Shooting Times & Country Magazine
Upland keeper
Grouse moors and their indigenous inhabitants have shown worrying signs of disease this season – a wrong that we can help to rectify
Amonth is a long time in the life of a grouse. In fact, in many cases its a high proportion of its life. That is indeed the case this year, for as soon as my piece last month was winging its way down the internet highway I began to get some rather worrying calls regarding the deaths of numerous chicks. It would seem to be especially prevalent on the lower, drier, easterly moors, and may well be the result of the driest spell of weather we have had in living memory for the time of year, coupled with some pretty grim heather conditions. The heather had taken quite a hit with six or more weeks of north to easterly winds, drying the plant out and severely browning the new growth. To be honest, some heather was as poor in the first week of June as I would expect at the end of April.
Chicks that have been sent for examination have, in the main, been found to have been considerably underweight for their age, as well as dehydrated. Those two factors are perhaps not surprising but I also understand that some of them had ‘cocci’. This is in many respects a far more worrying thing in that it is indicative of polluted ground.
Drinker contamination
A number of keepers have been putting out water for the grouse along moorland tracks and while there is no doubt it will have given many a bird a drink I do wonder just what else it might have given them. A well-respected keeper, who also runs a sound game farm, once told me the worst place to spread any disease throughout the unit were the drinkers. Every contaminated bird is liable to leave a trace of whatever is going in the water and every one that drinks thereafter is liable to get it.
Cocci is a product of too much stock on the ground for too long, and the fact that the use of medicated grit has enabled keepers to do just that for a decade or so may now just be coming home to roost. In the bad, or perhaps good, old days, we were never in that position, for as soon as grouse stocks built for a few years, perhaps four or five, they crashed due to strongyle worms. The moor got a break from any density of birds and the cycle started all over again. But anything else, disease-wise, that might have been brewing simply never got the chance to show itself in the birds. Cocci is written about in many of the old game management books, and was evident at times on the grey partridge manors as well as in wild pheasant stocks.
It should be noted neither of those two species has anything to do with cocci in grouse as every species has its own strain of cocci. This includes sheep, pigs, cattle, black grouse. Each one is specific to the species, so those moorland keepers who think pheasants or partridges are polluting their moor with disease are simply misguided.
Although cocci is perfectly treatable in a closed environment there is, however, only one thing that will put an end to it out in an open landscape, and that is a break in the density of birds for a year or so. If what I hear about some areas this year is true,
“It should be a salutary lesson regarding how and who you invite into vulnerable areas”
they may get it, a break that is, but it will leave little to nothing to shoot this season. The situation on the higher, wetter moors would appear to date to be rather better.
Like many others in the countryside, I have been pretty appalled by the behaviour of a percentage of the urban population who poured out of the towns into rural areas and used, or abused them, as they would a pop concert site. It was from the south coast to Scotland. People who, by their behaviour and that of their dogs, were not our usual visitors. The damage, abuse, litter, was there for all to see – except, it would seem, to those who were the culprits. I can only presume that, to them, what they left behind is the norm. It is a sad reflection of how some see the countryside, and a worrying one if it was to become a regular occurrence. A place to be trashed as they do many others. For those who seek more access for all it should be a salutary lesson regarding who you invite into vulnerable areas with equally vulnerable species trying to breed there. Given the record number of harriers breeding on the grouse moors this year it’s just as well some of the worst offenders never got near them.
America may have got many things wrong but you cannot step off a designated path in some of its parks due to the damage it may cause, and some of its parks are very large indeed.