MONEY WELL SPENT

Charles Harris [Letters, June issue] raises a pertinent point about the cost of actually pulling the trigger. Manchester United supporters likewise question why Alexis Sanchez is paid more than £300,000 every week to score

a rare goal. But his conclusion that the cost is related to the brief exhilaration of crumpling that high bird amongst agreeable friends and retirees with little else to do is a surely wide of the mark.

Granted, there are a few commercial shoots but the vast majority are run for fun and hopefully cover their expenditure. Is there any shoot owner, organiser or captain who doesn’t manage his or her shoot with thoughts about the countryside and conservation near the top of the agenda? Running a grouse moor is the classic example. A single keepered moor will cost £60,000 annually, all of which will be spent on managing the habitat and the heather. In some years not a shot will be fired but large numbers of upland waders and other birds thrive, as well as the benefits to peatland, water quality, carbon capture and the inquisitive rambler. The pheasant shoot may have to buy in birds but habitat management is still a significant expense.

I rather suspect that if Charles asks his retiree friend what he does while standing in the line waiting for an occasional shot, he will be watching a hare, a lapwing, perchance an increasingly rare curlew, or musing about a travelling woodcock. That friend may on second thoughts proffer the thought, “Well, I am retired, but what better way to spend my pension than on maintaining the countryside that I dreamed about while sat at an office desk.”

Richard May

Sutton, Macclesfield