Asylum Seekers

Walking into the living area of our caravan early morning this was the sight that greeted me. One of some six or so male pheasants.

There are always some pheasants around the holiday park, but the numbers are hugely inflated from September onwards. I presume they’ve come from the extensive neighbouring Dallam estate and are birds that have been released for shooting. The holiday park and the adjacent nature reserve are safe havens for the birds, with plentiful feeding opportunities.

The pheasant is not a native species, being introduced to the UK centuries ago for sport and the table. There are some 4-5 million pheasants breeding in the UK in May each year. The number is hugely inflated from the end of August when some 47 million birds are released into the countryside for shooting (the shooting season being from September 1st to February 1st.) Two questions for me. If no birds were released, would breeding numbers reduce, it would be interesting to know what a sustainable population looks like. And when there is highly infectious avian influenza around decimating some bird populations is it a risk releasing all these birds into the countryside (no idea if they are tested for bird flu before release, hopefully they are).