FROM PROTECT THE WILD ON INDUSTRIAL SLAUGHTER OF GAME BIRDS BRED TO BE KILLED

Forwarded this email? Subscribe here for more 22,000 birds gassed alive: you weren’t meant to see this PROTECT THE WILD NOV 2 READ IN APP For the first time ever in the UK, footage of a game bird flu cull has been made public. What it shows is shocking. Earlier this year, anonymous activists handed us footage of a cull of around 22,000 breeding game birds at Westfield Game Farm near Pickering, North Yorkshire. It was the farm’s second bird flu cull in two years. Why this is such a big deal This is monumental because game bird culls often happen behind closed doors. Until now, the public has never seen how they are carried out. This footage changes that. It shows the whole process, from catching to gassing to disposal. And it raises three serious concerns: the suffering of thousands of animals, biosecurity failures that put wild birds at risk, and the cost to you, the taxpayer. Become a Game Changer Why did it happen? From December 2025 to April 2026, an Avian Influenza Prevention Zone (AIPZ) was in force. Every farmed bird had to be housed, or at least netted, to keep it away from wild birds. The pens at Westfield appeared to lack netting. These rules exist to stop exactly this kind of outbreak. But rules mean nothing if nobody enforces them. 22,000 lives, gassed and dumped These birds were bred for one thing: to be shot for sport, but they never even got that far. In the footage panicked birds were chased and thrown, packed into crates and driven into gas chambers. They were gassed with argon, and their bodies were tipped into lorry sized skips like rubbish. Every one of them a life. Every one of them wasted and thrown away by the thousand. Biosecurity concerns Most worryingly, a cull is meant to contain a disease. Yet with the pens apparently unnetted, birds were filmed flying away mid-catch. Even vets and workers were recorded admitting they could not tell how many had escaped. Any one of those birds could have carried avian influenza into the wild. The footage also captured workers repeatedly breaking personal protective equipment (PPE) rules. Some unzipped their suits inside the infected zone. Others wore no protection at all. Every breach is another route for avian influenza to spread. Become a Game Changer Who pays? You do. What could be worse? well, we pay for it… When a game farm’s flock is culled for bird flu, the taxpayer compensates the farmer. Using APHA’s own rate, we estimate the payout at around £620,000. That is for a farm that had been through exactly the same thing just 11 months earlier. We asked APHA, through a Freedom of Information request, what this cull cost. Sadly they refused to tell us and an independent review backed that refusal. So we still do not know how many birds escaped, what was done to make the cull effective (or if it was), or what the public paid for a cull that following the housing rules might have prevented. So, to sum it up: the public pays, but the public is not allowed to know what for or how much! A pattern, not a one-off This is a farm with history. In 2011, its owner and his company were each fined £20,000 for releasing thousands of pheasants onto a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), damaging a protected conservation site. In 2014, the RSPB found five illegal pole traps set around the farm. Two employees were cautioned. The owner was convicted of permitting their use, though that conviction was overturned on appeal. Now, two bird flu culls in two years. And once again, the rules appear to have been bent. Given that record, none of this comes as a surprise. More to come This is just the overview. Over the coming weeks, we will dig into every angle of this story: the animal suffering, the money the taxpayer pays, and the biosecurity failures that appear to have been frequent on this farm. We want this to be a game changer. In every sense. To drag what happens on these farms into the light, and to stop it ever happening again. These birds deserved better. Join the movement. Become a Game Changer. This is exactly what your monthly donations are helping make possible. Undercover investigators gathering evidence. Hundreds of hours of footage being reviewed. Investigations developed into stories that reach millions of people through national television. More investigations. More national exposure. More pressure on the shooting industry. And ultimately, a much stronger campaign to bring bird shooting for sport to an end. If you want to help us expose what else this industry is hiding, please become a Game Changer today. There are 830 Game Changers at the time of sending this email out. Will you become one of the first 1,000? Become a Game Changer SHARE LIKE COMMENT RESTACK © 2026 Protect the Wild Protect the Wild, 71-75 Shelton Street Covent Garden, London, W2CH 9JQ Unsubscribe Start your Substack