Latest news with #gamekeeper
Telegraph
29-06-2025
- Health
- Telegraph
I shot my own dog – it was the kindest thing to do
Dogs are like children: some are hard work, others you click with. My German shepherd, Jester, was a favourite of mine. He was a lovely, loyal dog who looked after me all his working life. Jester came to me back in 1992 as an 18-month-old ex-RAF police dog who'd failed his training. From the minute we met, he decided he liked me better than he liked anyone else, and we got on like a house on fire. My job was to be a country gamekeeper, and his was to be the estate security. But he became my companion, and right up until his death in 2004, we were best friends. We never had a cross word between us and between us there was a kind of mutual respect. At night, when the evenings were long and dark, we'd huddle up against each other to keep warm – sitting by the tree or in the Land Rover for company. During the day, we were like two lads out on the town; although one of us was a bit more wayward than the other, and you never quite knew what he was going to do next. But as he grew older at about 11 and a half, Jester started to get skin irritations on his back. It was dry skin which he had been scratching and had been irritating him. It was then that I discovered he hated going to the vets. He'd arrive at the surgery and turn the place upside down. You'd have to muzzle him to just get him in the door. He was a large Alsatian, and quite capable of killing somebody when he was distressed – or at the very least, seriously injuring them. The vet sedated him, gave him some cream, and he came back in a bad mood. For a while, the skin irritations seemed to go away. But one morning, I was about to take him for a walk, when I noticed he'd literally pulled a hole in his own back, seriously injuring himself. He'd gnawed at himself overnight and it was a deep, bloody mess. He was nearly 12 at this point, his movements were slower, his hair was going grey, and he was going a bit senile. I knew from a lifetime of working with dogs, and now with this brutal wound, that he hadn't long to live. I looked at him, and I just thought, 'What the hell have you done?'. I knew he was in pain, and that the situation was impossible to fix. Clarity amid the tears I had to make the hardest decision of my life: would I muzzle him up – which he hated – load him into the motor, take him to somewhere he didn't want to be and risk injury to someone? And all they would do is patch him up, and he'd have a slow and painful end over the next few days. Even if we'd called a vet out, we'd have had to muzzle and sedate him and the end result would be the same. Or should I do the one last thing I could to help him? After all, he'd been so faithful and looked after me all of his life. It was an unimaginably hard decision, but I saw it as the last act of service I could perform for my dog. I knew I had to do it, and I decided to do it that very morning. But it was frightening. I didn't want it to happen, even though I knew it was the right course of action. Secondly, I didn't want to mess it up; I had to think very carefully about how I would make it a clean death. I shoot all sorts of animals on the estate, and know that there's nothing pretty about any dead animal; pheasant, duck or deer. There is, however, knowing that you did the right thing at the right time: you did it cleanly, and you did it to the best of your ability for all the right reasons. I decided that we'd go for a walk. He'd be sniffing around where he's always sniffed around, and I would put him down by shooting him clean in the head with a 2:2 rifle. To this day, I can see him sniffing around his favourite spot of grass, and I can see myself looking through my tears at him. There was a lot going through my mind in that moment: amid the tears, I had to find some sort of clarity that this was the best decision. I remember asking myself, was I absolutely right in what I was doing? I worked it through and the answer was 'yes'. I've spoken to vets about it in subsequent years. They say that when they put a horse down, the best way is to shoot it, though it is, of course, the very worst way for the owner. You are then faced with a decision: do you do what the owner wants? Or do you do what is best for the animal? And that made absolute sense to me, it struck a chord when I thought about Jester – the decision I made was terribly hard for me, but best for him. It was the choice that former Reform MP Rupert Lowe recently had to make. His Labrador had lost the use of his legs and Lowe told Parliamentary colleagues it was kinder to have his gamekeeper end the dog's suffering in familiar surroundings than it would have been going to the vet, where the journey and smells would stress the animal. Haunted by the memory I knew that the vets would be too traumatic for Jester, that the trauma – of seeing him die before me – had to be mine instead. I took total responsibility for what had to be done, in exactly the same way I take total responsibility when I shoot a muntjac. But when you shoot a deer, you haven't got the emotional tie that you have with a dog. Shooting Jester on that day in 2004 still haunts me. When I talk about it, I still break down despite the fact it was 20 years ago. After his death, all I could think about was him in those last seconds. But as time goes on, those memories filter into the past and you start to think about the better times before then. There's no return from that final moment – you are having the last pat of the head, it's that last stroke you remember. But it's no different for the dog whether you go to the vet or do it at home. Everyone who owns dogs has to make that decision sooner or later, and it's bloody difficult whichever decision you make. Since then, in my 40 years as a gamekeeper, I've shot three dogs – but only one of my own. In one instance, my governor asked me to shoot his dog. Another time, a dog had smashed its shoulder in a tractor wheel. We immediately phoned the vet, who said that he couldn't get there for a while, and asked if we could put it down. It's very easy for people on the outside to judge but they need to be in that situation and be faced with those decisions before they can fully understand what it's like. I find it very difficult to think about the last moments I had with Jester. Instead, I tend to keep in mind that it was the best thing for him and that I did my very best. I remind myself that ultimately, putting a dying dog – especially a dear, old friend – out of its misery is the very kindest thing you can do.
News.com.au
02-06-2025
- General
- News.com.au
King Charles faces calling off royal home tradition
King Charles has reportedly come out all guns blazing over his royal estate is running out of pheasants to shoot. The monarch, 76, was said to be livid over a series of blunders that left the game bird numbers dwindling at Sandringham, The Sun reports. Charles even faces calling off his annual Boxing Day shoot — and a long-serving gamekeeper at the Norfolk estate has been given the boot. 'It was a total cock-up. No birds, no bang, just red faces,' a source told The Sun. 'The King wasn't having it.' Insane amount Meghan, Harry pay staff Sandringham is one of the few remaining wild shoots in the country, meaning the game is reared where it is shot. Charles, who backs traditional countryside practices, has been reluctant to release birds from breeders to get numbers up. But maintaining a more eco-friendly wild shoot has proved challenging, leaving pheasant numbers in decline. There are now fears royals will be left twiddling their trigger fingers on Boxing Day as the annual shoot — a firm family favourite — is in doubt. The occasion is seen as a rare chance for family bonding, despite protests from animal rights campaigners who particularly dislike children taking part. The ousted keeper, who ran the estate's game for years, has been shown the door. 'Let's just say he's well and truly plucked off,' the source said.
The Sun
30-05-2025
- General
- The Sun
King Charles ‘livid' as Sandringham is running out of pheasants to shoot and faces calling off annual Boxing Day shoot
THE King has come out all guns blazing — because his royal estate is running out of pheasants to shoot. Charles, 76, was said to be livid over a series of blunders that left the game bird numbers dwindling at Sandringham. 5 He even faces calling off his annual Boxing Day shoot — and a long-serving gamekeeper at the Norfolk estate has been given the boot. A source said: 'It was a total cock-up. No birds, no bang, just red faces. "The King wasn't having it.' Sandringham is one of the few remaining wild shoots in the country, meaning the game is reared where it is shot. The King, who backs traditional countryside practices, has been reluctant to release birds from breeders to get numbers up. But maintaining a more eco-friendly wild shoot has proved challenging, leaving pheasant numbers in decline. There are now fears royals will be left twiddling their trigger fingers on Boxing Day as the annual shoot — a firm family favourite — is in doubt. The occasion is seen as a rare chance for family bonding, despite protests from animal rights campaigners who particularly dislike children taking part. The ousted keeper, who ran the estate's game for years, has been shown the door. Our source said: 'Let's just say he's well and truly plucked off.' King Charles lands in Canada for landmark state visit Buckingham Palace declined to comment. 5 5 5
Telegraph
21-05-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
Dartmoor will be poorer for the Supreme Court's decision
In January 2023, the largest land access demonstration since the 1930s took place on a bright wintery morning on Dartmoor. As many as 3000 people massed on Stall Moor to protest the ban on wild camping. Dartmoor had been one of the few places in the UK where ramblers could pitch a tent for the night until the hedge fund manager, Alexander Darwall, brought legal action claiming that the right to camp was expressly not allowed in accordance with the Dartmoor Commons Act. Darwall was a focal point of that bright wintery morning. His visage appeared on banners, his name was on everyone's lips, and at the end of the day, as the sun went down, a chant of 'Darwall… a---hole' went up, while drummers kept time. It was very much an us versus him paradigm and the tales were wild. His reason for buying the land, according to some, was mineral rights. Others told me he'd inherited it all. But then again, another observer told me it was about the vast profits he supposedly makes from pheasant shooting. Alexander Darwall was everywhere and nowhere, not so much a man as an idea. There was a real carnival atmosphere. It felt both quietly revolutionary and quite childish. But I wasn't there to protest. I was there to research my book on land access, Uncommon Ground, and the protest, in spite of being the focus of the media, wasn't where the most interesting story actually was. About five months after the protest, I headed back to Dartmoor to visit a 76 year old gamekeeper who, for 43 years, has run a shoot on that contested ground. 'Frightened the s--t out of me', he admitted, when we sat down to talk in his cottage. He'd spent the morning on guard in his pheasant pens in the valley below and then, in the afternoon, he'd driven up to have a look. He was keen to make it known that he hadn't encountered 'a bad person among them.' Snowy clearly isn't worried about thoughtful ramblers. The trouble, he told me, 'are the scrotes'. He has apparently wasted huge amounts of time over the years clearing up after irresponsible fly campers. His observation was fascinating as I encountered a whole suite of people who would happily see Snowy's way of life as a pheasant keeper consigned to history but his point was important – it's very hard for those who camp responsibly to recognise that a great many don't. While we chatted about times past and about Snowy's love of wildlife, a truck pulled into the yard. 'This here', Snowy explained with great admiration, as the driver got out, 'is young Simon.' Simon, he told me, would be taking over as head keeper, and with him was a local farmer's son. Simon was thoughtful, tremendously balanced, and clearly immensely keen on conservation. Sometimes, he told me, he almost has to laugh. He'll find people having a picnic right in the middle of his lapwing plot (a bird which is almost extinct on Dartmoor) and the picnickers tend to have no idea they are disturbing anything. Some of them, he went on, are really respectful and want to learn but others seem to want a fight. Snowy turned to the young lad and asked him what he thought of it all. Shyly, he said to me that as he sees it those at the forefront of the fight to camp on Dartmoor are just 'a bunch of rich Londoners trying to tell us what to do.' He's not entirely right – but he's closer to the truth than many would like to admit and who am I to tell him he's wrong? What's interesting is that he feels that way and he added, in case I was in any doubt, 'any young farmer will tell you the same'. What stays with me most from that conversation was Snowy saying that when he first realised the impact that the public has on nature was during foot and mouth. The whole thing, he recalled, was terrible but because there weren't any people, everything changed. 'I saw adders. I saw birds in places I've never seen, and the insect life in the grass was just totally different.' On 21 May, 2025, at mid-morning, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that people do have the right to camp on Dartmoor. Part of me is pleased – it means a great deal to some but I worry too for the wildlife and I worry about that young lad and Simon and Snowy. I worry because the media is focussing predictably on the campaigners and those privileged few who own the land. As ever it's as though those who work the land don't exist. Ask any young farmer, that boy said in that cottage kitchen, except we won't.
