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geegee
Platinum Member
 England
3682 Posts |
 Posted - 17 Jan 2008 : 3:11:03 PM
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I am just sitting in my study overlooking the stables/fields and watching my horses looking quite alert and have realised that they are shooting in the neighbouring fields.
I presume they are shooting pheasants. They have turned up in their tractor and towed hut and there are quite a few men.
I got to thinking about this so called sport and wondered why on earth it gives them pleasure to shoot these birds. It is hardly a challenge when they need "beaters" to make them fly up into the air.
Have beaters always been used or has this changed over the years?
I have tried clay pigeon shooting and, to me, is far more exciting and obviously doesn't harm any living animal.
I don't want to get into the debate of shooting animals just wanted to know why people would enjoy it.....
Any comments? 
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Barnsey
Bronze Member
England
63 Posts |
Posted - 17 Jan 2008 : 3:19:49 PM
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| Yes as far as I know beaters have always been used, some people pay a fortune to go out for the day to bag a Pheasant or two. I suppose thats why beaters have always been employed to flush out the birds. |
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rosyw
Platinum Member
England
3756 Posts |
Posted - 17 Jan 2008 : 3:59:11 PM
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Luckily we don't get them shooting the pheasants around my fields, BUT we have now got large numbers of pigeons which they were shooting, the latest is a bird scarer that sounds like a bloody cannon going off every 15 minutes or so the horses are now getting used to it but the first few days were a nightmare |
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Kash
Platinum Member
England
3777 Posts |
Posted - 17 Jan 2008 : 4:01:18 PM
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My friend's father owns a shoot up in Scotland and they've invited me up there a couple of times but it just doesn't appeal to me.
Clay pigeon shooting on the other hand... now that's one thing I LOVE to do |
      
Photographs by Emma Maxwell and Peter Grant |
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Cryapakah
Silver Member
278 Posts |
Posted - 17 Jan 2008 : 4:02:58 PM
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| Want to come shoot the pigeons on our yard? we recently have had pigeon racers move on and since then hundreds of wild ones have been hanging around too. I swear there feeding them too. |
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cazza
Platinum Member
United Kingdom
1674 Posts |
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NUTTER
Platinum Member
England
2452 Posts |
Posted - 17 Jan 2008 : 4:44:01 PM
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The estate next door to me has shoots must be one due as my fields have pheasents everywhere!!!!
What winds me up is they are meant to tell you when they are having a shoot but they never do!!!!
Before now convoys have driven down the road at speed with no regards to my daughter and her friend who had no where to pull the horses in!!!! no respect for anybody else for that matter using the road ...
I have heard some pay several thousand a day to shoot
Its also a sport being participated for team building days for some business. |
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geegee
Platinum Member
England
3682 Posts |
Posted - 17 Jan 2008 : 5:48:31 PM
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several thousand pounds a day to shoot? Really? I can't believe that. They wouldn't pay that around here, I am sure....
How much is a brace of Pheasant these days?
Kash - you must have a go at clay pigeon. It is great. Although be warned, not good for those that bruise easily. The guns really have a kick back. My bruise lasted about a week. |
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geegee
Platinum Member
England
3682 Posts |
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cazza
Platinum Member
United Kingdom
1674 Posts |
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rosyw
Platinum Member
England
3756 Posts |
Posted - 17 Jan 2008 : 6:07:01 PM
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| Cazza, whereabouts are you? sounds like you must be fairly near |
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Suelin
Platinum Member
England
2514 Posts |
Posted - 17 Jan 2008 : 6:17:08 PM
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| I had a real run in with somebody this season who was shooting on the other side of the hedge to my gelding. My poor chap was going ballistic. What made me more angry was the fact that he had agreed to let me know when they would be out so I could bring him in. He got a very terse letter explaining that if he didn't let me know in future of any dates and my boy was injured or caused any other party an injury the bill would be firmly through his letter box. Strangely enough he complied and I had a list of dates through my letter box. Get tough and hit them in the pocket that's what I think. |
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LIV
Gold Member
England
705 Posts |
Posted - 17 Jan 2008 : 6:21:59 PM
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I can't understand it either. You buy the birds in, feed them medicated feeds until they are ready to shoot, they are then let out of their pens and hover around in the road waiting to be run over, then they are pushed up out of the cover and blasted out of the sky! There is nothing fair about it and the poor birds don't stand a chance. There were some really big shoots not far from me that used to shoot so many that they had to bury the majority in pits. The chaps from London paying for a day's shooting don't know what to do with the birds and are only really out for a jolly. This is just my opinion though.
Also, they turn up with flags and stand dotted all over fields next to the horses and fire them all up. It's not the noise of the guns that upsets mine but the men dotted about where they aren't usually seems to really get them going. |
     
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cazza
Platinum Member
United Kingdom
1674 Posts |
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rosyw
Platinum Member
England
3756 Posts |
Posted - 17 Jan 2008 : 6:45:04 PM
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| Well I'm just outside Kings Lynn so it seems all the local farmers are using the same type of bird scarer and yes, they are bloody loud we are all used to the jets going over, but they do get very low over our place, we were told a few years back that our barns, having red pantiles on the roof, make a very good 'practice target'! |
Edited by - rosyw on 17 Jan 2008 6:53:26 PM |
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cazza
Platinum Member
United Kingdom
1674 Posts |
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Tahir
Platinum Member
United Kingdom
4572 Posts |
Posted - 17 Jan 2008 : 7:25:51 PM
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Apparently this need to shoot defenceless pheasants is a "sport" - although I can't see anything "sporty" about it. I thought "sport" should be a fair trial, shooting birds that have been scared away from their hidey holes is hardly a fair trial.
My current stallion was permanently lamed by "shooters" when he was with his previous owners. Shooters gave no warning, stallion (or colt as he was then) was turned out, scared out of his skin whilst his owners were at work, he galloped into a metal 5 bar gate. Fortunately he escaped with his life, although his ridden career was destroyed. Thankfully, due to the strength of his breed, he is now technically sound, but showns signs of discomfort on hard or uneven ground. It's criminal really because his conformation and temperament screams "ride me"!!!
Carla, xx. |
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Roseanne
Moderator
United Kingdom
6708 Posts |
Posted - 17 Jan 2008 : 7:39:16 PM
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Estates hatch and breed pheasants in deep litter, like chickens. Then when they are a certain age (tied in with the start of the shooting season) they let them go in hundreds. They have no natural preservation instincts so they potter off, loads get taken by foxes (fast-food for foxes) and wander over roads and get squashed. Along the A44 Oxford to Chipping Norton road the Cornbury Estate lets thousands go. One trip to Oxford with my daughter to shop, we counted 56 bodies on the road...
Yes, it's great fun to shoot birds that don't know they have to hide. Not!! And the reason pheasants are not as cheap as they should be to buy is because the hundreds shot on organised, expensive shoots is that most are buried. They are just sport; not being killed to eat. It's a HUGE business and people - City brokers etc - will happily pay a thousand for a weekend's shooting.
To be charitable, it must be a distorted derivative of the 'hunter gatherer male' I think. |
Roseanne |
Edited by - Roseanne on 17 Jan 2008 7:40:38 PM |
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nicolanapper
Platinum Member
England
4247 Posts |
Posted - 17 Jan 2008 : 9:29:32 PM
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We shoot and eat pheasants, they probably have a marginally better life than a lot of Chickens in this country. Though I believe that pheasants are not actually native to this country but are native to china, so if pheasant shooting gets banned we wont have the pheasants crowing, or whatever they do anymore.
I don't mind these large shoots, as long as they use all the birds they shoot, but to hear of large pits being dug to bury them is not just a waste but quite immoral too. Perhaps these city slicker don't actually like to get their hand dirty and pluck and draw the birds would just not be their cup of tea!!!
Nicky |
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Kash
Platinum Member
England
3777 Posts |
Posted - 18 Jan 2008 : 08:38:20 AM
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GeeGee - I used to have clay pigeon shooting classes when I was at university and really enjoyed it I went again recently and was pleased to see I hadn't lost it
Nicolanapper - I agree - I'm not against pheasant shooting by any means (although I am vegetarian) and if I were to eat meat again, then I would choose this rather than factory produced, anti-biotic filled, slaughter house killed animals... |
Photographs by Emma Maxwell and Peter Grant |
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Rozy Rider
Platinum Member
United Kingdom
4545 Posts |
Posted - 19 Jan 2008 : 12:36:26 AM
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We're another area that has several big estates with 'Lords' of the manor (s). All shooting Pheasant & Partridge, we have three local gamekeepers. In August they usually release 3.500 pheasants in the woods, where our bridleways go through, so from August to end of February, we all have to keep our whits about us when riding, my last serious fall was when two pheasants flew over headge and between my horses ears.....
I also understand is a £2K for a gun a day, and £2.50 for every bird shot on the day, most of these estates only survive on the game shooting. |
Sue
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Grey Girl
Platinum Member
England
1554 Posts |
Posted - 19 Jan 2008 : 11:02:08 AM
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Blimey, I knew it was big business but I didn't realise THAT big. All the people I know who shoot take just a few birds from friend's land and eat them. I rather feel that it's immoral to take hundreds like that and throw them in the ground. Our friend's farm is knee deep in them and occasionally a handful are shot for dinner. They are 'wild' pheasants though - presumably their ancestors were escapees from a shoot. They're not fed or encouraged although the farmer likes to see a lot of varied wildlife about the place.
Team building by shooting living things? I suppose they tell the participants to pretend the birds are their boss... |
 Said the little eohippus, "I´m going to be a HORSE"  |
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geegee
Platinum Member
England
3682 Posts |
Posted - 19 Jan 2008 : 11:22:42 AM
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I agree, Grey Girl. I wasn't aware of it being so big. I'm not in agreement with the team building shoots. Just shows a complete lack of respect for the birds.
Not sure that the right message is given for team building there |
Edited by - geegee on 19 Jan 2008 11:23:18 AM |
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heatherr
Platinum Member
England
1882 Posts |
Posted - 19 Jan 2008 : 12:00:39 PM
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OK I am not going to get in the moral side of this arguement, but as my father was into pheasant shooting his whole life, I can provide some answers:
Beaters are required as the pheasant's instinct is to hide in the undergrowth and not to fly, and there is no sport in shooting a bird on the ground.
When finally they are in the air, they fly quite high and at approx 40mph, so are not very easy to shoot - they tend to change direction quickly too, thus are a lot trickier than a clay pigeon.
As a footnote, they are not native at all to this counrty, they originate in Asia.
And as a final footnote, personally I can think of a lot better things to do with my time than shoot things, living or not
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Heather
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Rozy Rider
Platinum Member
United Kingdom
4545 Posts |
Posted - 19 Jan 2008 : 12:35:22 PM
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| Living where we do, we have had to accept these sports are part of the countryside, at least our's, shooting every Saturday & Wednesday is part of the norm and although I'd much rather see the pheasants & partridges running around and we often have thirty or more in the garden, these activities go on and are big money. Every year there are a few clever bird that escape the shoot and end up living in the garden, feeding with the chickens and the ducks next door, one hen pheasant at the moment, comes running when she see's me in the mornings for her share of the corn, we also have a black cock, that lives with the folks on the otherside of the lane, he's even got a name, we've also got a cock that gets on the bird table and eats their food, they don't go short here. The other thing that goes on is, at the end of the season those pheasants that head back each night to the compound(where they've lived all their lives), get shut in and culled, just a few might escape or get used to breed for the following year...so as you can see its big buiness... |
Sue
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Edited by - Rozy Rider on 19 Jan 2008 12:39:48 PM |
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Tahir
Platinum Member
United Kingdom
4572 Posts |
Posted - 20 Jan 2008 : 11:03:38 AM
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Well, we had 3 shoots around us yesterday, and I am proud to say that my little "herd" totally ignored the shooters antics and carried on grazing, even the stallion (the one that was injured as a 3yo), bless him!!!
Carla, xx. |
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