National Gamebag Census: woodcock, woodpigeon and pests
Eastern breeding woodcock populations appear stable. © Chris Heward/GWCT
BACKGROUND The National Gamebag Census (NGC) was established by the GWCT in 1961 to provide a central repository of records from shooting estates in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. The records comprise information from shooting and gamekeeping activities on the numbers of each quarry species shot annually (‘bag data’).
Bag records provide a historical perspective not only on shooting, but also on the underlying abundance of the target species. Here we examine the trends in bags for two commonly shot non-gamebird species, woodcock and woodpigeon, and three animals often culled as pests: crows (combining carrion and hooded), magpie and grey squirrel. We have collected bag information by mailing questionnaires to some 900 contributors to the National Gamebag Census (NGC) at the end of each shooting season. Participation in the NGC is voluntary, and we are most grateful to all the owners and keepers who send in their returns each year. For each species, we base the trend analysis on sites that have returned records for two or more years. The analysis summarises the year-to-year change within sites as an index of change relative to the start year 1961. In the graphs, this means that the first point is always set to a height of 1. A height of 2 indicates a doubling and a height of 0.5 a halving of bags since 1961.
Woodcock (Figure 1) Since 1961, a total of 1,559 sites across the UK have provided records of woodcock bags. Woodcock shot in winter in the UK originate mainly from Scandinavia, the Baltic states and Russia, so variation may be linked to reproductive success overseas or the extent of migration. Bags slumped after the terrible 1962/63 winter, which devastated woodcock numbers across Europe. The increase observed during the 1960s and 1970s reflects the recovery of the species as its European population rebuilt itself. Since then, the long-term trend in numbers shot seems to have increased slightly in
Figure 1
2.0
Index of the numbers of woodcock shot per square kilometre in the UK, 1961-2014
1.8
Bag index (1961=1)
1.6
1.4
1.2
1.0
0.8
0.6
0.4 1960
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1970
1980
1990
2000
2010
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