BASc

The British Association for Shooting and Conservation (BASC) is a registered society under the Co-operative and Community Benefit Societies Act 2014, whose mission is to promote and protect sporting shooting and the well-being of the countryside throughout the United Kingdom and overseas. With a membership of over 148,000 and 110 staff BASC is the largest and best resourced country sports organisation in the UK. Its magazine "Shooting and Conservation" has the largest circulation of any shooting magazine in Britain.

Sporting shooting includes wildfowling, game, and rough shooting, deer stalking, target shooting and air gunning, pigeon shooting and pest control, gundogs and promoting practical habitat conservation. BASC is also involved in the political representation of shooting - training and the setting of standards in shooting sports and the Association undertakes research in its area of interest.

BASC began as the Wildfowlers Association of Great Britain and Ireland, (WAGBI) founded by Stanley Duncan, an engineer and gun shop owner from Hull, in 1908. Duncan was a highly experienced wildfowler and naturalist who feared for the future of wildfowling which was under threat from attempts to control the foreshore. He was also concerned to protect coastal habitats to preserve wildfowl and defend shooting from "protectionist" extremists wishing to ban the sport. The first President was Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey, a notable Edwardian shot and author of several books on shooting. Duncan remained the secretary of WAGBI until 1946. Duncan was also a member of the Zoological Society.

For his fowling expeditions Duncan stayed at the Black Hut on Patrington Haven on the Humber. Legend credits this as the place where WAGBI was founded and the hut became iconic to generations of fowlers. The truth is more prosaic. The first WAGBI meeting was held in an hotel in Hull. The Black hut was allegedly washed away by a big tide in 1969 but was more likely destroyed by a digger clearing the site.