The £190 Million Gamble: Why Britain Can’t Afford to Lose Grouse Shooting

For years, activists have campaigned to end driven grouse shooting. What they haven’t done is explain what they would replace it with - or who would pay.

So, with the help of new data from a report published today on RSPB Lake Vyrnwy, we thought we’d help them out with the maths.

The results are clear: scrapping driven grouse shooting would cost taxpayers up to £190 million every year - and leave nature worse off.

What the Lake Vyrnwy Report Reveals

Lake Vyrnwy was once a driven grouse moor. Today, it’s a publicly funded conservation site managed by the RSPB. The new report shows:

• Curlews have vanished from the estate

• The land now requires over £1 million annually in public subsidy

• Bracken, scrub, and wildfire risk are rising

• Outcomes for species and habitat have declined, despite good intentions

This isn’t theory - it’s evidence. And it provides a direct comparison to the privately funded success story found across England’s managed grouse moors.

Walk Away from Grouse Shooting - And You Pay the Price

Extrapolating the Lake Vyrnwy model to the national scale would require:

• £50–60 million per year in public land management funding,

• And still wouldn’t replicate the wildlife outcomes driven moors already deliver.

The Real Cost of Losing Curlews: £130 Million every Year

Using RSPB data we have estimated that each Curlew chick the conservation industry replaces costs at least £5,000 of public funding. On grouse moors where 53% of the Curlew nest, the hard work is privately funded, so is not cost the public.

If gamekeepers leave the hills, so will the Curlew (there is no evidence that these populations can sustain themselves on their own any longer). The only alternative, as is happening on non-grouse moors already, is for taxpayers to give the conservation industry £5,000 to produce at least one chick per year for each of the 26,000 pairs nesting on grouse moors.

The Real Bill: £190 Million every Year

The RSPB data reveal that the real cost of ending driven grouse shooting is:

• £60 million in public funding to replace basic moorland management in England alone

• £130 million to maintain the curlew population every year

And that’s to replicate just one of the many species supported by driven grouse moors.

Grouse Moors Are Already Delivering Government Policy

Driven grouse shooting doesn’t just align with government objectives - it fulfils them.

Nature Markets Framework (DEFRA, 2023)

Grouse moors already deliver core outcomes the Framework is designed to reward:

• Carbon storage

• Wildfire resilience

• Biodiversity uplift

  
  

30 by 30 Biodiversity Target

Grouse moors support:

• 53% of England’s breeding curlews

• Hold 42% of lapwings

• Actively manage 860,000 hectares of high-value upland habitat

Biodiversity Net Gain (Environment Act 2021)

The predator control and habitat work done on grouse moors mirrors BNG uplift credits -making estates natural partners for delivery.

Green Finance Strategy (2023)

The UK target is £500 million per year in private investment in nature by 2027. Driven grouse shooting is already contributing £121 million annually - more than 20% of that goal.

The Alternative: Unfunded, Underperforming, and Unsustainable

The Lake Vyrnwy report shows what happens when driven shooting ends:

• Curlew vanish

• Public funding surges

• Wildlife returns diminish

It’s a warning - not a model.

The Bottom Line

Thanks to today’s report on Lake Vyrnwy, we now know what it costs to remove grouse shooting - and what we risk losing.

Driven grouse shooting is delivering:

• Better outcomes for birds and habitat

• Huge savings for the public purse

• Full alignment with national environmental policy

The idea that ending it would benefit nature is no longer credible.

This isn’t a policy question - it’s a value judgment. And the value of grouse moors has never been clearer.

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