Phone and video consultancy services
Due to Coronavirus restricting GWCT advisory staff from visiting clients at a critical time of year for planning and undertaking work on farms and shoots, we would like to take this opportunity to let you know about our remote assistance services.
While shoot management is easiest to review in person on site, these are extraordinary times, and we believe a great deal of help and practical advice can be offered either over the phone or even via video calling someone out on the ground using smart phones. Whether you would like upland or lowland advice in any of the four corners of the UK we have an advisor who can help.
- Phone consultancy fee: £45 / half hour plus vat. This is invoiced after the appointment and notes have been completed.
- Brief session notes (if required): free of charge.
- Full bound report £130 plus vat.
- GWCT fact sheets: free of charge
Remote assistance topics available:
- Predator control strategy and new generation trap and housing designs
- Predator control record keeping
- Release pen design and management
- Agri-environment scheme management for game and wildlife
- Woodlands for game. Flushing points, ride management etc
- Husbandry of released gamebirds – food, water, infrastructure design and management
- Enhancing the environmental benefits of game management activities
- Pond creation and management
- Medicated grit strategies
- Muirburn plan preparation (mapping)
Online courses
As part of our initiative to keep game management moving forwards we are in the process of creating a suite of online courses and exams for our predator control modules. These will cover fox snaring, tunnel trapping and corvid control.
Some of these subjects have undergone significant changes recently so this is a great opportunity to get up to speed on the latest information from the comfort of your own home. If these are of interest please contact Lizzie Herring for training in England and Wales on 01425 651 013 or email lherring@gwct.org.uk. For Scotland contact Hugo Straker on 01620 830230 or hstraker@gwct.org.uk.
Grouse work
UK postal services are still running as normal so this presents a great opportunity to send in frozen gut samples for worm burden analysis. Fee: £300 + VAT for 20 samples.
Likewise, we encourage keepers to collect fresh caecal pats to monitor fluctuations in worm burdens through egg counts and send them to us using our biobottle service. Fee: £300 + VAT per 20 samples. Remember, worm counts help demonstrate the need or otherwise for medicated grit prescriptions.
Mountain hare counts
For Scottish estates, we urge you to submit your mountain hare transect count results. GWCT can then calculate your all-important hare encounter rate. No charge is applied to the estate and this information is very important for the future management of this species.
Farmer clusters
With the success of farmer clusters across the UK, we would like to take this opportunity to remind you that we are available to discuss this in more detail if you have a group of likeminded people on hand who would like to take this further, whether in an upland or lowland collaboration. Please contact either Lizzie Herring for more information in England and Wales or Irene Johnston for Scotland.
Getting in touch