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| An Edith Pritchett cartoon for Private Eye |
Well the soap box again. I sign a lot of stuff as you can well imagine, no apologies there but this morning I was informed by email that 'Wild Justice' had raised the 100,000 signatures for their Ban to stop Driven Grouse Shooting. That means it goes before parliament for discussion
On the North Yorkshire moors there are grouse butts, in which our fine shooting gentleman and probably a few women stand behind whilst the poor hapless birds are driven towards them for killing. And as an aside the moors are burnt of the old heather for that reason as well.
Killing birds is a pastime for some, a holiday experience for others. A shocking figure, there are 50 million pheasants raised in this country. You probably think they are indigenous, they are not but they are a pleasant sight in the countryside. 37 million of the birds survive but of course probably die quickly, they are an ecological imbalance.
There are times when out on a walk we used to find hidden in the woods an enclosure where the birds were reared before release for the annual kill.
Grouse stay close to my heart as occasionally you would spy them up on the moor and one experience never to be forgotten was a grouse with a little trail of baby grouse crossing the old lane off the moors at Wheeldale. And of course Ted Hughes catches the mood beautifully in his poem.
There is also an interesting blog on why Private Eye refused to use the cartoon a second and third time.
We have pheasant shooting around here and I’ve grown to dislike it. The guns, the 4x4 vehicles, the mass slaughter of birds raised for a day of ‘entertaining sport’. And as we know most get away and then prowl my garden throughout the spring nipping off the flower heads of my fritillaries, hellebores, crocus and daffodils. Some even lay a clutch of eggs in the most silly of places in the garden. I’ve signed the petition. And thank you for the poem by Ted Hughes. I have a massive and heavy rectangular ironstone platter made by Wedgewood that features the design Asiatic Pheasant. I bought it from a jumble sale organised by one of our local churches to raise money for a worthy cause or other. It sits on top of a Victorian pine chest of drawers corralling my spinning accessories. I used to buy the odd pheasant to roast and eat, but the meat is dry and tough and fiddly and nowadays I prefer to make and eat venison casserole with locally culled venison. If the guns turned their hands to shooting deer that would be more beneficial to the ecology. Any fool can shoot a pheasant as once disturbed by the beaters they fly awkwardly and almost vertically upwards squawking their presence. Sarah x
ReplyDeleteHello Sarah, apparently at a rough count there is supposed to be two million deer in Britain, a million of them being in Scotland though, so yes we could eat them, there is plenty to go around. Your tale of the pheasants eating the tops of flowers made me smile. In Bath people were always complaining about the deer eating their roses. I suspect the flowers were great delicacies. But you are right about the silliness of shooting pheasants. A very easy shot of a slow bird.
DeleteI get the point re pheasant shooting, but I would suggest that managing the grouse moors has actually preserved these birds and their habitat?
ReplyDeleteYes that is true Will, the burning of old heather encourages the new shoots for the grouse to eat. But there is a lot wrong with the shooting of game birds, also the killing of raptors for instance.
DeleteThere is also the appalling slaughter of mountain hares who compete with the grouse for food.
DeleteI never knew that. Gamekeepers have a lot to answer to, as do their masters.
DeleteSounds awful.
ReplyDeletePheasants are quite exotic looking birds Ellen, they look out of place in the countryside but they do not deserve the fate they get.
Deletethere's some that believe that the countryside wouldn't be quite so beautiful without "management".... but perhaps we could manage it for eco tourism rather than bloodsports? Just happens that a lot of the "managers are into bloodsport.... so we've a way to go.....
ReplyDeleteIt is good that land is managed, at least the land which is not farmed and goes under the name of National Parks with all their restrictions. Though public versus private occasionally clash. Actually I quite like the term Stewardship of land, we all have that duty to protect it and the birds, beasts and flora that is part of it.
ReplyDelete