BY BERT BURNETT
Let’s cut through the polite CNPA press release below and get to the real agenda here. This so-called “investigation” into gamebird releases isn’t about balance; it’s the opening salvo in a campaign built on a foundation of sand, and the first clue is right there in their own words: ‘non-native’.
This term is nothing but a political cudgel. When the establishment wants rid of something, it suddenly becomes ‘non-native’. Are pheasants indigenous? Technically, no. But then neither are the rabbits or brown hares chewing through our saplings and crops. I don’t see the CNPA funding ‘impact assessments’ on the damage they do. So when exactly does a species earn its citizenship? After 50 years? 100? 200? Or is it only when it suits a politically-motivated narrative to deny it? This selective outrage reveals their true intentions from the start.
Let’s be blunt. Is this really about numbers? Or is it simply that we, the gun-toting unclean, are the ones shooting them? That’s the real, unpalatable truth they won’t say out loud. The rural economy that depends on this is being threatened by a study designed to find a pre-ordained conclusion.
And they completely ignore the glaring ecological reality these birds now support. Our native waders, grouse, and waterfowl are in freefall. So what’s filling the gap for our precious, protected raptors? What are the eagles, hawks, and foxes supposed to eat over a barren winter? The answer is our released gamebirds. These birds are shot over a few months, and their numbers are massively depleted by season’s end. In that time, they have become a vital part of the modern ecosystem, propping up predator populations that would otherwise starve or turn on the even scarcer native species.
This GWCT survey is a Trojan horse. It’s been employed to find a downside. If they were serious about ‘balance’, they’d be demanding an assessment of the benefits too. They’d be looking at the winter prey source, the habitat management we fund, and the economy we sustain.
But they won’t. Because this was never about understanding. It’s about control. It’s time we stopped apologising for managing the land and started demanding that these organisations acknowledge the entire picture, not just the narrow slice that suits their anti-shooting agenda.
Bert Burnett is a retired gamekeeper of more than fifty years’ experience.