GWCT News Blog

On a surprisingly sunny afternoon during an otherwise extremely wet week in early June, a group of South Yorkshire farmers dedicated to grey partridge recovery gathered for a farm walk to celebrate their farmer cluster’s successes so far.

Too often we sit in our various roles, comfortable in the knowledge we have and the language we use, without considering how others might perceive what we are saying or even understand.

The latest edition of Fieldsports Journal guest-edited by Nick von Westenholz GWCT CEO is hot off the press.

For barn owls, nesting sites have become an important factor in the life cycle. Loss of hollows in old trees through woodland clearance and replanting, the conversion of traditional barns on farmsteads to dwellings for humans, and the need for modern grain stores to be wildlife-free zones for food hygiene purposes have all contributed to the housing problem.

England’s flagship farming scheme returns, but funding gaps and policy missteps threaten both nature and food production.

Recently we have been involved in an alternative auditing scheme called Trusted Game, an audit-based scheme aimed to ensure the health and welfare of gamebirds on shoots and game farms. It draws on proven systems from other industries and offers a practical route to achieving high standards, providing reassurance to the shoots, tenants, landowners and consumers.

Later this year, the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust will be working to develop fair co-existence between wildcats and people. GWCT will liaise with estates and practitioners in the wildcat release area to facilitate tracking and develop best practice guidance to mitigate gamebird impacts. The Trust also aims to build evidence recording to support wildcat capture and relocation licences, engaging with key partners, communities and government agencies.

Climate change continues to create challenges for British farms but sometimes the weather turns just in time and you have lots of happy farmers!

Wasps are widely disliked. Renowned as unforgiving and unnecessary, delivering stings which they have the cheek to survive, unlike our beloved bees, often doomed to a single, fatal defence. But what if these wasps were just as much a farmer’s ally as pollinating bees?

In recent decades, farmers have been steadily re-establishing hedges, but accurate national data on how many have been planted, and crucially, on their condition, remains patchy at best.