As the game shooting season starts in earnest this weekend, leaders of the shooting community are urging their followers to be on their best behaviour – or leave themselves targets for animal rights campaigners.

For the first time in recent years, the major organisations representing shooters have launched a new code for game shooting.

Since the ban on hunting with dogs, the country sports lobby fears game shooting will be next in the sights of the animal welfare campaigners who fought hard for the ban with the Labour Government.

Indeed, the League Against Cruel Sports (LACS) has increased its attention on shooting – particularly around the large-scale shooting estates which form a big part of the rural economy, particularly in Dorset, Wiltshire and Somerset.

The Country Land and Business Association, the British Association for Shooting and Conservation, the National Gamekeepers' Association, the Game Farmers' Association, the Countryside Alliance and the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust, got together to re-write their own industry code in a bid to fend off an expected onslaught from animal welfare groups.

The foreword to the code tells shooters: "We must never be complacent about the future of shooting. Shooting and shoot management practices will be judged by the way participants and providers behave.

"Our sport is under constant and detailed scrutiny and we must demonstrate that we conduct it to high standards.

"The code… brings together these standards and makes them easily available to all who participate."

Simon Hart, chief executive of the Countryside Alliance, said: "The code is a good example of using self-regulation to fend off Government intervention. By its voluntary nature, not all may adhere to it, but over time it has proved an invaluable tool, whether dealing with politicians or supermarkets. It points the shooting community in the right direction.

"The alliance fully supports this industry-wide endorsement for these guidelines."

But those campaigning against shooting said the guide was merely cosmetic.

"The apologists for this barbaric 'sport' attempt to spin the lie that shooting is all about healthy, organic food. This is far from the truth with very few game birds actually making their way onto the dinner table," he said.