Are the estates where you shoot following best practice?

We know that shooting undertaken according to best practice is of enormous benefit to the countryside. It maintains hedgerows, moorlands and woodlands, keeps a cap on egg-munching generalist predators, pours cash into the rural economy and provides so much richness to our countryside communities. It also provides some of the healthiest, most ethically sourced meat you’re ever likely to eat.

Yet despite underpinning so much good work, game shooting is not without some vigorous detractors, and those detractors have been especially vocal of late. Conservation charities and animal rights activists have been filling the pages of newspapers and even taking up time in courtrooms with calls for greater government regulation of game shooting, in what some might see as a less than subtle attempt to regulate us out of existence.

What can you do to help protect shooting?

• Look out for the "Best Practice Shoot" badge on shoot profiles and search results, try to shoot only at shoots showing this badge.
• Ask shoots that you attend about their stocking densities, game handling practices, and conservation work
• Encourage all shoots you attend to sign up to the BGA
• Ask your friends which organisations they support and do they give enough for what they do?

What does the 'Best Practice Shoot' badge mean?

Our representative organisations have done a storming job of seeing off these challenges to date, but an oft-heard cry from the man and woman in the shooting community is ‘what can WE do to help’. Choosing to shoot on shoots that have signed up for audited best practice is one supremely practical thing you can do.

We all know what best practice looks like; it has been detailed in the Code of Good Shooting Practice for over a decade. We must be aware however that when we tell officials that shoots abide by these standards, we are vulnerable to quite an obvious challenge: ‘prove it’. And of course we know our opponents are circling, sniffing out infractions. Really, though, none of that should matter. We all want to support best practice in game shooting, no matter who is looking over our shoulder, which is the real reason the well-informed and conscientious gun will want to seek out shoots that have taken the next step, and signed up for accredited best practice.

In short this means that not only do these shoots follow best practice, they have joined the British Game Alliance (BGA) Assurance Scheme. The are allowing BGA assessors to undertake audits, bringing a new level of transparency to our sector and answering the challenge to prove they are running their shoot the right way. Shoots that have undergone this process are labelled on GunsOnPegs search results with the 'Best practice shoot' badge.

Shoots and Guns must embrace self-regulation

Accredited best practice only became an option for shoots when the BGA was created three years ago. It is worth reflecting on what Simon Hart MP said at the time, reporting on a conversation he had at Downing Street about the launch of the BGA. 

“The message we got from No. 10,” he said, “was that we must embrace self-regulation as enthusiastically and as lovingly as you can, because if not, someone else will regulate you.”

The shoots that already claim accredited best practice through the BGA are the early adopters, trailblazers in the defence of shooting who have stepped up to that challenge.

The BGA has been through a few stages of development. as we sought to work the Code of Good Shooting Practice into an auditable standard and to bring in independent assessors.  Not every step has been the right one, but that is to be expected when breaking new ground. The Wright Brothers built the worst planes in history because every subsequent plane was better, but they changed history by being the first. So it goes with accredited best practice in shooting, and with every update we get better. We now have a standard deemed sufficiently credible to sit on the shelves of major supermarkets, and that is a giant leap forward for game shooting.

So we have a tool through which shoots can ‘prove it’, and can say with independently-accredited confidence that they are abiding by best practice. They have opened their records, their release pens and their estates to auditors who are checking against our publicly-available Standard. The more shoots that choose to do so, the safer shooting becomes from future regulation built and guided by people and organisations that might not be our friends.

Support shoots who choose to do the right thing

Of course, it is a hassle to accommodate auditors and to gather the records they will want to see. It is inconvenient to subject your business to a rigorous complaints procedure. So as a community we need to get behind those shoots choosing to do the right thing. This is what you, as a well-informed, conscientious gun can do to protect shooting. You can embrace and support those shoots that are themselves embracing accredited best practice through the BGA. 

For every gun that chooses to shoot on estates that have been accredited by the BGA, shooting will be that much safer and that much more sustainable. This is your opportunity to be part of a brighter future for our community.