Shooting 'worth' £1.5bn to the UK - according to BBC website

[Bleem]

May be of interest to people, don't think it has already been posted (link to BBC website) -

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/5387358.stm

[Baldrick]

Does anybody think that the salad-eating, soap-dodging lefties and/or antis will read that article with an open mind?

[Cranfield]

I am very suspicious of commissioned reports, completed by Economic Consultants.

 

I was involved in a similar survey regarding spending on Angling, as I sea fish, coarse fish and game fish, I was considered a good candidate.

The chap completing the survey wanted to include the total annual cost and running expenses of my 4x4 (which I travelled in when I went fishing).

All money we spent on holidays when I fished, even though I only fished one day.

What I spent on clothing to wear fishing, even though I wore most of it for other purposes.

Food I ate when fishing, although I would have eaten it if I wasn't fishing.

Etc., etc.,

 

The whole exercise was a complete farce.

 

He couldn't understand that if you bought good quality fishing rods and reels, despite using them regularly, you didn't need to replace them every year.

My annual spend on actual fishing tackle, excluding bait, is barely £150.

 

People don't take these reports seriously because they are not independant and are commissioned by organisations with vested interests.

[Whitebridges]

Shush :yp: Cranners. The bigger number the better in this case.

[Lord Geordie]

£1.5 billion?

 

Surely Shooting contributes a DAMN sight more than THAT a year???

 

And who is this numpty from the Leauge against cruel sports banging on about Wildlife shouldn't be harvested for profit???

 

What about Beef Pork Lamb Chicken Turkey etc etc etc THEY are all harvested for Profit and they ARE wildlife of a sort (domesticated i know) but non the less harvested for Profit.

 

Bet he eats meat too :yp:

 

If it wasn't for Shooting and Conservation the hedgerows would have less life in them too as Conservation has a HUGE impact on the indigenous wildlife giving it the help it needs to expand once more after the HUGE drive by farmers to uproot hedgerows to make more room for produce.

 

Conservation has saw Hedgerows re-established and in some cases field borders widened to help wildlife.

 

The antis swing a single sided argument that gets VERY boring after a while and with any luck people will start to see a Picture building of the Shooting industry actually HELPING more than Harming the enviroment and wildlife of the UK.

 

Im My view Most antis are Law breaking people who Assault people in the persuit of their LAWFUL hobbies and trespass and cause criminal damage so WHY has the government let this go on for so long???

 

As criminals they SHOULD have been arrested and charged with their crimes and court orders placed on them to BAR them from ANY further hunting events.

 

LG

[Dunkield]

The figure my be bigger than you think,

 

From what you can tell most of us on here are fairly avearge with regards to what we do, and how much we spend on it.

 

But there will also be people who get their shooting for nothing, so only have to buy ammo and odds and ends, but at the other end of the scale their are people who pay an absolute mint for their shooting.

 

We probably don't know the half of it, but as an example my wife os out beating today on a big partridge day. That means 7 guns paying about £2,000 each for the day + lunch + tips + the day out of the office + travel there and back etc etc. And that is just one day, they won't be the sorts that save up all year round for it, they will be out once or twice a week doing that during the season :yp:

[il cacciatore]

The vast majority are male and more than 40-years-old, although the report says shooting groups insist that more women are taking part

 

This is extremely important factor in the downfall of shooting. If no new blood are uptaking it; then it will be consigned to the history books because the younger generation are the future. This so frequently banged on about by the shooting fraternity but little is being done about it. Shooting is seen now as a past-time for the elite and the elderly - even though some will argue this is not infact the case, it is of people outwith the realms of the sport - so it simply isnt "cool" to people of my generation. Yes, we must market shooting to appeal to the masses, by keeping the 'old boy's club' image we are just ensuring that it becomes an even more of a minority past time leaving it suseptible to attack from government and 'animal rights lobby' in their crusade against the upper classes. There is safety in numbers and if we dont have the numbers then we'll go the way of hunting.

 

The BASC is a business that is interested in selling us products so they have a vested interest in serving up this sort of "report".

 

The League Against Cruel Sports point to several cases where gamekeepers have allegedly poisoned birds of prey to prevent them attacking game birds.

 

This is allegations which the last time I checked are not proof of an event having taken place so why the BBC are entertaining them I do not have an idea. The BBC are going the way of ITV news and that is saying something to the quality of their reporting.

 

My worth.