Yesterday was the Twelfth of August, the opening of the grouse shooting season in Scotland and England. Don't I hate it. I don't disapprove of hunting, but dislike it for just sport. Just shooting animals to smithereens for the sole sake of entertaining some overpaid yob. I won't easily forget the encounter in Central Scotland, where I had to bite back some choice words.
The bird to the left is the object of all the chasing. Five years ago, I was walking in Strath Ossian, about 30 miles east of Fort William [100 miles north of Glasgow] in late August, when a tracked vehicle drew up beside me. Five people dressed in camouflage gear and toting guns, pointing in my face, demanded to know what I was doing there. This is a private estate, but the path I was on was a public footpath. I replied that I was heading for Tulloch, some 10 miles northwest. I had to stop myself telling them to take their guns out of my face.
Here in Lewis, we have the Eishken, Scaliscro and Morsgail Estates which specialise in games sports. Those going there are locally referred to as hooray henry's, commonly seen emptying the booze sections in the supermarket.
Well, that's my rant. Not going to do any good, but at least it's off my chest.
I quite agree, I don't think any one likes hunting seasons, only the idiots who do the shooting seem to enjoy it! Jeannette xx
ReplyDeleteI agree with you. I hate hunting for pure sport. It's awful!
ReplyDeletePamela
good entry Guido
ReplyDeletenatalie
I totally agree with you about hunting for sport, or using it as a time to socialize (read: drink) with your "buddies". I grew up in a family where hunting was done to put meat on the table, and that is the only reason we hunt today. I also do not condone killing the animal, taking only the choicest parts and leaving the rest to rot.
ReplyDeleteLori
I grew up in a shooting/fishing family; my Dad shot game, carrion and fished,my Mum trained gundogs and is a legend in her own right within her working dog community. From age 12 i guess..Sunday roasts became pheasant and other game. I hated it and i still do; I cannot smell game without heaving. This made life somewhat difficult for me. It's hard to explain, but in short, whilst my dad could pay for a day's shooting, my Mum could not afford alternatives...as a "picker up" she would get given game which supplemented her meagre housekeeping.Try as she did, i could never eat it; i could not equate watching a bird fly to eating it as being an ok thing to do. Bizarrely, Dad was a fish friendly fisherman, only keeping what was reasonable and has done much in his community to preserve sea trout, salmon and the river...not for catching....for the preservation of the ecology. I can understand the arguments that the sport of shooting game preserves jobs from the top to, particularly, the bottom of the employment chain, such sport having been in UK for centuries. I can't support sabateurs particularly of foxes. I do live in an agricultural community and being past farmers of small animals e.g. hens, sheep, goats i know only too well the damage foxes do. For a poor farmer a year's worth investment can be undone in 5 minutes by vermin. Heart breaking to the point of suicide. Not dramatic, factual. However, i will never support the hoooray henries who abuse the sport primarily via their notion that somehow such activity is elitist and the sole preserve of the rich man; they should remember that for many in our world such activity is a matter of life or death for them.
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