I hope you had a lovely Easter break and enjoyed the sunshine.
With two very poignant articles recently released in The Times attacking shooting, the first being against the Eurotunnel hoping to ban the transportation of eggs and chicks from the continent to the UK and the second the release of thousands of birds from a game farm by activists. These continued pressures are seeming to intensify and are worrying times for our sport and livelihoods.
We need to be one step ahead of the game and see that these pressures won’t subside. We must do all that is in our power to put ourselves on the front foot, singing off the same hymn sheet and working cohesively. There are many shooting organisations, some say too many, but thank god we have them as we are up against it, and if it wasn’t for all of them we would be without our armour, something we can’t afford. Often the cost of supporting these organisations is deemed a burden but in fact, we should be doing more to support them as without them who knows where we would be.
The BGA as a marketing board and assurance scheme is very different to the other shooting NGO’s, but works very closely with them all. The need for the BGA becomes ever more apparent when so much of the pressure against us is because of standards, or lack thereof within our industry from French suppliers as per the Eurotunnel article above, to Natural Resource Wales decision to ban shooting on public land. Unless we can prove through a third party assurance scheme that what we do is deemed as ‘best practice’ then we have little to no protection. This is why it is so important that all shoots, and in time Game Farms, embrace the BGA as an investment for their future.
Please see some great articles below, which include our new shoot owner benefits and our new Brand Partners page where affiliated companies can help support our objectives plus an article on clarification of the law around processing and selling of game from estates.
If you would like to be a part of this movement and help put us all on the front foot by signing your shoot up here, then please do.
Kind regards,
Tom
Thomas Adams
Managing Director |
