Shooting on course for a strong season
After a game shooting season badly hit by the pandemic, Westcountry shoots are gearing up for a better autumn and winter. Philip Bowern reports
AYEAR ago, as coronavirus continued to devastate so much of normal life, game shoots across the Westcountry, responsible for millions of pounds worth of rural spend and hundreds of countryside jobs, were faced with a tricky dilemma.
Bookings for days in the field were down but staff on professionally keepered shoots still had to be paid, poults ordered and preparation work for the season needed to continue. In the event uncertainty, cancelled days and successive lockdowns took their toll; many shoots lost significant sums of money in a stop-start shooting season.
This year, however, reports from the sporting press suggest the prospects are much brighter. Not only has the vaccination programme improved the confidence of those who last year were nervous of making plans, but the pent-up demand for traditional pastimes curtailed for many months looks set to return. Bookings are up, deposits are being paid and syndicates are receiving their cheques from members in readiness for September and the main season’s start.
Against that background, however, game shooting is facing challenges on a number of fronts, from the likely ban on the use of lead shot in the coming years – addressed by the shooting community who have promised a voluntary phasing-out of toxic shot – to the pressure from antishooting interests who have found new sympathetic voices in high places, including the Prime Minister’s fiancée, Carrie Symonds.
So what is shooting doing to fight back? The Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust, respected across the sport and more widely for its science-led approach to defending shooting and its conservation benefits, has recently appointed a game and wildlife advisor in Alex Keeble.
On the GWCT website, he points out that science – the primary means by which the Government persuaded people to follow its advice in battling coronavirus – must be used to also
‘We must use scientific evidence to convey the benefits of managing land for shooting’ ALEX KEEBLE, GWCT
make the case for the benefits and value of managing land for shooting.
“We must use scientific evidence to convey to the general public the increased benefit to flora and fauna that occurs when managing land for game well,” he writes.
For shooting to have a strong future, Alex said he believes that wider engagement is also essential. Some in shooting have, in the past taken the approach that it was better to avoid engaging on country sports for fear for being criticised by those who lack understanding.
But Alex disagrees and, in an age of social media where celebrities can make persuasive points on all sorts of subjects and quickly build a head of steam, he says it is vital to get the positive message out.
He writes: “As a gamekeeper, I have always tried to engage with the public and explain what I am doing and how it is benefiting wildlife. I think the game management community can do more to highlight the benefits of the sport and its positive by-products for biodiversity.”
The work of the GWCT includes managing a game shoot and farm for the benefit of wildlife, monitoring the population of woodcock in the UK, where numbers have come under pressure and working to improve the habitat for threatened waders like curlew, showing that they can thrive on keepered land managed for shooting game birds.
The Big Farmland Bird Count, organised annually by the GWCT, with the support of farmers and the National Farmers’ Union, helps to prove that land managed for shooting, where winter feeding spans the “hungry gap” for farmland birds and predator control protects vulnerable ground-nesting species, generally supports good populations of species often struggling elsewhere.
That’s a message Alex is keen to continue to put across. He said: “My aim is to use my previous experience as a full-time gamekeeper to positively engage with gamekeepers, land managers and farmers to promote the Code of Good Shooting Practice.
“My role will include keeping estate staff up to date with regular training and updates on changes in legislation, along with offering advice on how improvements can be made to the shoot to benefit both game and wildlife.”
Meanwhile the shoot owners in world-renowned areas of pheasant shooting, which include parts of Devon, Cornwall and Somerset, are hoping that the 2020-21 season was a one-off, not to be repeated and that with coronavirus in retreat and shooting folk desperate to get back into the field, the coming season will prove to be a good one.