I received this by email today. This is just the type of information that I hope it will be possible for individuals to submit to the DEFRA consultation on regulating gamebird releases which is promised (by DEFRA) for Monday.

This letter has been edited to remove information that is personal or which would identify the sender, but not to change the sense of the email.

We live in the middle of an upland National Park. In our garden we have a small pond, which hosts common frogs, common toads, palmate newts & great-crested newts. We have drystone walls, which host common lizards. Slow worms & adders are often found in the garden, on nearby fields and on the moor.

Sadly we also have a lot of ‘visiting’ pheasants, released by a shoot, which is approx 1500m away.

This shoot has become more intensive over the years and, last year, the ‘shoot keeper’ built a new release pen approx 500m away from us. Last summer/autumn we found 3 dead slow-worms, which looked as if they had been pecked to death, on the verges of the lane.

We worry that, as pheasant shoots become more commercial, demand ‘bigger bags’ to satisfy ‘the guns’ and are steadily moving their activities ‘further up’ valleys like our, with more birds being released, we are seeing an increasingly negative impact on fragile populations of amphibians and reptiles. There must surely be a solution! A moratorium on shooting and a scientific study of the existing fauna of this area alone might help!

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