Grouse shooting

Driven grouse shooting is a field sport of the United Kingdom. It is popular because it provides a challenge due to the rapid flight of the grouse. The grouse shooting season extends from 12 August, often called the "Glorious Twelfth", to 10 December each year. Shooting takes place on grouse moors, areas of moorland in northern England and Scotland.

The name 'driven grouse shooting' refers to the way in which the grouse are driven towards the hunters (otherwise known as 'Guns') by beaters. A shooting party usually includes 8–10 Guns who stand in a line in the butts—hides for shooting spaced some 20–30 m apart, screened by a turf or stone wall and usually sunken into the ground to minimise their profile—to shoot the grouse in flight. There is a strict code of conduct governing behaviour on the grouse moor for both safety and etiquette. Grouse shooting can also be undertaken by 'walking up' grouse over pointers, or by flushing the birds with other dogs.

The Red Grouse is a medium-sized bird of the grouse family or subfamily which is found in heather moorland in Great Britain and Ireland. It is usually classified as a subspecies of the Willow Grouse, but is sometimes considered to be a separate species Lagopus scoticus. It is also known as the moorfowl or moorbird. The grouse can fly at up to 130 km/h (81 mph).

Heather moorland is rarer than tropical rainforest, and 75% of it is found in the UK as a result of grouse management, which provides an incentive to conserve heather moorland despite economic pressures of subsidies to intensify forestry and farming operations. 60% of all England's upland Sites of Special Scientific Interest are managed for grouse shooting.

To support a large population of grouse, gamekeepers employ heather burning techniques. This involves burning patches of heather on the moorland. A burnt patch allows fresh shoots to come through which are ideal nutrition for grouse. Burning is done in patches so that there is a variety of heather heights, on a rotation of between 8 and 12 years. While the short new shoots provide food, the taller, older heather provides cover and shelter for the grouse. Proponents claim that not only does heather burning help the grouse population thrive but it encourages other wildlife by creating a variety of habitats in moorland areas. However, one study suggests that burning heather has a large number of negative consequences on the diverse moorland environment, the underlying water table and the associated downstream rivers. The study suggested burning reduces Sphagnum moss growth and the density of macroinvertebrates which play a vital role in aquatic food webs by feeding on algae, microbes and detritus at the base of food chains before they themselves are consumed by birds, fish and amphibians and that it reduces the water content of the upper layers of peat which results in the peat being less able to retain exchangeable cations which are important for plant growth and resist acid rain. The study found that rivers draining burned catchments were characterised by lower calcium concentrations and lower pH relative to rivers draining unburned catchments and had higher concentrations of silica, manganese, iron and aluminium. The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) are undertaking trials of controlled heather burning on their reserves at Loch Garten and Hobbister in order to “increase the suitability of the reserve[s] for key breeding birds such as hen harriers, short-eared owls, merlins and curlews.”

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