40 million pheasants! (1 Viewer)

[angusmcoatup]

I don't want to hijack the Defra Buzzard "management" threads so thought I'd post here.

I keep seeing the number of Pheasants released each year in the UK as roughly 40 million which seems to come from this link.

http://raptorpersecutionscotland.wo...nt-trial-gets-govt-approval-and-375k-funding/

First of all where does this figure come from? What happens to them all? How many are actually shot by commercial/club shoots? How many survive through to the next year?

 

[Richard Klim]

Parkin & Knox 2010 (The Status of Birds in Britain & Ireland)...

Baillie et al. (2006) suggest that c. 12 million birds are released each year for sporting purposes and that c. 2 million of these probably survive to breed naturally. Brown & Grice (2005) report that productivity of the feral stock is low, perhaps because herbicides remove many of the plants needed by the insects which the chicks eat.

 

[angusmcoatup]

Thanks Richard. I'll have a read of that.

 

[Farnboro John]

There seems to be an increasing tendency to release weird varieties like the black/green ones that have proliferated in NE Hampshire in the last few years.

Also I wonder about the breeders of the chicks, as a few Reeves's have also turned up but not in the numbers that would suggest they are deliberate releases.

Is this a similar picture to what others see around the country?

John

 

[Bird_Bill]

Here in N. America, House Sparrow (Passer domesticus) is often quoted as continents most numerous, non-domesticated bird. Numbers are estimated at 150 million. Just where are 12 to 40 million pheasants released annually over there?
Thats alot of pheasants.

 

[Mark Batten]

In the light of ministers views on ordinary folk should it not read forty million peasants..

 

[Farnboro John]

In the light of ministers views on ordinary folk should it not read forty million peasants..

If they blew away forty million peasants they would solve the following:

- CO2 emissions
- pensions
- space for wildlife
- NHS funding

For chrissake don't tempt them!

John