Defra Call For Evidence: Use our helpful email template

With the November 1st deadline for Defra’s Call for Evidence on Gamebird Release, Shooting and Welfare during Rearing in England quickly approaching, we have put together a helpful template to make it as easy as possible for supporters to respond. 

The GWCT will be submitting an independent, thorough, and detailed response. However, there is a real need for shoots, shoot owners, shoot managers, and gamekeepers to respond to this Call for Evidence to provide data and evidence that the GWCT does not hold. 

Defra have been quite clear that they recognise what good practice, sustainable game management looks like. Crucially, they are aware that sustainable game management can deliver wildlife conservation and nature recovery, through the provision of habitat creation and management, supplementary feeding and predation management. 

What is less clear to Defra is the scale and prevalence of good practice across England. This is a clear evidence gap they wish to address and is where those who are involved in shoots can help. 

Shoots, shoot owners, shoot managers and gamekeepers can provide much of this evidence of good practice when answering questions 8, 10, 16, 20, 23, 25, 28 and 29 in Section A. Of these, question 28 is of critical importance.  

We encourage supporters to respond to the call for evidence and share your experience. Our advice is to only address issues that you are familiar with, and it is crucial that answers are honest and based on evidence or your experience. Any evidence you provide should be demonstrated with examples rather than just stated. For example, reports, figures, diary entries, certificates and photographs could be provided. If you would like your answer to be considered as evidence of an absence of the issue, please state this in your email.  

Our full guidance on the questions to focus on, and what information to include can be found here: Defra Call for Evidence: Guidance for GWCT supporters and shoot managers 

To email the Defra Gamebirds Team with your response, please click the link below and our email template will open – ready for you to begin writing. Text in [brackets] is there as a guide, so please delete this as necessary and replace them with your words. 

If you need help with any of the above, or if you have any questions, the GWCT Advisory team can help. Please contact Lizzie Herring via email to lherring@gwct.org.uk with the subject “Defra Call for Evidence Help” and one of the Advisory team will respond to your query.