From the game farm- celebrating the positives

There have been a lot of conversations in shoot rooms up and down the country over the past couple of seasons about the increasing cost of game shooting. This is not really surprising, but it is easy to forget that while the cost of shooting has risen in the recent past, so has the cost of everything else. Given everything our sector has had to contend with since Covid, it is quite remarkable that the cost of shooting hasn’t risen more, and the buoyant market for the sport in the face of these challenges proves its enduring popularity. 

So are the doom-mongers right? Has the sector really shrunk? Interestingly, data from the Agricultural Industries Confederation’s Game Feed Committee shows only a minute drop in total feed production from 2023 to 2024 of 400 tonnes. This is less than a third of 1%, so is not statistically significant and, in both years, production was higher than in 2021, only just behind pre-Covid levels. 

Resourceful 

This highlights how resourceful and resilient the shooting world is. Avian influenza (AI) could easily have had a catastrophic effect on shooting, but we are now in our fifth consecutive winter with AI and have had two consecutive summers where it never left us. We have seen AI affecting recently released pheasants and birds that went to wood three months or more ago. 

England has survived the introduction of GL43 and GL45 — the general licences required to release gamebirds on or near protected European sites — together with huge AI-related restrictions in 2023 and 2024, while Scotland has seen the recent introduction of grouse moor licensing. 

I could go on, but rather than dwell on all these negatives, I prefer to celebrate the fact that, despite all of this, shooting is actually in good health. This is in no small part due to the amazing work done on your behalf by the various organisations that represent the shooting world. I won’t list them because I’m bound to upset someone by leaving them out, but you know who they are, and I make no apology for including the GFA. 

Too often these organisations are blamed for not protecting us. The truth is that they have collectively shielded shooting from a barrage of threatening challenges and they should be saluted by everyone who shoots. If you are not a member of at least two, shame on you. If you value the future of game shooting, join all of them, or at least as many as you can afford to. How much did you spend on cartridges last season? 

We have ongoing issues with an openly anti-shooting Welsh government and a Labour Government in England that although it has repeatedly claimed that shooting is safe provided it is conducted within the law, has already shown it is not afraid of upsetting the countryside with changes to agricultural relief on inheritance tax and its ambitious house-building plans. 

On both sides of Hadrian’s Wall, the battle rages over heather burning, upland management and raptor persecution. We will need our shooting organisations more than ever before in the coming years. 

Perhaps we should shift our focus away from the number of birds we shoot and value the day as an experience rather than by the size of the bag. Many of the memories that stay with us are about the place, the people, the craic, the dogs, the characters we meet, the humour we share. Maybe if this is how we measure our enjoyment of a day’s shooting rather than fixating on how many birds we shoot, then less really is more.