GWCT News Blog

Thank you to everyone who entered the competition and congratulations to our fantastic winners and runners-up! We wanted to see your unique interpretation of ‘Nature’s Gift,’ and you certainly delivered! From majestic birds to cheeky mammals, and stunning scenery, we were blown away by the range and variety of entries.

Take part in the biggest annual survey of the shooting community, the Game Shooting Census. 

At the start of the year Wild Justice once again launched a petition calling for the ban of driven grouse shooting, and in May this petition gained the 100,000 signatures necessary for the topic to be debated by Parliament. Yesterday evening MPs gathered in Westminster Hall to debate the issue.

Often many shoots attempt to re-establish grey partridges through releasing. However, re-establishment efforts are prolonged, labour-intensive and expensive operations with no guarantee of success.

The PepsiCo FAB (Farming Arable Biodiversity) project launched with ambitious goals. Building on the success of the Interreg PARTRIDGE project, we set out to show that the same principles could be applied more broadly at other farms across Fife and Angus.

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.