“We all have a personal responsibility to work hard to normalise shooting in the eyes of a general public”

While we can congratulate ourselves for this reduction all that we are doing is admitting our past guilt.

The mornings are getting colder, the sun glinting on the first light blanket of fog means the shooting season is about to get into full swing. It is an exciting time for all of us fieldsports enthusiasts and especially for me in my first season since becoming CEO of BASC in February.

1st September; the start of the Wildfowling Season. Ever been wildfowling? I mean proper coastal fowling after duck and geese below the high water mark.

A year ago I was speaking at a conference in Sheffield about moorland birds, concentrating as you would expect on red grouse. One of the images that I used was from a BASC campaign that proclaimed that grouse shooting was enjoyed by over 40,000 participants.