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The British Association for shooting and Conservation is more commonly known ‘BASC’ It’s mission is to promote and protect sporting shooting and the well-being of the countryside throughout the United Kingdom and overseas.

They represent their members' interests by providing a voice for sporting shooting which includes wildfowling, game, and rough shooting, deer stalking, target shooting and air gunning, pigeon shooting and pest control, gun dogs, promoting practical habitat conservation, training and the setting of standards and undertaking appropriate research.

The BASC is a national representative body for sporting shooting, and has five strategic objectives:

• A strong and unified voice for shooting
• All party backing for shooting
• Balanced comment in the media
• Continued opportunity to go shooting
• High standards

The organisation started out as the Wildfowlers' Association of Great Britain and Ireland, (WAGBI) in 1908. It was founded by Stanley Duncan, an engineer from Hull, who was also a highly experienced wildfowler and naturalist.

There were three main reasons why he set up WAGBI.

• He wanted to help professional wildfowlers;
• He was becoming alarmed at the increasing drainage and subsequent development of much excellent wildfowl habitat;
• He realised that as time went by it would be necessary to defend the sport of wildfowling against the growing enthusiasm of extremists bent on total protection of wild birds.

In 1981 WAGBI changed its name to the British Association for Shooting and Conservation (BASC). This change was agreed at the Annual General Meeting of that year in recognition of the fact that shooting sports required a single representative body and that WAGBI was the most suitable placed organisation to take on that role. The BASC currently has 129,000 members and that number is growing every year.

The association’s national headquarters is based at Marford Mill in Rossett, North Wales. There are also five regional centres across England and three national centres in Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. There are currently 110 people working for BASC across the country.

For more information on the work of the BASC click here.