Our Woodcock petition passes 70,000, 71,000 and 72,000 signatures


Our petition to limit the Woodcock shooting season is going great guns – if you’ll pardon the expression. Yesterday it passed 70,000, 71,000 and 72,000 signatures!

Here again are the leading constituencies – 16 of them – all with more than 300 signatures, and West Dorset now way out in front with over 500;

    1. West Dorset, Chris Loder MP556 signatures
    2. North Norfolk, Duncan Baker MP458 signatures
    3. Suffolk Coastal, Therese Coffey MP449 signatures
    4. Central Devon, Mel Stride MP427 signatures
    5. Torridge and West Devon, Geoffrey Cox MP417 signatures
    6. South Norfolk, Richard Bacon MP405 signatures
    7. Derbyshire Dales, Sarah Dines MP401 signatures
    8. North Dorset, Simon Hoare MP371 signatures
    9. Broadland, Jerome Mayhew MP364 signatures
    10. S Dorset, Richard Drax MP 357 signatures
    11. Norwich S, Clive Lewis MP349 signatures
    12. Mid Norfolk, George Freeman MP343 signatures
    13. Totnes, Anthony Mangnall MP342 signatures
    14. High Peak, Robert Largan MP329 signatures
    15. North Devon, Selaine Saxby MP321 signatures
    16. Tiverton & Honiton, Richard Foord MP310 signatures
    17. North West Norfolk, James Wild MP305 signatures
    18. East Devon, Simon Juppy MP307 signatures

Here’s a map of where the signatures come from – everywhere! But SW England and East Anglia are particularly strong areas of support. It’s good to see that Therese Coffey’s constituents are still sending the Defra Secretary of State a strong message on what she should do.

For the last 58 days and for the next 3 days it is legal to shoot Woodcock in the UK – we are trying to change that. We want the shooting season curtailed to protect the declining UK breeding population. Our petition calls for shooting to cease in October and November and be limited to December and January. This is even what some shooters and shooting organisations want but they are prepared to leave it up to the good will of shooters to abstain from a legal activity whereas we want the shooting season to stipulate no shooting in October and November.

Westminster Parliament petitions run for 6 months, and we still have just under two months to go. We’re hopeful that we will reach 100,000. We need your help – not just in signing the petition yourself but in finding a few others to sign it too.

Every signature counts, whether it is the 13th in Foyle or the 560th in West Dorset. 

Please share the petition link – https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/619615 – you can help move things along even faster. Thank you.

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