Do Buzzards eat game birds? (10 Viewers)

[Simon Wates]

I would hope none of my posts suggested that I fell into this category.

I did wonder a little! Anyway good on you - reconciliation I believe is fundamental to advancing conservation success between interested parties

 

[PYRTLE]

Firecrest5, please could I ask how you arrived at a commercial figure of £30 per reared pheasant poult. Thank you. P

 

[Tideliner]

Pyrtle thats the price the average shoot charges a gun to shoot one pheasant. On some estates it can be as high as £42.00.

On average about 50% return from released birds is considered good as about half the birds are lost to the shoot to wandering , road kills and predators. A shoot has to pay rent for the land , around £5-7 per acre , a keepers wage , around £25.000 , equipment - release pens , incubators , insurance , beaters wages ( around £25 a day each ) , cost of poults , £7000 ,vechiel for the keeper and feed costs £4-5,000.
So thousand acre shoot with ten 100 bird days shoot costs £53,000 a year to run. There are usualy 8-10 guns per days shooting and they are usualy charged around £32 per pheasant they shoot plus extras such as lunch and keepers tips ( around £20.00 ).

There is some income from birds sold to the butchers , but many shoots are run at break even level. There can also be extra income from perhaps duck shooting ect.

When you think that without pheasant shooting the majority of woods in my county ( Norfolk ) would not be there today ( most were planted for game shooting ) it can be seen they make a valueable contribution to conservation , though of there is also a down side , ie predator control. But the pluses outweigh the minus and without game shooting the majority of my local woods would be felled and now growing crops.

So the average game shooter can expect to pay around £3-400 for a days shooting . Its a pity more bird watchers are not prepared to put their hand in their pocket to such an extent and all our conservation problems would we well on the way to being cured.

I should add here I am not a game shooter.

 

[Firecrest5]

Correct. The lowest price I know locally is £32 per bird, I rounded down to ease the burden of mental arithmetic on my brain! :lol:

 

[Irish Kite]

Pyrtle thats the price the average shoot charges a gun to shoot one pheasant. On some estates it can be as high as £42.00.

On average about 50% return from released birds is considered good as about half the birds are lost to the shoot to wandering , road kills and predators. A shoot has to pay rent for the land , around £5-7 per acre , a keepers wage , around £25.000 , equipment - release pens , incubators , insurance , beaters wages ( around £25 a day each ) , cost of poults , £7000 ,vechiel for the keeper and feed costs £4-5,000. So to run a shoot.
So thousand acre shoot with ten 100 bird days shoot costs £53,000 a year to run. There are usualy 8-10 guns per days shooting and they are usualy charged around £32 per pheasant they shoot plus extras such as lunch and keepers tips ( around £20.00 ).

There is some income from birds sold to the butchers , but many shoots are run at break even level. There can also be extra income from perhaps duck shooting ect.

When you think that without pheasant shooting the majority of woods in my county ( Norfolk ) would not be there today ( most were planted for game shooting ) if it was not for game shooting it can be seen they make a valueable contribution to conservation , though of there is also a down side , ie predator control. But the pluses outweigh the minus and without game shooting the majority of my local woods would be felled and now growing crops.

So the average game shooter can expect to pay around £3-400 for a days shooting . Its a pity more bird watchers are not prepared to put their hand in their pocket to such an extent and all our conservation problems would we well on the way to being cured.

I should add here I am not a game shooter.

Thats not the full story though - many of these estates receive large amounts of tax-payers cash via various EU grants and subsidies just like any other large farmers/landowners many of whom also do their bit for wildlife(and more cash is likely to be directed by the EU in this area by the "greening" of the CAP) without the need to flood the place with non-native clueless game-birds Whatever about the Southern UK its debatable given the level of Raptor persecution in the North on these estates that they are any real net asset to conservation.

PS: The twitcher membership of the likes of RSPB, BTO and whole host of other organisations make a not insignficant contribution to conservation in the UK via their subscriptions

 

[Adam W]

Interesting points about the money, i guess you could say that its a sad thing that it comes down to money but then what doesnt really.

I was reading an advert just the other day for driven Grouse shooting at £45,000 per day!!! not saying it makes some of the things that go on right but there's no way that sort of money is going to come from anything other than shooting.

Also 130,000 members of the British association for shooting and CONSERVATION paying around £60 a year would make a not insignificant contribution either and thats not to mention the Countryside Allience, NGO etc...

 

[Mike Price]

I thought it worth mentioning the economical effects on the local community as well, hotels etc.

None of which makes illegal killing of protected wildlife any more acceptable.

 

[Adam W]

Yes spot on on both counts there Mike.

 

[Tideliner]

Thats not the full story though - many of these estates receive large amounts of tax-payers cash via various EU grants and subsidies just like any other large farmers/landowners many of whom also do their bit for wildlife(and more cash is likely to be directed by the EU in this area by the "greening" of the CAP) without the need to flood the place with non-native clueless game-birds Whatever about the Southern UK its debatable given the level of Raptor persecution in the North on these estates that they are any real net asset to conservation.

PS: The twitcher membership of the likes of RSPB, BTO and whole host of other organisations make a not insignficant contribution to conservation in the UK via their subscriptions

Its true there is EU cash for environmental stewardship , but most of it is directed into arable farming not woodlands. There FC woodland grants , but they are aimed for comerical forestry rather than conservation though some are available for wildlife friendly management. But make no mistake , without the pheasant many farms would be grubbing out their woodlands and growing corn. They will make more money than they can get from grants. If you doubt this just look at the factory style farming in areas with no tradition of pheasant shooting and compaire the difference in wildlife. The biodiversity of a good game shoot far exceeds that of the average stewardship farm funded by the EU.

Its a simple fact that the habitat needed for pheasants is very beneficial to a huge range of our wildlife that without the pheasant would have very few places to exist outside nature reserves. If you do not believe me read Dr David Belmey's work.

Its true there a few bad apples , where keepers control raptors , but in lowland England such shoots are the exception rather that the rule. I work with raptors on a number of Norfolk Estates and I have no fears for raptors on them ( but there one or two exceptions elsewhere ). I know the story is rather different in Scotland and parts of northern England , but attitudes are changing. In my county common buzzards have increased from 0 prs to perhaps in excess of 200 prs in the last 25 years. If shooting raptors was a problem that would not have happened. I am not saying in my county no raptors are killed , but its an uncommon occurrence today.

As for the money twitchers put into conservation its minor compared to what many hunters spend. One wildfowling club I know have bought 2,000 acres of marsh threatened with drainage , dug ponds , planted reed beds , introduced grazing scheams to improve wader breeding habitat , put up owl and other bird boxes, managed waterside habitat for water voles and a lot more. And I could quote dozens of similar examples. Its true they have done it to improve their duck shooting , but the spin offs for other wildlife are huge. Game shooters and wildfowlers pump millions of pounds into their hobby across the country at a level very few twitchers contribute to conservation. indeed many twitchers put very little into the hobby they love. They will spends £1000s on a new scope , but I have seen them many times refuse to pay the entrance fee to a reserve unless the rarity they want to see is showing.

I will give two examples.

A female twitcher asked me if there was anything interesting about. I told her a marsh warbler and serin was showing well at a local reserve , but a female twitcher said she was not going to pay to see it. Then a hoopoe came up on the pager 200 miles away on the south coast. Off she went happy to pay the fuel money to see it.

I was at welney when the canvasback was there a few years ago. One twitcher would not pay the entrance fee until it was showing outside the main hide.


A game shooter happily parts with £ 3-400 a day to shoot a few pheasants . How many twitchers would pay that enter a reserve to see some rarity?

I am not fighting the game shooters cause , its not my idea of sport , but simply quoting the facts that many bird watchers do not realise.