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

[harvey_s]

Its always struck me as odd that the definition of 'sporting' is being "fair and generous in one's behavior or treatment of others"....
However, for the shooting community, taking a single shot gun to a bird on the wing is considered 'un-sporting', but a head-shot through cross-hairs is somehow fair & generous when I can't think of something more predjudicial really.

Not passing any kind of comment other than the paradox of the terminology...

[shaun the sheep]

Its always struck me as odd that the definition of 'sporting' is being "fair and generous in one's behavior or treatment of others"....
However, for the shooting community, taking a single shot gun to a bird on the wing is considered 'un-sporting', but a head-shot through cross-hairs is somehow fair & generous when I can't think of something more predjudicial really.

Not passing any kind of comment other than the paradox of the terminology...

Shooting(any live quarry),if we would all care to admit,is not fair! We,as the dominant species,decide we want to do it.Is it neccessary?Well,vermin controllers,such as myself,think it is.People employed in all aspects of the shooting industry,keepers,estate owners,shooting suppliers,RFD`s etc think the same..
However,after making the decision to shoot any creature we owe it to such bird or animal to at least strive to make its demise as quick and clean as possible. Bar blasting it with an expanding centre-fire round at 30 ish yards a well executed head shot on any small game,at a sensible distance,with an accurate and close to max legal power air rifle(or rimfire even) for me at least,is the most efficient method.I have to admit that I find it slightly more satisfying to drop a flying pigeon dead with a shotgun than to drop one dead out of a tree with an airgun BUT the shot to clean kill rate with the latter is much higher.--Shaun.

[ChrisH00]

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.

[bighit]

what you have to also remember is if you shoot on a tenant farmers land like i do ,and they have paid pheasant shoots you may not be allowed to shoot any game birds unless you have permission from the factors . im only allowed shoot them if they are on the farmhouse land and destroying veggies and so on. i have to them leave the pheasant there and inform the game keeper

not sure if its how all tenant farmers land rules go but its what is mainly done up here

[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.