Why this fine sport needs our support

With leases being terminated, fewer new recruits and the 21st desire for instant gratification, is wildfowling in trouble, asks Mike Swan

“Look at that; the most beautiful place in the world.” Those words were uttered by a fellow Swansea undergraduate, as our coach returned from a field trip 40-odd years ago, and they took me centre stump. We were passing over the elevated section of the M4 that crosses Port Talbot in Wales, looking at the bright lights of the steel works and the oil refinery alongside.

That concrete jungle represented the prosperity that had sent him, a steel worker’s son, to university. But to me it was the despoiling of Margam Moors, where 30 years ago thousands of white-fronted geese wintered, roosting on the sands and grazing the sweet grasses of the marsh.

Such a change would not happen now because the ‘moors’ would surely be a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), so relatively safe from development. But if the moors had been saved, would the grandchildren of the old boys I met there still be wildfowling? I doubt it; aside from the fact that short-stopping means Siberian whitefronts no longer come to Wales, I suspect the moors would be a shooting -free National Nature Reserve.

Erosion

I suppose the good news is that this was one of the last major wetlands to be lost; since then, SSSI designations have done much to prevent big-scale development. However, erosion of habitat continues and bigger ideas come up too; it is not so long ago that Boris Johnson, as London Mayor, was proposing a major airport that would have been hugely damaging to the Thames and Medway marshes.

But from the wildfowler’s point of view, opportunity is still being lost, because loss of shooting agreements continues. Many will remember with sadness the end of fowling on Pagham Harbour because the council decided to end the lease.