Shooting Facts and Figures by the Countryside Alliance

Shooting - General

• Around 1 million people in the UK shoot
• Shooting is worth £16bn to the UK Economy
• Shooting supports the equivalent of 70,000 full time jobs
• Shooters spend £2bn every year on goods and services, of which £60m is spent on accommodation
• £51m on clothing
• £22m on accessories
• Shooting is involved in the management of two-thirds of the rural land area
• Nearly half a million shooters do not live in the countryside
• Shooting provides a good example of the increased social and economic benefits provided by the sustainable use and enhancement of the natural environment

Shooting - Who works on shoots?

• Rural England employs over 54m people Of these, over 10% are directly employed in shooting supported jobs
• 15,000 Beaters and Loaders
• 16,000 Game keepers, shoot managers and others
• 16,000 Supplier jobs (such as clothing retailers) 930 Jobs supported in downstream industries
• 22,000 Supply chain jobs supported (includes expenditure multiplier effects)
• It is estimated that 620,000 people are involved in the provision of sporting shooting in the UK. That is the equivalent of 49,000 full time jobs, or 1/5 of the total agricultural workforce

Shooting and Conservation

• Shoot providers spend £250m a year on conservation – which is 5 times the annual income of Britain's biggest wildlife conservation organisation, the RSPB
• An estimated 26 million work days are undertaken each year on habitat and wildlife management for shooting in the UK
• Typically, a shoot provider will provide 16 days shooting, whilst undertaking an average of 155 days of wildlife and habitat management each year
• People who regularly use the countryside, but do not shoot, see the conservation that shoots undertake as a positive Among these, 57% cited woodland as the most positive benefit of shooting
• If shooting were stopped, it would severely damage the conservation of wildlife and biodiversity
• In preserving and enhancing the natural habitat for wildlife, shooting is necessarily sustaining the natural beauty of the countryside – thus benefiting all
• £77 million is invested annually in ensuring highways leading to shoots are maintained, making the countryside more accessible for all
• Two million hectares are actively managed for conservation as a result of shooting – this is an area size of Wales
• Shooters spend 27million work days on conservation – the equivalent of 12,000 full time jobs

Shooting and tourism

• Shooting directly supports 5,700 jobs in the food and accommodation sector
• Shooting indirectly supports 1,700 jobs in the travel sector
• It is estimated that an average 222 visitor nights (ie. people that are there because of the shoot, but not participating in it) were generated in 2004 by each shooting provider
• Shooting helps to sustain rural communities during the winter when income from other forms of tourism is substantially reduced, and can make the difference between profit and loss for some rural services
• £60m is spent on accommodation
• £58m is spent on offsite food

Rural Areas – key facts and figures

• In the last 20 years the proportion of young people aged between 15-29 living in rural areas has fallen from 21% to 15%
• The median age for rural areas is 444, compared to 385 for urban areas
• In 2007 32% of all rural households had a household income less than £16,500 per annum
• The average price of a house in a rural area in 2007 was 21% higher than in an urban area – and would require a low income household to borrow over 15 times their yearly income in order to purchase their home
• Around 50% of rural households do not have access to a bus stop within a 13 minute walk of their home
• Employment rates are 78% in rural areas compared to 74% for urban areas

Game as Food - key facts and figures

• Game sales are up 64% since 2002
• The Countryside Alliance's 'Game to Eat' Campaign began in '02
• Retail sales of Game are expected to rise 8% in 2008
• The Game to Eat Market is work £69m
• In five years the market has nearly doubled
• The re-emergence of game in the food calendar is led by venison, which has three fifths of the market share and is in constant demand, followed by pheasant and partridge, the major-players in the game bird sector
• Venison sales have increased by 25% to a projected £40m and feathered game by 188% to be worth projected £19m in 2008
• Between 2003 and 2007 sales through farm shops, farmer's markets and online purchase went up 60% while supermarkets' value has increased by a staggering 150%