This post is by Guy Shrubsole. Photo: a rather gruesome sight on a shooting estate in Berkshire.
25.9 million pheasants are currently being bred, reared or released in England, according to the latest official statistics I’ve obtained via a Freedom of Information request to the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA). The figure points to widespread rule-breaking by shooting estates who are failing to even register gamebird numbers – since it’s far lower than the number of pheasants the shooting industry accepts are present in the countryside.
The figure is a slight increase from the 25.7m pheasants from my last FOI request in January 2024. But it once again demonstrates the depth of non-compliance by shooting estates with basic regulatory requirements, since we know from the shooting industry themselves that some 50m pheasants are released in Britain annually. Whilst some of these releases will take place in Wales and Scotland, the great majority take place in England (the RSPB estimates (p.26) that English estates account for 85% of pheasant rearing and releasing in Britain). The government’s environmental watchdog Natural England has previously complained about “the lack of compliance with the poultry register” by pheasant shoots.
It is a legal requirement for anyone who keeps more than 50 birds (including pheasants) to register bird numbers with APHA’s poultry register. The shooting industry knows it has a massive non-compliance problem; for example, here’s a blog by the head of the Game Farmers Association in March 2023 in which he says: “please, please register on the poultry register… Laws can be seen as a burden but it is there to help, and it does apply to all shoots and game farms with over 50 birds penned or released”.
Given the widespread ecological impacts of pheasants (on woodland ground flora, hedgerow structure, pheasant predation of insects / lizards / adders, boosting mesopredator numbers etc) and given pheasants’ role as a vector for bird flu, it is absolutely essential that pheasant shoots are compelled to register rearing and releasing numbers. Their failure to comply with these basic responsibilities increases the pressure for full licensing of shoots.
The data
The table below compares the two sets of figures I obtained from APHA via FOI from January 2024 and July 2025:
| Pheasant numbers | Jan-24 | Jul-25 |
| Breeding for shooting | 1,178,070 | 1,116,370 |
| Rearing for shooting | 14,747,879 | 14,621,789 |
| Releasing for shooting | 9,782,743 | 10,258,478 |
| Totals | 25,708,692 | 25,996,637 |
I’ve uploaded the full APHA dataset to Google Docs here. (The original FOI response is in the first tab; I’ve added three additional tabs, one for rearing, one for releasing, and a third to compare 2024 and 2025 figures.)
Pheasant ‘hotspots’
The July 2025 data released by APHA is broken down by postcode area – as it was in my previous FOI request in January 2024. This allows us to see where possible ‘hotspots’ are in England for pheasant rearing and releasing. Of course, given the lack of regulatory compliance by estates, we cannot know the full picture.
In both cases, the hotspots remain remarkably similar to what they were 18 months ago. Postcode areas in Shropshire, North Yorkshire and Exmoor continue to be a hotspot for rearing pheasants: SY5, just south of Shrewsbury, remains home to over a million pheasants. YO62 in the North York Moors / Howardian Hills remains the top postcode area for releasing pheasants, whilst two contiguous postcodes areas in Exmoor point to the enduring hotspot of the ‘Molton Triangle’ for pheasant shoots.
1. Pheasant rearing – the top 10 postcode areas in July 2025
| Postcode Prefix | Number of Premises | Animal Purpose | Usual Stock Numbers |
| SY5 | Less than 5 | Rearing for shooting | 1,068,100 |
| CB8 | Less than 5 | Rearing for shooting | 810,000 |
| HR1 | Less than 5 | Rearing for shooting | 790,000 |
| LE16 | Less than 5 | Rearing for shooting | 311,100 |
| EX36 | Less than 5 | Rearing for shooting | 306,800 |
| OX5 | Less than 5 | Rearing for shooting | 284,000 |
| PR3 | 6 | Rearing for shooting | 246,100 |
| EX18 | Less than 5 | Rearing for shooting | 213,500 |
| TA20 | Less than 5 | Rearing for shooting | 210,000 |
| NG34 | Less than 5 | Rearing for shooting | 203,500 |
| Maximum 42 premises | 4,443,100 |
2. Pheasant releasing – the top 10 postcode areas in July 2025
| Postcode Prefix | Number of Premises | Animal Purpose | Usual Stock Numbers |
| YO62 | 21 | Releasing for shooting | 303,200 |
| GL54 | 26 | Releasing for shooting | 158,150 |
| TN19 | Less than 5 | Releasing for shooting | 157,150 |
| TA20 | 11 | Releasing for shooting | 153,400 |
| NR34 | 6 | Releasing for shooting | 153,000 |
| EX36 | 8 | Releasing for shooting | 140,800 |
| WR10 | 7 | Releasing for shooting | 130,095 |
| EX32 | 6 | Releasing for shooting | 129,250 |
| NR29 | 6 | Releasing for shooting | 129,100 |
| RG17 | 10 | Releasing for shooting | 126,750 |
| Maximum 105 premises | 1,580,895 |
Who owns England? 
Once again, huge thanks for this work…
These being the numbers currently either being, bred, reared or released (no ‘double’ accounting?)
That is a truly daunting prospect, and even then, it is an underestimate of the numbers claimed by the shooting industry themselves (and all to be killed with toxic lead shot, poisoning both the meat and the land over which they are killed:-(
“We show that overall British bird biomass is probably lowest around the start of the breeding season in April, and peaks in late summer and autumn. We estimate that around a quarter of British bird biomass annually is contributed byCommon Pheasants and Red-legged Partridges, and that at their peak in August these two species represent about HALF of all wild bird biomass in Britain”
Biological Invasions
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10530-021-02458-y
Contribution of non-native galliforms to annual variation in biomass of British birds
T. M. Blackburn
Centre for Biodiversity and Environment Research,
Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment,
University College London, Gower Street,
London WC1E 6BT, UK
T. M. Blackburn
Institute of Zoology, Zoological Society of London, Regent’s Park, London NW1 4RY, UK
K. J. Gaston
Environment and Sustainability Institute, University of Exeter, Penryn, Cornwall TR10 9FE, UK
What an appalling, irresponsible, Government we live with:-(
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Hi Keith, yes, that’s my understanding of the APHA data – that there’s no double counting between those categories. As you say, very much an under-representation of the true numbers.
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“It is a legal requirement for anyone who keeps more than 50 birds (including pheasants) to register bird numbers with APHA’s poultry register.”
Are you sure? Since 1 Oct 2024 it has been a legal requirement for anyone with fewer than 50 birds, even just 1 bird, e.g. home chicken keepers, to register the flock with DEFRA.
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/register-as-a-keeper-of-less-than-50-poultry-or-other-captive-birds
This is to do with avian flu.
Or is this yet another case of special treatment for pheasant fanciers or are pheasants not regarded as “farmed animals”? Why are they allowed to even release these vectors of disease into the countryside?
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