Tim Bonner: Bad news from the moors

The news from the moors is not good. It seems that a very dry spring followed by a cold start to the summer and serious problems with heather quality, not least because of heather beetle, means that many moors do not have a shootable surplus of grouse this year. There are exceptions, but in many areas there have been widespread cancellations of shoot days after grouse counts were carried out in the last couple of weeks.

Some may take the view that grouse shooting is a rich man's sport and that, especially in our current virus-laden world, a bit less banging away at fast moving wildlife is not high on the scale of disasters. Running a grouse moor is an expensive business with very uncertain returns reminiscent of that description of yacht racing as standing in a cold shower tearing up £50 notes, but without the investment of rich men, the uplands would be a poorer place in many ways.

Of course, they would be poorer in terms of wildlife, and it is an absolutely truth to say that without grouse shooting much of the UK's unique heather moorland would simply not exist. You only have to look to those areas where grouse shooting was not a viable alternative to commercial forestry to see the environmental devastation reeked by the planting of vast monoculture plantations of non-native conifers.

It is, however, not just wildlife and the environment that benefits from grouse shooting, but also people. In some of the most marginal areas in rural Britain, decades of investment by 'rich men' has created communities, filled schools and sustained the rural economy where otherwise there would be nothing other than a very fragile upland farming economy. The Campaign for Moorland Communities has just published research which details not just the direct economic benefits of grouse moor management, but also the positive boost to tourism and to the mental and physical well-being of rural communities.

It is that last issue which should be in the forefront of our minds as many moors face a season without shooting, in some cases following on from two equally bad years. Moor owners will undoubtedly keep investing in the uplands, but for many working on the moors it will be another long year of toil without the reward and camaraderie of shoot days. For those of us who have been lucky enough to visit the moors from time to time, the sense of community is only too obvious. For those who are missing out this year, we can only hope that 2021 is a better year in every way.