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The past few years have seen ever increasing complexity in the licensing and legal regulations governing predator control techniques, throwing up new questions and creating grey areas. To address this, our best practice courses seek to ensure that predator control is carried out according to all the relevant legal requirements and best practice codes.

The past four years have been challenging for an inspiring wild bird restoration project on the Rotherfield Park Estate in Hampshire, where researchers from the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust, working in collaboration with estate staff have been battling to save one of our most threatened farmland birds, the wild grey partridge.

Over the past forty years, the wild grey partridge - one of Britain's most iconic farmland bird species - has been in rapid decline. Grey partridge numbers have plummeted by more than 80% and, tragically, because of habitat loss and a reduction in essential chick food insects, they have become locally extinct in many areas of the country.

A giant black grouse caused a flap at St Madoes Primary School on Thursday (11 September) when it arrived to help launch the 10th annual GWCT Schools Art Competition.

Efforts to secure a more promising future for hen harriers in England moved a little closer this week as an e- petition calling for Defra to publish its Hen Harrier Joint Recovery Plan achieved more than 10,000 signatures. This means that Defra is now obliged to respond in writing about their response.

GWCT research is becoming a beacon of light in an increasingly challenging environment for game and wildlife. As wildlife populations continue to decline, is there too much talk and not enough action? The Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust will be posing this question at its 2014 Members’ Conference on the 29th October 2014. 

Places are still available on the part-time keepers' course run by the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT) in Leicestershire this September. The course will be held over the weekend of Friday 19 - Sunday 21 September at the GWCT's Allerton Project farm at Loddington and will be run by highly experienced GWCT advisors Mike Swan and Roger Draycott.

Researchers at the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust Scotland have recorded the earliest ever hatch of a red grouse on its core count sites.

Bird watchers could play a vital role in the conservation of one of our most secretive and elusive birds, by volunteering to go out counting woodcock during the summer months when the males are performing their enigmatic roding activity at dusk to attract receptive females.

From the list of quarry species that the shooting community hold most dear, woodcock must be top of the list. Showing concern for its status, investing in research carried out by the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust, and willingly getting involved in projects that can help to conserve the bird, all go to prove that the elusive woodcock is a much treasured and prized species.