We will not be offering Grouse as part of our service this year.
This is to reflect the environmental damage done by the rearing of Grouse on moorlands.
Below is a small summary of why Grouse shooting should be banned, taken from Chris Packham's recently launched campaign to saves Britain's imperiled Wildlife ("A People's Manifesto for Wildlife").
"Driven grouse shooting should be banned.
This intensive practice is so destructive in so many ways that its tenure has long expired. The on-going and serious criminal persecution of protected birds of prey is limiting their population recoveries or driving them towards extinction.
The wholesale slaughter of mountain hares – to supposedly reduce the transmission of disease to red grouse – has reduced their population density in parts of north-east Scotland to 1% of its 1950s level. Upland areas are damaged by grouse moor management which drains moors leading to flooding downstream. The burning of moors to benefit grouse exacerbates climate change and destroys internationally important blanket bogs.
The excessively high densities of grouse encourages disease which is transmitted via medicated grit trays.
There is an almost complete lack of monitoring to test whether these veterinary medicines reach the human food chain.
And we pay for it, the ten largest English grouse moors are paid more that £3 million in farm subsidies every year.
The best way to deal with this litany of environmental destruction is to ban driven grouse shooting."