Where do you see commercial game shooting in UK in 20 years time?

[enfieldspares]

If the money is there, as in clients that want to pay, it will thrive. Indeed the more expensive it becomes will be irrelevant if the income of those that partake rises by a similar or greater amount. People still play polo, still aspire to own racehorses, still take boxes at the football, at the opera and lunch at the Ritz. If OTOH the money isn't there it will decline and be replaced on some suitably located estates by woodland weddings and glamping.

 

[Tazz]

Breeding and releasing game birds for shooting, I don’t think it will be around in 20 years, look at how quickly changes in attitude and how easily people are “ offended” now with the march of woke. I look forward to being wrong

 

[User00053]

Don’t think any real significant changes to commercial game shooting in twenty years time but probably gone as we know it within a century maybe. Don’t see a problem with numbers shot personally as dead is dead weather it be ten birds or three hundred providing good killable birds and for me ten birds per gun per drive just perfect given eight guns and max of five drives.
Would rather shoot 100 pigeons or corvids decoying than twenty as I enjoy the process of shooting each individual bird otherwise would not do it and have never been interested in the process of shooting reared driven game other than providing it for others.

 

[Len the dog]

I don’t believe this to be the case, we are already seeing large businesses cut ties with whatever the vociferous protest groups don’t like because of the media attention, and sometimes just bare-faced threats.
Just look at the banking sector for instance, multiple banks refusing to deal with businesses and individuals alike because of their activities or even just political views. Our detractors are extremely well organised and know that they can stir up ignorant fools that carry out their wishes, look at Extinction Rebellion and how they operate.

The likes of CP may be solely concerned about the fluffy bunnies but he knows that to get the rabble rousers and anarchists on side then simply make it a class war, most people not connected with shooting still see it as a preserve for the rich and landed.

 

[User00053]

only real certainty is that time will tell but hey ho!

 

[levigsp]

You’ve hit double with both darts there. It will be gone as per what it is (and I personally hope so too because I find it unappetising in the reared bird format); but hopefully transitioned to a structure whereby all natural bred birds through very extensive land management programmes (and not and the cost of persecuting raptors or cage trapping crows etc) - providing natural commercial sporting opportunities via excellent upscaled rough shoot methodologies. Likely to put costs to a level where it is very prohibitive, and much smaller bag days, but that’s the way of the world we live in, polarisation and rich becoming mega rich, the average and poor ending in the ‘please Sir’ category.

It’s already becoming more and more popular on some estates doing natural partridge days of course.

Rough shooting is likely to continue for ducks, partridges, woodcock and the odd non-reared pheasant - and that’s actually the most enjoyable and pleasant way to shoot and take game for the table - in a friendly and non-commercialised manner.

Saying this, I do hope the put-and-take fisheries are put under as much pressure as commercial shooting, as it’s much the same.

Happy Easter

Happy easter to you as well, but I think you live in dream land.
Without the extensive killing of birds like crows and trapping of vermin like stoats, there will be little to no gamebirds of any type history has already shown us that.
If you believe that rough shooting will be ok, your WRONG, take a look at the legislation that just gone through in Scotland, need licence for grouse and you think it will stop there?
In twenty years time at the latest you will have little to no shooting as it will all be licenced and then revoked. Bird and mammal control will be by poison as in the Netherlands experiments.
In 30 years we will have NO recreational shooting or stalking in the UK, little farming other than Horticulture and I will be in a pine box 6 ft under.

 

[User00047]

Interesting to note that many of you believe that demand alone is enough to keep it going as it is.
The people “demanding” big days are generally extremely wealthy and those people are in the minority.
There’s a growing argument about “re-wilding” and questions are asked about which species we should see in the woods and fields and moors….releasing non-native species into the countryside is not going to be popular and this includes pheasants.
With many people so disillusioned as to believe that wolves could solve our deer “problem”, it doesn’t take much for the common man to believe that pheasants en masse are enormously detrimental to the ecology of the British countryside and that they should be limited to such a degree to make commercial shooting obsolete.

 

[Brave Echo Niner]

Where do I see it:

The history books.

 

[HonestJohn]

Happy easter to you as well, but I think you live in dream land.
Without the extensive killing of birds like crows and trapping of vermin like stoats, there will be little to no gamebirds of any type history has already shown us that.
If you believe that rough shooting will be ok, your WRONG, take a look at the legislation that just gone through in Scotland, need licence for grouse and you think it will stop there?
In twenty years time at the latest you will have little to no shooting as it will all be licenced and then revoked. Bird and mammal control will be by poison as in the Netherlands experiments.
In 30 years we will have NO recreational shooting or stalking in the UK, little farming other than Horticulture and I will be in a pine box 6 ft under.

Happy Easter

 

[Rhodesianjess]

Interesting to note that many of you believe that demand alone is enough to keep it going as it is.
The people “demanding” big days are generally extremely wealthy and those people are in the minority.
There’s a growing argument about “re-wilding” and questions are asked about which species we should see in the woods and fields and moors….releasing non-native species into the countryside is not going to be popular and this includes pheasants.
With many people so disillusioned as to believe that wolves could solve our deer “problem”, it doesn’t take much for the common man to believe that pheasants en masse are enormously detrimental to the ecology of the British countryside and that they should be limited to such a degree to make commercial shooting obsolete.

Unfortunately the same wealthy people that shoot pheasants in large numbers generally own the thousands of acres that it requires. They won't rewild, they'll solar farm as that's better income plus like money making schemes. Any woods felled are better off back in production for crops,a yearly turnover not in decades time.
If you think that once their shooting is banned that they're going to allow stalking for the pittance that it generates, I doubt that. Contractors do the job quicker and better than amateurs.
Re bird shooting, the countryside doesn't support game regeneration for a variety of reasons eg lack of cover,no insect life, human disturbance, vermin numbers among others. Even walked up days will degenerate into armed vermin rambles,no income so will cease.
Countryside will be a poorer place without bird shooting IMO but I think it's coming. No idea of timescale but I doubt my grandkids will die being shooting men like I will. It will certainly change the look of the countryside physically and species wise.
Hope to all that's holy that I'm wrong

 

[Roedeer 1962]

If it’s struggling now it will get worse !

 

[DVS1]

There won't be a UK in 20 years

 

[cjm1066]

We need to go back to the shootable surplus era, gamekeepers working to encourage wild birds to breed via habitat management and control of prediators. In the 1970s underkeepers had large trap lines.

Releasing some additional birds is fine to supplement the wild birds, ideally bred from captured local birds.

The commodity import of chicks/eggs isn't the future.

 

[User00053]

only way forewords and has been for a long time imo is to get out of dodge to a land where men are still men ( for the most part) with a strong hunting culture or need to control species which suits some individuals and especially me.
That been said I moved to Scotland to live and work thinking in uk would be last bastion and was lucky to escape the current situation more by luck than choice.
Reading some peoples opinions who may or may not be genuine convinces me things have gone to rat do dos and that education is to blame

 

[Len the dog]

I very much doubt that transitioning from large bag corporate days to a convivial walk about shooting wild naturally bred game is going to save our bacon. At the end of the day we are killing things and they DO NOT LIKE IT. There are some elements that don’t want anyone else to be able to choose to eat meat, they are not going to give up the fight when we are down to putting the occasional rabbit or pigeon onto the table.
It is this abject failure to recognise the threat that will hasten the inevitable, anyone that thinks the antis only care about fox hunting and large bag days is seriously deluded.

 

[User00053]

We need to go back to the shootable surplus era, gamekeepers working to encourage wild birds to breed via habitat management and control of prediators. In the 1970s underkeepers had large trap lines.

Releasing some additional birds is fine to supplement the wild birds, ideally bred from captured local birds.

The commodity import of chicks/eggs isn't the future.

Nice sentiment but Time Machine needed with date set imo to around 1900 for sport providing born into right pram.

 

[bumpy22]

The worry for me listening to all this is if you are right and the driven days are gone what the he'll happens to the land

 

[User00053]

I very much doubt that transitioning from large bag corporate days to a convivial walk about shooting wild naturally bred game is going to save our bacon. At the end of the day we are killing things and they DO NOT LIKE IT. There are some elements that don’t want anyone else to be able to choose to eat meat, they are not going to give up the fight when we are down to putting the occasional rabbit or pigeon onto the table.
It is this abject failure to recognise the threat that will hasten the inevitable, anyone that thinks the antis only care about fox hunting and large bag days is seriously deluded.

Totally agree genie out of bottle and little point in lamenting times past.

 

[Tazz]

To quote Frazer from Dads Army, We’re Doomed, Doomed !!!

 

[HallyButt]

In 20 years (or less) commercial game shooting will be finished. There will be rough farm shoots as there always were and driven shooting will revert back to private estates by invitation only and the preserve if the landed gentry.