Defra to review release of game birds after legal threat

Government agrees to examine impact of shooting industry's release of 50m non-native birds

The annual release of more than 50 million non-native game birds into the countryside with no environmental assessment is to be reviewed by the government after campaigners announced a legal challenge.

Chris Packham, Mark Avery and Ruth Tingay, of the campaign group Wild Justice, argued that the massive and unregulated increase in the number of pheasants and red-legged partridges put into the British countryside for shooting each year - up from 4 million in the early 1970s - contravened the EU habitats directive.