Don’t we need to celebrate the biodiversity we have now established in the UK?@

[Heym SR20]

I grew up in Oxfordshire on the edge of the Chiltern hills in the 1980’s and worked on farms in late 80’s and early 90’s. In those days there were no Badgers, occasional birds of prey and no deer. The only deer were in places like Stonor Deer Park. The only deer I ever saw were in the New Forest or up in Scotland.

Since that time many many more acres of scrub, woodland, hedgerows have been recreated. Even our motorway verges are now wonderful wild life corridors. In the past they were just mown grass.

Deer numbers have increased markedly - thanks mostly to all this habitat. Ditto all the birds of prey etc. down at my Folks before Christmas and left remains of a muntjac carcass in the field. It was like an African wild life show with Buzzards, Red Kites etc all fighting over it.

A face book post from FACE popped up a couple of days ago. Shouting about how numbers of licensed german hunters have increased to 470,000 - a 50% increase in the last 30 years and they are now a powerful force in biodiversity, wild life management etc.

Rather than hiding away, shouldn’t the UK Shooting community be pushing our corner and the benefits we bring. BBC had a recent article on the challenges of deer. We are the solution to managing this. Lets focus on the positives and celebrate how much better things are.

@Conor O'Gorman

FACE - European Federation for Hunting and Conservation

🇩🇪 Hunting in Germany is growing – and so is organised responsibility New figures from Germany show a clear and important trend - there are now more than 460,700 licensed hunters in the country –...

www.facebook.com

 

[VSS]

When biodiversity goes down, we take the blame.
When it goes up, someone else takes the credit.
Regardless of who or what was actually responsible.

I'm a farmer, and it's ever been thus.

 

[Heym SR20]

Following on from my previous post - showing the benefits of wild game meat. Certainly my experience in Germany is that game is on just about every restaurant menu, sold by every butcher etc.

And most of what is shot is eaten within a few km of where it is shot. Most deer and boar go to local processors and butchers and into the local community. None of consolidated large game dealers, paying pennies with long distances travelled by the carcasses.

Log in to Facebook

Log in to Facebook to start sharing and connecting with your friends, family and people you know.

www.facebook.com

 

[Heym SR20]

When biodiversity goes down, we take the blame.
When it goes up, someone else takes the credit.
Regardless of who or what was actually responsible.

I'm a farmer, and it's ever been thus.

Farmers definitely should be taking the credit when its due. It’s your land after all.