Dumping of shot pheasants

There are loads of animals and birds shot all over the world that are not eaten. Why is that so difficult to understand? Not sure what foxes, rats or magpies taste like but I just don't fancy them.
I've eaten fox. Wasn't as bad as all the hear-sayers would have you believe
 
So birds are killed for...........peoples amusement sport joy money etc insert any description you like, but if I was to look at it dispassionately , it would be killing for killings sake, but I don't want to judge others, nor would I want to provide the anti's with a gilt edged opportunity, it just sits very uneasilywith me. As I child I was taught to eat what you shoot, & yes I have eaten some very interesting dishes, Skylark, Swallow, Moorhen, Lapwings & frogs, plus a few more that I don't want to mention. And shame on me. I am older & wiser. :doh:

I didn't say I agree with it, nor that it sits easily with me either, but yes that is the reason why so many game birds are killed. For enjoyment. Those that participate in shooting reared birds - including me - should simply accept that. Otherwise they should stop doing shooting them.

With perhaps 40% returns, rearing pheasants and partridge is hardly an efficient way to generate food.
 
Does it? I'm very much involved in field sports. I don't think that the deer I shoot have much choice about being involved though. :cuckoo:

field sports it may be labelled, however I would suggest you are a hunter, out hunting the deer for food and the deer has opportunity to avoid/escape you and was born free.
Game shooting is all about the sport from start to finish, with no guarantee the game will end up as food those that participate are not what I would call hunts men or women.
 
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Look at it dispassionately.

The birds are being reared to be shot, not as a food source.

The shoots are there to provide birds to be shot, not to serve food.

The guns on driven shoots pay money to shoot birds, not to source food.

The justification for shooting is that guns are paying for the service being provided. If that service wasn't being provided, they would shoot elsewhere. If that service was no longer available at all, they would be playing golf or something similar.

Taking a brace of birds home at the end of the day is purely coincidental.
But WG the excuse used to justify these big bags THAT WHAT IS SHOT IS EATEN has then driven this ridiculous BASC and British Game Alliance co-signed voluntary lead shot ban.

I've no issue per se with big bags and that's fine....UNTIL IN SEEKING TO DEFEND THEM THE ADVOCATES OF SUCH SEEK TO BAN HOW I DO WHAT I DO which is use lead shot in my shotgun cartridges.

I see it as little far removed from the houndsports lobby folk that sought to defend fox hunting simply and solely by lurid tales of shot foxes with legs blown off and dying from gangrene and/or the dangers of men out at night with lamps and high powered rifles.
 
I've eaten fox. Wasn't as bad as all the hear-sayers would have you believe
Didn't Plummer in his Lurcher & Terrier books say that he sold an awful lot of fox carcases to the Chinese community. I once went out with a Vietnamese girl, an English girl came up to her in a hostile manner & said, Urgh you Vietnamese people, you eat dogs & cats, to which she replied, yes that's right, cooked well, they're delicious!
 
Didn't Plummer in his Lurcher & Terrier books say that he sold an awful lot of fox carcases to the Chinese community.
Ah now that's reminded me. Took a chap out lamping while ago, at a time when you used styrene and a piece of glass as your U-caller, anyway he owned a Chinese restaurant but wasn't Chinese he was Vietnamese, at the time nobody would have had a Vietnamese carryout here anyway. We called in a beautiful big dog fox for V, that's what he called himself, and he shoots it with the .22 and was over the moon and wanted to keep said fox. Few weeks later he was asked what he did with the fox, we genuinely thought he was getting it stuffed, he said half still in freezer, true story.
 
field sports it may be labelled, however I would suggest you are a hunter, out hunting the deer for food and the deer has opportunity to avoid/escape you and was born free.
Game shooting is all about the sport from start to finish, with no guarantee the game will end up as food those that participate are not what I would call hunts men or women.
What would you call someone who partakes in both deer stalking and game shooting? Asking for a friend obviously!
 
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& I witnessed a whale being killed, by 7 men in a rowing boat, the sea turned red, & I ate some of that too, it was delicious, but never ever ever again.
You should write a few articles on your life for the EDP, sounds like you write a book to be honest. Very interesting!
 
Totally agree with you, having been on a small syndicate and rough shooting previously I got invited on a high pheasant day a couple of weeks back. Ethical shoot where all the birds go to a dealer, apparently. At the end of the day I took 6 braces of the 8 braces left for the guns home as most of the other guns just walked passed them.

Found it hugely disrespectful and quite
It’s the same as the majority of stalkers who go after stags in the highland, you don’t see them taking a red home.
 
But WG the excuse used to justify these big bags THAT WHAT IS SHOT IS EATEN has then driven this ridiculous BASC and British Game Alliance co-signed voluntary lead shot ban.

I've no issue per se with big bags and that's fine....UNTIL IN SEEKING TO DEFEND THEM THE ADVOCATES OF SUCH SEEK TO BAN HOW I DO WHAT I DO which is use lead shot in my shotgun cartridges.

I see it as little far removed from the houndsports lobby folk that sought to defend fox hunting simply and solely by lurid tales of shot foxes with legs blown off and dying from gangrene and/or the dangers of men out at night with lamps and high powered rifles.

Since 50% of game shot in the UK is exported to the EU you should really be directing your ire at the European Chemicals Agency and their original proposal to ban lead sold and used in hunting, sports shooting and other outdoor shooting.

This was, after all, a measure proposed in part for health reasons: "The proposed restriction would protect the children of households that very frequently eat game meat. For example, it is assumed that phasing out the use of lead in large-calibre bullets and gunshot could avoid IQ loss in up to 7,000 children a year. The total costs of the restriction to society range from €260 million to €10.5 billion over 20 years depending on the sector affected and the type of restriction imposed."

Without a move towards replacing lead shot that whole market could become unavailable.

The lead ban from Europe will likely affect sport shooting (i.e. clay pigeon) as well: European Federation for Hunting and Conservation Lead Survey. Talking to the instructor at my local clay ground, they are preparing to replace all their stocks of lead shot with steel. Bizarrely, other clay grounds already ban the use of game cartridges and steel shot!
 
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Didn't Plummer in his Lurcher & Terrier books say that he sold an awful lot of fox carcases to the Chinese community. I once went out with a Vietnamese girl, an English girl came up to her in a hostile manner & said, Urgh you Vietnamese people, you eat dogs & cats, to which she replied, yes that's right, cooked well, they're delicious!
I once went out with a cross eyed girl.
It didn't work out.
We could never see eye to eye and I even suspected she was seeing someone on the side too!
 
Bequia, Windward Isles, Carribean. The man who harpooned it was in his eighties, a real old mariner & survivor of a bygone age, had broken nearly every bone in his body doing battle with the whales. The whole population of the island turned up on this small hill to watch.You could just about make out this longboat being towed one way then another, through some pretty rough seas, for about 7 hours before they beached it, then the process of filleting it, first the blubber then the red meat, huge slabs carted off on their shoulders, if a tiny scrap floated off through the red waves someone would swim out & throw it back to the crowd on the beach. Not a single scrap was wasted, every one had food & oil for cooking, that seven ton Humpback was treated with reverence & respect. We got to eat some, tasted of fillet steak & smelt of bbqued lobster or shrimp, the most singular life changing spiritual food I ever ate, if I told you the rest of the story, you would probably call me mad. So I won't.
Apologies for going off thread.
 
Wow. Interesting. Where was that?
Bequia, Windward Isles, Carribean. The man who harpooned it was in his eighties, a real old mariner & survivor of a bygone age, had broken nearly every bone in his body doing battle with the whales. The whole population of the island turned up on this small hill to watch.You could just about make out this longboat being towed one way then another, through some pretty rough seas, for about 7 hours before they beached it, then the process of filleting it, first the blubber then the red meat, huge slabs carted off on their shoulders, if a tiny scrap floated off through the red waves someone would swim out & throw it back to the crowd on the beach. Not a single scrap was wasted, every one had food & oil for cooking, that seven ton Humpback was treated with reverence & respect. We got to eat some, tasted of fillet steak & smelt of bbqued lobster or shrimp, the most singular life changing spiritual food I ever ate, if I told you the rest of the story, you would probably call me mad. So I won't. Nor will I ever eat whale again.
Apologies for going off thread.
 
I didn't say I agree with it, nor that it sits easily with me either, but yes that is the reason why so many game birds are killed. For enjoyment. Those that participate in shooting reared birds - including me - should simply accept that. Otherwise they should stop doing shooting them.

With perhaps 40% returns, rearing pheasants and partridge is hardly an efficient way to generate food.
Same as the majority of deer are killed for enjoyment. Anyone who has paid for a stalk and not taken the deer home to eat has killed that deer for enjoyment
 
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