As I write this article, we have been in lockdown (staying home and safe) for the past eight weeks. The virus has impacted the shooting industry on all levels, but now the dust has started to settle and we are getting more familiar to the ‘new normal’ of social distancing, regular washing of hands, and what we can and cannot do. People are having to plan their sport beyond the lockdown, albeit tentatively, for next autumn/winter without any firm knowledge of how or if it will proceed.
The game bird shooting industry provides employment for many people including game farmers, keepers, suppliers of feed, medication, etc. How will this impact them? To get a better idea of how game shoots plan to operate, I spent a day ringing around my network of keepers, shoot captains, and game farmers to try and get an informed opinion of who’s doing what, if at all.
Shoots
From many of the conversations, it soon became apparent that ‘clusters’ of shoots have emerged and are making decisions based on the local ‘big shoot’. So, for example, if Lord Highbird’s estate has decided to mothball and not risk a rearing season without a guaranteed shooting season, then other smaller shoots in the vicinity have taken his lordship’s ‘due diligence’ and followed suit; and vice versa in terms of the ones who have continued to rear birds and speculatively hope they will get a season.
This story is from the July 2020 edition of Sporting Shooter.
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This story is from the July 2020 edition of Sporting Shooter.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
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