RSPB have pheasant shoots in their sights

[roscoe erf]

Piece on farming today this morning rspb to campaign against breed and realease shooting

 

[roscoe erf]

BBC Radio 4 - Farming Today, 29/10/19: RSPB reviews its position on game shooting, 5g drones, heritage potatoes

The RSPB could start campaigning against game shoots, for the first time.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[kfpben]

Ban shooting and watch the wildlife populations crash.

In the law of unintended consequences it would open up our country much better for the hunt ?

 

[Bald Rick]

Problem is that shoots have got greedy and are putting more and more pheasants/ partridge down than ever with no end market
We are not a nation of game eaters and in any case game is not generally available after early February so there is a massive issue in trying to turn that around.

Not anti shooting but I do wonder at the pleasure one gets from having wave after wave of living targets flying overhead. And put down duck are even worse as they circle the flight ponds endlessly

 

[icanshootwell]

Problem is that shoots have got greedy and are putting more and more pheasants/ partridge down than ever with no end market
We are not a nation of game eaters and in any case game is not generally available after early February so there is a massive issue in trying to turn that around.

Not anti shooting but I do wonder at the pleasure one gets from having wave after wave of living targets flying overhead. And put down duck are even worse as they circle the flight ponds endlessly

Some of the large shoots give game shooting a bad name, helicopters, range rovers,money men that no f**k all about the countryside and how it works, paying £50 plus per bird and hitting them a few feet off the ground, I have seen this encouraged by the game keeper to get the no,s up, you get the picture,

The small farming shoots and syndicates on the other hand do lot for wildlife, feed on tap in mid winter for wildlife,take that away and small birds will starve. They also shoot smaller no,s and all the one,s i know, the bag gets used by syndicate members and guests. Nothing gets wasted.

 

[D14]

They don't help themselves though really. I've seen 1500 ducks put onto a pond that was no more than an acre in size. They paddled the crop that surrounded the pond so had to remove half of them a few weeks into the season and then had to compensate the farmer for lost crop. Pretty stupid thing to do and they were all set to do exactly the same thing the following year until the farmer told them no chance and that was the end of that. These shoots seem to be doing what the hunts have done which is start to alienate the farming community because they think they can do what they like.

 

[Dry Rot]

Nothing much changers, though I expect it will. It was the numbers game that helped create the ejector side-by-side shotgun as everyone wanted to shoot more and more birds faster and faster! You can blame the Victorians for that.

I heard the Italians tax game rearing. I don't know whether that is true, but it could be a compromise. That's why they shoot here, or used to.

When I ran shoots for the oil companies, it was all a numbers game. Personnel got their shooting free as the entertainment of foreign nationals was tax deductible. Some days I shot more than all the other guns put together. Partly because the shoot owner wanted decent records (capital and rental values are calculated on numbers) and partly so the punters could brag in the office next day how many they had shot (which wasn't many).

I was quite pleased when the tax regime changed. I had 32 shooting days cancelled in one swell swoop and could then get back to my gundogs in peace! Poorer but happier!

 

[Bald Rick]

Some of the large shoots give game shooting a bad name, helicopters, range rovers,money men that no fudge all about the countryside and how it works, paying £50 plus per bird and hitting them a few feet off the ground, I have seen this encouraged by the game keeper to get the no,s up, you get the picture,

The small farming shoots and syndicates on the other hand do lot for wildlife, feed on tap in mid winter for wildlife,take that away and small birds will starve. They also shoot smaller no,s and all the one,s i know, the bag gets used by syndicate members and guests. Nothing gets wasted.

As I said, I am not anti shooting - used to do quite a bit but now only pick up a gun to frighten starlings.

However, I was told today of a shoot that has put down 120,000 birds and charges £1900/day. Didn't get into the minutiae of bag numbers but if this is becoming more common (& I fear it is), is it any wonder the antis are getting bolder?

 

[Hampton]

As I said, I am not anti shooting - used to do quite a bit but now only pick up a gun to frighten starlings.

However, I was told today of a shoot that has put down 120,000 birds and charges £1900/day. Didn't get into the minutiae of bag numbers but if this is becoming more common (& I fear it is), is it any wonder the antis are getting bolder?

Individual Peg Day | Bettws Hall

Participate on individual peg day shooting at Bettws Hall Game Shooting. A maximum of eight guns in total on an end season at 50 birds per gun.

www.bettwshall.com

 

[Bald Rick]

Individual Peg Day | Bettws Hall

Participate on individual peg day shooting at Bettws Hall Game Shooting. A maximum of eight guns in total on an end season at 50 birds per gun.

www.bettwshall.com

Wasn’t Bettws Hall but this is a shoot (BH) very much in the anti’s ... er ... crosshairs

 

[Hampton]

Wasn’t Bettws Hall but this is a shoot (BH) very much in the anti’s ... er ... crosshairs

Over £3,500 for a gun on a 500 bird day at the Brigands.
I’ve done some big days (although not quite that big) and I can happily say that is way above what I want to shoot and completely unnecessary. However I expect it is a bit like contract farming. Pay big rents, then you have to put big days on to pay for it.

 

[Bald Rick]

Over £3,500 for a gun on a 500 bird day at the Brigands.
I’ve done some big days (although not quite that big) and I can happily say that is way above what I want to shoot and completely unnecessary. However I expect it is a bit like contract farming. Pay big rents, then you have to put big days on to pay for it.

See plenty of pricked birds around Brigands. High birds are generally beyond the competence of a lot of guns who can afford the fee

 

[An Gof]

The big bags are going to ruin the job.
Had our first day out yesterday on a “farm shoot”. We stopped before the last drive as we had already managed 85 in the bag. Everyone had a good day, plenty of shooting and ALL the game was divided and taken by the people present.
On a larger syndicate shoot that I frequent we are looking for max 150 bird days this season.
You can have a great day out at those levels without having to do 300, 400 or above days if your pocket is deep enough. It’s all about the whole day out. Best thing for me yesterday was seeing our young dog retrieving for the first time and having the time of her life; for me that made the day.

 

[An Gof]

See plenty of pricked birds around Brigands. High birds are generally beyond the competence of a lot of guns who can afford the fee

10 gun team that’s £70 per bird ??
Not sure I’ve seen Pheasants that demand that price anywhere. I have had the privilege of shooting where some (very) high birds are shown but none of them have been at that price. If the price reflects the height they are probably out of my range and my ability.

 

[deleted user 837354]

I would rather enjoy the craic, shoot two good birds all day and take them home to eat. The London jetset are a curse to the sport.

 

[DrWazzock]

Shouldn't shoot more than you can eat or deal with. I rarely shoot but am nearly overloaded with people leaving game here. I live on it.

 

[7610 super q]

Wouldn't bother me if it was ended. Big money paid to those with large acreages as per usual, those small fry in between have to put up with butt heads on their property shooting the strays, but get paid f**k all...
Never really seen the point of shooting defenseless birds either. ?‍
Take up a proper sport hunting sharks with rolled up copies of the Guardian instead.

 

[DrWazzock]

We sell them a bit of wheat. The look of horror on their faces when you tell them it's another £50 per ton over bulk to bag it, tells me everything I need to know. The gamekeeper understands as he has been there, but some of the hoities get uppity about it. "Here is the shovel then mate. Bag it yourself." Never had anybody volunteer yet.

 

[Longlowdog]

On the very best keepered shoots bag returns are 55-60% of the birds put down and many part time keepered shoots have returns of half that. That means an awful lot of birds feeding wildlife or wandering off in to other areas. I wonder what the effect would be on buzzards. owls and other raptors if that significant amount of food items was removed at one fell swoop. Also, how many tonnes of grain go towards feeding released birds, how many farmers 'sell' a tidy few tonne to the shoot in exchange for shooting? How many little brown birds will perish when the food is removed from the woods and field fringes?
If the aim is to cripple the shooting industry what will happen to our cherished native partridge? Who will manage our moors for waders as well as grouse? Farms with shoots have habitat set aside for shooting, why would you maintain that if there was no fiscal return or will farm subsidies pay farmers to keeper the area but not shoot, simply having ground that is taken out of production is not the same as keepering? The attention seeking, band wagon jumping RSPB has too many answers to unasked questions and not enough for the questions being asked of them.

 

[Surgery]

See plenty of pricked birds around Brigands. High birds are generally beyond the competence of a lot of guns who can afford the fee

Been four times and paid a fraction of that.