On Shooting for the Pot

‘I think it is right that shooting, fishing and other forms of hunting are controversial and up for discussion – the killing of other creatures, however big or small, sophisticated or simple, is not something to take lightly. But I’m also convinced that the question of whether such forms of hunting are morally acceptable is linked very closely with whether the animal killed has an end use as food. The hunter who stops thinking of his stomach is definitely on dubious moral territory.’

Although I am now pretty much self-sufficient in pork, beef and lamb, I still like to top up my meat supply with flesh garnered from the wild. And I have found, over the years, that some of the carnivorous dishes I have enjoyed the most have been created from animals and birds that I have killed and cooked myself.

Why should this be? Perhaps because the finding, killing, preparation and eating of a wild animal (or, indeed, a plant or fish) is, in a society increasingly obsessed with quick fixes and instant gratification, an unusually holistic procedure. It begins, more often than not, with a solitary walk in a wild place, and a rare chance for quiet reflection. There is a tremendous weight of history behind this act – not just social history, but evolutionary history. And as I walk up the edge of a wood with my gun, hoping to bag a swooping wood pigeon or a scurrying rabbit, I am aware that my motivation, like that of all our hunting ancestors, is largely connected with my stomach.

Then comes the sighting of the quarry, and in an instant the mind becomes entirely focused on the movement of the animal, the jink of its run or the arc of its flight. Perhaps there is a bit of stalking to be done – our attempts to regain the stealth and cunning of our ancestors may be pretty hopeless but it always feels good to discover that the instinct is still there.

As you pull the trigger, the gap between you and the seemingly unreachable quarry is closed in an instant. The moment of death, as beast tumbles or bird crashes to the ground, is an emotional one that combines the triumph of possession and power with contradictory feelings of respect and regret. Then comes a period of contemplation, almost mourning, as the corpse is carried home, a pang that slowly subsides, giving way to anticipation of the feast to come.

But first the animal must be plucked or skinned, then gutted. This is a messy, visceral task that many would find unpleasant but, I must admit, I find rather satisfying, even educational. Opening, for example, the crop of a dead pigeon, I can find out whether it has been fattening itself on corn, clover, elderberries or peas, and wonder how this might affect the flavour of the meat.

Then comes restoration: the transformation of the cold, lifeless corpse, with wine, herbs and the magic of the oven, into something delicious, either to be savoured in a solitary session or shared with friends. By the time it is served up, the hunter–cook has achieved a uniquely close relationship with his quarry: observing it in the wild, taking its life, handling it, preparing it, and then, the ultimate act of intimacy, devouring it. And for me that is something very special.

No doubt some people would find the above sentiments unsympathetic, or even incomprehensible. Without doubt, the most controversial scenes in the River Cottage television series were those in which I went in pursuit of wild meat – stalking roe deer, shooting rabbits by spotlight and culling my neighbour’s white pigeons from his roof. As I expected, I received a certain amount of hostile mail about this. But I have also received supportive letters, congratulating me for having the guts to show what other programmes would have left out.

I think it is important that those of us who choose to kill fish, birds and mammals for the pot are ready to explain to others why we do what we do. This is a responsibility I have always tried to meet, as a journalist and a broadcaster. I do not argue that we have an inalienable right to eat meat. I do say, however, that if we are going to make meat part of our diet then wild meat is, for me, the least morally problematic of all. All meat is the product of a killing, and those of us who kill for the pot are merely taking responsibility for the manner of that killing. A squirrel may have a cuteness factor that makes some people shudder at the sight of its back legs crackling on a barbecue. But if those people have ever seen young calves and lambs playing in the fields, then why have they not applied the cuteness argument to their own carnivorous habits? For I have found that most of the people who seem to be upset by the eating of rabbits, squirrels and the like are not vegetarians but town-dwelling carnivores. Most vegetarians I know are far more sympathetic to the eating of game and other wild meat than they are to the consumption of meat produced by modern farming practices.

This brings me to the second vital point about wild protein: all wild meat comes with a unique and invaluable guarantee of quality. Firstly, it has been fed on an entirely natural diet, selected, as nature intended, not by man but by the animal itself – no hormones, no chemicals, and no revolting and dangerous feeds made from minced-up other animals. Secondly, it has lived a life, however short, as nature intended, free of the many stresses that give so much cause for concern about the welfare of our farm animals. Thirdly, if the killer is also going to be the butcher and the cook, he or she has complete control over how the meat is to be stored, butchered and otherwise prepared before cooking.

Remember that every time you go to the butcher’s for a chicken or a steak, or buy meat from a supermarket, you are at the mercy of a whole chain of intermediaries: the farmer, the abattoir, and the butcher himself. You have to take it on trust that all three links in the chain have done their jobs as well as you would have liked them to. If you buy wild meat you can eliminate the first two links in the chain, and if you kill it yourself you can eliminate all three. And that’s satisfying.

So where game animals are concerned, issues of morality arise not, on the whole, over the way we impinge on their life but the manner in which we bring about their death – with guns, as part of a sport that we actively enjoy. I know that for some, this is never likely to be acceptable. But to those who do eat meat, I would say, surely the taking of wild creatures, with guns, is at least preferable to the systematic incarceration of domestic stock in factory farming. Which is to say, an element of inefficiency in slaughter is offset by the (almost) complete freedom of the creatures during their lifetime. And, for the utilitarian at least, the fact that we enjoy the process should add to rather than detract from its moral acceptability.

It’s an argument that’s inextricably linked with the food value of game. But these days, sadly, not all birds shot for sport are destined for the pot. The problem is that shooting is not just a countryman’s hobby, it’s big business. It’s a business, landowners will say in their defence, that allows them to manage their land to a conservation agenda, maintaining woodlands and hedgerows for the benefit of many wild native species, as well as for their captive reared game birds. And it’s a business that provides a top-quality food product – healthy and free range, if not exactly wild – that many are happy to pay for.

I find this a reasonably robust argument. But there is a point at which it suddenly and dramatically collapses. In recent seasons, pheasants and partridges have been raised and shot in such vast numbers that no market could be found to take them all. Consequently birds have been buried in mass graves or simply ploughed into the fields. Such massacres of apparently disposable birds put any possibility of a convincing moral defence under the greatest possible strain.

In my opinion, much of the problem lies in the simplistic way in which most shoots that are run as businesses charge their clients for a day’s sport. With few exceptions, the price paid is ‘per bird’ (from £10–25, depending on where you are in the country). A ‘client host’ or syndicate tells the landowner or shoot manager how many birds they would like to shoot in a day, and the gamekeeper and his team of beaters do their best to oblige. If the target is reached early, they might miss out a drive or, if they are struggling to deliver, rustle up an extra one.

Personally I have always found it odd and, in a curiously literal way, unsavoury that the pleasure you get from a day’s shooting (and therefore the price you are prepared to pay for it) should be so directly correlated with the number of birds you shoot. What about the landscape, the exercise, and the abundant wildlife you will see at which you do not point your gun? I fear also that the pay-per-bird system undermines the vital connection between the sport of shooting and the pleasures of eating game. It’s hard to think of the delicious potential dinner ahead of you if you are trying to compute shots fired with birds hit or missed and wondering if you could get a better deal somewhere else.

Where I shoot in Dorset, with a couple of local farmers and a few friends, we’d be lucky to fire ten shots each in a day. The last time we went out, the bag was fourteen pheasants, four pigeons, three woodcock, one snipe and a squirrel. For that bag, six guns and a similar number of beaters and dogs worked hard up the hedges, through the woods and across the fields, from nine in the morning until three in the afternoon. When we finally stopped for lunch, I was so hungry that I was tempted by the thought of pheasant sushi. As it was, an enormous beef stew with dumplings did the refuelling job – with admirable lack of restraint all round. And when we were done, we parted, with a couple of birds each, to contemplate the considerable pleasures of the day and the further feast to come. It was a good feeling.

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