Published 14th Jan 2023, 11:45 BST

Along with wildlife campaigner and author Mark Avery and conservationist Ruth Tingay, the BBC presenter wwrote to Defra and the Northern Ireland authorities in March asking that the Woodcock open season should start on December 1 instead of October 1 and started a petition which by the close of 2022 had reached more than 100,000 signatures – the threshold at which parliament will consider it for a debate.

They said the species, wading birds which are mainly nocturnal, are still being shot despite being in declining numbers and now “could and should be better off”.

If the season started on December 1 it would coincide with the arrival of migrating woodcocks and would limit the effects of shooting on the UK population.

The prospect to debate the shooting of woodcocks in parliament comes after a petition calling to limit the woodcock shooting season hit the threshold at which it can be considered to be debated. The petition, created by the BBC’s Chris Packham, passed 100,000 signatures in December.

However, the UK’s largest shooting organisation, the British Association for Shooting and Conservation (BASC) is opposed to changes in the shooting season arguing there is no evidence that shooting is detrimental to the resident breeding population and also welcomed the opportunity to discuss the issue in parliament.

Dr Marnie Lovejoy, BASC’s head of evidence and environmental law, said: “The shooting community is passionate about woodcock conservation, leading by example through research, habitat creation, predator control and a precautionary voluntary restraint.

“The reduction in the UK’s resident woodcock population is most likely down to habitat loss and degradation, population fragmentation, prey availability, climate change, predation pressures, and disturbance. The petition’s request is unevidenced and unsupportable.

“Chris Packham’s purposefully divisive petition would be better served if it campaigned for more resources to tackle the known issues impacting our resident population. Tinkering with the shooting seasons over purposeful conservation measures will not help our resident woodcock.

“BASC will use any forthcoming debate to showcase shooting’s conservation credentials and how the resident woodcock would be in a far more perilous state if it were not for the dedicated work undertaken by the shooting community. The debate will offer up a fantastic opportunity to win over those who were unaware of the evidence when signing the petition.”

The current estimate of UK resident woodcock is 55,240 males. A sharp decline between 1970 and 2010 has meant the species has been listed as red on the UK’s Birds of Conservation Concern since 2015.

The European breeding population is estimated at 6-8 million males.

It is estimated our resident woodcock are joined by around one million migrant woodcock in the winter months, arriving in November and leaving in March.

A voluntary restraint not to shoot woodcock until the end of November is a precautionary measure already implemented, said BASC, to minimise the risk of disproportionately shooting resident woodcock.

BASC welcomes chance to debate with BBC's Chris Packham in parliament over shooting of declining species