Innholdsfortegnelse for 28-Apr-2021 i Shooting Times & Country

Transporting game meat from Great Britain to Northern Ireland has become ‘practically impossible’ since Brexit, according to BASC. New rules mean that a Northern Ireland resident who crosses the Irish Sea to shoot must have any game they want to bring back inspected in Great Britain by an official veterinarian who, when satisfied, will issue an export health certificate (EHC). In order to issue an EHC, the meat has to be processed in an approved game-handling establishment that is listed on the European Commission website. The EHC must be with the meat when it reaches the border control post in Northern Ireland, and the post must be notified at least 24 hours in advance. Failure to declare the consignment could be a criminal offence. The rules apply even for a…

Lekking sites where male black grouse compete for females are to be monitored and mapped in a new project. The aim is to turn around the desperate situation faced by the birds in southern Scotland. Gamebooks from the 19th and 20th centuries record large bags of black grouse in southern Scotland. However, changes in land use and booming predator numbers have driven a crash in the population. In 2018 only 78 blackcock were recorded in the whole of south-east Scotland. The survey is being conducted by the Southern Uplands Partnership (SUP) with support from the Fallago Environment Fund (FEF), Scottish Forestry, NatureScot and Scottish Borders Council. The hope is that mapping lekking sites will prevent forestry planting and wind-farm development on key black grouse sites. Pip Tabor, partnership manager with…

PREDATION IS THE PROBLEM I have the greatest respect for Mary Colwell for her perseverance and dedication to bring the plight of the curlew to the top of the pile as it were (At the heart of curlew recovery, 14 April). However, I doubt anything will change much until there is a shift in mindset regarding managing wildlife in general. It’s stated they will follow the science. Well, the science is all in place. Glen Robson’s thesis on nest habitat selection is there for all to read. In simple terms, curlew are like most wading birds — they like open spaces and, when on heather moorland, they nest on burned ground. Natural England (NE) has banned the majority of burning, and in some cases cutting, on huge swathes of the…

Why do we prepare and keep the heads of the deer that we shoot? Why do we measure them and treasure them in the way that we do? Since the dawn of time, hunters have retained the antlered heads of the deer that they have taken in the chase. Initially, no doubt, it was in order to demonstrate their own personal prowess and the richness of the hunting grounds over which they had control and also for sheer delight at the beauty of the antlers themselves — one of nature’s wonders. Appreciation and enjoyment of what is effectively a piece of natural art is still with us. One only has to look inside the average interior design shop to see that the artificial representation of an antlered head manufactured for…

By definition, a game cover is any crop grown with the intention of feeding and/or holding gamebirds in the shooting season. It was at a very young age that I began to appreciate the benefits that a good game cover can bring to a shoot. Aged seven or eight, I would go out beating for the little farmers’ syndicate that my grandad was part of. On these days, we would always most look forward to ‘Rodger’s Maize’, so called because it was a sizeable block of maize on Rodger’s farm (could you have guessed?). I can, to this day, recall the clouds of pheasants that would flush from the cover crop, towering over the head of me as a young boy. I can also remember the kale-based game covers across…

For so familiar and welcome a food as watercress, collecting it from the wild can easily become a lethal enterprise. Historically, there has always been the concern about the owner of the land on which it was growing taking exception and chasing the forager with threats of prosecution or, occasionally, a gun. While the latter is, I hope, a thing entirely of the past, trespassing counts as a civil wrong and we are not to countenance it, especially as wild watercress is readily available without such resort. Nevertheless, perils still exist — and serious ones at that. The first is misidentification. This comes in both consequential and inconsequential form. It is perfectly safe to collect the vaguely similar — in general appearance and in habitat — fool’s watercress. Anything labelled…

My online research for the braque du Bourbonnais revealed the unsurprising result that these French pointers are not rated highly as guard dogs, as they are far too friendly. However, Tracie Rickman told me that River is the first of her dogs to bark when anyone comes in the house, so it depends what you want of a guard dog. We all have the image in our minds of a fearsome guard dog with hackles raised, lips curled and teeth bared, but a dog that simply makes a lot of noise is equally effective when it comes to guarding a property. Selective breeding has led to most of our gundogs being relatively quiet, seldom barking. I had one English springer, Suze, who was nicknamed Church Mouse, as she seldom made…

Cambridgeshire Police has emerged as the country’s best-performing firearms licensing team, while Durham Police is at the bottom of the league table, according to new figures from BASC. The three top-performing forces — Cambridgeshire, Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire — all took well under a month to issue a new shotgun certificate, to renew firearm and shotgun certificates or to process a variation. These three forces operate a joint firearms licensing service. Warwickshire, City of London, Essex and Lincolnshire were also good performers, all processing new firearm certificate applications in an average of fewer than 50 days and new shotgun certificate applications in under 40 days. “It took over a year for renewal — it was absolutely dreadful” At the other end of the spectrum, Greater Manchester Police took 164 days to…

Police have recovered dozens more stolen dogs in a series of raids across the country. In Suffolk, officers recovered 83 suspected stolen dogs in a raid on a travellers’ site near Ipswich. The force published photographs online of 48 dogs that could not be identified and appealed for their owners to come forward. Detective Chief Inspector Nicola Wallace, senior investigating officer for the operation, said: “We are keen to hear from anyone who believes any of the dogs in the images may be theirs. During the past few weeks officers have been liaising with other police forces around the country, as well as conducting a number of other enquiries, in order to establish where the dogs may have originated from.” In Bishop Auckland in County Durham, officers seized nine dogs,…

I have been enjoying Shooting Times for more than 50 years. Recently, I have been enjoying Aidan Hartley’s articles. As a family we visited Malindi in Kenya to fish and go on safaris organised by the Paul family who run Kingfisher Fishing. Aidan’s story of the great white shark (A sporting life in Africa, 27 January) brought back happy memories as we have a picture of our daughter Parris, then aged four, posing with the cast of the shark in Aidan’s story in March 1999 (above). The fishing was memorable for me as well because I recorded my first and second billfish ‘grand slam’ there in March 1998, fishing on board the Neptune with skipper Adrian Paul. I was fascinated by great whites since seeing a huge one on display…

Hatred might be too strong, but it was pretty obvious that Wally didn’t like me, and yet he was to go on to teach me my most valuable lesson as a pigeon shooter. At the time I was 16, and he was something over 70. The summer before, we both worked ‘roguing’ — pulling weeds out of sugar beet — on the same farm. In a clash of generations and backgrounds, it seemed he never had a good word for any of us youngsters in the roguing gang. This was the spring, though, before another hot summer spent bleeding from our soft hands as we pulled bolting beet out of ground baked solid. Unlike ours, Wally’s hands never split. It was one of the many differences between us. “It seems…

Springtime sets me thinking about partridges. The curlew come back and lapwings dance noisily in the fields but our grey partridges have long since been confined to the history books. I’ve had a long-term ambition to restore their numbers here, but that’s not easy in the modern countryside where everything seems to run against them. I often read of partridge reintroduction projects in Shooting Times and it’s encouraging to realise how dedicated some keepers are. It can be done and, in trying to unlock the benefits of decent habitat work and a fair amount of predator control, I’ve been tempted to look back to bygone days for inspiration. When I first started looking at partridges, it was impossible to ignore their endless connections with our sporting heritage. I learned about…

The day was deliciously warm. Spring sunshine brought colour and life back to the landscape. Nobody spoke, for the pleasure of heat on hands and faces was recognised by all and we were content for a moment to enjoy it. The fogs and searching winds of winter were now a thing of the past and the dogs, normally so busy and excited at the start of a day, yawned and stretched in the dusty yard, their noses testing the scented air. “Any pigeon about?” I asked hopefully. The farmer took off his cap, scratched his head thoughtfully and replied: “They’ve not started on my wheat yet, but I saw a cloud rise from behind that bottom spinney; my neighbour’s probably drilled some beans there.” It would have been a long,…

Latin name: Ajuga reptans Common name: Bugle Other names: Brown bugle, yellow bugle, middle consound, carpenter’s herb, bugleweed How to spot it and where to find it: A spreading evergreen, bugle can be invasive. But in the wild, its glossy leaves and purple-blue flowers make an attractive carpet, filing in gaps between other trees and plants. Its tolerance for both light and shade, together with its attractive foliage all year round, means it is often cultivated, but it can become a problem. Interesting facts: The word ‘reptans’ means creeping and bugle can ‘creep’ at a tremendous rate. It is part of the mint family and there are around 40 species of bugle, found primarily in Europe, Asia and Africa, but there are also two species in Australia. It spreads by…

My laptop is a monument to impending obsolescence. It is a grimy, coffee-stained repository of outdated and unsupported software. I cheerfully blame it for every single IT thing that goes wrong, even when the fault is operator error. My family bought me a new laptop for Christmas but I have so far resisted all entreaties to get the new machine up and running. I worry that the changeover will go horribly wrong. So I keep putting it off, even though I know it is necessary and inevitable. There is a parallel here with the shift to non-lead ammunition. I suspect that most shooters realise that lead is dead. It’s only a matter of when. I am not going to reiterate the arguments for or against lead, they have been done…

Money raised from the shooting community is going to help the battle to save the curlew. The Wildlife Habitat Charitable Trust (WHCT), which was set up by BASC and funds its operations through the sale of stamps and prints commissioned from leading wildlife artists, has agreed a £75,000 grant to help restore the breeding curlew population in southern England. The grant is going to the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust’s (WWT) Combating the Curlew Crisis Project, which aims to increase the curlew’s breeding population in the Severn and Avon Vales to 50 pairs by 2026. The grant will fund a project officer who will work with local land managers. Paul Williamson, secretary of the WHCT, said: “The plight of the curlew in southern England is well documented; without the necessary help…

The relaxation of lockdown has brought the predicted wave of fires, litter and antisocial behaviour, with vandals targeting traps at a number of locations across the UK. Problems in the Yorkshire Dales began with illegal off-roading, with vegetation damaged, tracks ruined and gates smashed. In the Peak District, keepers were forced to tackle yet more fires. The gamekeeping team at Moscar Estate — who have been the subject of a campaign of harassment by animal rights activists — joined four fire crews in handling a blaze on land owned by Sheffield Council. The fire was believed to have been started by a disposable barbecue. “These people contributed to the death of a newborn lamb that had its eyes pecked out” Some of the most harmful incidents concerned damage to legally…

During the reign of King William I, the enactment of the Forest Law (1087) laid down that those guilty of killing a stag, roebuck or wild boar were liable to the punishment of blinding, and the hunting of these “beasts of the forest” was reserved only for nobility. Forest Law was designed to protect game species and the habitat that sustained them, implemented for the sole purpose of protecting game stocks for the king’s personal hunting forays. Originally, royal forests were designated hunting grounds, not limited to afforested areas, but encompassed open heathland, grasslands and wetlands. However, the implementation of the Forest Law led to a monumental push for afforestation, often at the expense of local communities whose homes were burned, entire villages evicted and lands cleared to bolster habitat…

OUR VERDICT Miroku holds a unique position within modern manufacturing due to its relationship with Browning/Winchester. Miroku-made products hold the largest market share of any gun manufacturer in the US. This total dominance of the Browning brand across the US and Europe has always overshadowed Miroku’s own branded guns. Yet I would argue that the original Miroku designed and manufactured Browning Citori model over-and-under is an improvement on the Browning B25 Superposed design. It would, perhaps, be unfair to portray Miroku as the underdog in the Browning range, yet it is always Browning-branded guns that are priced at a premium and get the higher profile in the shooting field. Unfairly, in my opinion. The MK11 sideplate is a total departure from this underdog status and leads the Miroku brand to…

CARTRIDGE BELT/BAG This means of carrying ammunition has somewhat gone out of fashion among game Shots, but some clay shooters and pigeon shooters use an open version of the cartridge pouch slung on a belt. This was available in the early 20th century and consisted of a stout leather belt with brass buckle and two cartridge bags, each with a capacity of 25 shells, attached by means of clips and brass D-rings. The idea was to split the weight of a conventional load and remove the strap from the shoulder. The cost was 14s 6d, which was the equivalent price to a best-quality pigskin 50-size cartridge bag.…

GREATER KUDU (TRAGELAPHUS STREPSICEROS) With its impressive and distinctive spiral horns, the greater kudu is the most majestic of all African antelope. A mature bull measures 1.4m at the shoulder and weighs up to 260kg. Only the male has horns, which take six years to reach full size. Both sexes have a distinctive upright mane that extends from the top of the head to the shoulders, while adult bulls have a long fringe under the neck. Kudu favour savanna woodland, where they can rest by day. Cows, calves and young bulls are found in small family herds, while the bulls are either solitary or live in small bachelor groups. Though they will graze fresh flushes of grass, most of their food comes from browsing — their long necks allow them…