SECURING THE FUTURE

It began as an unsubstantiated rumour in the pubs frequented by people who run shoots, but by the final months of last season, after a particularly cold, damp and dingy autumn, wild rumour had become difficult truth. As one keeper who plies his trade on the Dorset-Wiltshire border was allegedly heard to remark in desperation, “In my neck of the woods, by Christmas there were almost more gamebirds dying from disease than gunshot and it’s not from our want of trying to keep the little beggars alive and healthy.” So what was going down, how did it happen, can it happen again and how can we contain it in the future?

For as long as birds have been intensively reared they have lived with, and died by, any number of diseases, but the most widely encountered recently have been respiratory, of which hexamitiasis and mycoplasma are the most pernicious. In some parts of the UK, what was occurring at the tail end of last season was an unprecedented outbreak of mycoplasma and in the areas where the disease was most virulent, the fallout touched the entire shooting community. One can