The UK's Finest Independent Forum for Shooters and Gun Owners. Est 2010.

Chapuis wrote: I seem to recall a firebombing of shops campaign by animal rights activists in the late 1970's. They targeted shops that sold fur coats. Also you shouldn't forget the campaign against the family concerned with Huntingdon Life Sciences.
All together not a nice bunch of people.

Yes.. I worked for HLS (still do, but the Co. name has changed) at the time and while I "only" received death threats by letter and phone and had demonstrators outside my house, some colleagues had their cars and houses firebombed.

We certainly consider them as terrorists...

My original comment was about the League against cruel sports, not the Animal Liberation mob. I wasn't aware that they are the same organisation, and I fully appreciate how dangerous the ALF psychos are/were.

Pete

christel wrote:

Plecotus wrote:
Either way, you spend a lot of time poking around in some of the smelliest poo going. Welcome to my world

It's often argued that habitat management on pheasant shoots is beneficial to other species and, at one level , this is certainly true. The problem comes from releasing huge numbers of what is, at the end of the day, a non-native, omniverous species into the wild.

I've little problem with most quarry shooting in the UK but I'm afraid Pheasant and (Red) Grouse is a different matter.

The smell...one Labrador finds it, rolls in it and then the next notices what is going on, we have three Labradors...

Just wondering about the Pheasant shoots, do you know how many that are being released, I have no feeling for the numbers being released now and in the past.
Pretty sure the local shoots have grown in bird numbers.

Sorry, Christel, I missed this yesterday.

Hard to be sure how many are released but various studies put the number somewhere between 40 and 50 milion. One study suggests that numbers of birds released increased nine-fold between 1961 and 2011. One some shoots, the density of released birds can be extremely high.

I'm having a lucky time. After a mongrel terrier who would roll in anything if you took your eye off him, my current two have never shown any interest in it

Pete wrote:My original comment was about the League against cruel sports, not the Animal Liberation mob. I wasn't aware that they are the same organisation, and I fully appreciate how dangerous the ALF psychos are/were.

Pete

I would like to see the evidence that proves they are the same organisation. I do not have any support for extemists, no matter what side of the argument they represent.

I am a member of a small working shoot, we put down a modest number of Pheasant and French Partridge and we may put some Ducks down again this year. Being a working syndicate we prepare the land, the pens and the feeders and this involves a significant amount of land management that benefits all species. We open paths in dense undergrowth, thin woodland, add footbridges over streams. This is not indiscriminate felling, damaged trees are dropped and the wood stacked to provide homes for small mammals and invertebrates. The paths are already being adopted by Roe Deer which we leave alone for the most.

The land we shoot over is a mix of arable and sheep and right now the Pigeons and Corvids are having a field day. The land owner expects us to control unwanted species across the 3500 odd acres the shoot covers and it is usually his call as to what is and is not shot and we as a syndicate have very robust rules regardless so some species are left well alone when they are only seen in small numbers.

Game shooting is not just a matter of releasing a load of birds and then killing them.

EDIT - One thing I forgot to add is every single bird shot goes home with someone.

ukrifleman wrote:Heard from a gamekeeper shooting buddy this morning, that the ban has been rescinded due to a technicality.

ukrifleman

Any verification online about this?

Gazza wrote:

ukrifleman wrote:Heard from a gamekeeper shooting buddy this morning, that the ban has been rescinded due to a technicality.

ukrifleman

Any verification online about this?

I have not seen or heard anything apart from that it is hoped that new licenses should be in place as of today.

It seems Packham has been getting death threats and now has 24 hour police protection.
Oh well, it will teach him to be clever and feck around with things he doesn't understand
And I thought there were not enough police to actually police these days, there is obviously

Gazza wrote:It seems Packham has been getting death threats and now has 24 hour police protection.
Oh well, it will teach him to be clever and feck around with things he doesn't understand
And I thought there were not enough police to actually police these days, there is obviously

if he has been getting threats then he should have protection, as should those people that get death threats from anti's, no matter who the threat is from the protection should be the same, of course in this world a public figure tends to attract more attention than someone from the non public world.

and the more this happens, the more the public will cry out for a ban on all firearms ownership. We are supposed to be the most law-abiding sector of society. All this kind of behaviour suggests is that the vetting processes for firearms and shotgun licences doesn't work.

Like it or not, we're a minority community. if public firearm ownership was put to a referendum tomorrow, I think we'd all be crying by Friday. Comments like Gazza's, which appear to support this kind of action, only play further into the anti's hands.