Minister’s countryside comments miss the mark
BASC has rejected Defra minister’s comments on the countryside at the Labour Party Conference this week and invited her to see rural life first-hand.
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The most important conversation you’ll have this season
BASC’s Gareth Dockerty discusses the social connections we make in the field and asks you to fight for the future of game shooting.
As any true advocate for our way of life will tell you, shooting is about so much more than pulling the trigger. While a day on peg might be among the highlights of your entire year (or several years), many people involved in game shooting may never place their finger on a trigger during the season – with the exception of beaters’ day, perhaps. Maybe you’ll smash a few clays at a local ground over the winter, but other than that, no shots fired.
To someone not involved in shooting, this may sound unlikely or even make them question, ‘What is the point – what’s in it for you?’ The point is, as I said, there is so much more to shooting than pulling the trigger.
Some spend the hiatus between seasons readying their dogs for picking-up duties. All that work comes to fruition come the start of the game season, be it in August on grouse, or partridge and duck from September, or after 1 October when pheasants are added to the bag. Shoot day after shoot day, their dogs pull off everything from bread-and-butter retrieves to the spectacular ones that live long in the memory of any handler. This is what shooting means to them.
For others, it’s the draw of late summer mornings giving way to cool, crisp winter days. Even when the rain inevitably falls, there is great satisfaction to be had in discovering your new coat doesn’t leak. Hours spent as part of a beating team are an escape from the day job, tramping through or over or under whatever terrain and obstacles happen to get in your way. Perhaps it offers a bit of time and space to consider other things going on in your life, or even a day when you don’t have to think about these things.
What do all shooting people have in common?
The truth is that each one of us will have a different motivation for pulling on our boots and waterproofs, chucking the dog in the car and heading to a yard somewhere in the middle of nowhere.
Aside from a love of the countryside, of being out in nature and of dogs, what all people involved in shooting have in common are the social connections it gives us. For some present at a shoot, it may be the most people they’ve spoken to in a while, a vital lifeline that keeps isolation or loneliness at bay.
A shoot day means getting together with friends and familiar faces – some of whom you may not have seen since the previous season’s end – to catch up, swap news and relay anecdotes.
There’s a familiar rhythm to these conversations, particularly at the beginning of the season.
“How’s your summer been?”
“How’s the dog? And the rest of the family?”
“Remember when you fell down that bloody great hole on the plantation last year? Now that was funny.”
A conversation to save shooting
As we mark the start of the pheasant season, the chatter in shoot rooms, gun buses, 4x4s and beaters’ wagons will carry on as it always has. However, this year, there is an important extra conversation you need to have.
Some of you may have seen BASC’s campaign on the government’s review of all aspects of game shooting in England; you may even have sent your own experiences off as evidence in an email to Defra already. If you have, amazing – I’ll come back to you in a moment. If you haven’t, please visit this page to find out what you need to do and why it’s so important to the future of shooting. This thing that brings us all together, that binds us through commonality and a shared passion for the countryside, is under threat. We need you to be the voice of shooting. Ten minutes, one email – that’s all we’re asking you to do.
Back to those who have already emailed Defra. Firstly, thank you. Now, whenever you head out for your first day of the pheasant season, please have the conversation. Ask your fellow beaters, pickers-up or guns whether they have sent their own email yet. If they haven’t and they’re not sure what to write or why it’s important, share what you included in yours. Show them how simple it is to help in the fight for the future of shooting.
And if you or they need any support, speak to us at BASC. We have teams around the country poised to offer advice and help to get as many people as possible involved in the call for evidence before it closes on 1 November. You can find your local team here.
Amid all the catchups and chats to come, telling people about the call for evidence and the threat it poses to shooting is the most important conversation you’ll have this season.
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Gareth Dockerty
Gareth is Executive Director of shooting operations at BASC. Having joined the organisation in 2016, Gareth’s role focuses on ensuring decision makers, stakeholders and the public understand the benefits of shooting for upland habitats and rural communities.
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