Millions of 'Ghost' Pheasants Go Unregistered as Shooting Estates Flout Rules
New data exposes widespread non-compliance with Pheasant release registration laws - raising concerns over bird flu, biodiversity, and biosecurity
Only Half of Released Gamebirds Are Accounted For
A stark new analysis by environmental campaigner Guy Shrubsole reveals that just 25.9 million Pheasants are currently registered with the UK’s Poultry Register, despite longstanding estimates that up to 50 million are released annually across Britain. The vast majority of those releases occur in England - meaning that millions of birds are simply unaccounted for.
All keepers of 50 or more gamebirds are legally required to register with the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA). Yet the newly obtained figures suggest mass non-compliance by shooting estates, with half of all released Pheasants effectively becoming ‘ghost birds’ - absent from official records and beyond scrutiny.
Biosecurity and Bird Flu: A Ticking Time Bomb
The implications for public and animal health are serious. Writing on Raptor Persecution UK, conservationist and campaigner Dr Ruth Tingay warned that the failure to register Pheasants properly “could spell disaster in the event of an avian influenza epidemic.” With Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) now a persistent and growing threat, unregistered birds undermine disease control and risk spreading pathogens across the countryside.
Worryingly, once released, Pheasants are classed as “wild” and therefore **exempt from controls** imposed during poultry disease outbreaks. This legal grey area – what Tingay has previously dubbed “Schrödinger’s Pheasant” – means that millions of semi-managed, disease-prone birds are operating in a regulatory blind spot.
Ecological Disruption from Industrial Gamebird Releases
The ecological footprint of such large-scale releases is also significant. Non-native Common Pheasants and Red-legged Partridges, raised intensively and often in confined rearing pens, are known to alter woodland ecosystems. They consume large numbers of invertebrates, disperse invasive plant seeds, and attract increased predator attention.
As Tingay notes, a recent study by the University of Exeter found that **ticks in Pheasant-release areas were 2.5 times more likely to carry Lyme disease** bacteria than ticks in control sites – a startling example of how released gamebirds can act as disease amplifiers.
Systemic Failure of Oversight
Shrubsole’s analysis highlights that even among the estates that do register, a small number account for the vast bulk of declared birds. Around 90% of all registered Pheasants come from just 148 premises, pointing to an industrial-scale system with very few safeguards.
Natural England has previously admitted to a “lack of compliance” with the register, and efforts to increase oversight have so far failed to match the pace and scale of gamebird expansion. Conservation groups are now calling for **urgent reform**, including enforceable registration, tighter limits on release numbers, and better disease monitoring protocols.
Public Pressure for Reform Builds
With no statutory cap on the number of Pheasants that can be released – and no meaningful penalty for failing to register them – critics say the government is allowing the shooting industry to operate with impunity. Shrubsole has called for a full investigation and a crackdown on serial non-compliance, warning that “it shouldn’t take a disease outbreak to close the loopholes.”
As autumn approaches and millions of unrecorded Pheasants are again released into the countryside, campaigners fear it may already be too late to avoid another round of ecological damage – or worse, a preventable disease crisis.
August 2025
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