Shooting Times & Country Magazine
Serious matters
No one is profiteering in the current situation
Iwas talking to a shoot manager about the season so far.“obviously,” she said — and if you’re surprised that she was a she, then get with the programme — “I couldn’t get our usual partridges, but we caught up enough hen birds to fill our incubators. So we are having a season, though it’s a bit different.”
After one season mostly cancelled and a second largely disrupted by Covid restrictions, the bird flu outbreaks in
France — where the bulk of partridges for early season game shooting in this country are sourced — have meant that many shoots have been obliged to curtail sharply their programmes for the third season in succession. For some, perhaps many, it has been the final straw. Anecdotal reports have been filtering in of shoots, large and small, calling it quits.
Strained relationships
You might think that, under the circumstances, those domestically based game farmers with young birds available — whether they were partridges or whether they were pheasants to replace the partridges which could not be imported — would be making out like bandits, but that has not been the case.
“I have produced the same number of birds as a normal year,” said one I spoke to. “Normal, that is, in the context of the reduced demand of the past two seasons. But how should I allocate those birds among my customers given the current levels of demand? Do I put my biggest clients first? Or those who have been with us longest? Or do I just divide my stock equally between them all?
“I’ve been offered silly money, of course, but grabbing the cash is no way to run a business long term. Although, not knowing how close to the edge many of my regular customers might be does make those offers even more attractive. Don’t forget that my costs — rent, water, electricity, gas, fuel, feed and wages — have all gone nuts, but if I increase my prices I’m accused of profiteering, whereas, in actual fact, I’m barely covering my costs.”
All across the board, relationships built up over years — perhaps decades or even generations — between visiting Guns and shoot managers, agents and intermediaries, proprietors and suppliers have been strained up to, and in some cases beyond, breaking point. I haven’t yet heard of outbreaks of mass poult rustling from release pens, but I fear that it may only be a matter of time.
What is certain is that the 2022–23 shooting season is turning out to be a very different one. Many shoots have pulled the plug on early days altogether, and will be restricting their dates to November pheasants through to the end of the season. And most are reporting that bag sizes will be smaller. Smaller is, of course, a relative term, but conversations suggest that bags of many hundreds of birds will be scarce.
I have heard it said that this will be a good thing. It will ease the issue of the game meat mountain; especially in the light of the febrile atmosphere that still surrounds EU trading. It will put paid to the persistent rumours of bags being buried, burned or anaerobically digested. And that’s a good thing, right?
Hmmm. Perhaps. It’s far from certain. Less shooting means fewer keepers. Fewer
“The modest syndicate and the friendly farm shoot could all be squeezed out”
beaters and pickers-up. You need almost the same infrastructure for 50 birds as you do for five times that bag. And if the big-bag players downsize to smaller days, and smaller days cannot be subsidised by grandes battues, then prices will only go in one direction; the modest syndicate, the friendly farm shoot and the beaters’ days are all squeezed out, and after that you can whistle for a bit of pigeon shooting or an occasional duck flight in exchange for a pint and a spot of pen repair.
Be careful what you wish for.
Do you agree with Giles? Let us know via Stletters@futurenet.com
Giles Catchpole is a freelance journalist as well as a keen Shot and angler, and he has written several humorous sporting books