BASC: The Glorious 12th is coming: Grouse shooting footage available

Monday, 8 August 2011 1:58 PM

The Glorious 12th is coming: Grouse shooting footage available.

The UK’s largest shooting organisation, the British Association for Shooting and Conservation (BASC), has made video footage about grouse shooting available for broadcast or websites ahead of the start of the grouse season on 12th August.

Clips include grouse shooting and short interviews with a gamekeeper on a grouse moor, a restaurant chef and a BASC representative. A short film made up of the clips is also available for use. The footage can be found here:

The clips include -

Robin Varley, a moorland gamekeeper: "The moorland habitat we have in this area is unique to Britain. We don’t have it anywhere else in the world. It is our rainforest. If we don’t look after it, if we don’t manage it, it’ll be gone."

"Not only do we create suitable habitat for the grouse we create an excellent habitat for all the other birds which live on the moor. The lapwings, the curlews, the meadow pipits, the skylarks – they all have an important role on the moor and by creating this habitat, everything benefits."

"Grouse shooting contributes to the local economy in more ways than we can imagine. There’s the hotels - not only does it create some revenue for the boss who puts a lot of money into this moor in wages, equipment, facilities; but when the guns come to stay they stay in the local hotels, they spend money in the local shops, the local pub does well. It’s a big knock-on effect. Without the grouse shooting, a lot of things would suffer. The grouse are the main reason the landowners put the time and the money into these moors. And through doing that, everything benefits."

Colin Shedden, BASC Scotland director: "Well very interestingly, we had a hard winter this year but we had a hard winter the previous year and there were reports of grouse deserting grouse moors in large numbers, going down to the lower ground, but it didn’t adversely affect in many areas the breeding success of grouse the following spring so they do seem capable of dealing with these long hard weather periods that we’ve had."

Robert Owen Brown, executive head chef at the Mark Addy in Manchester: "I think grouse has quite rightly got the name the king of all game birds hasn’t it? It’s the most difficult to shoot, it’s probably one of our wildest game birds that we’ve got , the flavours are fabulous and it’s just a wonderful, wonderful product. I think it symbolises everything that's great and good about the British countryside to me."

“I think if I was cooking a grouse at home I would very very simply pan roast it – give it 10 or 15 minutes in the oven with some roast potatoes, game chips, some lovely bread sauce and a little bit of watercress, that would do it.”

Key facts:

*Heather moorland is rarer than rainforest and threatened globally - 75 per cent of what is left is found in Britain because it is managed for red grouse.

*Red grouse are only found in the British Isles. They are wild gamebirds.

*The total economic impact of wild red grouse shooting in England and Wales for 2010 was in excess of £67.7 million and is set to increase this year with buoyant grouse shooting prospects, according to the Moorland Association (Call Amanda Anderson on 0845 4589786).

*August 12th marks the start of the grouse shooting season. Throughout this period people from all over the world head for the UK. The season lasts from August 12th to December 10th in Great Britain and from August 12th to November 30th in Northern Ireland.

*Despite two successive hard winters, grouse prospects are reported to be good for the start of the forthcoming grouse season.

*Grouse provide a highly prized dish throughout the short shooting season.

A guide to the laws governing firearms ownership and use and quarry and pest species with information about conservation and the impact of shooting on the economy can be found here.

ENDS

For more information please call the BASC press office on 01244 573031

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