Mike Swan

Mike Swan

Mike has been a member of the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust advisory team since 1982, having previously completed a PhD in Botany. He runs his own small shoot in Dorset, as well as enjoying wildfowling, fishing and woodland stalking. He runs the GWCT’s tertiary education programme, and provides advice on game management and conservation to gamekeepers, shoot managers, farmers and conservation organisations across southern England, the southwest, and throughout Wales.

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  • June 2, 2023

“All wildlife benefits from….” My heart sinks every time I hear those words, because they are invariably wrong. They are usually followed with the word gamekeeping, or shooting, and whichever…

woodcock shooting

  • March 4, 2023

On Monday, 27 February, the woodcock shooting season was debated in Parliament as a result of a petition from Wild Justice that garnered over 100,000 signatures. The petition called for…

high birds shooting

  • February 22, 2023

Judging high birds I was the lowest Gun, at number four peg, in a valley bottom in the Bowland Fells, with the beaters converging high up and flushing the last…

  • January 21, 2023

With the tide rising over Kirkcudbright Bay at dawn, and a few decoys floating at the burn mouth, I had high hopes of some wigeon seeking shelter on the lee…

  • January 13, 2023

With 104,000 votes and counting, the Wild Justice petition to shorten the woodcock shooting season has reached the 100,000 threshold needed to trigger a parliamentary debate. At the time of…

  • October 16, 2022

It’s been almost six decades since I went for my first ever day’s beating at Clandon Park, near Guildford. With Dad out picking-up behind the Guns, the lovely headkeeper, Cliff…

  • May 7, 2022

For most lowland shoots, the cost of pheasant and partridge poults is probably the biggest single outlay in the annual budget, so you want to spend your money wisely. Shopping…

wildfowler

  • September 22, 2021

If your only experience of shooting wildfowl is driven mallard, you could be forgiven for failing to realise that you need to be well hidden if you really want to…

end of high birds

  • May 5, 2021

Could the ruling on lead mean the end of high birds? In the early 1990s, when we had a voluntary phase-out of lead for shooting over wetlands, my old mate…

fox predation control

  • February 17, 2021

Let’s start by noting the words ‘predation control’, rather than predator. In managing game and wildlife, how many predators you kill is of no great relevance; rather it is the…