Grouse shooting season a flyaway success
The grouse shooting industry is on target to deliver more than �30 million for the Scottish economy since the season opened on the Glorious 12th of August. Picture: Phil Wilkinson
THE sound of gunshot and the dull thud of plummeting birds on Scotland’s moors has been replaced by the cheers of the shooting industry and rural tourism groups celebrating one of the most successful grouse shooting seasons in living memory.
Across Scotland drams are being raised to toast lagopus lagopus scoticus – to give the red grouse its formal name – for one of the fastest, most agile birds in the world has helped to generate more than £30 million for the rural economy since the Glorious 12th of August.
The season officially ended on 10 December and some estates have been reporting their best shooting seasons since the heydays of the 1930s, when Nancy Mitford captured the Scottish shooting scene in her first novel, Highland Fling.
Sarah Troughton, chair of the Scottish Country Sports Tourism Group, said: “Everyone involved in shooting is delighted, and what’s even better is that the Scottish rural economy has been given a tremendous boost.
“All too often, the grouse shooting industry does not get the credit it deserves. There are poor seasons, but in general there is a major contribution to Scottish tourism from a genuinely world-class Scottish industry.”
The 2011 grouse season will be looked upon as one of the best in living memory, and in many instances a distinct improvement on the 2010 season, in itself regarded as one of the best seasons for a decade or more. A measure of the success is recorded by the number of brace (a pair) of grouse shot on each shooting day, with many estates reporting more than 200 brace, some reporting 300 brace, and one – Glenogil in the Angus glens – notching up 447 in the best single day since the 1930s.
The popularity of grouse shooting began when Queen Victoria purchased Balmoral in 1852 and her son, the Prince of Wales, took up the sport, with high society quick to follow in his muddy footsteps. The shooting records of the 19th century still stand. The Maharajah Duleep Singh bagged 220 brace with one gun on 12 August, 1871, while the sixth Lord Walsingham topped this feat with an all-time record of 535 brace on Blubberhouses Moor in Yorkshire in 1888, including three birds killed with a single shot. The red grouse can be shot only in Scotland, which has 450 grouse moors, and England, which has 160.
Yesterday, Robert Rattray of CKD Galbraith, Scotland’s leading sporting agency, said: “The two areas that have really performed this season have been the Angus glens and the Lammermuirs.
“We were booking grouse teams well into November and have hosted guns from the US, Central and South America, France, Belgium, Germany, Spain and Italy. Despite the economic uncertainties, demand for grouse shooting has been strong, but is still very much UK-led, with driven grouse shooting for 200 birds (100 brace) costing £16,000 to £20,000 per day.
“Glenogil, Millden, Invermark and Hunthill estates have all had tremendous shooting this year, with daily grouse bags of upwards of 200 brace, some topping the 300 mark. Glenogil had its best single day since the 1930s with a massive bag of 447 brace, whil Millden will comfortably have exceeded last year’s bag of 300-plus brace.”
Lord Hopetoun, chairman of the Scottish Moorland Group, added: “We are seeing the result of years of substantial investment by landowners in Scottish moorland. It is a great asset to this country and when managed to its full potential delivers real benefit to the economy. “
“There is also evidence that the recent hard winters have benefited shooting conditions.”
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Comments
There are 30 comments to this article
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Dk
Monday, December 19, 2011 at 11:37 PM#16 Just as is the keeping of wild birds for show unacceptable!!! but then each to their own
panayiotis
Monday, December 19, 2011 at 11:10 PMPerhaps these investors for Grouse shooting might be persuaded to come over here to Texas ,build a pretty castle or fort or such like and have Prince Willie and Harry come over and go a Hog Huntin. There's thousands of them,all feral, big and nasty,take some skill to find and catch them so long as they don't get you first, also they make for grand eatin.Yup, young Willie and Harry and their friends can come on over,bring their dogs, saddle up and go a chasing Hogs all day long,Texas would really appreciate it .Bring a real touch of class to us country folk and we could sure use the extra change
Nellie
Monday, December 19, 2011 at 09:58 PM26 samthegod Nope I'm not a veggie. And, yes, I have killed my own food; but I don't take any pleasure from the killing. Those that do are contemptible. Are you?
AuldLochinvar
Monday, December 19, 2011 at 08:11 PMIt's a source of continual amazement to me that I cannot deny the fact that this atrociously vain human conduct is probably the only thing keeping Grouse moors from conversion to some more lucrative use (like the seas west of Tiree) and therefore still hospitable to the grouse. In other words, the desire of wealthy humans to kill grouse seems to be saving the latter from extinction! Or as the old fox-hunting squire puts it in the movie "Tom Jones" about casual whoring -- "Abolish them??? I'd sooner abolish foxes!"
samthegod
Monday, December 19, 2011 at 01:14 PM#23 Nellie Thanks for the compliment I take it you are a veggie? or are you one of these people that pay others to kill your food (shop bought)? Familty Guy the answer is Lochhart
Nellie
Monday, December 19, 2011 at 12:00 PMIf a man is so needy of cash that he becomes a "shooting tenant" then let him live in a secure institution where he'll be well fed, watered and warm - an asylum for psychopaths where he'd belong.
Nellie
Monday, December 19, 2011 at 11:57 AM9 Dragonlord Bred in the countryside I was, and I still think blood sports are only for sick psychopaths; so too do most people who live in the countryside, pal! The Townies v Countrysiders argument is as false as the claim that killing animals for fun is "a sport".
Nellie
Monday, December 19, 2011 at 11:53 AM7 samthegod Rich or poor, working class or Toff, if you shoot birds for the fun of it you'd still be an unworthy sick 'barsteward', deserving only of such poverty you could not afford the ammo or a gun.
Nellie
Monday, December 19, 2011 at 11:48 AM2 bring them on Shooting clay pigeons, that's a sport. Shooting birds for food, that's almost a necessity these days. Shooting birds just for the fun of it, that's just sick.
Nellie
Monday, December 19, 2011 at 11:45 AMI could accept as a friend someone who shoots to eat what he kills, but someone who kills because she likes shooting must be a psychopath and never to be trusted, let alone befriended.
Ron Greer
Monday, December 19, 2011 at 11:29 AM18 You don't have a spare SNP MSP with a conscience do you?
Ron Greer
Monday, December 19, 2011 at 11:27 AMAnd in the meantime in the northern circumpolar distribution of the Willow Grouse complex, of which the 'scoticus' variety is a member, grouse hunting goes on too and without the highest concentration of grouse-hunting land in the fewest numbers of private hands in the world as in Scotland. Further, Scotland is the only country in the world where private grouse-hunting goes on in privately owned land within 'national' parks. The SNP are fullly behind this land monopoly, sees no irony or oxymoron in this and sees no need for land reform.
bvdjfiodsa
Monday, December 19, 2011 at 11:23 AMComment removed by moderator
Calgacus
Monday, December 19, 2011 at 11:12 AMCowards, murdering psycopaths.
Martin H
Monday, December 19, 2011 at 11:11 AMI wouldn't personally want to go a grouse shoot, or be involved with the industry, but it does provide local employment, and properly managed grouse moors can be pleasant places to walk or run for most of the year. My criticism is with the pervading and widespread intolerance to some other species, particularly birds of prey like the Hen Harrier, which are largely absent from grouse moors. That is unacceptable.
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