Broadly speaking, a Gamekeeper manages land and game populations for shooting. Using English terminology, shooting refers to what is usually known as simply hunting in most other countries. Confusingly, in the UK the term hunting would only be used to describe the use of dogs or hounds in the pursuit of it’s quarry.
Game refers to a range of avian and mammalian species that are pursued in this country. The main ones’ that I am involved with are the game birds Pheasant, Partridge and Duck.
Most countries of the world have hunting in one form or another. Hunting for sport has evolved over thousands of years, and is directly connected with the evolution of the human race, as we changed from hunter-gatherers to farmers. Of course sport hunting is very controversial, and I am not attempting through this article to justify it or sell it to anyone. This is my travel website after all – I’m just offering here a run down of what I do because many people have never met a gamekeeper or have any understanding of what one does!
In this country, there are many forms of hunting. They range from game fishing, Deer stalking, shooting and hunting with hounds to Falconry. The latter, incidentally, is believed to be amongst the oldest sports in human history. So, if I refer to “fieldsports”, I am talking about all these various kinds of hunting.
As the history of fieldsports goes back so long the terminology which accompanies them is vast and utterly confusing. Many modern terms in the English language actually developed from hunting terms, but I digress!
Now we have that cleared up, I can tell you a little about what I do.
Essentially, my primary role is to provide quality game shooting for my employer and his guests’ over the estate he owns. Good quality is defined by how well the shooting day is organised, how well the birds are presented and whether all the guests had plenty of shooting. The Pheasant shooting season last’s a mere three months, during which here we will only conduct around 14 shoot days. Thus, the result of my entire year’s work is on display on just these few days.
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