The current Shooting Times magazine is so full of interesting and puzzling articles I am seriously considering taking out a subscription. And it’s nearly time for the next weekly offering.
Lindsay Waddell, retired gamekeeper from the Raby estate, writes about the new rules governing heather without actually telling us what they are. I assume he means those covered in this blog in late February but it’s rather difficult to tell..
The article might almost have been written to make any gamekeeper reading it even more paranoid than he (for he is likely to be a he) already is. Lindsay seems to think that all burning of heather and cutting of heather is going out the window, with every ground-nesting bird in the uplands, because of something that he describes as the ‘carbon debate’. It’s a puzzling article and I can only guess that it is some sort of brain teaser and that the answers will be revealed next week. Maybe I should subscribe…
If your average upland gamekeeper relies on this type of thing to understand the world then no wonder they sometimes seem a bit ill-informed.
Oh, hang on!
Aaaah!
Mark you should do what I do and have done for years and that is not buy the damned rag, that somehow legitimises it. I read anything relevant or interesting in the supermarket, read what you want stood by the rack then put it back, hasn’t cost you anything but time, hasn’t given the publishers a penny nor endorsed the appalling views it usually contains. There was a time many years ago when it was not quite so outrageous and worth buying but that has not been the case for quite a long time.
Paul..I think if you looked at old copies of Shooting Times..say from the 1980s..you would find it has always contained articles at least as awful as this one, it was always outrageous – often the worst parts were the editorials and Editors Pick letters…
Well I certainly wouldn’t suggest shoplifting a copy from Tesco’s. Mainly because Tesco is not the only retailer carrying it. Also, technically, it might be considered theft under certain circumstances. Like if you are caught, for one.
There are some amongst there ranks who believe that the earth is actually flat. Global warming is a mad conspiracy. They also reveal themselves to be near nazi homophobic racists….. bu the laird is always right…..
“They also reveal themselves to be near nazi homophobic racists…..”
Really? Is there any specific evidence for this? There may well be some gamekeepers who hold such views (same is true for butchers, bakers and candlestick makers) but unless you have some clear evidence to support such a generalisation I’d suggest it would be more fruitful to restrict criticism of gamekeepers for the practices that we know they engage in that are harmful to wildlife and relevant to this blog.