Press Releases - 2021

The grey partridge’s annual appearance in festive carols and cards is a good reminder to make plans for habitat improvements to help this much-loved farmland bird throughout the year.

In response to three decades of declining Atlantic salmon in most of their native range, scientists are looking at how the management of juvenile habitat can maximise the numbers and quality of seaward-migrating salmon smolts to increase survival at sea and the number of returning spawners.

Bournemouth University students are working alongside conservation experts on an EU-wide project to understand the migration habits of wild salmon and sea trout in the river Frome in Dorset, where the salmon population has been monitored for nearly 50 years.

The UK’s farmers, gamekeepers and land managers are being urged to get involved in the GWCT Big Farmland Bird Count from 4-20 February 2022, and make a crucial difference to wildlife.

The latest assessment of the status of all the UK’s 245 regularly occurring bird species – Birds of Conservation Concern 5 – shows that 70 species are now of ‘highest conservation concern’ and have been placed on the assessment’s Red List. The newly revised Red List now includes familiar species, such as the swift, house martin and greenfinch that have been added for the first time.

HRH The Prince of Wales welcomed the Chairman and the Chief Executive of the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT) to the Sandringham Estate on Thursday 25 November 2021 for the planting of an avenue of trees commemorating The Duke of Edinburgh’s half-century of involvement with the Trust.

A multi-partner supported recovery plan to reverse the decline of curlew from Welsh landscapes is being launched on Monday, 22 November.

Original artworks by painter Ben Hoskyns and printmaker Sarah Cemmick are now available to buy from the GWCT Online Wildlife Art Gallery with 25% of the proceeds from their work sold via the site will go to the GWCT.

With millions of pheasants and partridges released into the countryside each year, what impact are they having? That’s the question answered in a landmark report from leading conservation charity the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT).

Government has joined with organisations involved in gamebird management to issue revised guidance on bird flu and the way it can affect the activities of gamebird rearers.