Covert footage shows game bird farm breaches and raptor persecution

Channel 4 News has obtained covert footage that it says shows welfare and biosecurity breaches at large game bird farms in Britain and raptor persecution linked to the shooting industry. The report was broadcast as the government called for evidence on the industry's impact on biodiversity and biosecurity.

At Westfield Farms near Pickering in North Yorkshire, hidden cameras recorded a government culling team during a bird flu outbreak in March. Channel 4 News reported that the team killed more than 20,000 game birds. The footage showed a member of the culling team urinating against the side of a gas chamber, birds escaping, and crates of pheasants loaded clumsily into the chamber. Westfield Farms told Channel 4 News it follows all regulations but could not comment on the actions of the government agency that culled the birds. The Animal and Plant Health Agency said it upholds the strictest biosecurity and animal welfare standards and does not hesitate to act if breaches are found.

The material was passed to the campaign group Protect the Wild. Channel 4 News reported that footage filmed by the group on three other English game farms this summer showed piles of dead birds, eggs and carcasses crawling with maggots, and nobody wearing protective clothing. Foxes, crows and buzzards had access to the rotting heaps. The undercover team found one chick still alive in a waste heap. The Game Farmers Association declined to comment directly on the video but told Channel 4 News that animal waste must be disposed of by a licensed contractor or in an approved incinerator, and urged the group to pass the footage to the authorities.

The shooting industry told Channel 4 News it can police itself. According to the Countryside Alliance, it generates more than £3 billion a year, employs more than 25,000 people in the UK and creates large areas of habitat for wildlife. Channel 4 News reported that other shooting groups condemned the abuses, with one saying: 'You can't defend the indefensible.'

Channel 4 News also reported on raptor persecution on grouse moors. Police sources describe it as organised rural crime, and the report said the problem is worst in North Yorkshire. A marsh harrier was shot and wounded in Westerdale, in the heart of intensive grouse shooting country, and later had to be humanely killed by vets. Fiona Howie, a bird pathologist at a government lab near Edinburgh, said the bird was struck by at least two shotgun pellets. One pellet broke a wing, leaving the bird unable to fly and starving. Howie said she had seen about 60 birds a year that were proper forensic cases, and roughly one in six had been shot.

The report said convictions of gamekeepers remain rare. It cited a North Yorkshire keeper fined this year after a joint RSPB and Channel 4 News investigation caught him killing a goshawk on covert film, and footage from other locations showing trapped buzzards being beaten to death. The RSPB wants licensing introduced so that estates can be sanctioned, which it says would be a stronger deterrent. The shooting industry opposes licensing and prefers stronger enforcement of existing rules and government support for self-regulation.

Channel 4 News reported that the government is serving notice that further action may be needed to guarantee the highest shooting standards and protect depleted wildlife.