Slaughter of UK’s imported gamebirds carries a heavy price

theguardian.com:

Your report highlights some of the environmental impacts of releasing approximately 50 million non-native large birds – pheasants and red-legged partridges – into the countryside each year so they can be shot (Pheasant shoots scaled back across UK after import bans imposed due to bird flu, 9 July). But it only scratches the surface. The recent report by Prof Stephen Harris published by the Labour Animal Welfare Society shows that there are many more disastrous consequences.

The report shows that about 40% of the released birds are predated by foxes. This “supplementary food” is sufficient to provide for 80,000 to 120,000 foxes each year. This increased number of foxes leads to increased predation pressure on ground-nesting native bird species as the availability of the “supplementary food” dries up in spring and early summer.

Each year the gamebird shooting industry uses 376,000 tonnes of feed, including 282,000 tonnes of wheat, nearly 2% of the UK’s annual wheat production. At least 2,500 tonnes of lead shot is fired into the environment by gamebird shooters annually – billions of individual pellets, generating high levels of risk in local areas. And releasing pheasants near to roads causes unnecessary road traffic accidents, some of them causing serious injuries to motorists.

Britain is the only European country that offers the opportunity to kill such large numbers of released non-native gamebirds in a day. A ban on this form of cruelty and unnecessary environmental carnage is long overdue, and the threat of importing avian flu now adds significantly to this call.Mark GloverChair, Labour Animal Welfare Society