Nowhere to hide - a cock pheasant
It’s bad news for cock pheasants today – the shooting season has begun. It is better news for red grouse – the season has just closed for the year. Bizarrely, the red grouse is an endangered species in Ireland – so much so that it has been proposed to restrict farming in Connemara to help numbers increase. How about just not shoot them for a year or two ?
It’s legal to shoot most of Ireland birds – the full list is here – though it is hard to see much fun in it. I was out shooting [photographs] myself near a farm that raises pheasants and ducks for shooting, and I encountered both ducks and pheasants of escaped birds (or descendants thereof). They all have all one fatal thing in common – a lack of fear in humans.