Grouse Shooting Hit By Weather

[TheFamilyCat]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/0 ... s-britain/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

70% of shoots cancelled apparently. Wonder if they just shot peasants instead.

[The Enclosure]

Pheasant shooting doesn't start until the 1st October through to February,as for peasants it is probably open season .lol

[Millertime v1.7]

Very sad hobby for sad old hooray henry's with ZERO talent.

[The Enclosure]

I prefer to drink my grouse.

[oswyclaret]

Thank god for that, at least it will give the peregrines and hen harriers a longer stay of execution.

[JohnMac]

'We're only seeing 90% of the Adult birds we saw in 2017'

Probably because you shot the other 10%

[dougcollins]

Saw a Hen Harrier yesterday, on the moor a couple of miles from home.

[ontario claret]

Good thing those grouse were only hit by weather rather than shotgun pellets
.

[timshorts]

They buy in most of them. Lots of the things are reared initially in France Then imported so that the English gentry can have a nice weekend 'sport'' up in Scotland blowing them away.

Tasty though.

[dougcollins]

Plenty of shooting round here, not just Scotland.

[Colburn_Claret]

Pheasants are bred for shooting, so aren't dependent on good weather.
Grouse numbers are continually going up or down
Normally it's the wet springs/early summer's, that decimate the chicks. The only good side is the shoots have enough sense to cancel the shoots in a bad year.
Hen harrier is a great spot, sadly still persecuted out on the moors. When you consider the increase in Buzzards over the last 25 years, and the rise in Red Kites over the last 10, it's a shame they can't give Harriers the same respect

[dougcollins]

The pair I see seem to be quite lucky/clever, they stay off the managed shooting area. Plenty of grouse there though - and not to say somebody won't clobber them off piste.

[dsr]

Like all bird numbers, and any other animals with a high mortality rate among the young, there is tremendous scope for variability in the numbers. If there are a quarter of a million breeding pairs of red grouse in the country (which there are), that's half a million adult birds who between them will have about one and a half million live chicks. Of those two million birds, in a year with no decline or growth in numbers, by definition one and a half million birds will die. This leaves a steady quarter of a million breeding pairs for next year. About half of million of those dead birds are shot, the other million die of natural causes.

If the estates weren't so intensively managed, the numbers of grouse would be much more variable.

[Cirrus_Minor]

I find it very pitiful that people are prepared to spend a lot of money in order to use a weapon that will quite easily hit a small moorland bird that is not very good at flying just to have the pleasure of killing them.

[ontario claret]

I think bird shooting, in general, would be a much better sport if the birds were allowed to return fire.

[Likeavydra]

r u a pheasant plucker?

[ontario claret]

A pleasant what? Actually, I come from a long line of non-gun owners, fairly rare in rural Ontario. Two things my grandfather never allowed in his house: guns and booze.

[ontario claret]

Two things the tweedy set love: drinking expensive alcohol and killing small, defenceless animals. I personally never got the connection.

[ontario claret]

likeavydra, you rascal, you. The jig's up. Your true identity has been revealed. Surprised you didn't respond when I mentioned Nova Scotia.

[ontario claret]

By the way, you should have chosen "Likeahydra" as a handle. You know. Ugly and slimy.

[dsr]

I find it very pitiful that people are prepared to spend a lot of money in order to use a weapon that will quite easily hit a small moorland bird that is not very good at flying just to have the pleasure of killing them.

I find it pretty pointless too. It doesn't appeal at all. But since well over a billion birds are going to die in this country in any given year, and many of them will die far more unpleasant deaths than this, then I can't find it in myself to be bothered. Let the rich pay spend their money that way, if they're so minded. At least it keeps the cash swilling round in the UK, not sitting in a Caribbean bank account.

[tim_noone]

Two things the tweedy set love: drinking expensive alcohol and killing small, defenceless animals. I personally never got the connection.

And in Alaska the ptarmigan makes for a good pet....Saxo was outed yesterday

[ontario claret]

The shmoo, as invented and drawn by Al Capp, was the best pet ever. And who outed Saxo? My kudos to them.

[Likeavydra]

who saxo?

[ontario claret]

Not who, what? Like some kind of inanimate object. Who outed you, and what rock were you hiding under?

[ontario claret]

Did you see my post about the Trailer Park Boys? They came from Nova Scotia, y'know, just like your grandfather.

[houseboy]

r u a pheasant plucker?

No I'm a pheasant plucker's son and I'm only plucking pheasants till the pheasant plucker comes.
Strange - that's so much easier to write than say.

[Hendrickxz]

I think bird shooting, in general, would be a much better sport if the birds were allowed to return fire.

Like that roo in one of the Croc Dundee films. One of those moments you know is coming, but is till hilarious every single time (well, I like it!)

[claretonthecoast1882]

Everyone loves a game bird

[Damo]

Shooting peasants is frowned upon these days. Political correctness gone mad if you ask me

[Ooogeorgeorgeoghani]

Very sad hobby for sad old hooray henry's with ZERO talent.

Have you ever tried shooting a grouse , I haven't but the clay birds are hard enough to hit so I would imagine a certain amount of talent is required ! It's a sport regardless of whether we agree with it or not , pheasant shooting can be done quite cheaply so it's not always the hooray henrys you would expect to be doing it!

[Millertime v1.7]

The old fat guys who partake in this pastime actually shoot the grouse when they are stationary on the ground. We have a guy on our forum called Parkiife who is into this sort of shite. Honestly, the guy is an absolute plank!

[ontario claret]

Peasants are easier to bag if you just 'wing' them first. Stalin always found that to be true during his pograms. They'll try to escape, but you can always track them down.

[ontario claret]

Shooting gamebirds is a lot like that TV series 'Swamp People'. No matter how you dress it, you're just making sport out slaughtering the defenceless. Hanging chicken parts from trees with huge baited hooks is the next thing to shooting fish in a barrel, even if you continually refer to the gators as "monsters". The real monsters are in the boats.

[fatboy47]

I knew one sick old sod in Somerset who actually admitted (after a few gins) that when they got a fox cornered and the hounds piled in, he actually got a stalk on. Shame the other 99% aren't as honest.