Is South West Scotland the worse place for this type of incident?

[silverbutcher]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-south-scotland-14944851

There certainly seems to be more cases reported from this area than anywhere else in Scotland. Is this because other areas may be more remote and similar occurrences aren't discovered?

Billy

[Traditionalist]

That's possible. There are probably far more such incidents than those which are discovered and reported.

TL
MC

[Wildfisher]

As long as economically worthless sports like grouse shooting continue this will. However anglers  who live in glass houses should not throw stones. Take a look at most other fishing web sites and you will find baying loonies screaming about cormorants, herons, saw billed ducks, seals, otters etc. On one forum a certain cretin was even suggesting the best way to deal with otters is a shotgun cartridge. Sometimes I feel ashamed  admitting to being an angler. There are many knuckle-draggers within our numbers who are as bad as those responsible for killing the goshawks.

[silverbutcher]

Very true Fred. Thankfully they are in the minority (I hope).

I certainly don't feel ashamed at being an angler, just as i'm not ashamed of being a Scot, despite the venomous attacks on English people, again by an ignorant minority.

Are more wildlife officers required? In these times of cutbacks, I just can't see funding being made available to employ more.


Billy

[Traditionalist]

The problem is the lack of education. Many gamekeepers are still abiding by stuff like this;

http://www.archive.org/stream/sportsmansdirect00mayerich#page/136/mode/2up

http://www.archive.org/stream/gamekeepersdire00johngoog#page/n83/mode/2up

which has been handed down for generations, even among semi-literates.  There is not much to be done about such generational brainwashing. Even punishing the culprits is no deterrent because they don't think they did anything wrong, just that they were unfortunate in being caught at it. Many landowners encourage or condone this behaviour as well.  Basically a remnant of the mindset that a landowner was "lord of all he surveyed" and his wishes were law.

One can go on and on about these things, ( and many others!), but it wont do much good because that will not change the attitudes, mindset, and behaviour of those responsible.

This is one of the few sensible views on the matter by a gamekeeper ( read from the bottom of page 105);

http://www.archive.org/stream/agamekeepersnot00woodgoog#page/n130/mode/2up

and even then qualified by some remarks. The vast majority of "gamekeepers" don't preserve or "keep" much at all, their primary purpose is destroying things.  Raising pheasants and all the other stuff is no different to stocking pools with rainbows, and has been damaging the environment and its wildlife for centuries.  There is no reason at all to believe it will stop now.  

One way to prevent a lot of this destruction would be to nationalise all such land and sack all gamekeepers, except those who might be deemed suitable as "wildlife officers" or whatever you want to call them. This would not include strutting around with guns and killing things they don't happen to like for some reason. Forbidding the artificial rearing and introduction of various "gamebirds" would also help a lot.

There are no other measures which will work, apart from education. Unfortunately education takes a long time, and it is in any case only possible to educate those who actually want to be educated.

TL
MC

[Wildfisher]

One way to prevent a lot of this destruction would be to nationalise all such land and sack all gamekeepers, except those who might be deemed suitable as "wildlife officers" or whatever you want to call them. This would not include strutting around with guns and killing things they don't happen to like for some reason.

Now there's a idea.   Not infeasible either. In Scotland the contribution these sports make to the economy is negligible. "Managed"  grouse shooting is estimated (by the landowners - so it's probably an over exaggeration)  to generate £20M / year. Peanuts considering the vast area of land given over to it and the wholesale destruction of raptors it encourages.

Forbidding the artificial rearing and introduction of various "gamebirds" would also help a lot.

It certainly would. It's  "stocking", the cause of so many problems.

[Traditionalist]

Now there's a idea.   Not infeasible either. In Scotland the contribution these sports make to the economy is negligible. "Managed"  grouse shooting is estimated (by the landowners - so it's probably an over exaggeration)  to generate £20M / year. Peanuts considering the vast area of land given over to it and the wholesale destruction of raptors it encourages.
It certainly would. It's  "stocking", the cause of so many problems.

Not everybody agrees ( Surprise! Surprise!).

Quote

>  ...that is just disgraceful and I am obliged to take exception to it.

Actually, you are not obliged to do anything at all, and what exactly are you taking exception to anyway? The admittedly unfortunate fact that the comments are true? You could complain to somebody or other I suppose, can't see it doing you much good though.

I made no mention at all of Scotland, there are irresponsible gamekeepers all over the place. I've met some. So you're a gamekeeper, and why does that entitle you to special treatment?  Among other things, I am a journeyman blacksmith, but it is a long long time since I expected to make a living shoeing horses, making garden gates for the town "nobs", or repairing various decrepit and obsolete agricultural implements. Sacking all gamekeepers would not even be a blip on the economy. Rural employment has always been a problem and always will be. That's the main reason rural areas are rural, because there is no industry and hence no jobs. There are two million unemployed in Britain, huge numbers of them actively milking the system, which is rotten to the core. The only "moral" many of these people have is "don't get caught fiddling". Sensible law-abiding citizens who work and strive to succeed in some modest way are obliged to subsidise all this nonsense, and are punished as well for working hard enough to earn anything much at all. Also apparently being obliged to suffer abuse and worse at the hands of feral nutcases roaming the streets or even breaking into their houses, and nothing sensible is done about it. Now there's an idea, get out on the streets with your colleagues and hunt feral yobs. At least that would be useful.

As for being one of "the clueless elite wankers running the country", I don't even live in Britain and have not done so for a long time. All I run is my own life, in point of fact, I don't even run a car any more. Highly paid elite clueless wankers run the country because clueless wankers like you vote for them, often based on some ridiculous ideology or other or even misplaced loyalty to some bloke who employs you, and the system is set up to favour them. Even when they fiddle their expenses, lie, connive, and steal on a grand scale, behave like total idiots, and basically take the piss out of everybody.

As for Mr. Huhne, surely you jest? The man is an idiot who quite obviously has absolutely no conception of normal life or people. His latest gushings on the price of heating oil and how it's all the fault of "lazy householders" that they can't afford to heat their houses is just another example of abject idiocy, one of many, from somebody who apparently lives in some fantasy never-never land. Just like you and many of your colleagues. I would not employ an idiot like that to run errands, much less let him run anything else. "Energy secretary", the mind boggles!!! Even idiots who have managed by some miracle, or devious manipulations, to land a well paid job, would keep a low profile, only an utter imbecile would strive to ensure that everybody knows he is an idiot. That quite a lot of politicians do this does not bolster my confidence in their competence to any noticeable degree.

I am well aware that you and your colleagues are generally badly paid, and live in sub-standard housing. My answer to that would be, "get a better job and move".  "Loving your job" is no excuse for being stupid nor is it a valid reason for such a job existing at all. "...sacred trust handed down for generations", pardon me if this text looks a bit shaky but I had trouble curtailing my uproarious laughter before I could type at all, you don't actually believe that mawkish bullshit do you? If your job is so "special" and you are so "highly qualified", how come you are badly paid and living in sub-standard housing? You are simply being exploited by the rich landowner who employs you, he does it because he can get away with it and you are fool enough to let him. Basically you are just a modern day peasant with delusions of grandeur, you are certainly not in any way a "steward of the land and its heritage". None of that is intended as a personal insult, merely a factual summary.

However all this may be, the actual subject matter here is the decimation of wildlife by you and your colleagues. The reports of various incidents are, as you doubtless well know, just the tip of the iceberg. This is wanton destruction on a large scale which serves no useful purpose and there is no way to justify it. "Employment concerns" are just another load of propaganda put forward by people who wish to maintain the status quo, continue making money, or do something else nasty, either for profit or some other perceieved advantage, and that's the only reason they can find to offer which the ignorant masses can be persuaded to accept. Their clueless wanker colleagues see to the rest, by further propagating and supporting such nonsense.  All these things are basically the same, gamekeepering, salmon farming, producing gas from subsidised feed crops and so pushing the price of feed too high for people to use it as feed, and so on.  If you haven't got the sense to see that then it is pointless discussing anything at all with you, because you will never grasp it, and neither will you ever persuade anybody with common sense that it is a good idea.

Please feel free to "take exception" to anything I write, but unless you can refute any of the arguments in a sensible factual manner, then don't waste your time posting to me. I might also point out that you initiated the use of words like "wankers" etc, so it is more than somewhat ingenuous to complain when the person replying to you uses the same words.

Have a nice day, and don't fall over your shotgun, often makes a nasty mess which others have to clear up.

Unquote.