Wildfowling
With the Kent Wildfowlers

The KWCA has some of the most extensive and varied wildfowling to be found almost anywhere in the UK today. As the only wildfowling club in North Kent it has an unrivaled opportunity to acquire shooting rights and to maintain a large membership number, which is currently over 500.

Extent
The Association has shooting rights throughout North Kent and has in recent years begun to expand into East and Central Kent, Essex, Cambridgeshire and Norfolk. In Kent, shooting rights extend from Cooling in the west to Minnis Bay in the east, including extensive rights on the southern shore of the Thames, throughout the Medway Estuary and on into the Medway valley west of Rochester, and through the Swale. Rights extend over foreshore on the Thanet coast from Reculver to Minnis Bay, and additionally into the Stour Valley north of Ashford.

Tenure
The KWCA is the largest owner of wetland among wildfowling clubs throughout the UK, with some 2,000 acres of freehold ownership. Most of this ownership is focussed in the Medway Estuary, but there are significant holdings on the Thames at Cooling, on the Swale near Sittingbourne and Faversham and in the Stour Valley at Wye. Various other tenure arrangements exist, including four leases of Crown foreshore at Grain, Swale (2 sites) and Thanet; in total some 15 miles of foreshore is leased from the Crown, with the greater majority of this forming a network of unshot KWCA refuges.

Wildfowling Opportunity
The range of wildfowling opportunity is extensive, offering almost every kind of wildfowling available in the UK today. There are miles of seawall shooting for those who want to flight duck and geese, whilst extensive mudflats with mussels beds and pools exist for those who want to carry out their sport under the most demanding of conditions. Extensive areas of saltmarshes - featuring islands and saltings interspersed by a network of creeks and open mudpans together with extensive areas of spartina grass - exist in the Medway and also the Swale, and these provide a mix of wildfowling opportunity.

Close to the seawall the KWCA owns and leases freshmarsh areas which provide a mix of habitat types ranging through grazing marsh, reed beds, ponds, ditches and fleets. The range of species available is correspondingly varied. Species Almost the full range of quarry species are available in the area. However main quarry species will be teal, wigeon, mallard, pintail, shoveler, Canada geese, greylag geese and European white-fronted geese. The Medway is best known for its duck shooting, with the Thames and Swale providing a mix of duck and geese.

Shooting Methods

Flighting
Flighting is for many wildfowlers the most commonly practiced and favoured method of getting on terms with the birds. Certainly where there is seawall shooting this is best carried out at dawn and dusk as birds flight from feeding grounds to roosting areas and back again. This form of wildfowling is heavily dependent on weather conditions for the best results, with excellent sport to be had at times, Shooting the open mud flats is not widely practiced, due to the difficulties to be encountered in terms of access and remaining hidden when out on the shore. Areas do exist where natural features - such as mussels beds - can be taken advantage of to provide cover in order to flight birds moving about the estuary.

Decoying
For many wildfowlers decoying is the best method of shooting in terms of getting close to duck. It can be carried out at any time of the day, and is widely practiced during full daylight as birds come to the saltmarshes to both feed and find shelter in inclement weather. The Medway is famous for is decoyed duck shooting and the fragmented nature of the Medway saltmarshes lend themselves to this form of the sport.

Puntgunning
This form of wildfowling is carried out by a small band of dedicated wildfowlers in the club and is restricted to the open shores of the Swale. It is a difficult form of wildfowling and is carried out by the enthusiast who has taken the time, trouble and expense to assemble the necessary kit. It is a branch of the sport not for the faint-hearted, and paradoxically relies on calm weather for best results - the exact opposite of the conditions favoured by the wildfowler on the shore!

Inland
The KWCA shoots over a number of inland sites, most of which directly abut the seawall and therefore form part of the estuary ecosystem. All these areas require careful and sensitive management and are mostly let to syndicates comprising club members lead by a Site Manager for each area. Such areas will be shot 10 times per season, and are managed as KWCA reserves.

Each site is valuable in its own way and each successfully fulfills the criteria for sustainable wildfowling. Regulation All shooting over KWCA land is carried out by permit only. The permits double as site record cards and enable the Association to interpret data in order better understand how to manage its areas in accordance with the principles of sustainable wildlfowling

KWCA sites
Almost all KWCA sites are within Sites of Special Scientific Interest and Special Protection Areas and are therefore subject to the provisions of the Wildlife and Countryside Act and the Countryside and Rights of Way Act. As such the KWCA has had to acquire a Notice of Consent for each shooting area, and today the KWCA has some 50 separate shooting areas - all of which operate sustainable wildfowling at levels agreed with Natural England. Refuges The KWCA has always been an advocate of having refuge areas close to the estuaries - indeed the KWA's first land holdings were non-shooting reserves.

The KWCA strongly supports the principle of sustainable wildfowling and believes that refuge areas can provide limited shooting and that such an approach is consistent with sustainability. On many of the Association marshes a system of rotational refuges operates - here meaning that shooting is managed within a 3-week cycle with shooting available for some days within a 14 day period followed by a 7-day rest period. This system is mainly in operation over the tidal saltmarsh areas - for example the whole of the KWCA's shooting in the Medway Estuary is within the rotational refuge system. In practice this is not detrimental to the wildfowling aspirations of the KWCA membership, and ensures that significant areas of saltmarsh are left quiet throughout the season. It is a remarkable conservation initiative for which the KWCA won a national conservation award, and is still perhaps unique in the UK today.

The management of KWCA inland areas at all times takes account of conservation principles. Such sites lend themselves to active conservation work, whilst the open foreshore is more difficult to manage with the KWCA limiting itself over such open sites to non-shooting areas and monitoring. Open foreshore areas are managed by the KWCA in accordance with their conservation status - thus, special note is taken of wader feeding and roosting sites.

The large areas of foreshore leased from the Crown are particularly suitable for this type of management. The area at Grain contains two types of refuge - a totally closed non-shooting area (spatial refuge) to the south of the site, and a refuge whereby the site is closed around the roosting high tide period (temporal refuge). The large Crown site at Elmley in the Swale is a spatial refuge, although the KWCA operates wildfowling adjacent to the site. The Crown area at Leysdown, Sheppey extends to over three miles and is a spatial refuge accommodating limited wildfowling over a approximately one tenth of the site. The Crown area on the Thanet coast operates a temporal refuge, whilst the KWCA operates temporal refuges elsewhere over its land where it is aware that wader roosts exist.

In summary it can be seen that the KWCA land holdings are vast with a complexity of habitats and species types available. Management is correspondingly detailed and complex, all of which is underpinned by management planning and Notices of Consent.