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Columnists

Whats good for shooters is good for the RSPB


Clive Aslet
,March 31 2015
Gamekeepers suppress vermin, which in turn helps pheasants and other birds to flourish

To my mind, there dont hexist [sic] a more luscious dish than roasted pheasant
anywhere on this earth. So said Sergeant Samways in Roald Dahls Danny, the
Champion of the World, and it seems that the RSPB is now inclined to agree with
him. After years of snarling at game shooters because of the undeniable fact that
they kill birds, they now appear to have accepted that whats good for pheasants,
partridges and grouse is also good for their feathered brethren, such as long-tailed
tits, lapwings and skylarks.
Its one of the great paradoxes of the countryside: hunting species promotes
conservation. This is true of the species themselves. There would be very few
pheasants at all in Britain if it werent for shooting. Although hardly new to these
shores they may have been introduced by upper-class Romans the gorgeously
dandified cocks and more dowdy hens are hopeless parents. Their eggs and chicks
are easily plundered by stoats, weasels, rats, foxes, crows and other predators.
Only when gamekeepers bear down hard on these vermin can pheasants survive in
the wild; otherwise their numbers are boosted through the release of birds hatched
elsewhere, sometimes abroad. Wild gamebirds such as grouse and grey partridge
need similar protection if theyre to thrive, as well as habitat management. Not
surprisingly, suppressing predators helps other ground-nesting birds. On moors that
are no longer shot, it isnt just the grouse that have suffered; so have the curlews,
golden plovers and other species. This is a by-product of shooting that benefits us
all.
Hedgerows and copses gain, too. Drive through East Anglia and its obvious which
farmers shoot; theyre the ones with the attractive farms. The featureless prairies of
the barley barons are as bad for game species as for anything else. Nothing in the
countryside happens by accident, because the landscape is entirely managed by
humans; humans who shoot, like those who hunt, have an incentive to do well by
wildlife, rather than maximise their return from the land.
There is, though, shooting and shooting. When Mr Winkle went out with his gun,
with almost lethal consequences, in The Pickwick Papers, it was a muzzle-loader.
The chances of hitting anything except, in Mr Winkles case, another member of
the party were slim, not least after a bibulous lunch (as much a tradition today as
it was when Mr Pickwick was left asleep in a wheelbarrow). With the development of

breech-loading shotguns in the mid 19th century, the possibilities for slaughter
changed.
Perhaps we overdid it today, remarked George V in 1913, after a day when 4,000
pheasants were killed. Those excesses are long in the past, although some
countrymen began to worry about the scale of corporate shooting when it became,
towards the end of the 20th century, the new golf. Pheasants as fat as chickens and
as tame as labradors could be found wandering about country lanes in a bemused
state.
They didnt offer a sporting target. But the collapse of Lehman Brothers put on the
brakes and corporate shooting died. As economic activity picks up and the very
rich show no sign of getting poorer it has started to revive, although with fewer,
more challenging birds. Or so it is hoped.
Shooting, though, need not involve beaters, driving birds over guns or much
formal organisation at all. To some people, its enough to be out with a dog and a
gun. That, happily, is the great quality of the British countryside: its variety. This
should hold be another lesson for the RSPB. The charity, a formidable organisation,
with a membership of a million and the ear of government because of the high
number of birding MPs, can sometimes treat landowners and gamekeepers with a
high hand. Perhaps the change of voice, if not heart, on shooting means that they
will stop demonising them and find common cause. One of the best wildlife reserves
that Ive visited recently is on the Isle of Sheppey: the Elmley National Nature
Reserve, which is privately owned and run.
The RSPB originally campaigned against the trade in plumes for ladies hats. Since
then, it has become a major custodian of land, managing or owning an area the size
of Bedfordshire. This includes former grouse moors at Lake Vyrnwy in Wales and
Geltsdale in Cumbria, where the numbers of some wading species have fallen,
presumably because vermin hasnt been controlled. Please, RSPB: forget the empirebuilding. Work instead with farmers and landowners, including the shooting
community. Let a thousand flowers bloom.

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