And even if I don't live in the UK, I can fully understand BRs reasoning, couldn't the same persons or resources that is working for natural conservation (or rather, cultivated natural conservation) be doing that without killing animals? Nature reserves and all that..
.
Nope. The guys who shoot pheasants pay £1,500 for a days entertainment. They don't even enter the woodland (although the beaters do briefly). 10 guys, for six hours, pay £,15,000. 20 shoots a year. Over a quarter of a million pounds. But that maintains a square mile of woodland (c. 600 acres).
Do you reckon any bushcrafter or nature lover would pay £1,500 for a six hour woodland jaunt? Its the seclusion and undisturbed nature of these woods that makes them havens for wildlife. I have been priveleged to live on such a shoot for the last seven years. I have deer, hare, stoats, kites, buzzards, sparrowhawks, tawny owls, barn owls, short eared owls, foxes, nightjars, weasels, small blue butterflies, dragonflies, damsel flies, stag beetles, rabbits, Gretaer Spotted and green woodpeckers and goodness knows what else visit my garden each year.
The rich sportsman pay for some of the last undisturbed habitat on this island. What they shoot are game birds bred for the purpose that have a far better life than even free range farmed poultry. If they don't pay, the landowner will clear fell for timber and plough the land. Who else is going to pay him that sort of money? Land needs maintenance, and maintenance needs funds. If the answer is "the taxpayer" then how many dialysis machines is a fair swap?
The creatures are bred for the purpose, lead a far more natural life than any farm animal, are humanely killed and then eaten. Where on earth is the harm in that?
Red