Around 50 million pheasants and partridges are released annually in the UK for shooting. Their welfare from hatchery through to shooting day involves a range of welfare concerns.
Pheasants in intensive rearing units are kept at high densities in systems that cause feather pecking, requiring beak bits that restrict natural foraging behaviour. The release into the wild from fully enclosed rearing pens is traumatic for naive birds unfamiliar with predators, weather, and foraging for food. Wounding rates in driven shooting are typically 10-30% of total shot at birds — meaning significant numbers of birds are hit but not killed immediately, dying slowly over subsequent hours. Wounded birds that escape are rarely retrieved. The scale of pheasant and partridge release — 57 million birds annually — dwarfs most other forms of wildlife management in welfare impact.