GROUSE GEESE AND THE ANTARCTIC LINK
A delightful historic quirk.
A delightful historic quirk. KOBUS DE KOCK
Ihad absolutely no chance of getting anywhere with history at school. One would’ve thought that the right thing to do would be to welcome your new and impressionable students with an exciting lecture. Something like what John Keating (played by Robin Williams) in Dead Poets Society did, ripping out the introductory chapter of their poetry manual – now that’s teaching!
But on my first day in standard 6 (I was never in grade 8), I slammed into a history brick wall and summarily decided this was the end of the line for me. The slob of a teacher sat behind his desk and slowly read from the book – smacking his lips between every sentence – murdering a subject that should get a young boy dreamily lost in the exploits of famous adventurers and explorers. But instead of getting us hooked on polar exploration and Scott and Wilson dying in the snow, or cannibalism on the high seas following the sinking of the Essex, by a whale, I fell off the bus between the Phoenicians and hieroglyphics and never got back on again. Somehow, I missed the first day’s homework assignment and was given the task of writing out the paragraph on the Phoenicians and their hieroglyphics 25 times.
This was sheer murder for a young boy – pull him over a desk and give him five of the best – but writing out for a kid that flunked skoonskrif in standard 1 wasn’t fair. I hated history and that teacher with a passion.
GROUSE IN BRITAIN
Grouse shooting is of huge economic importance to Britain. The sport annually attracts thousands of well-heeled sportsmen to the moors of Scotland and the north of England. In years gone by, prodigious numbers were bagged.
To quote but two instances: “On August the 30th of 1888, Lord Walsingham killed 1 070 grouse by his gun alone.” And, “On the 12th of August in 1915 on the Littledale and Abbeydale moors in Lancashire (grouse season traditionally opens on the 12th of August when sportsmen go bonkers to be the first to have a grouse cooked in certain restaurants) eight guns killed 2 929 grouse.” Such slaughter will hardly be condoned today, but many shoots still comfortably offer 100 plus brace days.
Grouse are mainly shot in two different ways. You can either stand in an ancient stonewalled and moss-covered butt, waiting for the beaters to push the grouse up the valleys past your stand. Apparently, they fly incredibly fast, and as a novice you are bound to miss the first batch that will be past you before you even realise it.
I’ve never experienced it, but I presume it must be something like shooting homeward-bound rockies at Phisantekraal, especially if they are helped from behind by a storm-strength tailwind. A rock pigeon can outfly a peregrine in level flight; it’s only when stooping from a great height that a peregrine can catch them. Now there cannot be many birds faster than that! Oupa Jasper always claimed that his clients mostly averaged one bird for every eight shots.
Not that Lord Ripon (claimed to be one of the best shots the world has ever known) missed many. On the Dallowgill moor of his 24 000-acre Studley Royal Estate, he spent his last day shooting grouse at a butt called Tom Corner. By then, Lord Ripon was 71 years old and still shooting like a sharp-eyed young man with super-fast reflexes. He had already killed 51 grouse when a snipe came over his stand. He missed with both barrels from his first gun but killed it with the first shot of his second gun. He then had a seizure, fell down and died. Fancy a snipe doing that to you!
Or you can shoot grouse over pointers and I presume over a pair of well-trained spaniels. The latter would be my wish of course. Although not as historically significant as doing it from an ancient butt, but still with the potential of that all-important grouse feather able to grace my cap. And it would be a little more affordable. »
»Today, this multi-million-pound industry, based on this uniquely British bird, is superbly well-managed. Initially, they described the red grouse as the only uniquely British bird, but my book says they now think it is a subspecies of the circumpolar willow grouse. The red grouse does not turn white in the winter nor has white primaries in summer. Lagopus lagopus scoticus – sounds like something of the Scotchman in there.
HABITAT MANAGEMENT IS KEY
Unlike pheasant and partridges, numbers cannot be supplemented by artificial breeding. Habitat management is the key. So, when numbers started fluctuating in the late 1880s, in some years dwindling to economically marginal levels, moor owners and gamekeepers were justifiably concerned, and huge efforts were launched to get to the bottom of the problem.
An Agricultural Commission for the Investigation of Grouse Diseases was formed. Initial research approached the problem on a very wide basis, looking at it from as many different angles as possible. Gamekeepers were convinced that in certain years the grouse were killed off in great numbers by an epidemic disease, the birds dying off quickly and in good condition. One of the earlier researchers, a Professor Klein, initially confirmed this when he found bacillus bacteria in the lungs of dead birds. The “problem” was subsequently known as Klein’s disease.
However, the true cause was only discovered when a Dr Edward Wilson was appointed as Field Observer. The Grouse Commission felt they needed a field naturalist who was also a bacteriologist and a doctor. Wilson fitted that description perfectly. A medical doctor on Scott’s first Antarctic expedition, Wilson was a dedicated naturalist and brilliant artist. Extremely hard-working, energetic, and devoted to the task, Wilson, during the years 1905 to 1910, dissected in the region of 2 000 grouse and made minute observations on the physical and pathological condition of every bird sent to him.
Wilson one day dissected a brace of birds sent to him by a benefactor. On enquiry after he found nothing wrong, he learned he had accidentally dissected two birds meant for his table!
Minute colonies of pernicious nematodes were found in the dewdrops or moisture condensed from mists at the ends of young heather shoots on which the grouse feed. Today they are known as strongyle worms, Trichostrongylus tenuis. The ingested nematodes would find their way into the caeca of the grouse, destroy the inner lining which absorbs their food, and thus bring about the death of weaker individuals.
MANAGETHELAND!
Today we know that grouse numbers are not controlled by a single parasite alone. A holistic approach of managing goodquality heather is the key. Correct patch-burning is quoted as 80 % of moor management (very similar to burning fynbos down here in the Western Cape – get rid of the old, dense, and moribund stuff at the right frequency, and you can expect beautiful veld).
The young heather shoots are vital for the nutrition of the brooding hens. Only then can the keeper look at other factors such as vermin control, the supply of grit (grouse need approximately 35 grams of grit per month to aid with the digestion of the fibrous heather shoots) and draining waterlogged areas.
Edward Wilson, however, never saw the culmination of his work. The report by the Grouse Commission was published in 1911. Wilson died on the 29th March 1912 as part of Captain Robert Falcon Scott’s second Antarctic expedition. He was the chief scientist, zoologist and medical doctor to the expedition that reached the pole on the 17th January 1912. He died with Scott and three others (Bowers, Oates, and Evans) on their way back to their base at McMurdo Sound. »