Conservation

The North Kent Marshes which represent a large proportion of the whole country's remaining inter-tidal grazing marsh provides a diverse habitat for many species of wildfowl.

The KWCA operate a permit system which allows the club to carefully regulate shooting enabling the club to limit the numbers and dates of people shooting as well as allowing the club to maintain some areas as 'no shoot zones' to allow a buffer between the shooting grounds, in effect creating a refuge for all wildlife. We have built up an invaluable bank of data from analysing the permit returns.

It is a club regulation that non toxic shot be used on all KWCA shooting grounds.

The club enforce restrictions on night shooting / moon shooting or gauge (gun size) for some areas of marsh / seawall, details of which are on the permits for each individual area.

KWCA comply with sever weather warning restrictions to protect quarry during prolonged severe weather, details of severe weather restrictions are posted here on the clubs website (in the latest news section) and also on the club members telephone helpline.

In the past the KWCA have been very active in rearing and releasing greylag geese as well as various species of duck. Current thinking is that the clubs time and money is better spent conserving the habitat rather than rearing duck, however the club do still pay for a large number of mallard to be released onto the marsh every year.

We maintain strong links with all the major shooting and countryside associations and encourage our members to adopt all that is correct, responsible and safe when shooting.

We are affiliated to the British Association for Shooting and Conservation (BASC), the Countryside Alliance and the Clay Pigeon Shooting Association. We are also associate members of Country Landowners Association(CLA).

The Wildlife Habitat Trust benefit from KWCA members purchasing the WHT stamp, as well as donations from the BASC, which the club is affiliated to. This encourages local initiatives to protect and manage important sites. A wide range of wildlife benefit from WHT projects including rare plants and insects, the Desmoulin's whorl snail, the great crested newt, and scarce breeding birds such as the little tern and redshank.