This week on Twitter, in the build up to Monday’s Westminster debate on shortening the shooting season for Woodcock, we’ve been highlighting estates that offer Woodcock shooting in the month of November.
We’ve been doing this because many members of the shooting industry maintain that it isn’t necessary to impose a statutory shortening of the Woodcock-shooting season, which is what we and 107,916 petitioners have called for. Many in the shooting industry claim that nobody shoots the threatened Woodcock in November; instead they claim to be exercising voluntary restraint and don’t shoot Woodcock until after 1st December when the non-threatened migrant Woodcock have arrived in the UK.
Whilst we know this is true of some estates, it simply isn’t true for all of them. We’ve found many examples of Woodcock-shooting being offered to paying guests in the month of November, which is a risk to our threatened, red-listed resident Woodcock population.
In what appears to be a response to our campaign, one such estate, the Baronscourt Estate, home to the Duke and Duchess of Abercorn, has removed evidence from its website that if offers Woodcock-shooting in November.
Here’s what the estate’s website said on 7th December 2022:
And here’s what its website says today:
Interesting, isn’t it?
We wonder if the Baronscourt Estate has changed its Woodcock-shooting behaviour as well as the words on its website?
We’ll shortly be posting more information about Monday’s Westminster debate and how you can watch.
