Myth busting and numbers booming

While wildfowling and walked-up days might be in slight decline, our sport in general has more participants than ever

- Matt Cross

It can be difficult to know what is going on across our sport. We can each see our own bit — our shoot, our team, our branch, our glen. But what may be true for one place might not necessarily be true for shooting as a whole. So what is going on? Is shooting growing? Is it shrinking? Is it changing?

This year, COVID-19 has muddied the waters to the point of impenetrability. Perhaps it is best to put 2020 to one side in favour of looking across a few years together.

On the face of it, there is excellent news. Home Office numbers show rises in the numbers of firearm and shotgun certificates. In the year 2002 there were 118,600 firearm certificates in England and Wales; in 2018 there were 159,745. Shotgun certificates are up, too, though not so dramatically, from 561,800 in 2002 to 567,047 in 2018.

One thing we can get good data on is what is shot, which reveals some striking changes. The GWCT publishes an annual gamebag census. In simple terms, the census gives the value of one to the total bag of a bird or mammal shot in 1961 and compares every subsequent year to that value. This tells us that, for example, the number of grouse shot has roughly halved since 1961. The number of grey partridges shot has dropped even more steeply and is now at about 20% of 1961 levels.