Member-only story
Let Them Eat Pheasant
A look at one of the UK’s elitist traditions
Each year, across the United Kingdom, more than 30 million cage reared pheasants are released into the countryside so that members of the shooting fraternity can have a go at blasting them from the sky with shotguns.
Although I am not a hunter myself, I live in an area where hunting plays a huge part in society, and when managed correctly while following sustainable principals, I have no problem with the concept.
Grouse and pheasant shooting falls somewhat outside of the normal realms of sustainable game management in my opinion.
For starters, pheasant, of which 16 million birds are shot annually, are not native to the UK.
Most of those birds that escape the guns will perish due to depredation, disease or through collision with passing cars. The birds have little natural understanding of the creatures that prey on them as they did not evolve alongside those threats. Having been reared in cages by car driving game keepers, they also haven’t really understood the danger that motor vehicles pose.
The grouse are an endemic species, however, their environment has been so altered by unnatural management techniques to favor the shooter that it is now…
