We are slap bang in the middle of the game shooting season and all across the country, groups of guns are gathering to enjoy each other’s company, pit their wits against their quarry and hopefully bring home their share of the seasonal wild meat harvest.
Some will arrive at grand houses on opulent estates; others will gather behind a rusted shipping container on a muddy track in the woods. But all will have the same broad objectives for their day: be safe, be with like-minded folk, enjoy the shooting and spend a day in companionship in the countryside.
Pomp and Circumstance
Britain is rightly revered as one of the best places in the world for driven shooting—whether that’s grouse on the high moors, wild grey partridge on an arable estate, or high pheasant in the Welsh mountains or Cornish valleys.
It’s something we seem to do naturally well. The structure of the day, the etiquette, the dress and the rhythm of a drive are ingrained. If you took a team from a tiny DIY shoot taking place on rented ground and placed them on a drive at Sandringham, they would know what to do.
Nearly 7,000 visitor shotgun permits were issued last year to foreign guests, and many more shoot with legally borrowed guns. Driven shooting in the UK is a bucket-list experience for wing shooters worldwide, and at home an estimated 300,000 individuals take part each year—over half of all UK gun owners.
Like whisky or stately homes, driven shooting is something we are genuinely good at and something we should be proud to promote.
Yet the modern image of shooting, especially in mainstream media, is far less flattering: a caricature of wealthy men in fancy tweeds massacring docile poultry on estates stolen from the people and funded by the plunder of Empire. Despite efforts to highlight the financial, environmental, social and educational benefits that flow from shooting, stereotypes persist, it is too easy for the media to fall back on tropes of wealth and elitism.
Driven shooting is undeniably costly — one of the priciest ways to obtain protein — but so are many leisure activities. When golf club membership now averages more than £900 a year, plus green fees, and a family meal out can easily exceed £200, the cost of a day’s shooting becomes more understandable once you factor in the preparation, habitat management and other costs of putting on a day.
Much has been written about the environmental and conservation benefits attached to well-run shoots. The overwhelming majority of those involved now see themselves as custodians of nature, with a responsibility to have a net-positive impact on the local environment and biodiversity. The old “nothing but game birds” mindset is fading fast as new ethics, science-backed codes of practice and methodologies reshape how shoots are run.
Large estates invest heavily in habitat improvement and biodiversity, while small club shoots contribute in their own way—feeding longer for the benefit of wild birds, planting cover crops that support songbirds and invertebrates, and managing woodland and hedgerows. These points are familiar, but bear repeating.
A sense of community
I was recently invited to a friend’s family shoot in Wiltshire. In an old barn that bright November morning were thirty people of all ages and backgrounds, from babes in arms to ninety-something patriarchs — all gathered simply to spend time together. Like many shoots, it was a community. People who might never otherwise meet were working side by side around a shared interest. Critics often talk about elites and ‘toffs’, but what they rarely see is the way this activity binds rural communities and gives people a sense of purpose.
On a given day there may be eight or ten paying guns, but the shoot depends on another dozen, two dozen or even more people—plus a gang of dogs—without whom the day could not function. For those who don’t know, beaters are fundamental to driven shooting. Their job is to get behind the birds and gently move them towards the guns, flushing them into the air. Pickers-up, working with their dogs, retrieve shot birds and find any wounded quickly and humanely.
While the guns often stroll comfortably to their pegs, the beaters do battle with tangled brambles, whippy hazel, thorny hedgerows and neck-high, soaking kale. The birds, being for all practical purposes wild by this point, do not sit in neat rows; they tuck themselves away wherever cover is thickest. The beaters hold a line through boggy woodland and clay-clogged maize fields, armed with little more than a stick, a flag, some boiled sweets and perhaps a radio. The guns are likely visitors, there for only the day; beaters may be out several days a week for an entire season, often across multiple shoots.
Why on earth do they do it? It certainly isn’t for the money: a few quid contribution to their petrol expenses and a pasty is the best we can offer on our syndicate.
Beaters rarely feature in research on the benefits of shooting, yet they are essential to its existence. We should understand their motivations better and ensure their contributions are recognised. To get a sense of this, I ran a small, admittedly unscientific survey in a Facebook group for beaters and pickers-up. I asked why they beat, how often they go, whether they shoot, how they’re rewarded, the best and worst parts of the job, their best stories and the most important item they take with them.
The responses were remarkably consistent. Everyone went for the exercise and camaraderie. Many went to work their dogs. Around half also shot. Most spent around 30 days a season in the field. A dog and a stick were the two most important pieces of kit. More than half liked being able to take home a bird for the table. Not a single respondent said they went for the money.
Guns on Pegs once estimated there may be around 9,100 shoots in the UK—everything from major commercial operations to tiny DIY affairs. If each shoot averages eight beaters and each beater turns out roughly 25 days a season, that’s around 73,000 beaters collectively spending nearly two million days in the countryside each year.
Green prescriptions
Back in April 2021, the NHS launched the Green Social Prescribing programme, aiming to embed nature-based activities into mental health pathways. The pilot phase supported 8,200 individuals and cost £5.7 million. The Wildlife Trusts estimate a full national rollout could save the NHS more than £650 million.
Beating clearly isn’t for everyone—and scale alone means it could never absorb the full demand for social prescribing placements. But it already delivers many of the same benefits at minimal cost, using an existing, grassroots network. From my own survey, conversations and experiences beating myself, I see these groups as miniature communities: open to all ages, genders, backgrounds and income levels. Whether my estimate of 70,000 beaters is high or low, you still have a huge number of people regularly meeting, keeping fit, working together and looking out for each other.
Beating offers social connection for those who might otherwise be isolated. It gets people outside, keeps them active, gives youngsters time alongside older members of society, and does all of this in the environment where they live their lives. Meanwhile, the social fabric of many rural areas has been steadily eroded. Shops, banks, Post Offices and pubs have disappeared. Local schools and healthcare facilities have closed. Opportunities for communities to meet across generations are dwindling.
Shooting as a whole is under increasing pressure, often from people who sincerely care about animal welfare, but sometimes from those who view the activity only through the lens of privilege. Whatever the motivation, the risk is that decisions are made without understanding what stands to be lost.
If driven shooting were ever banned, the wealthy would no doubt find other pastimes. But tens of thousands of beaters, pickers-up and rural community members would lose something far more significant: a source of fitness, purpose, belonging, fresh air and friendship. Things not easily replaced.
Beating is not just about supporting shooting. It supports people and rural communities. It already provides many of the outcomes the NHS is actively trying to promote. Recognising and valuing that contribution should form part of any conversation about the future of shooting, and, I would argue, about tackling our growing mental health crisis.
