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Shooting has spoken
Defra’s call for evidence on gamebird rearing, release and shooting in England has closed. BASC’s Conor O’Gorman takes stock and looks ahead.
More than 26,000 people copied in BASC with their responses to Defra’s game shooting review that took place from 4 September to 1 November 2026.
Others sent their responses in the post or completed Defra’s online survey form. Many people spread the word to their contacts via email, WhatsApp groups and other social media networks. Some recorded motivational videos. On social media, BASC’s campaign received six million views and 230,000 engagements.
To everyone who got involved in myriad ways — congratulations — you are a champion for shooting.
Defra decided to carry out this review and has now heard directly from tens of thousands of people whose lives and livelihoods are connected to every aspect of game shooting in England.
Those responses have given weight to, and are reflected in, BASC’s detailed submission covering the latest research into game shooting. BASC has also challenged various aspects of the review, including the short timeframe for people to get involved.
Defra civil servants and ministers may have expected a few dozen organisational responses plus a few hundred individual responses to its complex, lengthy, biased online survey.
Instead, they have received tens of thousands of submissions from shoot participants, managers and owners, farmers, and the many businesses and livelihoods supported by shooting. Visitors from across the UK, mainland Europe, the USA, Canada, Australia and beyond have also told Defra why they travel to England to shoot.
Moving the goalposts?
Throughout the submission window Defra changed their auto-reply message to emails sent several times. This matters because respondents were met with an off-putting message suggesting that Defra preferred survey responses to the emails they’d taken the time to write. To provide some reassurance now as we did then, experiences submitted by email count as evidence and were in the scope of the review.
We are all busy, and encouraging people to send an email with their own lived experiences, rather than signing a petition or answering yes/no questions in a consultation, was a big ask.
Make no mistake, the reaction to this Defra call for evidence has been outstanding, with so many previously untold personal stories now shared.
This is what one BASC member emailed Defra a few days ago: “Now in my eighties and never having written to a government dept before”.
What was sent as evidence?
Defra asked for evidence on positive and negative impacts of game shooting. Our response was to encourage those with firsthand knowledge to explain what they do, what they observe and what they can demonstrate.
Scientific research is an essential part of this call for evidence. But practical experience also matters. People managing shoots, working on farms or supporting rural businesses have provided context that might otherwise have been missed from policy discussions.
BASC encouraged contributors to explain habitat management, wildlife observations, supplementary feeding, the relationship between shooting and farming, and spending with local businesses. These detailed examples will help Defra understand the wider picture.
The shooting community provided deeply personal insights in good faith to Defra for its review. You have put their evidence on the record, and the onus is now on Defra to take it on board.
Thank you to everyone who shared the campaign, encouraged friends and colleagues to respond, or helped someone else put their experience into writing. Mobilising a community depends on those conversations as much as it does on a website or a social media post.
BASC will continue to champion sustainable shooting and argue for an evidence-led, proportionate approach.
Thank you for getting involved, sharing your experience, encouraging others and helping us make the case for shooting’s future.
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Conor OGorman
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