Grouse season starts - Royal Family shoot

[antelopevalley]

Grouse shooting season starts. People who get fun out of killing birds largely bred to be shot for fun.
The Royal Family take part in grouse shoots and controversially George was present at a grouse shoot at only five years old.
Is this really a suitable leisure pursuit for the Royal Family? To shoot birds for fun?

www.msn.com/en-gb/lifestyle/travel/controversial-royal-family-summer-holiday-tradition-starts-today-but-they-ve-been-urged-not-to-include-prince-george/ar-AA10B485?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=3ba1e30265144c75c5e573a3fa41a20e

The game bird industry puts millions in to the economy and supports a massive amount of rural employment as well as countryside management. If you don't want to shoot birds nobody is going to force you to do so but don't dismiss it as merely 'fun', it's really ignorant.

If they don’t do it for fun why do they?

Countryside management that means the water runs of the unnatural grouse moors encouraging flooding?

Or the countryside management that is murdering our native birds of prey?

Or burning our natural peat bogs?

Just for starters.

No thanks, I'd rather they didn't bother.

It's terrible for the environment as well! The birds are intensively reared and the just let out before the shoot. If they aren't shot most of them don't survive as they don't know how to survive in the wild. Then game keepers just seem to try to kill anything that gets in their way like birds of prey, foxes, cats. The royal family love their blood 'sports!

Another critical Royal thread @antelopevalley ? I live in NE Scotland. Thousands of people are involved in grouse shooting every year not just the RF . Whether or not you agree , it is a way of life in this area . It is also a huge industry much needed to boost Scotland’s economy.,

@antelopevalley
’blood’ sports absolutely horrible

I know it is not just the Royal Family shooting the thousands of birds that are shot every year for fun. But it is one of their leisure pursuits. Why anyone thinks killing birds that have been reared and are pretty defenceless is fun, I will never understand.
I wonder if George is being taught to do the same?

I live on a grouse moor and I agree with this 100%

Grouse season starts on the 'glorious 12th' - you're a day late with your thread @antelopevalley!

Except it isn’t. It’s really inefficient use of resources on large areas of land. Plus terrible for the wildlife that tourist love and come to see.

I quite like eating grouse

how else do you propose they find their way to restaurants..?

Oh dear…
Grouse can’t be commercially bred.
The moors have to be managed to ensure they are suitable for the birds to breed naturally, so any shot birds are born wild and raised fully free range

Even pheasants, which are commercially bred, are released as chicks and live in the estates for half a year before the season starts
Any that are left over then live and potentially breed over the spring, other than the ones that get run over by cars

At least get basic facts right before you post

You seem a tad obsessed with the royal family OP

Driven grouse shooting is a pretty horrendous 'sport'. It's entirely reliant on the illegal persecution of birds of prey including Hen Harriers, Golden Eagles and Peregrines, with the result that those species are much rarer than they would be otherwise.

Grouse aren't reared and released like Pheasants, but they are maintained in far higher numbers than their natural population level by burning moorland on a massive scale and slaughtering all the predators both legally and illegally.

Grouse are also provided with medication to control parasites which build up because they're living in such unnaturally high densities.

They are bred, released into the estates where they are fed. They act like domesticated birds wandering over the roads with zero idea how to look after themselves.
Grouse moors are terrible for the environment. 12% of UK land is grouse moors.

Grouse are delicious. I’m very glad they are raised to be shot then eaten. 😋

They are bred, released into the estates where they are fed. They act like domesticated birds wandering over the roads with zero idea how to look after themselves.

are you getting confused with pheasants op?

I don’t like hunting but I live in the countryside and the posters who say grouse aren’t bred are correct (but their numbers in the wild are kept artificially high)

When I saw the thread title, I just knew who
had started it.

Good to see you've got something new to worry about op after fretting that Kate wasn't wearing her wedding ring last week.

I also agree with this but would add short-eared owls to the persecuted bird list and also note the mass killing of ground predators like stoats and foxes. Moorland looks like a beautiful landscape to the untrained eye and gamekeepers are even given credit for this. In reality, it's a fake, curated environment where the only things allowed to live are the grouse and species which don't harm them. The fact that other birds such as curlew thrive in the same environment is a happy accident and make no mistake that if they predated on grouse, they would have been obliterated too.

Not to mention the burning. It's relentless here throughout the spring - massive amounts of smoke and CO2. They are not supposed to burn 'deep peat' but the rules aren't fit for purpose so they just crack on. It's honestly so depressing.

Grouse, pheasant and partridge are all good to eat and so is venison - much better than beef.

Grouse is good to eat, but I'd happily not eat grouse again and have our countryside restored, no flooding from the run off and better wildlife diversity.

If your house had flooded downstream from a grouse moor, I don't think 'here's a tasty dinner' would be much compensation.

OP, what is your agenda with all these threads? You come across as obsessive to the point of ridiculousness.

It's entirely reliant on the illegal persecution of birds of prey including Hen Harriers

The royals have questions to answer on exactly this point but the police can't pursue enquiries without express permission from the queen to enter her estates and we all know where such requests will go

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jul/17/ludicrous-limits-on-police-wildlife-inquiries-on-queens-estates-decried

Leaving aside the environmental ravage of grouse shooting, appalling as it is and moving on to the royals' love of blood sports in general the queen has managed to get the tax on deer shooting at Balmoral reduced to below the rates paid by local hospitality businesses:

www.peeblesshirenews.com/news/19100939.queen-gets-tax-bill-shooting-sports-balmoral-estate-slashed-lower-village-pub/

In answer to OP, I don't think any of it is a suitable pursuit for royals.

Especially royals in dire need of a positive PR spin.