I’d wager egg collectors do more damage to bird populations than do gamekeepers.

Maybe you’re right but neither of them is helping and both should be prosecuted for their selfish motives, although you could argue many gamekeepers are just doing someone else’s bidding.

@cokie I have never been on a shoot either as a beater when a teenager or with working dogs as anpicker or as a gun where the bag is anything like &0 birds a gun, not even half of that – more like a quarter max. Its very very poor form to shoot any bird from close range, its very much frowned upon and the shoot master would not allow a gun to continue if they where shooting birds at 10ft. That’s my experience

we went for a scramble up kinder on Sunday.

The National Trust have planted thousands of trees*, and blocked lots of little streams.

All good stuff: bio diversity, flood prevention, restoration of woodland and bogs, and i doubt anyone had to shoot or poison anything.

Couple that with the NT’s decision to stop Grouse Shooting on their land in the Peak, and i’m a very happy member.

linky dink.

(*some already big/sturdy enough to offer the struggling scrambler a little purchase)

Couple that with the NT’s decision to stop Grouse Shooting on their land in the Peak, and i’m a very happy member.

From page 1:

The lease isn’t pulled yet: the NT have said it will stop at the half-way review point in April next year. Their tenants are expected to understand this (a big read)…

https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/kinder-edale-and-the-dark-peak/documents/the-high-peak-moors-vision.pdf

Just to add a bit of balance, I went beating when I was 18, three weeks up the back of Comrie. Only two of weeks were actual beating with the middle given over to maintenance (laying grit pits for the grouse) as the season was bad. Last season up there for a few years till I gave up asking.

Spotted a fair amount of predators, none of which the keeper seemed remotely bothered about. In fact he was keen to point them out and seemed happy to see them, I think someone asked about persecution and he didnt have much good to say about those that practice it.

So like everything there are those that bring the entire thing into disrepute.

Oh, and 80 a bag? LMAO, we would have been lucky to pull an eigth of that off the hill in a day. Our grouse were smart and flew low, usually over our heads back where we came from…

Just on the these numbers about bird to gun ratio it was me that made the original claim from memory, frankly reading an advert that was using language unfamiliar to me, so I could’ve been wrong. I can spot a £ so though so clearly remember it was £1400+VAT (which makes me think it’s corporate or invariably not done by an ‘individual’). So I win a fiver for answering the OP’s question 😉

This explains a significant portion of the motivation of the “anti-s”, good old class warfare innit

I couldn’t give a toss about the sport itself (similarly fox hunting) but I do think there is mounting evidence of management of moors for shooting having a significant impact on hydrology and runoff to the detriment (and cost) of those living downstream and the authorities attempting to manage flooding.

I’m also sure there are areas where the impact is minimal.

I will go driven grouse shooting sometime in the future, I’ll have to be better off than I am now though……

Why do I want to go – it’s bloody difficult, takes a LOT of skill, birds flying not far above your head at lighting speed. I shoot already, though not particularly succesfully, I enjoy it, and would like to eat some grouse.

I get my butler to organise it, so I’ll ring for him now…

I used to love rough shooting (for the pot*) with a couple of mates and dogs but struggle with the whole driven version. Too much like ritual slaughter to me, but each to their own.

* at Uni we found an estate where the owner provided us with cartridges and gave us full freedom to shoot as many pigeon and rabbits as we could. No game though. We were not efficient as only shot enough to eat, but it was great countryside and challenge. We lived in pigeon breast and rabbit for a whole term!

But I have lost the taste for shooting these days…ditto fishing. Even have veggie weeks now and again 😉

Whole ships and planes go missing in the Bermuda Triangle, perhaps that’s down to gamekeepers as well?
There may well be no smoke without fire, but who needs evidence in things like this?
But you see, thats what happens – in the absence of any evidence, there is always ‘really only one explanation’…

Bermuda Triangle as a comparison, really?

It is surely no coincidence that the overwhelming majority of satellite-tagged birds of prey that have disappeared in Scotland have been in areas intensively managed for gamebird shooting and in areas that have an appalling previous record of confirmed incidents of raptor persecution. These eight birds have all disappeared in an area where driven grouse moor management dominates the landscape, and where there have been many previous cases of illegal killing of protected raptors, including the poisoning of a golden eagle and a white-tailed eagle as recently as 2010

Funny how in England satellite tagged Hen Harrier tend to disappear under similar circumstances. Tags that mainly seem to stop transmitting and disappear when strapped to game keeper persecuted birds.

scuttler – Member
Just on the these numbers about bird to gun ratio it was me that made the original claim from memory, frankly reading an advert that was using language unfamiliar to me, so I could’ve been wrong. I can spot a £ so though so clearly remember it was £1400+VAT (which makes me think it’s corporate or invariably not done by an ‘individual’). So I win a fiver for answering the OP’s question

I know quite a few individuals who pay an awful lot more than that for a days shooting. When you’ve spent £55k on a Holland and Holland you need somewhere to show it off!

I can’t say I’m a huge fan of Monbiot, but I’ll post this.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/aug/16/grouse-shooters-kill-first-casualty-is-truth-astroturfing-botham-rspb-packham

Don’t forget the deadly windmills, which aren’t actually there, yet…

Non existent windfarms blamed for ‘disappearing’ eagles in Monadhliaths

at Uni we found an estate where the owner provided us with cartridges and gave us full freedom to shoot as many pigeon and rabbits as we could. No game though. We were not efficient as only shot enough to eat, but it was great countryside and challenge. We lived in pigeon breast and rabbit for a whole term!

I think you’re confusing your own life with a plotline from Brideshead Revisited, old bean 😉

at my uni we kept a BB gun to threaten scrotes. And also gaffa taped the letterbox down so they couldn’t put fireworks through it. They set fire to our car instead. And the house next door

Scotland is a very civilised place to live and study doris!! It did have strong Brideshead aspects to it admittedly. The British Field Sports Scoeity had more student members than the NUS and the protest against cutting grants mustered about 5 people 😉

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-37107652

Another one gone missing, 8 seems to be more that you can put down to a coincidence.

Evidently it’s down to windfarms, that haven’t been built yet…

Non existent windfarms blamed for ‘disappearing’ eagles in Monadhliaths

Funny how the ‘Bermuda Triangles’ for satellite tagged birds only occur over grouse moors…

Funny how the ‘Bermuda triangles’ for satellite tagged birds only occur over grouse moors…

Literally just read your post and then saw this appear on Twitter: http://www.chrispackham.co.uk/news/rspb-news-release

Very sad that this is happening and that some people are pathetic enough to turn a blind eye just so they can shoot some birds.

Is it coincidence that NInfan is a brexiter and obviously experts are claiming that grouse moors and their management are causing issues????

experts

Do all ‘experts’ have the same opinion, or are the ones you choose to listen to all coincidentally members of LACS like Avery?

Chickens pheasants, pheasants chickens if only we could find an expert who knows the difference

Natural England seemed to know the difference: http://tinyurl.com/zo6aph7

Dunno about pheasants and chickens but I know weasels are weasily recognised and stoats are stoatally different.

All your bluff and bluster and you still can’t back up your lie, you truly are pitiful.