A Lust For Wildlife

Tim Weston looks at the conservation work carried out on two very different shoots, and how these efforts benefit not just the game birds but the surrounding habitats and wildlife too

- Tim Weston

Shooting is something that is most certainly fun. It is a sport, after all, and is enjoyed by hundreds of thousands of people each season. As shooting people, we pride ourselves on the conservation work that is done to improve habitats, mainly for our game birds, but the knock-on effect is one that other species benefit from as well.

Recently, I was on a small syndicate shoot in Cornwall, one that is a proper DIY affair with a team of local guns chipping in a few quid, releasing some pheasants and making a Saturday of it. I was really pleased to see the number of conservation projects that they had undertaken, which included the re-wetting of a snipe bog that had been drained for growing crops, the thinning of a spruce plantation to let light in and get more diverse plant life, and the planning of miles of hedges for nesting birds and insects.

Now, this is an awful lot, and even more if you take into account the fact that this was just in the last two years. I applaud what they have done, and they have plans for so much more. This little syndicate is really putting far more back into shooting than they will ever take out, and far more back into the countryside that they live in, too.