Yesterday, on my way up to Speyside I pulled into a layby and parked behind a trailer loaded with crates. I did not realise immediately but half were packed with adult red legged partridge (you can just see them in the lower four crates on the left).
Breeding of red-legged partridge is now a sizeable business – about 10 million birds a year – and they are sold as eggs, chicks, poults and adults (see here). The shooting season for red legged partridge started on 1st September, a month before pheasants, so presumably this delivery was because some shoot or shoots decided they were short. Birds released during the shooting season are in no way wild.
I don’t know the destination of the birds in the trailer, but there are no controls in place to prevent them being delivered to estates in the Cairngorms National Park. Earlier this year Wild Justice issued a legal challenge to the release of game pheasant and red legged partridge in protected areas in England. A hearing is now due in November (see here), too late to affect this year’s shooting season. If successful, however, it will have implications for the Scottish Government.
Meantime our National Park Authorities have done absolutely nothing to monitor how many game birds are being released each year or to consider the impact this has on conservation. There is, for example, not a mention of pheasant and red-legged partridge in the Cairngorm Nature Plan (see here), despite the implications for other species. Yesterday evening I went for a run on the Pitmain Estate and I have never seen so many pheasant in my life. They were everywhere, awaiting massacre on 1st October – I saw nothing else.
Much of the National Park is now just one big game farm, pheasant and red legged partridge on the lower lying areas, grouse on the moors. This is completely incompatible with our National Parks’ statutory duty to put conservation first. Irrespective of the outcome of the legal challenge from Wild Justice, our National Parks need to start considering the issues now. There is a strong argument for a total ban on game bird farming or releases in both our National Parks.
Now that is a very good question!! Especially as Pheasant and Red-legged Partridge are both non-native species. What a comparison to the situation with the native Beaver!
I’ve been on the fence over sporting estates, due to the jobs they provide. However, a few things now make me think that they are of their time i.e. Victorian & should remain in the past. Most of the estate lands are now artificially made, i.e. grouse moors. Scotland not that long ago was heavily forested, & with more & more requirement for forests to act as carbon capture, it makes complete sense to return more of Scotland’s so called “wild” land back to how it should be. This would then provide more sheltered trails for walking, mountain biking etc, much like the Appalachians in USA or other similar low mountainous areas. The other benefit is more diverse & natural wildlife. There is also the constant persecution of raptors by sporting estates, accusations which they constantly deny. However, the recent discovery of a satellite tracking tag (which belonged to a golden eagle which “disappeared” over a grouse moor in 2016) with its aerials cut off, wrapped in lead & thrown in a river, makes me more inclined to not support shooting estates. Link to the article on the satellite tracking tag:-
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-tayside-central-54295035
My Croft (just outside the Cairngorms NP) used to have a black cock lek on it.
Over a period of 2-3 years we would often see a single black cock lekking surrounded by 10-15 cock pheasants challenging it.
Now I haven’t seen any black grouse at all for several years.
There is no doubt that the local black grouse population was killed off by being crowded out by very high pheasant numbers, partly by making it too difficult to find a mate and probably partly by hoovering up all the natural feed resources.
Very interesting!
These tags are notoriously unreliable which can be shown by the fact that they all work perfectly fine until they go into grouse moors this bird has clearly crashed into the chimney on a roof and got tangled in the lead flashing which then fell off as it was flying over the river Braan and our gamekeepers still regularly see it flying majestically and nobody would ever get a massive bonus for the killing of raptors not here
Was driving down the A9 the day before in this area and plenty of red legged partridges were trying to cross the A9- with mixed fortunes ! There also used to be some industrial scale pheasant rearing facilities not a million miles from Pitmain. The release of these birds into the countryside has been going on for years with little attention given to it. I recall one estate in the Cairngorms where literally hundreds (and very possibly a couple of thousand) of partridges were crawling all over a hillside that was meant to be a SSSI. Once delivered pheasants are kept in pens (I used to live very close to one) then released before they are properly feathered and can fly properly. Its all about quantity as opposed to quality and like the grouse moor it’s a factory floor churning out as many easy targets as possible to satisfy the client who has arrived to shoot something. It’s similar with stalking, high numbers of poor quality deer on the hill provide more chance of an easy kill and satisfaction for the client rather than a more challenging hunting experience that may or may not result in success. I once counted 40 deer carcasses in a glen in Perthshire at the end of winter as the snow receded -all had starved, but the shooting clients don’t see this. I’m not against sporting estates as such and they do provide important employment in rural areas but so much of it is based upon brute quantity rather than quality where as shown in Nick’s photo the prey is literally bused in rather than numbers being based on what the land can sensibly carry.
Both driven grouse shooting and it’s associated grouse moor management practices, and commercial pheasant and partridge shooting are completely at odds with the founding principles of our national parks and the legally enshrined Sandford principle.
Any national park that allows these activities and the damage they cause to the natural environment and our native flora and fauna to continue is simply not doing it’s job and must be leaving itself open to future legal challenges. Change can’t come fast enough for many residents of these afflicted areas.
https://www.nationalparks.uk/students/whatisanationalpark/aimsandpurposesofnationalparks
https://www.nationalparks.uk/students/whatisanationalpark/aimsandpurposesofnationalparks/sandfordprinciple
RIc may well be right in his views but it is worth noting Lord Sanford’s committee views on the recreational threat when they devised their eponymous principle in the 1970s. They were concerned with the effect that changes in agriculture, forestry, and, ironically, more particularly the development of recreational access were having on the conservation of the landscape and wildlife.
Incidentally, the original Sandford principle was not directly included the Scottish national parks founding legislation. In fact the 1995 Environment Act covering English and Welsh NPs also changed Sandford’s words from ‘must give priority’ to ‘must give greater weight’.
The issue is similarly addressed in Section 9.6 of the Scottish Act: In exercising its functions a National Park authority must act with a view to accomplishing the purpose set out in subsection (1); but if, in relation to any matter, it appears to the authority that there is a conflict between the National Park aim set out in section 1(a) and other National Park aims, the authority must give greater weight to the aim set out in section 1(a).
So the test is (a) Agreeing there is an irreconcilable conflict (b) deciding the amount of weight applied to the first aim (heritage conservation – cultural and natural – defined in Section 35.1). The legislation says GREATER weight, it does NOT mention dominant or overwhelming weight or priority. Semantics to some maybe but unless the legislation is amended – and perhaps public/political views are such that it should be – meantime it will be used by all participants to determine legal positions.
When I read of game bird release I am always reminded of Roald Dalh’s book Danny, Champion of the World which centres around a small boy and beer magnate Mr. Hazell’s annual pheasant shoot. Legislation is pretty scant on game bird release and discussion on the issue has taken place in NPs and I’m sure elsewhere in past years. Its not really clear if this is livestock release or recreational activity despite this massive injection of biomass annually into the countryside. There is some scientific literature on biodiversity impacts but SNH/NatureScot don’t seem to have raised much specific advice on the issue to Scottish Ministers although impacts from roosting partridge droppings on an SSSI in Deeside led to a reduction in numbers. The economics are interesting with the value being in the price to fire the shotgun as the carcass is not worth much. Getting 50% of birds to the guns is a an excellent return – even 30% is good. This I believe is why the numbers and density are so high. The large majority will succumb to disease and weather, a portion to predation and roadside carnage of poults in the autumn is a common sight and insurance companies (i.e. us) bear the cost when pheasants destroy many a vehicle radiator and the occasional train windscreen when hit at speed. If they knew, the wider public might not be too impressed with a livestock farmer losing 70% of their stock even before harvest. There are a few positives I suppose. Game bird cover benefits other wildlife, some marginal employment and local spend by shooters. More detailed research on biodiversity impacts is certainly required. Although even now, in terms of the public good, there seem little rational justification for this practice to be continued in its current form and existing evidence suggest much stricter controls should be applied Scotland wide.
I saw red-legs being delivered through Kingussie this time last year, they were more likely a late delivery, rather than a top up after early shoot days.
Some estates are happy to accept birds about a month before shooting, it leaves less time for wandering off, being predated etc. apart from needing less food.
However it hardly gives them chance to learn the lie of the land, and further reduces them to the status of feathered targets, just a money spinner.
The Blackcock referred to by Tim Rose, could just as easily have succumbed to coccidiosis , or something similar carried by the Pheasants.
Red legged partridge have a conservation status of ‘least concerned’ – so what’s the problem?
The concern is not for the red-legged partridge but the impact that rearing/releasing large numbers has on other wildlife in the National Park. Red-legged partridge, though long ago introduced to the UK had not colonised the Cairngorms and have been introduced recently. There has been no attempt to assess the impact of this on other species like grey partridge, which are found in the Cairngorms but are increasingly rare.