Blogs

GWCT Head of Education Mike Swan urges caution when it comes to overusing the strimmer, which can easily result in exposing the carefully hidden nest of a pheasant, partridge or duck.

The big new story in agri-environment schemes and farmland conservation is farmer clusters – groups of neighbouring farmers working together to deliver landscape scale conservation in a co-ordinated way. So, why not shoot clusters as well?

GWCT Head of Education Mike Swan looks at what's involved when creating a new pheasant shoot from scratch.

Defra have published their long awaited General Licence for gamebird releasing on European Protected Sites. Releasing pheasants and red-legged partridges in the protected sites and within a 500m buffer around them will be licensed for an interim period of four years whilst Defra and NE undertake work to assess impacts of gamebird management on individual sites.

GWCT Head of Education Mike Swan discusses the move away from use lead shot and shares his own personal experience.

Muirburn, which covers the controlled burning of heather, gorse bushes and grasslands, is a vital conservation and land management tool. 

Roger Draycott explains why it is important that guns become 'conscientious consumers' and find out what the shoot they are considering buying a day at is doing for wildlife.

With a surplus of game on the ground with the loss of two months of game shooting due to the COVID pandemic, there have been occasional reports that the excess of game birds left are now beginning to influence recently drilled spring crops.

With all the news about new rules for trapping stoats, and changes to general licences for corvid control, it’s easy to forget that there are other predators out there that we need to address, and now is a good time to be on the case.

Mike Swan highlights the things that that always seem to lead to difficulty, and some that help to avoid arguments.