Shooting and fishing: 'With a tail wind, "pricked" birds could land another kilometre behind the butts'

Are more grouse being wounded by inaccurate shooting than in the past? Almost certainly, according to a leading authority. As a scientist, Dr Adam Watson makes no comment on his findings, which admittedly are anecdotal updates based on previous studies. But the reasoning seems sound.

In the 1950s and 1960s, he and others researched what is known as "crippling" or wounding. Working with pointers 200 to 300 metres behind lines of butts a week after shooting on two Scots moors, they recorded the number of grouse that had died of wounds.

The tally of birds shot but missed by dogs and pickers-up after each drive was put at two per cent of the bag. I don't think that sounds too bad, but it is still 80 birds too many out of say, 2000 brace a year.

All this was written up in scientific journals. Since then, we have had various booms, notably in the City under Mrs Thatcher, which set a tone of conspicuous consumption, or at least the ability to spend large sums of money on driven grouse shooting.

Unlike the old lairds, landowners and their pals who had started shooting at the age of six, most of the new generation simply did not have the same depth of experience, for which they can hardly be blamed (the late "Dandy" Wallace of Candacraig was said to be able to kill five birds in a single covey with five shots – admittedly with a loader handing him a second gun).

Revisiting the earlier surveys of grouse "crippling", Watson now reports: "We would expect a decline in experience to result in a greater proportion of cripple losses, and also a larger ratio of cartridges fired to birds in the shooting bag". Experienced shots fire two to three shots per bird hit.

The less experienced about six, particularly after lunch, say keepers. And of course, the more birds wounded, the higher proportion will fly on beyond the area normally covered by picking up operations. With a tail wind, "pricked" birds could land another kilometre behind the butts.

There seem to be several answers to the problem. The first is to stop all shooting, which is silly, the second is to deepen the area of search after a drive, which may be impractical and the third is for those of us who have not been brought up on grouse moors to improve our shooting skills. The best sharpener is shooting pigeons in a wood during a gale. Speed is of the essence. But first find your gale, pigeons and your wood.

This article was first published in The Scotsman, 16 October, 2010