Pheasant shooters need to hold their fire
sir – Pheasant shooting is a longstanding and accepted part of country life – but not when the number of birds put down for the season reaches obscene levels.
Landowners and shoot managers are under increasing pressure from paying “guns” seeking more and more birds, to the point where even a modestly sized local shoot will put down young birds in tens of thousands at the start of the season.
A decade ago, country people used to participate in rough shoots hosted by farmers, and all those involved – guns, beaters, pickeruppers – were happy to take home a brace, with the few remaining birds sold through local butchers.
Today butchers cannot take all the birds that are being shot, and so the carcasses are buried in pits. This simply has to stop, and guns have to come to terms with the fact that it is the quality and not the number of birds they shoot that really matters. Richard Mockett
Midhurst, West Sussex