This year’s Game Shooting Conference was, for the first time in six years, held in association with the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust and kindly hosted by Holland & Holland shooting ground. The event was attended by almost 100 individuals representing porting agents, cartridge manufacturers, countryside organisations, shoot managers and gamekeepers from across the UK.
In his summing up, GWCT CEO Nick von Westenholz emphasised the key themes of the day, which were the need for the game shooting sector to work together to improve evidence gathering to demonstrate both regulatory compliance and biodiversity net gain. This is even more critical given recent government announcements on the proposed licensing of gamebird releasing in England and Wales and changes to Schedule 2.1 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act.
He said: “Edward Coke once wrote, ‘You would be invincible if you were inseparable’. With the many challenges outlined at the conference, collaboration and mutual support are vital. The conference confirmed we are not short of great advocates and experts, but the challenge is for the sector to support them, to recognise both our strengths and weaknesses, and to show a willingness to adapt and evolve.”
Dylan Williams, who organised and chaired the meeting, echoed the message on data capture and added the need for improvements in handling game in the field, increased support for countryside organisations and for the shooting community to take responsibility for self-regulation and raising standards. “At times the shooting community can be its own worst enemy, but this £3.3 billion sector has so much to be proud of. I’ve been impressed by the good attendance at the conference and the honesty of discussion; there is a willingness on the part of the shoots to improve standards and better communicate what they do and that should be an inspiration to others.”
General Licences or General Confusion
Delegates first heard a joint presentation by BASC Director of Research Dr Marnie Lovejoy and GWCT Director of Advisory Roger Draycott on licensing for released bird shooting on protected areas. Marnie reported on the success of BASC’s Judicial Review of Natural England’s approach to gamebird release licensing near SPAs, which has been granted permission to proceed to a full hearing later this year. She emphasised the importance of understanding the release licensing rules and complying with biosecurity and documentation requirements and advised shoots to seek help from BASC or GWCT when navigating an increasingly complex and confusing licensing system.
Roger explained that Natural England’s risk assessment of releasing on SPAs was flawed on the grounds that it is based entirely on the likelihood of gamebirds transmitting avian flu to wild birds and ignores the potential negative impact on red-listed species of stopping game management. He called for the shooting community to come forward with more examples of where the cessation of predation control and habitat provision on protected sites could have a detrimental effect on ground-nesting birds such as lapwing, golden plover and stone curlew.
He said: “The contribution of sustainable game management to nature recovery is one of our best kept secrets. We need to be much better at demonstrating that we are a force for good for nature conservation. GWCT can help shoots with advice on what data to collect and how to collect it to help you prove your conservation credentials. Contact advisory@gwct.org.uk for further info.”
Growing the market for game
Alan Beynon, director of St David’s Vets and chairman of Eat Wild, opened the next discussion by re-emphasising the importance of ensuring game gets into the food chain and the potential to change attitudes to shooting by expanding the market and positioning the sector as serious food producer. He cited Eat Wild’s success in introducing pheasant and partridge into the mass catering industry, including supplying football stadiums as evidence for the potential for expansion.
Tristran Kirk of Lincolnshire Game explained that the increased costs of processing a shot bird compared to a farmed chicken made margins much tighter and highlighted the need for shoots to ensure game arrives at the dealer in the best possible condition. He said the lack of supply non-lead-shot game was limiting sales and that the supermarkets would be willing to stock far more with the switch to steel. He urged shoots to make the transition now.
Leon Challis-Davies of Pivotal Foods and Eat Wild had been impressed by the degree to which catering industry buyers were aware of the conservation benefits of game management and saw it as an important selling point. He pointed to the potential for gamebirds to have a lighter carbon footprint than chicken, but this area required more research. He encouraged all shoots to offer a voluntary platform for Guns to be able to donate 50p per bird to Eat Wild to help fund the marketing of game. For more information visit Eat Wild.
Stewart McIntyre, Estates Manager at Loyton Sporting on Exmoor, described the high standard of game handling on their six sporting clubs. The time between game cart and chiller had been reduced, standards of cold storage had been improved, and importantly game was graded three times before it was collected by the dealer.
He said: “Best practice game handling and legal compliance within the industry are minimum standards for us to ensure harvested game remains safe, traceable and suitable for entering the food chain. As an industry, we must drive assurance across all our sectors.”
Challenges to moorland management
Multiple challenges to game management in the uplands was the subject of the third debate, and GWCT Scotland director Dr Nick Hesford began by pointing to the threat to the survival of red grouse, whose numbers declined on average by 35% across England and Scotland in 2025. He highlighted the need for research into the many and complex factors affecting grouse productivity, from a vaccine for louping ill, which was currently being developed by the Moredun Research Institute, to nutrition, habitat quality, worm burden and predation pressure. GWCT is addressing these challenges through its groundbreaking Maternal Grouse project, which aims to study the interaction between all these elements for the first time.
Headkeeper at Bolton Estate in the Yorkshire Dales Ian Sleightholm spoke of the increasingly restrictive regulation facing grouse moor managers in England, including managed burning and the proposed ban on snaring, which could have a hugely detrimental impact on grouse and red-listed species conservation with many moors heavily reliant on humane restraints to control foxes.
Nick Hesford added that these challenges are why it is critical that practitioners are able to evidence what happens on the ground. He described his experience working with grouse moors in Scotland, which showed that practitioner-led monitoring can play a vital role in demonstrating good practice, informing management decisions and engaging constructively with regulation. He urged shoots across the UK to begin capturing data more consistently.
Steel shot and amendments to the Firearms Act
Transition to steel and proposed amendments to the Firearms Act were addressed in the fourth session. Red Crespo of Eley and David Bontoft, managing director of Hull Cartridges, assured the conference that the cartridge manufacturing sector would be able to meet demand for non-lead cartridges, but urged the shooting community not to wait until the last moment to make the switch.
Chairman of the Gun Trade Association and finance director of GMK Oskar Waktare said work was being done to ensure the government understood the threat to revenue generated by the shooting sector posed by amendments to conditions of shotgun ownership. Tim Bonner, chair of CA, reported that the organisations’ call for a single, unified licensing body had been received positively by policymakers.
Looking ahead
Wildlife photographer and founder of the Moorland Summit sessions Tarquin Millington-Drake ended the day by encouraging shoots to produce more wildlife and communicate the extraordinary conservation successes achieved through game management. He urged shoots to take responsibility for telling this positive story themselves. He highlighted the importance of the science and advice provided by the GWCT and urged all game shooters to join the organisation. Finally, he emphasised the need to build on the success of the Moorland Summit sessions to recognise the power of educating those who have not witnessed the “bird and human community a well-managed game shoot creates”.