Animal Rights groups, including the RSPCA, have made it clear that whatever the outcome of the hunting debate they are keen to turn their sights on shooting - especially game shooting. Shooting may not see the sort of frontal assault that hunting has been fending off for decades but game shooting is extremely vulnerable to indirect attack.

We have been waiting for some months for the Home Office to publish its consultation on Firearms legislation and even the existence of a review is a worrying element in the current political climate. We have shown that there is no correlation between legitimate gun use and gun crime but hostile politicians, seemingly impotent to tackle the rise in criminal gun use, may be tempted by the easy publicity hit of further restricting legal firearms. Equally those who question the legitimacy of the rearing and releasing of game birds may well attempt to outlaw legitimate practice through the Animal Welfare Bill which is expected to be published in draft form this year.

One way we will fight off these attacks is to show the huge importance of the sport of shooting to the UK economy and to jobs in the countryside. The last survey five years ago showed that the income from all field sports was in excess of £650 million. It is thought that the contribution has greatly increased since that survey which is why the Countryside Alliance has combined with BASC and the CLA to commission a new report on the economics of the shooting industry, the results of which will be widely distributed amongst politicians and opinion formers.

The Alliance has unrivalled experience of countering the mis-information and propaganda which animal rights groups are already using to smear shooting and the hard data that comes out of this survey will help enormously with that fight.