Countryside Alliance attacks game welfare code 

The Countryside Alliance has branded Defra’s new code of practice for game rearing ‘illogical, inconsistent and ignorant’ and a threat to game farming and shooting in the UK.

Defra announced the code yesterday (Monday, March 15) which tells keepers how best to meet the welfare needs of gamebirds.

The Code of Practice is due to come into effect on October 1 this year but the shooting lobby, including the Alliance, the Game Farmers Association and the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust, has rallied against it.

In particular they oppose rules to restrict the introduction of breeding stock into laying flocks and new stocking density limits.

There are about 7,500 registered farms and shoots rearing 50 or more gamebirds a year in England and large game farms using cages for breeding birds can produce up to three million eggs a year.

But Rob Gray from the Countryside Alliance said the new code would make it hard for those farms to compete with foreign producers.  

“Production will be exported to non-UK producers using systems with far lower welfare standards than those which would have been enforced in England under a sensible Code of Practice.

“The Minister responsible, Jim Fitzpatrick, has left a raft of problems on the desk of his successor,” he said.

But Jim Fitzpatrick, Farming Minister, defended the new code which he said would ‘strike the right balance between welfare needs and protecting businesses’.

He added sport shooters would be encouraged to use birds supplied and raised by game farms and shoots observing the code.

The British Association for Shooting and Conservation backed Mr Fitzpatrick.

“The Government and particularly Defra ministers are to be congratulated on reaching a decision which ensures the future of game shooting and high standards of animal welfare,” said Christopher Graffius, BASC communications director.

“BASC welcomes the fact that the worst fears of some – such as an end to all partridge production and the potential end of all game shooting in the UK – will not be realised,” he added.  

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