Our letter on the start of the pheasant-shooting season

We were delighted to see our letter published in various regional newspapers in the north of England at the beginning of October.

Here is an example from the Ripley & Heanor News (2nd Oct 2021):

We will monitor how best to protect our native wildlife

Pheasant shooting started on October 1. Did you know that 51 million pheasants are captive-bred and released to provide targets for people to shoot at for recreation?

Pheasants are not native to the UK and, thanks to legal challenges from Wild Justice, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has, this year, introduced some restrictions on release numbers in order to protect native wildlife. We’ll be monitoring how that goes.

Some pheasants end up in the human food chain and most are shot with lead ammunition. Lead is a poison and the Food Standards Agency recommends that pregnant women and young children avoid eating game meat shot with lead.

Wild Justice is pressing the FSA to introduce proper health warnings on game meat and proper testing of lead levels in such meat.

Chris Packham, Ruth Tingay & Mark Avery (Wild Justice)