As of August 2026, according to the latest FoI response, 26.37 million Pheasants were reported as being bred, reared or released in England. This compares to 25.9 million Pheasants reported in July 2025, and 25.7 million Pheasants reported in January 2024.
Guy suggests two possible explanations for the ongoing increase in reported Pheasant numbers:
a) The industry is gradually getting better at reporting; or,
b) The figures simply reflect an ongoing expansion in the size of the industry.
Whatever the explanation, these figures are still well below the estimated 50 million Pheasants that are known to be released annually into the countryside; a figure provided by the gamebird shooting industry itself, even when the source is masquerading as ‘The UK’s Conservation Factchecking Resource‘, which is actually a website run by the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust, (GWCT).
That’s an awful lot of Pheasants (approx 24 million) still unaccounted for in the ‘official’ records.
Guy’s blog helpfully includes a link to a spreadsheet with this year’s ‘official’ figures, broken down into categories of birds being bred, reared and released in England. He also includes a summary of the data for the last three years:
These figures are very revealing, because they show a large discrepancy between the number of Pheasants being bred and reared for shooting and the number of Pheasants being released for shooting.
They don’t add up!
What happened to the 5-6 million Pheasants that were reported as being bred and reared that weren’t subsequently released?
Has anyone at APHA noticed this discrepancy? If so, what action is being taken? Is there any monitoring? Are there any compliance checks?
Failure to register with APHA is an offence, but it’s been going on for years. In a Natural England and BASC-commissioned report published in 2020, registration compliance (for Pheasant keepers) was estimated to be less than 25%.
This low level of compliance on registering Pheasants will come as no surprise to anyone who pays attention to the behaviour of the UK gamebird shooting industry. It’s not an industry celebrated for adherence to the law on many issues, including the illegal killing of birds of prey, the illegal setting and use of traps, the illegal possession, storage and use of pesticides and poisons, the illegal burning of deep peat moorland, the illegal use of toxic lead ammunition to kill waterfowl, the illegal release of gamebirds in Special Protection Areas etc etc.
Submissions to Defra’s current Call for Evidence on all aspects of the gamebird shooting industry are going to be fascinating.
Raptor Persecution UK 