Grouse season can help rural families tackle cost of living crisis, says gamekeeper chief

The forthcoming grouse shooting season can help rural families tackle the cost of living crisis.

That’s according to Alex Hogg MBE, chair of the Perth-based Scottish Gamekeepers Association.

Friday’s ‘Glorious Twelfth’ marks the start of the 2022 grouse season with shoots across upland areas in Perthshire and Angus.

Mr Hogg believes the season will deliver a cash boost to rural communities.

He said: “The cost of living crisis is affecting everyone in the countryside.

“We are going to need all areas of the economy firing if we are to get back to some form of stability.”

The grouse shooting industry puts more than £30 million into rural communities during “a stable year”, he added.

That money helps “a range of spin-off small businesses at a quiet time after the summer holidays”.

Mr Hogg pointed towards a recent Scottish Government-commissioned study that indicated “just how important that income and household wages can be in these remote areas”.

Grouse shooting is part of a game sector bringing nearly £300m annually to Scotland’s economy, he added.

Game shooting ’employs more people than all conservation charities combined’

He referenced the organisation’s own research that said game shooting and angling sustain more full-time direct jobs (4,400) than all of Scotland’s large conservation charities combined (2,204).

But he added that avian flu looks set to curb the 2022 partridge and pheasant seasons, which follow the grouse shooting season in September and October.

This could have a knock-on effect on rural jobs, he added.

“I know of some part-time gamekeepers around me, in the Scottish Borders, who will not be able to host shoots at all this year because they were reliant on poults being imported from overseas.

“Some are turning their hand to other things and hoping to source birds for the 2023 season but it is worrying and we hope to be able to sit down with shooting bodies, game farmers, vets and respective UK governments to look at future contingencies.”

The season begins amid widespread opposition to game shooting.

Mr Hogg acknowledged some public opposition.

But he said he believes gamekeepers, river and land ghillies and deer managers are helping to meet the Scottish Government’s environmental and biodiversity aspirations.

“As well as the work that pays the bills, our members are helping restore peatlands, are managing non-native invasive species, humanely controlling deer populations, planting and managing woodlands and creating wetlands.”