Re: Shoot Diary That's great, thanks! Vety interesting. Do you have warm game available outside a shoot? It must in difficult to practise with that. I feel like Charlie isn't EVER going to calm down, but maybe he will, a bit, over the next year or so.
Re: Shoot Diary Thank you David for your great and very interesting write up. May I add my twopenneth, The question has been raised "are gundogs really essential?" I honestly believe that shooting as we know it, Could not be done effectively without a dog to retrieve the shot game. As someone has already posted we all can pick up dead birds from a field without much effort, in fact most are picked this way on the commercial shoots that I visit. The real test is birds that have dropped well behind the guns in heavy cover or in a river, and these birds are mostly dead? They can carry on for hundreds of yards before dropping. Then there are the wounded birds (runners), no one could catch these unless you want try a 'Rocky Balboa' : Sounds awful but these are the facts. But we need to put the game in the Bag, otherwise the anti's will have a field day. Every bird that is shot on the shoots I attend go to a game dealer to be sold on at a higher price in the city? but that is another story.
Re: Shoot Diary I think the answers have argued quite persuasively that gundogs contribute to a humane shoot. No-one has (yet) argued that shooting itself - in the UK - is not essential, so neither are gundogs (so I jubst thought I'd prompt that one ).
Re: Shoot Diary I don't know what you mean by essential? Shooting is not just a hobby, for fun, as you put it in an earlier post, Julie. Here on Exmoor shooting is the biggest source of income and for many people their livelihood. As for shooting without gundogs - others have already explained why that would be impossible. David, thanks for sharing your shoot diary with us. Your shoot sounds very much like the shoot in Sussex where I first started to pick up.
Re: Shoot Diary [quote author=heidrun link=topic=8788.msg125295#msg125295 date=1416424055] I don't know what you mean by essential? Shooting is not just a hobby, for fun, as you put it in an earlier post, Julie. Here on Exmoor shooting is the biggest source of income and for many people their livelihood. [/quote] Because people earn their living from something doesn't make it important or indispensable or better than alternatives. Shooting is just a hobby or a sport, it seems to me. It's funded by people shooting birds for fun. Like people, I don't know, running ice skating rinks, of course to do so is a living. But it's still all just about recreation. It's fun, a sport, a hobby.
Re: Shoot Diary I have just come in from a lovely day’s shooting, and haven’t read all this yet, so I may amend this as I go There are several different philosophical and ethical separate issues here, aside from the question of whether or not force should be used to train dogs. This is such an interesting question, but it is far from straightforward. Is gundog work essential? Well I think it is if people are going to hunt and to eat wild meat. But that leads to another question. Is it essential that people have the right to hunt? I guess it is if you believe that people are essentially social predators and that hunting fulfills an important role in the social, emotional, and mental health of those participating. Is it essential that people have the right to eat wild meat if they want to? I think it is if you believe wild meat is a more ethical choice of meat than farmed meat. But then that brings us to yet another question Is it essential that people have the right to eat meat at all? It is if you believe that a meat and fat based diet is actually the way to prevent many modern metabolic disorders and diseases including dementia, cancer, diabetes , obesity etc, etc. Or if you simply believe people have the basic right to choose to eat meat no matter whether or not it does them any good So I suppose our own feeling as to whether or not gundog work is essential, will depend on what our answers to a number of other wider ethical questions are
Re: Shoot Diary For me this is definitely not the case. Shooting is a part of my life that goes far beyond a hobby. And I think this is true from many people brought up or embraced into the rural shooting community. It is in fact a community, A culture if you like, that has a value and worth that cannot just be dismissed as a sport. Shooting, stalking etc are fun. There is no doubt about that. But that is not their purpose. Their purpose is to produce food in a fit state to eat. The fact that they are fun is a by product of a meat production process that is worlds apart from the farmed meat that most people consume on a daily basis. Perhaps more importantly the role of the working gundog goes far beyond a day's pheasant shooting. I think we can get very caught up as seeing the role of the gundog as something associated with field trials and pheasant shoots. Driven pheasant shooting is quite a small part of what gun dogs actually do. My dogs also work with deer recovery, for duck flighting, rabbit control, and general rough shooting. Driven pheasants is by far the smallest part of that work, despite the fact that my husband and I actually run a driven pheasant shoot
Re: Shoot Diary [quote author=editor link=topic=8788.msg125322#msg125322 date=1416427054] So I suppose our own feeling as to whether or not gundog work is essential, will depend on what our answers to a number of other wider ethical questions are [/quote] Yes, that's good. I will have a think about that...
Re: Shoot Diary Another thought There is no doubt that gundogs are essential for the humane collection of shot game. A significant proportion of the birds my dogs collected today could not have been humanely collected by a human being. Not one I’m familiar with anyway. I guess we could find humans willing and capable of swimming a river in mid winter, or pushing through impenetrable undergrowth, but we'd probably have to pay them quite a bit to do it And they wouldn't be as quick or as efficient as a dog. Virtually all runners in woodland or cover would be lost because humans are simply not capable of following a complex scent trail. Edited to say "sorry, have now realised that David, Barbara, and others, have already answered this point perfectly "
Re: Shoot Diary Hi Julie - the warm game I was referring to was freshly shot birds on the shoot. I was seeing if she showed any interest in picking a bird up. Not at first apparently but she got over that later on.
Re: Shoot Diary [quote author=editor link=topic=8788.msg125330#msg125330 date=1416427821] There is no doubt that gundogs are essential for the humane collection of shot game. [/quote] [quote author=editor link=topic=8788.msg125324#msg125324 date=1416427325] Shooting, stalking etc are fun. There is no doubt about that. But that is not their purpose. Their purpose is to produce food in a fit state to eat. The fact that they are fun is a by product of a meat production process that is worlds apart from the farmed meat that most people consume on a daily basis. [/quote] Is is necessary/the best thing to shoot the pheasants? I mean, from what I saw the young pheasants are brought up in a pen, then they are released but stay around the pen, feeders are put out, they return to the pen at night, and when flushed, fly towards the pen (home). So even if this way of rearing pheasants produce ethical meat, is the best and most humane way to collect this meat to shoot them? I don't know, can't you just put the feeders in a big cage and shut the door or something? I do appreciate that there is still a "and then what?" about it. [quote author=editor link=topic=8788.msg125324#msg125324 date=1416427325] Driven pheasant shooting is quite a small part of what gun dogs actually do. My dogs also work with deer recovery, for duck flighting, rabbit control, and general rough shooting. Driven pheasants is by far the smallest part of that work, despite the fact that my husband and I actually run a driven pheasant shoot [/quote] We'll have to persuade you to write more about that - definitely no idea what's involved...
Re: Shoot Diary In my experience pheasants stray far and wide from their original pen when adult and have to be 'dogged in', that is, kept on the boundaries of the shoot. I have worked my dogs and hate to see pheasants shot! But they have a far better life and death than a chicken does.
Re: Shoot Diary When poults are small, they stay within the confines of the pen. Once they can fly, they leave the pen and wander at will during the day, you are right in assuming that many return to the pen at night, though not all. Some will find a new roost area. It is fascinating to watch how pheasants spend their day. They tend to walk in a large circle along the woodland edges, heading off in one direction in the morning and returning from another in the evening. They walk a little, grub about a little, walk a little more, sunbathe for a while if the weather is good, walk some more, grub about some more, and so on. Though they are never more than half a mile or so from the pen, they probably walk two, or three miles, maybe more over the course of the day. It is lovely to watch them all trooping down from the hill back towards the pens as evening falls, after a long day walking and just being pheasants. To me, this is a life. Whereas a chicken in a cage does not have a life. It is possible to trap pheasants, though it certainly causes them stress, especially when they then have to be handled and killed manually. One of the benefits of wild meat is that it is supposed to be a good life followed by a sudden death. I think shooting fulfils this role better than trapping on the whole. More practically, rearing pheasants that live semi-wild in the way we do in the UK, is extremely expensive. The tiny poults we put in our pens in July, cost more each than a full grown cage reared chicken from the supermarket. It is then several months before pheasants are mature enough to eat, during which time they have to be fed and protected. I can’t imagine anyone being willing to pay £30 or more for a pheasant on a supermarket shelf.
Re: Shoot Diary IIRC M&S tried selling pheasant then backed down under pressure from various groups. Strangely there didn't seem to be any pressure on selling, lamb, beef, pork, duck, goose, turkey, or chicken.
Re: Shoot Diary By the way - in case anyone thinks I'm massively anti-shooting by these questions, that's not the case at all. I don't think have any objections. I just like to understand what I might be getting involved in. If I ever do, of course. [quote author=editor link=topic=8788.msg125719#msg125719 date=1416587449] More practically, rearing pheasants that live semi-wild in the way we do in the UK, is extremely expensive. The tiny poults we put in our pens in July, cost more each than a full grown cage reared chicken from the supermarket. It is then several months before pheasants are mature enough to eat, during which time they have to be fed and protected. I can’t imagine anyone being willing to pay £30 or more for a pheasant on a supermarket shelf. [/quote] A report in farmers weekly (from 2010) says that: On average, shoots charged £30/pheasant and £28/partridge (excluding VAT) with a difference of £3-4 between the most and least efficient operations. How much does it cost to buy a pheasant? A quick google shows "locally sourced pheasant in a few butchers is about £4 a bird. Is that about right? I'm not sure what that implies...I'm tempted to think that the demand for shooting pheasants is higher than the demand for eating them? In which case, really, eating them is a by-product of shooting them. I think that would be right, if the main revenue is from shooting, and not selling, the birds. If that's right, I think that I do view this as a sport - pheasant shooting anyway, I don't know about the rest. I'll find out more when I have time. I suspect really wild animals (I'm not sure I understand what I mean by that...er...deer...?) might have very different characteristics including necessary population control and very different economics. Maybe? In saying I'm still tempted to think of this as a sport, I'm not "dismissing" anyone's lifestyle based on a sport - lots of sportsmen and women would say their sport is their reason for being and completely shapes the way they live. Pheasant shooting maybe a very important sport, in economic terms, for rural communities. But it really does look like a sport to me. That being the case, I'd say it's pretty imperative that everything in it is done to high humane standards, including the training of dogs. And it's right to call out any slips in humane standards based on it being "necessary".
Re: Shoot Diary I think most people that shoot as a result of their background (and by that I'm definitely not suggesting wealth necessarily but brought up where shooting was reasonably common) have the utmost respect for the game and the reality of killing for food. Most people I know shoot a few times a year and rarely get into double figures for their day. They take home what they shoot, some they eat and some go to grateful friends They are very aware that a loss in standards of welfare could result in an end to shooting in the same way as fox hunting and they have little patience for those who lack respect for the game, the people whose livelihood depends on it and the landowners who provide the opportunity. Eating may be a by product of shooting the pheasant but if they weren't eaten it would morally bankrupt to shoot them. The impact in loss of habitat for many other creatures should shooting disappear would I think be significant as shooting contributes to the funding for land management in many areas.
Re: Shoot Diary [quote author=bbrown link=topic=8788.msg125745#msg125745 date=1416597425] Eating may be a by product of shooting the pheasant but if they weren't eaten it would morally bankrupt to shoot them. [/quote] I'm not sure I agree - by that, I don't mean I disagree (if you see what I mean, I mean I'm thinking about it). I do not think, for example, that it is wrong to shoot large game if, by doing so, the revenue from shooting means habitat and a species is preserved. I think inflicting unnecessary pain and suffering is intolerable, but I don't think that of killing animals. I'm also not sure that I think it is wrong to humanely kill plentiful animals for luxury goods (I used to think that though). I do think though that where humane standards might be compromised to provide affordable food they cannot be for sport or luxury goods. Maybe, if pheasant shooting is a sport, it would be better to be upfront about that, and the "industry" hold itself to appropriately high standards such that it kept broad support (or at least minimised objections) rather than pretending its about providing food. When it seems the plain economics of it are that it is not - at least, as I understand it. Without the motivation to shoot, pheasants reared as described would simply not be sustainable. And, it seems to me, given the number of people I now meet in central London with working dogs (it is so very fashionable to have working dogs now) the way gundogs are trained may have a massively disproportionate impact on the public's view of the merits of shooting. Am I torturing the facts to support my original proposition? ;D ;D ;D I suspect very possibly! ;D ;D ;D
Re: Shoot Diary Ok however I don't think you need thousand bird days in order to justify preserving a habitat and a species. As I've been to a grand total of two shoots though perhaps my opinions need slightly more education ;D
Re: Shoot Diary What's a thousand birds a day? Big "commercial" shoots? (I've heard that term and looked up some big looking posh shoots). Do you means that's all about the money, or something else? Or you mean on small shoots it is just about eating the birds. On small shoots do people pay to shoot?
