Our petition to limit the Woodcock shooting season will be debated in Parliament in February

Our petition to limit the Woodcock shooting season has now closed, with over 107,000 signatures. Thank you all so much for your support! (Please click here for more detail about our Woodcock campaign).

Because the petition passed 100,000 signatures it will be debated by MPs and that will happen on Monday 27 February.  You can attend the debate in person, though seats are limited and not very comfortable, or watch the debate on the UK Parliament YouTube channel. 

We’ll give you details of how you can encourage your MP to take part in the debate. Westminster Hall debates are non-binding on the government but are opportunities to air the issues. Only back-bench MPs are allowed to speak except that an opposition shadow minister and a government minister speak at the end of the debate so it is an opportunity to judge the policies and engagement across the political spectrum.

Meanwhile, a letter published in this week’s edition of Shooting Times is a bit awkward for the shooting community. It describes the type of Woodcock shooting that we have been told by loads of shooters never happens!

This is why our petition to limit shooting by regulation is so much better an approach than leaving it to the good will of shooters as suggested by BASC and GWCT.

Just to re-cap, GWCT agree that it’s a bad idea to shoot woodcock before 1 December and BASC say something similar.

We argue that shooting seasons should protect quarry species – no shooting of Woodcock before 1 December!

We’re delighted that BirdWatch readers have voted our Woodcock campaign ‘Campaign of the Year’ in the recently announced Birders’ Choice Awards 2022. Thank you to everyone who voted!