And FWIW it's not much of a shoot, or shoots indeed, in my opinion and a boast of being established one hundred years that then, owing to a one season temporary difficulty decide to make their gamekeeper redundant is it? Do the guns not have enough loyalty towards an employee who has given them good sport on previous years to return that and see him right for this season?
Have not many shoots already had the guns' subscriptions in and therefore is this not a case of "Well we've paid so we'll keep the keeper on and go this season with what we can go with?" Or actually is it a case of "toys out the pram" and give the keeper his P45 as the real truth is it is not the sport that is important, the camaraderie, the "craic" but merely the head of game shot?
For me a proper sporting syndicate is about the "craic" not the fact about big bags on land that can't sustain that number of wild birds plus a hundred or so extra for the season to add fresh stock. Not the "thousands" that the article mentions. For if, as one shoot says the ground vermin is being controlled, would that not at least ensure some natural population of wild birds to come through for the coming season?
Reading it again this is all, isn't it, not about wild birds plus a hundred or so extra put down but all about big bags...yet again...quantity, quantity, quantity. Not quality, not supporting the keeper through these new proposals but about the numbers. That's not sport. It's just little more than something more resembling a "feather bearing clay pigeon". A numbers shoot masquerading as a game shoot.