KIlling Buzzards

[carolegif]

this is madness! they want to kill the buzzards so wealthy landowners can have pheasant shoots!
They want to kill wild birds in order to kill other birds.

You couldn't make it up!!

[rowanwitch]

BTW thank you for the IOLO fix

[chaptazbru]

I totally agree WELSH.

[FredPuli43]

Hmm. Would love to see scientific evidence of 40 to 50 buzzards in one field.

What ought to be worrying gamekeepers and landowners is the recession. City firms are not so keen to spend money on freebies like pheasant shoots.That cause far more loss, and in substantial sums too, than the few birds that buzzards might take.

And no, very few of the pheasants shot are eaten, even if the guns manage to hit many, either by the guns themselves or their friends. Nor are they readily sold. What game dealer wants pheasants that are riddled with shot, which is how the birds often are when shot by amateurs? Not that these guns are really in the market to sell, they enjoy the shoot, for which the birds might as well be clays, having expended a lot of money for that.

[THEMOTLEY1]

Fred, all game that is shot is 'riddled with shot' that's what happens, and the less amateur the shot the more lead in the game. If you buy game from a dealer you should expect it to contain shot.
What do you think they do, talk 'em to death?

[FredPuli43]

No Motley, from childhood I spent many a mealtime eating pheasant; if it wasn't shot by us, it a brace or two would be brought in by anyone who'd shot on our farm. I speak from long experience . Don't have it now; I leave the pheasants here undisturbed and we don't raise any, and I'm not particularly fond of it.

A good shot doesn't fill the bird with lead. That's firstly because he's a good shot, and a secondly a good shot using a gun which doesn't spread the shot wide.

[Prudie]

I'm sure if I ordered a pheasant from my butcher it wouldn't be filled with shot.

[THEMOTLEY1]

If it doesn't spread the shot it's going to be concentrated on/in the target.

[gness]

God help the good shot who harms the three buzzards above my garden just now.

[FredPuli43]

Motley, it depends on the choke of the shotgun. You can have a shot pattern so tight that you might as well have used a rifle, or so it seems. An excellent shot brings the bird down cleanly without peppering it all over with shot;a combination of the right equipment and accuracy.

[LoftyLottie]

Bl**dy Countryside Alliance. They don't represent ordinary country people at all. I live on a large well known estate. Most of the people who come down for the shoots are city types and they can't shoot for toffees. I would glady shoot members of the Countryside Alliance, arrogant toffs!!!

We have buzzards in the wood behind us, lovely birds. Behind the wood they will be breeding the pheasant chicks for the shoots.

[baza]

I go shooting but clays, the thought of killing something does NOT appeal to me.
I am aware as a meat eater that animals have to be killed ,just not by me.

[LoftyLottie]

I would add that I have no problem with someone going out and shooting a pheasant for lunch. I am not squeamish and it is natural for animals to hunt other animals to survive (men included).