What The Gamekeepers Say: Part Three.

Following on from yesterday’s post we are publishing the views of another ex-gamekeeper. Once again we have made some minor edits to the language and punctuation but the essence of what he has to say has not been altered.

What people who don’t know the countryside miss is that driven grouse shooting is the only business in many areas. It brings in a lot of money for local hotels and shops and provides a lot of jobs. Sometimes the only jobs.

The people who pay to shoot are mostly city folk with plenty of cash. Mostly they aren’t particularly fit and they don’t have a lot of time so they expect to be driven to their pegs and be well fed and entertained while they are at the shoot. They don’t come to shoot one or two birds they want large numbers. Estates are in constant competition with each other and those that can’t produce those big numbers don’t get the bookings and fail.

To produce good numbers of birds to shoot requires huge effort on the part of the keepers all year round. If numbers are poor jobs are at risk. A head keeper who doesn’t make the numbers will lose his job and he won’t put up with slacking by his under keepers when his job is at stake.

To keep the numbers of birds high muirburn, drainage and regular predator control are essential. Tracks need to be cut to make easy access for keepers year round and to get the shooters to the pegs. It is also important to make sure that access is restricted so that no one interferes with the day to day workings of the estate and of course the shoot itself.

Wildlife is lovely but watching it doesn’t pay the bills. Some predators like foxes, stoats and weasels can be controlled but the protection given to badgers and otters is a real problem. No one is going to stand by and watch them destroy years of hard work and risk losing their job because of it.

Mammals are fairly easy to control but raptors are much more difficult. Fences don’t stop them and they fly in and start taking your birds. Hen Harriers will even nest on the moor and then you have a real problem. Town people don’t understand that predators destroy people’s livings. The government needs to take notice of this and remove the protection given to these vermin.

There are far too many badgers and they create real problems in the countryside. As well as the diseases they spread they dig up the ground, take eggs and chicks and damage fences. They are protected to stop baiting which is fair enough but their numbers need to be controlled with regular culling to bring them down to decent levels and eliminated totally on shooting ground.

Raptors also need to be controlled when they are a risk to game shooting. No one would allow an eagle to attack children in a school yard in a town so why should they be allowed to destroy valuable stock in the countryside? Town livers just don’t understand how the countryside works.

Walkers and birdwatchers don’t bring in money. They just block entrances with their cars and wonder around leaving gates open, dumping rubbish, interfering with traps and disturbing the birds.

To have a decent countryside it needs to be properly managed as it has been for years without interference from people who only understand town life. We want to live in the real countryside not a museum that people from towns can visit when they feel like a day out.

There need to be changes to the laws protecting predators so that they can be controlled on shooting estates and people need to understand that this is not their land and they can’t just wander where they like. How would people in towns like it if everyone had a right to roam in their gardens?  

Country management and country laws should be left to countrymen.