Woodcock shooting has a long history but concern is growing after a poor breeding season in Russia AlamyA pro-shooting group has called for fresh curbs on killing woodcock after the birds had their worst breeding season in a decade. The Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust said that “unusually cold, wet weather” in western Russia had led to far more chick deaths than normal, which means fewer will arrive in Britain as winter migrants. The bird’s decline had been blamed on the loss of woodland habitat AlamyBritain’s native woodcock were already on a red list of critically endangered birds after their population fell 30 per cent over the past ten years to 55,000 breeding pairs. Their numbers are normally bolstered by 1.4 million winter visitors from eastern Europe and western Russia, where researchers noticed “the lowest proportion of first-year birds for ten years,” the trust said. Andrew Hoodless, the trust’s head of wetland research, said…

Source: The Times December 18, 2017 00:00 UTC