Wild Justice in bid to halt release of millions of gamebirds

Environmental campaign group Wild Justice has issued a legal challenge against the government in a bid to halt the release of more than 50 million gamebirds into the wild in late summer 2020. 

The non-profit legal entity, set up a year ago by Chris Packham CBE, Dr Ruth Tingay and Dr Mark Avery, has applied for a judicial review of the government’s failure to heed its obligations under the EU Habitats Directive. 

Some 47 million Common Pheasants are released into the British countryside every year (Peter Miles).

The organisation first challenged DEFRA in 2018 for failing to properly evaluate the impact of the annual release of 47 million Common Pheasants and 10 million Red-legged Partridges into the British countryside, including sites protected under the Habitats Directive and the Wild Birds Directive. This resulted in a Pre-Action Protocol letter being sent on behalf of Wild Justice by Leigh Day solicitors in July 2019.

At the time, DEFRA conceded that the release of gamebirds may require assessment under Article 6 of the Habitats Directive and pledged to review measures in place for assessing the impact of the release of these birds. 

No progress has been made on this review and DEFRA has confirmed that it would not be taking action to ensure that the release of gamebirds would be assessed and, where necessary prevented, this year as it was neither “reasonable nor realistic to expect measures to be taken before summer/autumn 2020”.

Wild Justice believes that it has been left with no option but to issue legal proceedings in an attempt to ensure that the impact of the release of gamebirds on the country’s most important wildlife sites, which DEFRA has conceded may be unlawful under the law as it stands, is properly assessed.

Dr Ruth Tingay commented: “The lack of monitoring and regulation of gamebird releases is staggering. The government doesn’t seem to know or care how many are released each year and even the figure of 60 million gamebirds may well be an underestimate. Incredibly, there is nothing to stop the shooting industry releasing twice as many gamebirds next year. This has to stop and proper regulation brought in.”

An estimated 10 million Red-legged Partridges are released into the wild (Nick Truby).

A major impact arising from the annual release gamebirds includes the predation by gamebirds on native flora and fauna. Only about one-third of gamebirds released for recreational shooting are actually shot, killed and retrieved; the rest (about 40 million birds across the two species) die of other causes and are consumed by artificially bolstered populations of predatory or scavenging birds or mammals. These predators may then exert a greater impact on their prey species, including declining species of conservation concern (such as Eurasian Curlew and Northern Lapwing) which are known to suffer high predation rates. Additionally, Common Pheasants are known to be reservoirs of diseases including Lyme disease and imported birds have brought Newcastle disease into the UK in the past.

“These non-native gamebirds go around gobbling up insects, other invertebrates and even snakes and lizards,” Dr Mark Avery said. “They peck at vegetation, their droppings fertilise sensitive habitats which no farmer would be allowed to fertilise and they provide prey and carrion that swell the populations of predators that then go on to prey on other threatened species. This is a very serious ecological assault on the countryside which government is failing to assess and regulate.”

Wild Justice argues that the release of the gamebirds in September would be unlawful and is requesting a Judicial Review on two grounds. First, the failure to comply with the Habitats Directive due to a lack of appropriate assessments of the impact of gamebird releases on Special Protection Areas (SPAs) and Special Areas of Conservation (SACs); and second, the existing mechanisms relied on by DEFRA are inadequate for the purposes of the Habitats Directive. 

Chris Packham added: ““DEFRA has been dragging its feet on this issue since we first raised it. It is time to sort this out and Wild Justice is fully prepared for a court battle on behalf of UK wildlife. Our challenge relates to Natura 2000 sites in England but the impacts will be felt right across the UK countryside.”