I’ve got a few blogs to write that were scheduled for last week but the news of the two dead eagles in southern England took priority, so now I’m playing catch-up.
Remember those shot pheasants and other assorted species that had been dumped in a lay-by in Angus a week ago (see here and here)? I’m pleased to report that journalist Peter John Meiklem picked up the story from this blog and ran it as a news item in The Courier last week, which will have reached a wide audience:
The Scottish Gamekeepers Association was asked to comment for the article and a spokesperson is quoted, “It is difficult to establish the truth or motivation from photographs appearing on an anti-shooting website, so we will not speculate“, which I think implies that they think it was a set-up.
That the SGA has drawn such a conclusion shouldn’t surprise anybody. These are the people who have also said:
“Professional gamekeepers do not poison raptors” (May 2011)
“It is unfair to accuse gamekeepers of wildlife crime” (June 2011)
“Will these very large creatures [white-tailed eagles] differentiate between a small child and more natural quarry?” (September 2011)
“Raptors are thriving on game-keepered land” (July 2013)
“I strongly believe the goshawk was never indigenous to the United Kingdom and there is absolutely no hard evidence to suggest otherwise” (September 2013)
When asked whether gamekeepers are involved with the poisoning, shooting & trapping of raptors: “No they aren’t. We would dispute that” (March 2014)
“In the last ten years we have stamped out poisoning. We’ve absolutely finished it” (October 2014)
“We kill animals because probably we’re the doctors and nurses of the countryside” (January 2015)
“Grouse moors are a birdwatcher’s paradise” (December 2020)
On the need to phase out the use of toxic lead ammunition within five years, “The SGA remains unconvinced by present evidence…” (September 2021)
Whilst the SGA is busy trying to out-dinosaur some of the other game-shooting organisations, another blog reader has sent in a photograph of some more dumped gamebirds, which he tells me he ‘found dumped over a roadside gate at Sutton Bingham Reservoir in South Somerset on 20th November 2021‘.
It’s a couple of pheasants and a red-legged partridge, tied together with baler string as they often are at the end of a shoot.
Perhaps a member of the shooting party was given the birds to take home but he/she wasn’t interested in eating them, just shooting them, so chucked them over a fence and drove off.
Or perhaps some anti-shooting extremists got hold of some weapons, did a bit of armed trespass and shot the birds without anyone seeing and then tied them together and lobbed them over a random gate in the vague hope that someone might come along and see them, take a photograph and submit them for publication on this blog.
Raptor Persecution UK 
I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised by the comments of the SGA, they seem to fail to understand the difference between our standards and theirs. We don’t set up, have no wish to set up,as one PROVEN case destroys our credibility for good. They on the other hand seem as adept as ever of saying the wrong thing, thinking the impossibly stupid thus condemning themselves to ridicule and proving they have no place in a modern world.
Throwing the brace of pheasants you’re given at the end of the shoot over the hedge must be pretty typical, I remember a contributor here mentioning this was commonplace where they lived. A girl I knew who worked in an office in Edinburgh decided to take up shooting for some strange reason, got all the natty gear you’re supposed to wear and then on her very first shoot managed to wing two pheasants. She was too squeamish to dispatch them herself so someone else had to do it for her. That didn’t stop her posing for a photo with both her ‘kills’. She must have been given them to take home, so would it be sensible to assume she plucked, dressed and cooked them? No it wouldn’t, she almost certainly didn’t. I have a feeling two dead pheasants ended up in an Edinburgh wheelie bin that day. How many shooters actually know how to prepare and cook what they’ve killed even if they’re prepared to put up with the lead? If you were required to have a licence before you could shoot anything shouldn’t that be a requirement of getting it?