Innholdsfortegnelse for 30-Jun-2021 i Shooting Times & Country

Zambia has joined the list of African countries speaking out against a trophy import ban. The southern African country has traditionally been much quieter on the subject than nations such as Botswana and Namibia. However, a top conservation oficial has broken the silence to condemn western countries whose policies threaten livelihoods in rural Africa. In a statement addressed to the government of the US state of Connecticut, Dr Chuma Simukonda, director of the Department of National Parks and Wildlife, said: “It is unfortunate that such efforts promoted in the name of African species lack any input from Africans and are grounded on a protectionist mentality contrary to the sustainable-use model that has proven so successful in Zambia and much of southern Africa. Zambia’s wildlife is already stable without such ill-informed…

Gamekeepers and rural residents have welcomed the news that crucial legal changes are to be introduced to tackle hare coursing. Defra has announced that it is to introduce a series of changes to the law. They include amending the Game Act 1831 and the Night Poaching Act 1828 to increase the maximum penalty for coursing to an unlimited fine and up to six months’ imprisonment. The Government has said it will also introduce a new criminal offence of ‘going equipped’ for hare coursing. One of the key challenges faced by police officers acting against coursing gangs has been the cost of kennelling seized dogs. Under the new powers they will be able to reclaim, on conviction, the costs of kennelling dogs in connection with coursing. Gamekeeper and Shooting Timescontributor Ed…

The weather this year has been inconsistent and erratic, dry spells followed by downpours, followed again by dry spells. The most recent dry spell up in Lancashire seems to have gone on for a few weeks now and the river Lune, so often a raging torrent after rains in the high grounds around Tebay, was on its bare bones in the middle of June. The Lune is a river that seems to wear its emotions on its sleeve. When the water is up, it rages with purpose through the Lune Valley, often angrily spilling over its banks and flooding the flat farmland of the valley floor. But when the sun is out and the waters are more tranquil, the river is inviting and warm, beckoning you in with a beaming…

The biggest obstacle people face when getting into shooting is finding somewhere to shoot. I remember as a young lad struggling to find a farm on which to shoot. One weekend my friend and I went on a concentrated door-knocking excursion and spent the day asking at every farmhouse we could find, only to get the same rebuttal each time. “To a pair of naive 14-year-olds, the cottage over the road wasn’t an obvious farm” Disheartened, we returned to my friend’s house where his father asked how we had got on. We explained that we had asked at lots of farms with no luck. His father was a happy-go-lucky kind of guy and seemed amazed that none of the local farms would oblige our simple request. “Come on,” he said,…

A shooting acquaintance once bought himself a black labrador — a field trials champion, no less. He spent a lot of time abroad and used to lodge the dog with a keeper friend until he returned and needed to take it shooting. On one occasion, after a very good drive, with slain pheasants littering the woodland pond in front of his peg, he happily directed his lab left and right, with one bird after another brought flawlessly to hand. Cheerily commenting to the neighbouring Gun, who had sauntered over to watch proceedings, he said, proudly: “Good my dog, isn’t it?” To which his companion replied, “It may well be, but that is my dog. Yours buggered off halfway through the drive.” Few British shooting days are complete without the appearance…

Living in the north-west of England, close to the border between Lancashire, Cumbria and Yorkshire, means that I have an abundance of beautiful rolling hills and farmland to stride over with a gun on my back. We may not have bountiful numbers of pigeons plaguing our farms over the summer months, as there are very few arable crops. However, we do have the very wise and crafty corvid family. I have spent the majority of my shooting career chasing this cunning foe, which has led me to have respect for their ability to unravel the best-laid plans and avoid falling for the range of ambushes we may set. The most intelligent member of the corvid family has to be the wise carrion crow. Despite shooting carrions from a young age…

A STANDARD BLACK EDITION starts at £61,540. It’s not cheap, but it’s a lot of vehicle and the quality and performance is spot on. It’s more than capable of dealing with family life and impresses doing a bit of country life. The extras on this Touareg include leather climate seats and interior, night-vision kit, driver assistance plus, paint colour, air suspension and active four-wheel steering, tow bar and upgraded stereo. All that gives us a whopping total of £71,510. Expensive, but if it was an Audi, it would likely be £30,000 more.…

Firing a percussion musket ANTIQUE GUNS Q I own several shotguns and have a small collection of antique firearms, which includes a percussion musket from the 1840s. I would like to fire this once or twice to see how it works. I read on an online forum that you can do this a few times a year without breaking the law. Is this right? A The best piece of general advice I can give anyone is never to believe anything you read on an online forum. If you need legal advice, join an association with properly trained staff rather than chancing your arm with some ill-informed forum dweller. If you want to fire your musket, it needs to be put on your shotgun certificate and the police need to be…

On pheasants: “They’re only bred so a few morons can point shotguns at them and blow them to pieces,” he said. “That’s what gamekeeping is all about. It’s a cruel, immoral, unjust practice.” Who said this — a raving animal rights activist venting on an unmoderated internet forum? No, it was somebody who runs foraging courses, quoted in a fawning puff-piece in the Guardian. He sounds nice. The newspaper could legitimately say these were his own words, being reported accurately and within context. How many gamekeepers read the avowedly lefty Guardian anyway? It’s not a big deal. Yet it is, because the Guardian is the house journal of the liberal establishment that has a vice-like grip on education, the civil service, the BBC and the green blob of conservation bodies…

A bill that could “curtail country sports such as fishing and shooting” has been mauled in the House of Lords as ‘unnecessary’, ‘ill conceived’ and ‘anthropomorphic’. The Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill was introduced in the Queen’s Speech earlier this year. The seemingly innocuous bill creates a committee to review the effect of legislation and policies “on the welfare of animals as sentient beings”. But it has prompted concern that it could be misused to disrupt activities including shooting, fishing and farming. The attack on the bill was led by Conservative former cabinet minister Michael Forsyth, Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, who said: “I have never seen a more badly drafted Bill — which has left me wondering what on earth its purpose is.” “The Hunting Act brought no benefit, quite the…

BIRDS Encourage your gamebirds to be bold. Once your birds are roosting in trees, it is a good idea to encourage them to leave their pen for at least part of the day. This will also give the ground flora a rest and prepare the birds to live a more independent lifestyle later in the season. WIN You can help the Country Food Trust (CFT) to feed the needy while getting yourself a fabulous family holiday, a great day out or a fabulous meal. The top prize is a weekend stay at the luxurious Manor Farmhouse in the Cotswolds, but there are also tickets for the Game Fair or free dishes at the Game Fair restaurant Nice & Wild up for grabs. To buy a ticket, costing £25 each, visit…

Images of a forestry contractor mowing heather on a former grouse moor at the height of nesting season have prompted anger from gamekeepers and birdwatchers. The images posted online by Taiga Upland show a heavy tractor-mounted mower called a ‘swipe’ being used to cut heather in advance of the installation of a fence. Investigations by Shooting Timeswere able to locate the mowing as taking place on an area of former grouse moor to the east of Dalwhinnie. Scottish shoot operator Calvert McKibbin said: “This is being done in the nesting/breeding season for moorland birds, many of which are declining nationally. This year especially, many birds are a little later sitting and as such would be very vulnerable to this type of operation. “It is this change of habitat, either through…

I always enjoy Laurence Catlow’s articles and his musings on older Guns really moved me (How to call time on 50 years in the line, 23 June). It also made me think, in how many other sports could we continue to participate when we’re in our eighth decade — and beyond? This is being thrown into sharp relief by the upcoming Tokyo Olympic Games. The oldest ever competitor to compete in an Olympics was Oscar Swahn of Sweden, who was 72 years and 281 days old when he took part in the 1920 Antwerp Games — in the shooting events. He qualified for the 1924 Olympics, too, but chose not to compete. Mr Swahn won a gold medal for shooting at the 1912 Olympics, when he was 64 years and…

“Keep your eyes and ears open, and your mouth shut,” said Dad, “and make sure you keep in line, halfway between the beaters on either side.” I was only eight years old when those instructions were delivered, as we travelled in the old Ford Anglia to my first day’s beating at Clandon Park, near Guildford in Surrey. To my mind, they are as valid today as they were in the mid-1960s, as was the next bit — to resist the temptation to shout and holler, even if the others did so, and to keep my stick tapping, even when the headkeeper stopped the line. Dad issued me with a nicely seasoned straight hazel rod, with the further instruction that, though it was a beating stick, I did not need to…

It is so often the case that you don’t fully appreciate something until it’s gone; life teaches us this time after time. With clay grounds closed, shoots cancelled and many fieldsports activities severely curtailed for much of the past 15 months due to COVID-19, many of us lost, albeit temporarily, access to the sports we love. In my case, this led to some serious reflection on how much I take fieldsports for granted. And I’m certain that I won’t be the only one left with a far greater appreciation of the role that these activities play in my life. But what is it that makes them so very important for our mental and physical well-being? The importance of fieldsports extends far beyond the ‘fresh air and exercise’ trope, despite the…

You don’t have to do much research on Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th president of the US, before you find a picture of him hunting in Africa, dwarfed by a bull elephant he had shot. Roosevelt was a passionate hunter, never happier than when out with a rifle. Today, he is remembered largely for his enduring achievements in environmental protection and wildlife conservation, but his enthusiasm for conservation came from his zeal for hunting. Born in New York in 1858, Roosevelt was only 24 when he first travelled west to North Dakota to hunt buffalo. Here, he learned to ride western-style, fell in love with the cowboy lifestyle and bought a ranch, Elkhorn, to which he returned frequently when president. A prodigious writer, he was soon contributing articles about life on…

As soon as the Covid police deemed it safe, we rocked along to a friend’s party to celebrate what’s now termed ‘a big birthday’. In the old days, that would have been an excuse for the girls to climb into their LBDs and the boys to dig out their black tie assembled from a local charity shop. But now it all seems too formal, too Four Weddings and a Funeral, so today most invitations bear that horrid advice ‘smart casual’, a phrase only slightly less ghastly than ‘meal deal’. I loathe ‘smart casual’. Partly because it was the entry requirement to discos back in ancient times, allowing neanderthal bouncers to bar normal people wearing clean jeans and plimsolls while welcoming those clad in polyester. But mainly because the term’s so…

If you see someone exercising a gundog, it’s remarkably easy to tell with a fair degree of certainty whether it’s a worker or a pet. If it’s the former, it will almost certainly be on a simple slip lead, while the dog’s handler is likely to have a whistle hung around his or her neck. In contrast, pet dog owners rarely have whistles, and the dog itself is likely to be wearing a harness, to which a lead may be attached. If that’s the case, the dog is most probably pulling like a train. Harnesses for dogs were once almost unheard of, but these days they seem to be the norm and no self-respecting labradoodle or French bulldog is to be seen without one. Why? Is it a fashion thing?…

As shooting organisations push on with the transition away from lead ammunition, the British Game Alliance (BGA) has launched a new register for its assured lead-free shoots. To join the BGA’s register fill out a short questionnaire on the BGA website. It asks for information such as the date on which the shoot went lead-free and the estimated number of birds the shoot will put into the food chain each season. Shoots registering as lead-free will be committing to a new clause in the BGA Standard, requiring the writing and implementation of a credible lead-free protocol on their shoot days. “The reality is that the food industry increasingly demands birds from lead-free shoots,” said the BGA’s commercial director Mark Staples. “Our lead-free register has been developed alongside our partner game…

Pro-shooting interests have overwhelmingly taken the upper hand in the latest Parliamentary grouse shooting debate. The debate was opened by Ipswich MP Tom Hunt. He has won respect for a series of low-key visits to rural parts of his constituency, including a day beating, which he asked to join in order to understand shooting better. In his opening remarks, Mr Hunt drew on research by Professor Simon Denny and Tracey Latham-Green of the Institute for Social Innovation and Impact at the University of Northampton. Summarising their research, the Ipswich MP claimed that “grouse moors often bring people together, so there is a social impact to the economy. Levels of loneliness in isolated rural areas where grouse shooting happens are lower than in other areas.” “Ms McCarthy repeated a debunked claim…

Wild Justice admits badger cull defeat Wild Justice has suffered yet another legal defeat, bringing its total of failed legal actions to seven. The latest came in the Court of Appeal, where the anti-shooting campaign group was requesting leave to appeal a High Court decision. Wild Justice had asked for permission to appeal the decision made by the High Court in 2019 to reject its legal challenge to the use of shooting as part of the badger cull. However, its application for leave to appeal was refused and it was forced to tell supporters that “this one, on badgers, can only be seen as a defeat”. ‘Playing animal rights politics’ BASC may deploy its legal ‘fighting fund’ to help shoots that are being denied COVID-19 support by the Welsh government.…

I can’t help feeling that the British Deer Society (BDS) is succumbing to a form of rural wokeism when it complains about Defra including deer among the list of species considered pests in forestry. One man’s valuable sporting quarry can become another’s destructive vermin in different circumstances. It’s merely arguing over semantics. The BDS says because deer are so described they will not be afforded “intelligent and humane management”. This implies that other pests should not be afforded such respect. In a bit of wokeism on my own part, I suggest rats, squirrels, rabbits, corvids and other pests should also be so treated. These species are killed all year round in order to minimise the damage they can cause, but deer managers seem to be so squeamish that, apart from…

George and I were standing quietly in the gloaming, overlooking a large grass clearing on the edge of Wakerley woods in Northamptonshire. The old runway of Spanhoe Airfield was behind us, and George recounted its history, most notably its roles in both D-Day and Operation Market Garden. Then, as dusk gathered around us, a muntjac buck ventured out of the woods. George Burnham has been shooting deer around Corby for several decades. He spent much of his life as a farmer, before retiring and splitting his time between fishing and stalking. When the water is right, he buzzes up to the river Teviot in the Borders, and when the water isn’t, he will inevitably be out stalking. Mastery I met him through his involvement with the estate shoot, as he…

There’s a tremendous thrill when you finally spy your quarry, especially when you’ve travelled several thousand miles in its pursuit. When I eventually managed to find a trio of cheer pheasants, feeding on a shaded hillside high in the Himalayas, I felt that wonderful rush of adrenaline that comes after a long, arduous and particularly difficult hunt. I had enjoyed a similar sensation a few years before in a rainforest in Malaysia, when I last managed to see a great argus, another spectacular member of the pheasant family. Despite its size — it’s up to 200cm long — it is ridiculously difficult to see in its jungle home. We are all familiar with the common or ring-necked pheasant, but it happens to be one of 49 species that make up…

I have been watching often heated debate over the use of non-lead rifle ammunition develop among the stalking community. Other than the odd private conversation, I have not made any comment on the matter, but now it’s time to stick my head above the parapet. Anyone who knows me will realise that deep, meaningful conversations about ballistics and home-loading specifications make my eyes glaze over. They provide the perfect opportunity to fall asleep or take comfort in a large dram. Why home-load when there are perfectly good rounds coming out of factories? The driving force behind my choice is simple: performance and accuracy. Not only that, but the Yorkshireman in me considers the price as well. I am surrounded by rifles all day, every day. I’m not on the range…

As the sleek VW pulled up, I thought: “This looks like a proper big-boy motor.” We’re taking a look at Volkswagen’s Touareg Black Edition, a three-litre TDI V6, and I’m hopeful this third-generation model will tick a few boxes. If the 21in Suzuka wheels weren’t a giveaway, the Black Edition is the sporty iteration of the Touareg. In layman’s terms, it’s the R-line version with a few bits painted black, plus a few extra goodies. The grille, wheels, mirror covers, door and roof trims have had an added splash of stealthy black paint. The vehicle also comes with a panoramic roof and fancy IQ LED headlights, plus some sexy optional extras that I’ll come back to shortly. It’s a bit of a wide load, so wouldn’t look out of place…

It’s been quiet on the pigeon front — a cold spring certainly held everything back. A spell of rain and some warm weather in June made rural Britain burst into life. Meanwhile, pigeons disappeared and we are definitely behind compared with this time last year. It has been a frustrating time for pigeon shooters because normally, at this time of year, I would be busy protecting peas or other green crops. But due to the cold weather of spring and early summer, it feels like the woodpigeon’s peak breeding season has been pushed back in the calendar. It just goes to show how adaptable these birds are. As you can imagine, I don’t cope very well during prolonged periods without shooting. I’m like a bear with a sore head and…

Last winter, I was asked by a countryman whether I could enlighten him about the strange “crittur as big as a dog” that he sometimes saw on the banks of the river. If that man, who has spent the whole of his life in country places and seeing many otters, has no idea what they were, it is not surprising that many townsfolk know little about them. There is also the sentimental school of thought, which comes to boiling point whenever otter hunting is mentioned. An account of an otter hunt, which I wrote for the local press, brought forth indignant protests from a gentleman who described otters as “beautiful and harmless animals”. I agree absolutely with the first part of this description. Otters are beautiful. So are stoats, foxes…