Voices of the Countryside

You may have seen the story: the 2010 Equality Act could protect people who hunt. Here’s how it could play.   An interview at the Carter Jonas Game Fair Theatre has led to column inches and TV debates. Ed Swales of Hunting Kind, a group dedicated to ‘natural hunting’ with hound, ferret and hawk, obtained legal opinion which says that people who hunt could have “protected characteristics” under the 2010 Equality Act and that they must establish cases of discrimination against them. He announced his findings at the Game Fair. Thanks to the publicity, the UK’s media has enthusiastically taken up the idea of protecting people who hunt or shoot in the same way that the law protects Roma or LGBTQ communities. There was an article in the Daily Telegraph, then the Guardian, then the Daily Mail, and hot on their heels came the TV interviews, on Good Morning Britain and even I got the call-up from GBNews. There are few solid arguments against it, except for the emotional. Ed had one interviewer pointing out that Ed chooses to hunt, that he could choose not to hunt. The answer to that is that we choose to do everything – shop in supermarkets, go on country walks – that's culture. The culture Ed is defending is a different culture to the interviewer's and Ed is trying to protect it.

My faithful farm truck sits in the yard, not exactly sure how it is supposed to spend its days - or justify its hefty running costs. What's the future for such a loyal beast? Join me, if you will, in some automotive anthropomorphism, and spare a thought for Tigger the Terracan, who sits in the farmyard, having a bit of an existential crisis. Tigger, you see, is my farm 4x4, and, since our semi-retirement, it hasn’t had much in the way of work. When we were full-on farming, it was out and about most days: hauling, carrying, towing and giving lifts and shuttling me back and forth from my tractor and combine. And in all those tasks, it was pretty well unbeatable. But now its days are quieter. Almost too quiet.   Let’s go back a couple of decades, though, to when Hyundai was a bit of an unknown quantity in the British motoring world.  In 2003, I was invited (as an F-list motoring journalist) to the launch of the Terracan in the North Yorkshire Moors. And as my test car made its way along a deep riverbed (not sure you’d be allowed to do that now) I was impressed. Here, I thought is an old school 4x4 of immense capability.

The life of a huntsman can sound idyllic – but life in kennels is tougher than it might look   For many a young thruster, or a hound-loving puppy walker, being a huntsman is the ultimate dream job.  To have your very own pack of hounds who look to you for instruction; to lead the pack in your scarlet coat, and uncover the mystery of the ‘golden thread’ – the so-called invisible connection between a huntsman and his hounds. Surely that doesn't sound like a chore? The pomp and the ceremony are all very well, and watching the hounds parade with the huntsman blowing them on is a spectacle which the public love to see. But what is the reality of a huntsman’s job and lifestyle? Behind the gleaming brass buttons and the polished boots, what does the day-to-day look like? With hunting traditionally sticking to set ‘seasons’, the job varies depending on where we are in the hunting calendar. Perhaps one of the first things to learn is that the hunting year starts on the 1 May.

We pay a high price for the privilege of getting lost in the back country - but is it worth it?   I was not new to it - it was my third day hunting quail in Arizona so I knew what I should expect, but the frigid air that hit me was a surprise. I had never had to travel in the small hours before. It was necessary to get where we were going and leave enough of the early morning for hunting. Joe appeared out of the night. His Ford F150 truck, fully tricked, crept into the parking lot off the interstate. Nothing that big should move that quietly in the dark.  Joe’s wife had been up early, and she had been busy. “That’s bacon, eggs and French toast”. He handed over breakfast. There was a confident air about Joe that made him almost certain of finding his quarry and getting home, no matter what happened; no matter how deep in the back country he went.   His mountaineering days were numbered when his boy was born, and when his little girl came along, they were finished. Hunting and guiding had taken over. When he bow hunts in these hills for Mule deer he wears a .45 on his hip – “you never know who you'll meet out here” he explained  – but that extra precaution isn’t necessary when quail hunting with a shotgun. He had what the grey, middle-level management of the mundane, bill-paying desk job he’d left behind would have described as ‘transferable skills’. No manager was needed for Joe; he was his own performance review and he had the only key indicators that mattered in the dog box of the truck.

Looking ahead to the new grouse season, I think about my own birds in Galloway and the national picture at a time of great change and upheaval in Scotland.   The signs are set for a decline into autumn, and the moor grass has turned into straw. The start of the grouse season is upon us, and there’s a certain amount to look forward to in the hills of home. Despite some rough weather in the middle of June, the hatch in Galloway was fine and clear when it came in the last week of May. There were grouse chicks in the moss from the 27th, and some of these little birds were bold enough by the time the weather changed that it didn’t faze them. Grouse which lost their eggs at the first attempt were still sitting when the cold rain came, so today there’s something of a split between well-grown, almost-adult birds which fly strongly when flushed and tiny little cheepers which buzz around in the moss like bees. The next problem is heather beetle damage which became obvious in early July on several of the estates where I work across the Southern Uplands. This can be a major issue in the short term as grouse abandon beetly areas, but the damage is rarely so bad as it seems at first and repair is usually straightforward. When forecasts are posted about grouse prospects each summer, they often refer to the most productive areas of moorland in northern England and north east Scotland. From the highest point of my hill, I can look forty miles east towards the big North Pennine moors. Grouse moor management has become ever more localised over the past few years, particularly since large areas of the west have been marginalised and abandoned for sporting interests. Not many grouse will be shot in Galloway this season, and the sport itself now has most of its grouse eggs in a few little baskets. It makes sense that when cold rain blows across the North Pennines at the wrong moment, an entire season can be wiped out in a day or two.