Press Releases - August 2013

Almost a dozen teams from leading research charity the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT) will be competing in this year’s world famous Spartan race taking place at the West Midlands Water Ski Centre in Warwickshire on Sunday 22 September. Each team will be representing a different GWCT county group, raising valuable funds to support the important conservation work of the Trust.

Scientists from the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust, who have been monitoring the highs and lows of black grouse breeding in England for the past 25 years, were jubilant as they discovered record-breaking breeding productivity this summer.

A new study highlights the need for sensitive placement and management of new woodland to encourage the black grouse in Scotland which has declined in both numbers and range in recent decades.

The wettest summer for 100 years in 2012 proved fatal for countless young partridge chicks but following a moratorium on shooting wild grey partridges last winter, the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT), reports that the over-winter survival of adult birds was nearly 46 per cent, which was much better than expected.

Places are still available on the part-time keepers' course run by the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT) in Leicestershire this September.

The Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT) and the Royal Highland Education Trust (RHET) have signed up to jointly promote rural education initiatives in Scotland.

As the start of the red grouse shooting season approaches, a new scientific study by the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust and published in the Journal of Applied Ecology, identifies that the control of predators such as foxes and crows, carried out to protect red grouse, can benefit one of our most striking birds of prey - the hen harrier.