what is the Law with regards to shooting pheasant with an air rifle?

[secretagentmole]

Reasons for shooting at live animals can either be for Vermin Control, For the Pot (hunting for food), or for amusement. The first can claim the moral high ground with it being a necessity for disease control and farm management, the second console themselves that they 'eat what they kill' (though there may be better ways of obtaining it), but the third really have to question their motives and whether shooting paper targets might not be a more humane pastime? Many try to combine reasons 1 & 3 or 2& 3 to excuse the act.

I find that doing reason 1 for reason 3 provides reason 2! I enjoy hunting with my air rifle. I admit it. I also like eating nice fresh meat that I know has been killed as humanely as possible and treated in a manner I find hygienic and stored afterwards in conditions I know are suitable for the storage of food.

As previously stated on my permissions any pheasants are viewed as reason 1, vermin, as nobody has bred them for shooting on the farmland I have permission on. I have also left them with the permission holders (albeit unplucked an with guts in), as they like a nice pheasant dinner too. I make no excuses I enjoy hunting with my air rifle, I like eating meat, I like eating food I have caught! I also eat fish I have caught and gutted!

No excuses, just a nice hot dinner!

[AdamA]

My way of looking at things is i am a meat eater. I have no qualms about knocking the cow, chicken, pig rabbit, hare etc on the head - shooting it before going to the barbecue if that's what it takes. Equally i have no quarms about elimenating pest species that are a derect result of producing the above and other food sources to feed my self + family. Equally i would be more than happily catch my own fish if i could (despite trying i have never so much as ever got a nibble, at least with a rifle you know there's something there or not!)

IMHO if you want to be a vegetarian, that's fine. Just don't force that on me.

If you want to eat meat and get all gushy about were it comes from, that's a problem you need to settle for your self. I have no issue about doing the dead to feed me and my family. As a society i personally feel we are become way to removed from our food sources to make sensible decisions about it. if Joe Blogs had to kill and pluck his chicken for Sunday lunch, i reckon there would have been a lot less chickens in the oven today! But that's a issue for the individual to decide, not society as a whole.

[ChrisH00]

Agree with much that you say, hunting is deeply ingrained in the male of our species, the ability to hunt used to be a necessary survival skill for many thousands of years, and practicing that skill in order to hone the ability is a vital part of it. However, when you are simply killing for the enjoyment killing, when there is no challenge or hardship for the hunter - then you have a problem. This is what the anti's cannot understand, some still have the hunter's instincts in them. Lose it and we all become pen-raised chickens...

[air-tech]

However, when you are simply killing for the enjoyment killing, when there is no challenge ... for the hunter -

Slight contradiction there, old boy.

Nothing wrong with it, the dead animal does not care about your frame of mind, or is any more or less dead for it - but 99% of us on here hunt or fish for the pleasure (enjoyment) mainly derived from the challenge, not out of any necessity or duty.

It's time many people got over this.

[QUIGLEY]

I don't think there's much much challenge in shooting a pheasant with an air rifle. never was there a more stupid bird. Sheep with wings!!!
I've run so many over by accident I've lost count...... trouble is three cock pheasants V Swift GTI and scratch one Swift front valence. Still havent worked out who to send the bill to.
I suppose that as they are reared they are some sort of live stock and should not be wanderering all over the road.
Agree with the previous comment. Pigeons are tastier.
Angry from Hereford.

[p.sharp]

I don't think there's much much challenge in shooting a pheasant with an air rifle. never was there a more stupid bird. Sheep with wings!!!
I've run so many over by accident I've lost count....

With regards to road kill, the same could be said for rabbits could it not?

How much more of a challenge do you want when trying to hit a bobbing pheasants head at a reasonable range? No different than shooting decoyed pigeons on stubble.

[Hurricane]

With regards to road kill, the same could be said for rabbits could it not?

How much more of a challenge do you want when trying to hit a bobbing pheasants head at a reasonable range? No different than shooting decoyed pigeons on stubble.

Same here, I find shooting pheasants more difficult than rabbits, but the best fun is to be had when the neighbours have a shoot on, wait till they land on our land then shoot them and then walk along the boundary ditch and give the game keeper a cheery wave

[pricketfella]

Back in the early 90s I was taking a new girlfriend(turns out She was a fluffy bunny/kitten lover) for a spin in my Escort Cosworth. Just as i floored it for the first time a suicidal Cock bird launced itself from the verge. Bang, big cloud of feathers and a rather loud S##T from me. Is it ok she shrieked, out i jump and quickly back in yes not even a scratch i said.

[ian321]

I don't think there's much much challenge in shooting a pheasant with an air rifle. never was there a more stupid bird. Sheep with wings!!!
I've run so many over by accident I've lost count...... trouble is three cock pheasants V Swift GTI and scratch one Swift front valence. Still havent worked out who to send the bill to.
I suppose that as they are reared they are some sort of live stock and should not be wanderering all over the road.
Agree with the previous comment. Pigeons are tastier.
Angry from Hereford.

I would sooner stalk a rabbit than a pheasant, the kill zone on a rabbits much bigger too

[oneseven]

Usually shoot walked up or driven Pheasants 8 days a year. I shoot them with a shotgun. It is not easy and its a lot of fun. I am absolutely comfortable with what I do and I have no problem with anyone shooting their pheasants with an air rifle if they choose.