June

A lot of our local Farmer Clusters create habitats to help with breeding success and overwinter survival. One of these is the Cranborne Chase Farmer Cluster, where members of our Farmland Ecology team are monitoring their breeding success, to investigate their use of farmland habitats whilst foraging for invertebrate prey for their chicks.

The GWCT policy team has briefed MPs ahead of the parliamentary debate triggered by the Wild Justice petition to ban driven grouse shooting. The petition gained more than 100,000 signatures required to prompt a debate, which will take place on Monday 30 June.

All of us in Scotland are counting down the days until 4^th July – and for different reasons to our friends in the USA! This year the Scottish Game fair at Scone Palace begins that day, running until Sunday 6^th July and we’ve got plenty to keep everyone interested.

The Wildlife Management and Muirburn (Scotland) Act 2024 introduced Muirburn Licences as a new legal requirement for making muirburn in Scotland. The new licensing scheme was expected to come into effect ahead of the 2025/26 burning season starting on 15 September 2025. However, NatureScot informed stakeholders on 18 June that Scottish Government decided to postpone the enactment date until 1 January 2026.

The decline in breeding pairs of red grouse in Scotland was highlighted on both TV and radio by the BBC this week.

This year the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT) took part in several Open Farm events across the country.

Yesterday’s Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) announcement took even the most optimistic of us by surprise - we really were expecting it would signal a farewell to the Cowslips. The Treasury have committed further funding to support nature on farms at a time when the mood music from government was that nature was less important and must come second to development. 

Defra informed stakeholders and the public in April that it would not be re-issuing GL45, the general licence to release gamebirds on or near (500m buffer) SPAs. This decision was made due to current levels of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) and the inability to rule out the risk of it spreading to the bird features present on SPAs. Instead, those wanting to release gamebirds onto SPAs or their buffers must seek an individual licence from Natural England.

The GWCT has joined forces with twelve leading organisations to warn the government of the negative impact that potential cuts may have for nature and rural businesses.

The GWCT’s Part-Time Gamekeepers Course has been running in one form or another for over 40 years,