fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #3258 ]

⌈ Secret Post #3258 ⌋

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I'm not talking about walk up grouse shooting, and not talking about banning bird shooting outright, just driven grouse.

They have to strip burn the heather every year, degrading the natural peat and causing run off flash flooding as well as increasing carbon emissions. The grouse are medicated to the point of medication toxicity in some of them and encouraging parasite resistance to the medications which are used in other livestock, and to keep up grouse numbers to the level required for a driven shoot the game keepers must kill all birds of prey, including some very rare ones, on and around the grouse moor:- not just on the grouse keeper's own lands but also trespassing onto other people's land in order to kill birds of prey there too, as born out by the Langholm-2 Study. Plus the moors have to have access roads carved into them and high fences to keep deer away from grouse chicks and from browsing on the heather the grouse needs to keep the numbers up enough for a shoot. This turns the countryside into a grid patterned wire fenced scheme more suitable for an industrial estate.

Then there is the driven grouse shoot itself, one head keeper makes a little over minimum wage and the beaters are either volunteers or "self-employed" at sub-minimum wage rates who try to drive adolescent grouse into a terror and have them fly slightly in front of some very drunk city gents who blaze away at them as if it were a computer game. For every grouse shot, at least another ten are needed to surround them in order that there be sufficient density to even give the shooters a chance at hitting them. Many will be wounded or exhausted and just die on the ground, without being salvaged by the shooters. The bodies are actually quite toxic to eat, see the medication issue above, but can make their way into the foodchain as a gamebird risking public health. The others are gathered by keepers and used as poison bait for birds of prey and other wildlife.

On top of all that, the estates which conduct driven grouse shooting are given huge subsidies in the hundreds of thousands of pounds per annum range to continue this sport because it is considered countryside management even though it degrades the biodiversity of the land, and are owned by multimillionaires (many of whom sit in the Commons and Lords) already.

Despite all the effort, grouse numbers are still declining, the land itself is degrading and crumbling, and the estates struggling to survive.

Is it time to just ban driven grouse shooting and direct the money instead to more positive ecological restoration projects? I think it is, what do you think?

It certainly is time to ban it, and UK residents can sign the petition here:
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/104441

That sounds like one of the most invasive, destructive, and *self* destructive forms of 'sport' ever. Jayzus. It needs to go.

It doesn't even achieve anything in terms of technical ability that cannot be achieved with clay pigeon shooting either. The beaters are regimented so carefully that you might as well shout "loose" to get the grouse to fly. Even the duck hunt arcade game has a higher technical skill level than driven grouse shooting. At least with walk up grouse shooting there is a level of technical skill, tracking, game identification, and randomness within it, driven grouse has none of those. It is bird shooting on easy mode.

I can't begin to imagine what the point would be, or how anyone could enjoy that, particularly considering all the work and damage...sheesh.

It is a form of conspicuous consumption by the UK moneyed classes. They engage in it, and buy grouse moors, to show that they have money in amounts large enough for them to waste by doing so. Then the government gives them extra money in the form of land subsidies to do so too, and the government also has to pay for extra infrastructure in flood prone regions at the foot of grouse moors too. I do not understand it myself, but the government pays money to people who already have massive amounts to show they have massive amounts, and then has to pay again to fix some of the effects the industry has on national infrastructure.

Well, it's nice to know that the US govt. isn't alone in it's grotesque symbiosis with the filthy rich......

[ SECRET POST #3258 ]

Is the driven grouse industry worth saving?

Re: Is the driven grouse industry worth saving?

Re: Is the driven grouse industry worth saving?

Re: Is the driven grouse industry worth saving?

Re: Is the driven grouse industry worth saving?

Re: Is the driven grouse industry worth saving?

Re: Is the driven grouse industry worth saving?