NEC ban safari companies from exhibiting at Great British Shooting Show

Due to host the event in February 2020, The NEC in Birmingham has banned safari companies from exhibiting stands at the show.

The venue welcomed exhibitors offering international hunting at the 2018 and 2019 shows, but now appears to have caved to pressure from anti-hunters and revoked permission for such companies to appear at the show.

In the wake of the decision to remove the exhibitors, the NEC said: “The NEC continues to be a venue that permits a wide range of content. However, we are also a business that is built around its customers and therefore listens to them.

“We fully understand concerns regarding the activities of some British Shooting Show exhibiters and have acted. Taking these concerns the safety of staff and visitors into consideration, we will be removing exhibitors that practice safari hunting from the Show in February.”

However, in response to the decision to ban safari exhibitors, a petition has been set up to reinstate the inclusion of hunting guides at the February event.

Launched on change.org, the petition states: “You might not like big game hunters but they pay for most conservation around the world, especially in parts of the world that photographic safari tourists don’t visit.

“The bontebok and the markhor are both large animals saved by hunters.

“In these places, if it pays, it stays. Hunters pay large sums that pays for conservation through initiatives such as NACSO and Campfire. Photographic safari visitors like the idea of conservation, but they do not pay for it.”

The British Shooting Show also released a statement via their Facebook page, saying: “The British Shooting Show will always support the promotion of shooting and regulated hunting as sports and recreational activities, where they are carried out ethically and within the law.

“The British Shooting Show will always support good practices, and ethically and environmentally managed shooting and sporting activities that promote the highest standards to those who participate in them.

“The British Shooting Show recognises that there are those who oppose, for their own reasons, the activities of others. The British Shooting Show is content to recognise the rights of third parties to oppose hunting, shooting and gun ownership, but maintains the right of all participants in regulated hunting and shooting sports to go about their lawful legal activities.”

We urge you to support the British Shooting Show, and the future of other field sports events, by signing the petition below.

http://bit.ly/2Juw797

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