100000 Woodcock shot every year in the UK (1 Viewer)

[dantheman]

How do these UK figures/percentages compare to eg Woodpigeon?

 

[Nutcracker]

If the decline is down to habitat loss - woodland in south west and wales being biggest loss areas - then clearly issues other than shooting are to blame. But then I was thinking maybe massive increases in deer populations could have something to do with it - maybe reduction of ground cover in woodlands.

Might not be the most significant factor, but I'd suspect that increasing levels of dog disturbance are important. At least around here, the closer you are to urban areas, the fewer breeding Woodcock there are, and none at all within ~20 km of larger towns.

 

[hampers]

Same here!
I once accidentally flushed one near a local wood and saw a Woodcock quickly fly away by a local reservoir.
And that's about it!

If you get to Cheshire/Derbyshire in June, let me know and I'll show you some! Always in flight though! Great sound as fly past and over.

Phil

 

[Digbert Doobrey]

that'll get the practice stopped...

Right. Didn't know I was campaigning but thanks anyway.

 

[Adam W]

A very interesting thread, I must admit that even as a shooter who has shot the odd Woodcock my first thought on seeing the 100,000 figure was that it was shockingly high and I'd be the first to say that I find some of the extreme examples mentioned such as a syndicate shooting 200+ in a day or and individual shooting 200+ a season frankly obscene and I know it is a much debated issue within the shooting world too.
However having said that since having a proper look into the facts and figures I strangely find myself perhaps more comfortable than ever with the idea of shooting Woodcock(in moderation of course) and the reasons I say that are for all 100,000 sounds a huge number it's actually only about 7% of the birds wintering in the UK and only works out at about 0.25 birds per shooter per year on average. As for the decline well it seems widely accepted that shooting is not the cause of the decline probably largely because of again the widely accepted fact that the vast majority of birds shot are migrants anyway.
So all things considered all the facts and figures seem to strongly suggest that the shooting of Woodcock in the UK is in fact nothing more than a small sustainable harvest that has no real conservation affect.
I'm sure there's plenty of people against it simply on principle and that's fine but if we are talking about changing laws to ban people from doing things then we need a lot more than personal opinions and the numbers simply don't seem to back up the idea that there's a any need to change anything.

 

[Robin Edwards]

I have long held the view that RSPB and others should be campaigning more vigorously to get Woodcock, Snipe and Golden Plover removed from the list of birds that can be shot in UK.
I know that shooting interests will claim that killing any number of birds is in the name of conservation but where it is clear is that populations are declining and not increasing whilst being shot. So what is there to be lost? Trial for 5 or 10 years and see if it makes a difference?
I have a good friend who shoots and he rebuffs any figures presented to him from BTO Atlas data and confidently claims that Woodcock are abundant here in Bedfordshire - even in the breeding season where those who do BBS survey work struggle to find any breeding in the county at all.

 

[Dave Ball]

If you get to Cheshire/Derbyshire in June, let me know and I'll show you some! Always in flight though! Great sound as fly past and over.

Phil

That would have been true in Bedfordshire 25 or 30 years ago, even in the 1988-92 breeding atlas I was able to find roding Woodcock in the north of the county, and they had always been regular in all the Greensand woods. They've been functionally extinct as a breeding species for some time now, so the figure of 100,000 shot annually seems remarkable, even if they're mostly winter visitors from Northern Europe.

Edit: cross-posted with Robin

 

[Robin Edwards]

I found this from 2010 - things can't have got any better??

Steer clear of the western Home Counties if you fancy your chances. This season, there were no right-and-lefts recorded in Hampshire, Surrey, West Sussex, East Sussex, Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire or Hertfordshire. And the Midlands weren’t much good either, with normally strong shooting counties like Shropshire, Cheshire, Worcestershire and Warwickshire all drawing a blank. If you want that elusive right-and-left, perhaps you should take the lead from Daniel Kincaid, Jamie Vant-Harrison, Raymond Ongley, Ben Palmer and Paul Nicholls, who all shot theirs within 20 miles of Ashford in Kent this winter, making it another of the season’s hotspots. If you really want to show off, do as Mr Nicholls did and use a .410. Meanwhile, just across the estuary at Steeple, in Essex, 13-year-old Harry Partridge also knocked a pair of woodcock out of the sky. Some wait a lifetime…


http://www.shootinguk.co.uk/features/where-to-shoot-the-elusive-right-and-left-4608

And a call for restraint this winter....

http://www.shootinguk.co.uk/shooting/game-shooting/call-for-restraint-in-shooting-woodcock-49237

 

[Xenospiza]

I've just discovered that there is a five year ban on hunting Woodcock in Northrhine-Westphalia, which is a fair chunk of Germany.

 

[KenM]

Shooting for the table I understand...for pleasure (a bit like Einstein's theory of relativity)...I don't ?

However if you have an overwhelming desire to shoot something...why not replace Woodcock with Grey Squirrel, perhaps a more injurious (and destructive) target you'd be hard pressed to find...and you'd probably get a modicum of praise for doing so ?

Cheers

 

[Dog]

I think in mid Warwickshire Woodcock has gone as a breeding bird, in recent years I have surveyed woods where I used to get them roding but not any more. In winter in woods with limited access to Dogs & Mountain Bikes I can see half a dozen birds or even into double figures in a couple of hours looking in the right parts of local woods but Brandon Wood which has a lot of people pressure with many pathways close together Woodcock are just not there.

Mike.

 

[Robin Edwards]

A very interesting thread, I must admit that even as a shooter who has shot the odd Woodcock my first thought on seeing the 100,000 figure was that it was shockingly high and I'd be the first to say that I find some of the extreme examples mentioned such as a syndicate shooting 200+ in a day or and individual shooting 200+ a season frankly obscene and I know it is a much debated issue within the shooting world too.

Researching the two sides of this debate will show that Shooting organisations believe that Woodcock is an abundant and sustainable migrant although I believe conservation NGOs and Birders might suggest that the species is in decline in general, not just as a breeding bird in the UK.
A couple of points :
Given that Woodcock is now a Red-Listed species, how would a man/woman with a gun in UK know that they are not shooting a resident bird rather than a visiting bird? Do our resident breeding Woodcock spend the winter in southern Europe where they face foreign guns?
Why would a "sportsman" want to shoot a Woodcock (or a Snipe)where there are so many Pheasant at their disposal that are there for the lone purpose of their guns?

 

[Paul Chapman]

Do our resident breeding Woodcock spend the winter in southern Europe where they face foreign guns?

Not as far as I know - though without direct access to books at the moment. Our Woodcock are primarily resident according to the Migration Atlas with limited movements within Britain and Ireland though in particular cold weather movements within that area. I'll check later.

All the best

 

[Adam W]

A couple of points :
Given that Woodcock is now a Red-Listed species, how would a man/woman with a gun in UK know that they are not shooting a resident bird rather than a visiting bird? Do our resident breeding Woodcock spend the winter in southern Europe where they face foreign guns?
Why would a "sportsman" want to shoot a Woodcock (or a Snipe)where there are so many Pheasant at their disposal that are there for the lone purpose of their guns?

In any given case you'd of course have no idea whether a bird is a migrant or resident but given the fact that we know the vast majority of the total birds present are migrants then its safe to assume that most birds shot are migrants and the facts and figures mentioned in this thread would seem to very much back that up. There are of course ways of having a good idea whether a bird may be a migrant or not. For example where I shoot i'm near the north east coast and never see a Woodcock until at least the October moon and there's no suitable breeeding habitat in the immediate area so It doesn't take an expert ornithologist to realise that any Woodcock I was to shoot is very likely a migrant.

As for your last question well that's a bit like me saying why to birders go searching for rare and scarce birds when they could just go and look at some feral Canadas in the local park. To an outsider that doesn't really get birding then there's little difference you still just look at birds but I'm sure you'd agree that would be somewhat missing the point.

 

[Robin Edwards]

As for your last question well that's a bit like me saying why to birders go searching for rare and scarce birds when they could just go and look at some feral Canadas in the local park. To an outsider that doesn't really get birding then there's little difference you still just look at birds but I'm sure you'd agree that would be somewhat missing the point.

Yes, thanks Adam, I take both points. On the first I guess most inland shooters like a local friend who thinks that Woodcock are still abundant year-round, don't actually care whether they might be depleting a declining species whilst the law provides for him. I'd like to think if I were to go shooting I would volunteer not to shoot Woodcock under a code of "playing safe".
On the second point, yes I see what your'e saying Adam. I would imagine taste comes into play as well. Coming back to my friend, he says he always tries to bag a pair of Woodcock because one bird is not enough where as the majority of Pheasant he shoots get given away or are even thrown away as he says there is only so much he can eat himself.

 

[Original PaulE]

probably largely because of again the widely accepted fact that the vast majority of birds shot are migrants anyway.

I don't think that this makes it ok! we moan constantly about people of the med countries shooting our native birds om migration,but you seem to be suggesting it's ok for us to shoot birds from the other countries if numbers here are not affected? surely this depends on their status in these countries, are woodcock declining their? What effect is our shooting 100000 birds a year having on those populations surely this has to be considered before we start saying that it's sustainable?
In my opinion shooting 1 or 2 for the pot is one thing shooting 200 a time is simply bloodlust and in my opinion is pathetic

cheers

 

[rosbifs]

I don't think that this makes it ok! we moan constantly about people of the med countries shooting our native birds om migration,but you seem to be suggesting it's ok for us to shoot birds from the other countries if numbers here are not affected? surely this depends on their status in these countries, are woodcock declining their? What effect is our shooting 100000 birds a year having on those populations surely this has to be considered before we start saying that it's sustainable?
In my opinion shooting 1 or 2 for the pot is one thing shooting 200 a time is simply bloodlust and in my opinion is pathetic

cheers

I doubt that anyone would disagree - even the shooters - that 200 is excessive but at the same time you need to ask over how many shooters and how often? 10 shooters bagging 20 each is not the same as one shooter emptying his load over 200 birds... Yes the result IS the same but it is more morally defensable (on a none 'bird'forum).
The most important point is that the shooting fraternity are seriously looking at the issue, from within, with a view to long term 'conservation' (I say that in the loosest sense bearing in mind what they are actually doing). Working with these people, I believe, is the only way to protect this species. What I'm sort of saying is that unless it comes from within the shooters will never believe any figures, published by birdwatchers, or indeed believe they have to stop or even reduce what they are doing....

 

[jogresh]

we moan constantly about people of the med countries shooting our native birds on migration,but you seem to be suggesting it's ok for us to shoot birds from the other countries if numbers here are not affected? surely this depends on their status in these countries, are woodcock declining there? What effect is our shooting 100000 birds a year having on those populations, surely this has to be considered before we start saying that it's sustainable?

A good point.
A while ago i asked a couple of Swedish birders if they minded us shooting woodcocks in the winter in the UK; their answer was yes, definitely as the Swedish population is declining.

 

[Adam W]

In my opinion shooting 1 or 2 for the pot is one thing shooting 200 a time is simply bloodlust and in my opinion is pathetic

cheers

Absolutely, If you look back to my first post on this thread I said straight away that even as someone who has shot Woodcock I find 200 in a day or even season an obscene number and so do many within the shooting world.
That said even with some large bags it still, as I said previously only averages out at about one bird per shooter every 4 years and there seems to be little or no evidence that shooting is the cause of any decline whether its here or other countries.

 

[rosbifs]

A good point.
A while ago i asked a couple of Swedish birders if they minded us shooting woodcocks in the winter in the UK; their answer was yes, definitely as the Swedish population is declining.

http://www.theecologist.org/News/ne...t_as_loggers_clearcut_old_growth_forests.html

http://www.forestinfo.fi/forestlapland/loggingsite/

Since my 'youth' and visits to Finland I can testify to the changes of woods and forest make-up. When the loggers move in the landscape changes. My favorite 'old' wood has been replaced by plantation wood. The older woods that remain (in that area) tend to be small and restricted to private land or the national parks - tending to be near houses/cabin/cottages, outside of the national parks, so not necessarily ideal for animals or birds.

Strangely, I read that the White-backed Woody had adapted to this environment, as it can fly between suitable tree stands, and in middle Finland is starting to make a small recovery.

I'm pretty sure that wood production will be having an effect across the range of the Woodcock ie into Russia as well. At the same time mild winters have led to less or shorter displacements of these birds - which could put more pressure on none migratory birds. From what I have read it looks like, for France, the average date of arrival of migratory birds is later - 1st 10 days of November to now last 15 days of November. Therefore, if hunting starts too early then again 'local' populations will suffer.

All interesting stuff and I think we are only just touching the surface of this issue. I say issue rather than problem as yet.