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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To not want DH to shoot birds in Yorkshire?

256 replies

g1itterati · 11/12/2017 09:04

AIBU or a bit "precious" please? I'm quite wound up about this since Saturday.

I'm a rep at The DC's school with 2 other mums. One of them is quite a "character" - e.g. she turns up to school runs in green wellies, tweeds and a Barbour jacket as if she's on a farm in god knows where, when in actual fact we're in Central London. She talks loudly that she has to dash as she's late for "the shoot" - though I never quite brought myself to enquire where and what she will be shooting.

When we held a coffee morning at her house, she was about to get her "guns" out (yes, actual guns from a gun cupboard) but fortunately most people had to make a quick exit because of the parking metres. She is from Yorkshire and makes no bones about the fact that she wants to move back up there asap, leave her DH working in London for a few more years and put the DC in a boarding prep. Anyway, each to their own. She is very friendly and actually quite funny.

They asked DH and I over for lunch this weekend. I had told her I was vegetarian to which she said, "Why?" I said I was fine to just have veg and sides, so that was that. Anyway, when we got there, she was making a big thing about how she orders whole dead pheasants from Yorkshire and plucks them herself! Apparently she has then hanging in the "pantry!" Then, after lunch, talk turned to shooting and they proceeded to get out what can only be described as a whole arsenal of guns and then talked us through what they have shot with them!

My AIBU is - her DH has now asked my DH to invest in something or other and he has invited him on a two-day shoot of birds in Yorkshire in Jan! DH has accepted this.

This morning I thanked her when I saw her briefly and she said (laughing) "Your DH is a dark horse, how did you two get together?!" Basically, she is alluding to the fact he was once trained and has used guns professionally and I'm anti- the whole thing.

AIBU to ask DH not to go because I am totally anti- fox-hunting and what is the point of shooting birds for no reason as a sport? Personally, I think it should be made illegal. Or should I just accept that some people are different to me and let it go?

OP posts:
Original poster
g1itterati · 12/12/2017 11:57

Northern - maybe there are accidents on shoots? I have no idea how many people do this kind of thing as a percentage of the population, if they shoot anything or if any of them get injured. It's news to me that so many people have guns in their houses and see shooting as a way of life, with others keen to give it a go. Who knew?

OP posts:
TatianaLarina · 12/12/2017 12:04

I buy pheasant from the supermarket. It’s not that unusual.

You can buy game from specialist butchers and online butchers such as Abel and Cole. There are also loads of wild game websites.

There are plenty of people who eat game and restaurants will always need supplying.

ZigZagandDustin · 12/12/2017 12:06

Oliversmumsarmy, judgey much? 'If there's any substance to her'.... What are you like!

ZigZagandDustin · 12/12/2017 12:09

And it's not a class issue, it's a culture issue. Country folk, who tend to be both poor farmers and wealthy land owners tend to shoot. I only grew up around the poor farmers who put a few rabbits or if they'd been lucky, a pheasant on the table for Sunday dinner.

ToffeeUp · 12/12/2017 12:11

I eat meat and don't have a problem with people shooting animals for personal consumption, population control etc. Calling it a sport and doing it as a fun day out is completely different and I wouldn't like it.

I hope your husband knows how to pluck, prepare and cook the birds, otherwise it's even more of a waste.

ZigZagandDustin · 12/12/2017 12:29

Such lame digs from the anti-shooting crowd.

HmmmHashtag · 12/12/2017 13:02

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

BertrandRussell · 12/12/2017 14:21

I think all these people talking about clean kills and so on have not seen some of the guns on the average business man shoot!

BertrandRussell · 12/12/2017 14:40

And it is very frustrating when people assume that everyone who is opposed to blood sports is a "townie" and doesn't understand the country!

harshbuttrue1980 · 12/12/2017 15:47

Plenty of slaughterhouse workers do enjoy their work, hence the exposes using hidden cameras that have been seen over the last couple of years, in all types of slaughterhouses - ordinary, halal and even organic have all seen hideous treatment of animals, from stubbing out cigarettes in their faces, punching, kicking and generally torturing them.
OP, your ethics just aren't consistent. If you had to choose, would you rather be a pheasant living freely and then one day get shot out of the sky, or be a dairy cow who has her calves taken away from her when they are a day old and then goes to a slaughterhouse to die?
I'm vegan because I don't like any slaughter, but how on earth can shooting be seen as being worse than meat/dairy/egg farming?? It does sound as if you just have a bee in your bonnet about shooting because of its "posh" image

harshbuttrue1980 · 12/12/2017 15:51

And you are right, OP, when you say any reduction in cruelty is better than nothing, but I think you're starting in the wrong place. If you want to cut down cruelty, you'd be better cutting out all farmed animal products and actually switching to game.

I just don't get why you are so anti shooting when you are fine with cows being treated as milk machines and then going to an agonising death.

BertrandRussell · 12/12/2017 15:52

"Plenty of slaughterhouse workers do enjoy their work, hence the exposes using hidden cameras that have been seen over the last couple of years"

And we rightly condemn such people. But winging a pheasant is just "one of those things".......

BertrandRussell · 12/12/2017 16:11

"I just don't get why you are so anti shooting when you are fine with cows being treated as milk machines and then going to an agonising death"

I don't think anyone is "fine" with that. But they are very different things. Shooting animals for sport is completely unacceptable to many people- me included. So are cruel farming practices. And human trafficking. And many other things. We are currently talking about blood sports. Happy to talk about all the other things if you want to start threads about them.

Original poster
g1itterati · 12/12/2017 16:38

Thankyou Bertrand. Harsh, I'm certainly not fine with a lot of things and it's not really about "starting in the wrong place." There are many hideous practices worldwide, its overwhelming, but this shooting issue is one that has recently cropped up for me.

OP posts:
ToffeeUp · 12/12/2017 16:50

But these pheasants are not free range birds living in the wild, they are reared and released specifically for the shooting party. It's the shooting birds for fun that is the problem for me.

ragged · 12/12/2017 20:12

The pheasants have a hugely more pleasant life than chickens bred for eating. Or turkeys.

(MN should really have a little Turkey emoticon).

sparechange · 12/12/2017 20:22

toffee
They are exactly free range birds living in the wild Confused
Yes they are bred commercially rather than naturally breeding in the wild, but the chicks are released into the wild in the summer where they roam freely
The farms will set up various feeding pens so they a constant supply of grain and to encourage them to stay on their farm and not stray to neighbouring farms

But it's the very definition of a free range bird especially compared to 'free range' chickens who live in a shed with a small pop hole which gives them access to a fenced area of field

8pawsgood · 12/12/2017 20:29

Heavens above..10 pages in and the argument still rages. To throw my two-penneth in, I think you're overthinking this whole issue. Your Husband has been invited on a 'corporate' shoot day, he'll have a nice breakfast, go out in the field and quite possibly shoot nothing..actually if he's a shot as suggested he could make a miss everytime and harm not one single bird. He'll have a soup and sandwich lunch and then a slap up dinner..he can turn the brace down at the end (they'll go to the local butcher or the Gamekeeper will distribute them off to the beaters). He'll drink and network and have a lovely time. You can also have a lovely time with your friend in London, she sounds as mad as a box of frogs but should not be parading her guns over coffee (so to speak). Relax, move on..Tweeds, Barbour, Wellies, Spaniels . love it..but then I am in Yorkshire..🐾🎄. PS: He's lucky he's getting a trip up here, pheasants are also available down south...😉

SignoraStronza · 12/12/2017 20:42

HmmHashtagHmm I'll quite happily stand by my opinion that the fewer children brought up believing that a fun day out consists of killing things, the better. If that makes me a 'vile person' in your opinion then so be it.

sparechange · 12/12/2017 21:20

signo
Do you also believe anyone who goes fishing deserves to be infertile?

GlitteryStag · 12/12/2017 21:27

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

ragged · 12/12/2017 21:29

I would love to see all this outrage repeated on the next gleeful MN spider-killing thread.

ToffeeUp · 12/12/2017 21:33

Ok spare, I should have said free birds instead of free range, my mistake. I was just querying Harsh romanticised view of a freely flying bird.

I have no problem with free-range pheasants being bred for food and being killed in a professional way, my problem is them being (badly) shot at for fun.

BertrandRussell · 12/12/2017 21:33

"I would love to see all this outrage repeated on the next gleeful MN spider-killing thread."

I actually object very strongly to killing spiders.........

FaintlyBaffled · 12/12/2017 21:57

Hear hear ragged!