A controversial opinion - do small shoots do less for conservation than big shoots?

The GunsOnPegs Podcast is mostly a fun chat, and we tend to steer clear of too many serious topics, preferring to focus on the joy and humour that is intrinsic to shooting. However, every now and then we tackle a subject that has a bit more meat. One such occasion was Episode 4 of the current series, The Island Episode.

Are we dishonest when defending shooting?

A listener, who we named Torquil for reasons of comedy and anonymity, submitted the following thoughts to our regular segment “Unpopular Opinions”:

Are most of us dishonest when defending shooting? Conservation is something our community is rightly very proud of but that most of us are very removed from. On the occasions I have to defend shooting I become a conservationist even though it's not strictly true. 

Most of my shooting is done on small farm shoots one of which is my family's. I've put a lot of effort into this shoot over the years and know that it's run well. Like many small shoots, there's not a full time keeper. The shoot is both time and money poor. There's very little work done on conservation, unfortunately and I suggest that is true of a lot of very small shoots. 

Yet when I'm challenged by someone who opposes shooting, my argument is not that it is a great day out. Iinstead I become a conservationist and piggyback off the good work done by much larger shoots. Given that lots of us shoot on small days, are lots of us dishonest when defending shooting?

Conservation by the back door

On the podcast our guest, Toby Fitchner-Irvine, who manages the Isle of Muck shoot, was not in agreement, highlighting that when it comes to farm shoots, the farmer has access to various pools of government funding for green projects.

The Isle of Muck

“I reckon,” he said, “that as long as they have shooting at heart, shooting as an interest, as part of their farming enterprise, they're always, even subconsciously, going to make the right decisions… to put a new hedging, and you know, think about where they're draining, give up a scruffy corner of their field… I think that's kind of part of it.”

When it comes to larger shoots, Toby highlighted his own tree planting programme: “We've planted about ninety thousand trees on swooping on the island here and you know shooting is has has ultimately paid for that,” adding “​​We've put in quite a few flight ponds here and we plant little blocks of cover crops here and there - not a huge amount - and do a lot of trapping in the spring.”

Ultimately, Toby explained, there’s direct conservation, and incidental conservation, or as he put it “I think if you're involved in shooting there's always a sort of back door way into conservation.”

Size doesn’t matter

Chris Horne, Managing Director of GunsOnPegs, mentioned that he often hears the opposite argument - that big shoots are piggybacking on the work of smaller shoots. He was also keen to note that the size of a shoot is not really important when it comes to conservation impact:

“The biggest driver of conservation is whoever's in charge,” he said. “It's down to the ethos and the mindset of that person. You can have some big shoots that are absolutely incredible examples of how conservation should happen and you can have some big shoots which just rip up the rule book and you know they're really not great and we've got to sort them out.”

“But then you've got the small shoots who do a lot. You know, they maybe don't release as much so they're not hammering woodland floor as much, but then they're not doing as much around the estate that the larger shoots would have the funds to do, with the keepers and everything else. So it swings and roundabouts.”

He added that self-regulation has a big role to play in ensuring that shoots of all sizes are having a positive impact. “That's what the BGA standards and the Code of Good Shooting Practice is there for.” 

The farm shoot perspective

For my part, and as someone whose family has a farm shoot, I felt that “Torquil” was probably not giving himself enough credit, but could understand his position.

“I do kind of get where he's coming from because obviously there are going to be days when those bigger shoots with their full-time keeping team wake up in the morning and say “today we are doing job X which is conservation focused.

Torquil doesn't wake up in the morning and think “today I'm doing conservation”, he thinks “today I'm doing farming”. He's sort of doing conservation by proxy just by having a shoot, and managing his ground for shooting. There is conservation happening, he just doesn't think of it as conservation.”

I was also keen to highlight that conservation isn’t necessarily about big, landscape-level projects, noting that a lot of conservation is about the management decisions that you make.

"If you you look at the sort of stereotypical English landscape, nearly all of those woods that you see that are still standing, they've all been planted whenever probably for the purposes of shooting or at least with that in mind and by not cutting them down, by not ploughing in your hedges you are doing conservation.

And then there’s other things like, you know, the kind of cover crops that you choose to plant. Those farmland birds have got that hungry gap to get through, so if you choose to plant wild bird mix rather than say maize then you're doing conservation.”

Toby was in full agreement, saying: “Yeah, there's going to be feeders around with access for all the seed-eating birds, they're going to be controlling foxes and crows. They might not be doing it full time but they're doing as much as they can, I'm sure, to make their shoot as good or as viable as it can be. So I agree I think they're probably doing more than they think.”

When it comes to farmland birds, I can see the positive impact of our shoot every time I go out for a walk on the farm, and especially on shoot days. In recent years we have planted a number of new blocks of trees to create some new drives. As the beaters move though these new drives, clouds of farmland and woodland birds appear. In recent years we have seen a wide range of rare or redlisted species on the farm, including yellowhammer, wheatear, redwing, greenfinch, meadow pipit, hedge sparrows and tree sparrows and more. 

Active management

Chris was also keen to highlight the importance of syndicates, saying: “You get little syndicate working parties and stuff like that just going on to clear rides and stuff. You're allowing all sorts to happen when you actually do some active management.”

To conclude our discussion, Chris had the following advice for our correspondent. "Yeah, so I've got a bit of suggestion which: ring up the GWCT and get them to do a shoot visit, come round and give you some advice on what you're doing really well and the things you can improve."

What the experts say

After the podcast I thought it would be interesting to find out what the science has to say on the topic, so I got in touch with Andrew Gilruth, Director of Communications at GWCT. 

"This is an old hobby horse, and often as people try to contextualise things, as to whether a small shoot is good or bad, this all gets wrapped up together. We have studied hundreds of shoots and there is just no evidence that bigger or smaller is better or worse. Our experience from going to visit shoots is that this just isn't an issue. We have consitently found that farms (and woods) with shoots can boost biodiversity.

Things like planting cover crops, opening up woodland rides and feeding do have a positive impact on songbirds. If you continue feeding after the end of the season, through the hungry gap, that makes a material difference to biodiversity. It strikes me that your listener is probably doing more than they think. I'd like your listener, and anyone else, rather than being super critical of their own efforts to simply look at they did last year, and try to improve on it this year. Everyone can always do something, so let's just keep improving, and make 'good' even better."

I also contacted BASC for comment, who sent me this statement:

The connection between shooting and conservation is something we as a community should be proud of. Simply put sustainable shooting benefits conservation both directly and indirectly, but there is always more that can be done. Here at BASC we provide the resources and expert knowledge to help our members give back even more. Grey squirrel and mink control, erecting bird boxes and duck nest tubes, woodland and wetland management, taking part in conservation surveys, every little helps

Net biodiversity

In recent months GunsOnPegs has been working with the GWCT to develop a Net Biodiversity Calculator, designed to help shoots understand their impact on the local environment, and how to identify those areas in which they are making a valuable contribution, and where they can continue to make improvements. The tool is currently undergoing testing, and will be available for shoots large and small in the coming months - watch this space!