Animal welfare campaigners were locked up in cramped cages outside the Plaid Cymru conference in Llandudno on 2 October. They were highlighting the suffering pheasants and partridges face in cages. And they were calling for an end to their use to breed game birds in Wales.

The campaigners from animal welfare charity the League Against Cruel Sports mimicked the distress game birds face in breeding cages. And they said the Welsh government should outlaw the shooting industry from using them.

Welsh government figures show that land managers release between 800,000 and 2.3 million non-native pheasants and partridges into the Welsh countryside every year to shoot them for sport. These birds are often the result of intensive industrial scale breeding across Wales. The industry uses raised battery style cages with metal walls and wire mesh roofs and floors.

A severe lack of space and the conditions of their confinement for these semi-wild birds, leads to distress and injuries. This includes damaged beaks, foot lesions, wounds from stress-induced aggression, and scalping on wire mesh roofs when they attempt to escape.

Jamie Adair, public affairs officer for Wales from the League Against Cruel Sports, said:

Keeping pheasants and partridges in cages for breeding causes these birds an immense amount of suffering and is an animal welfare issue that needs to be addressed by the Welsh government.

The Welsh government now has a clear opportunity to demonstrate leadership on animal welfare issues by including game birds in its work on ending the use of cages for farmed animals.

Game birds such as pheasants and partridges do not enjoy the basic legal protections such as minimum space requirements that farm birds such as chickens and turkeys get.

YouGov polling in 2021 found that 72% of the Welsh public opposed the use of cages to breed pheasants and partridges.

The caged breeding event outside conference coincided with the start of the pheasant shooting season in Wales on 1 October.

Adair added:

We highlighted to Plaid Cymru members today the distress that using cages for breeding game birds causes.

The use of cages for farmed animals needs to end and this ban on using cages in Wales should include the many pheasants and partridges being kept for breeding in appalling conditions.

Featured image via League Against Cruel Sports

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