A pheasant’s organs were forced back inside her body.

This is the vile reality of the shooting industry they want hidden.

This is some of the most vile footage I have ever had to watch in my 11 years running Protect the Wild.

Every time I replay it, I come away with immense anger and sadness.

Not because this is an isolated accident. Not because one bird was suffering.

But because this footage exposes the lie at the heart of the bird shooting industry.

For years, the industry has told the public that it operates to the highest welfare standards. It claims its birds are cared for by trained professionals. It insists it can regulate itself. It tells politicians, journalists and the public that the welfare of the animals it breeds and shoots is a priority.

Then our undercover investigator walked inside one of the UK’s largest “game” bird breeding facilities and recorded what actually happens.

This wasn’t footage from some rogue backyard operation.

This was recorded inside Heart of England, a company that breeds millions of pheasants and partridges for the shooting industry and proudly boasts on its website that its birds are produced “without shortcuts.”

What our investigator witnessed was a hen pheasant suffering from a prolapse being left untreated for days.

Days. Repeatedly reported. Repeatedly ignored.

When somebody finally intervened, there was no veterinarian. No pain relief. No antiseptic. No proper medical treatment. Instead, an unqualified member of staff attempted to force the prolapsed tissue back inside the bird’s body using dirty equipment and the bird’s own soiled feathers before returning her to the cage.

His assessment afterwards?

“We’ll try it, see what happens.”

Imagine that for a moment. Imagine being that bird.

Your body has literally begun to fail under the strain of laying eggs. Internal tissue is protruding from your body. You are in pain. You are vulnerable. You need urgent veterinary treatment.

Instead, you are subjected to this crude and unhygienic procedure before being thrown back into a cage to continue suffering.

---

Why was this bird there?

Why was she enduring this in the first place?

Because she was part of a production line. Her purpose was to produce eggs.

Those eggs would become chicks. Those chicks would be reared in their tens of millions. Then they would be released into the countryside only to be shot from the sky for entertainment.

That is the reality. This bird’s suffering existed because somebody wanted more pheasants to shoot.

The industry likes to talk about conservation. It likes to talk about rural traditions. It likes to talk about livelihoods and heritage.

But strip away the marketing and this is what remains: animals treated as units of production.

Breeding machines. Disposable commodities. Living creatures pushed to their limits because there is money to be made from the birds they produce.

Perhaps what disgusts me most is not simply the suffering itself, but the casual attitude towards it.

Our investigator recorded conversations about prolapses, birds dying from reproductive injuries and birds becoming egg-bound. The deaths and suffering were discussed not as tragedies to be prevented but as expected losses within a system designed to maximise production.

“It just happens.”

“It’s part of the game we’re in. It’s not nice, but... They’re like, **** me, I’ve laid too many eggs…”

No. It doesn’t “just happen.”

These injuries happen because humans have created an industrial system that pushes animals beyond what their bodies were ever meant to endure.

And when suffering becomes so routine that people stop seeing it as suffering, something has gone badly wrong.

The shooting industry has millions of pounds behind it.

It has wealthy landowners. It has celebrity shooters. It has lobby groups, trade organisations and political influence.

But they can’t run away from the truth. And the truth is contained in footage like this.

The truth is contained in the testimony of undercover investigators who risk their jobs and safety to expose what happens behind closed doors.

The truth is contained in the suffering of birds like this pheasant.

That is why we launched our campaign to End Bird Shooting.

That is why we are exposing the industry from hatchery to gun. And that is why we need your help. The other side has money. We have something far more powerful.

We have you. We have the evidence. We have the truth.

Most importantly, we are on the side of the animals.

If this footage makes you as angry as it makes us, please become a Game Changer today.

By becoming a monthly supporter, you’ll help fund more hard-hitting undercover investigations, expose cruelty hidden from public view, challenge industry propaganda and build the movement needed to end bird shooting in the UK once and for all.

The industry is counting on nobody looking.

Together, we can make sure the whole country sees exactly what is happening.

And together, we can bring this cruel industry to an end.