Re: Today is the day.
Originally Posted by
Mups
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Bums to all that!
Oops, I said I wasn't going to say any more.
Grouse have been one of the most sought-after game birds for over a century and command a high price from sportsmen all over the world. Delicious to eat, all our grouse enter an eager food chain and only where there are surplus populations are they shot – with the highest levels of care and responsibility. This is arguably the pinnacle of international game shooting.
In many upland areas, driven grouse shooting provides the only significant income for struggling rural economies. Without hefty subsidies from taxpayers, it pays for crucial conservation and maintains employment for significant numbers of people, particularly during the shooting season.
This essential employment supports fragile communities and helps schools, shops and pubs survive. Shooting parties benefit the hotel trade and a whole range of local businesses, from garages to gun shops and clothing manufacturers to food suppliers. Many would struggle in the depressed rural upland economy without this vital income.
Consequences of losing grouse shooting
In the 1990s, in the Berwyn Special Protection Area in North Wales, driven grouse shooting and habitat management stopped leading to a serious fall in bird species.
Research studies were carried out on upland bird numbers and distribution between 1983 and 2012, results revealed stark findings.
The complete loss of lapwing and serious and rapid declines of many other red listed birds were highlighted. Hen harriers dropped by 48 percent, golden plover by 90 percent, curlew by 79 percent, ring ouzel and black grouse by 78 percent and red grouse by 54 percent.
The Berwyn report demonstrates with great clarity the consequences of losing grouse shooting as a land management tool. The report shows the hugely important work of MA members in their care for 860,000 acres of heather moorland in England and Wales. Without this work, the precious land would revert to scrub and forest and the heather moors lost forever, along with the loss of many red listed birds.
Anyway I am off to eat some chicken which has spent its whole life in a cage barely bigger than itself and then killed prior to scalding by being passed through an electrified water-bath while shackled.