The 'Glorious Twelfth'

August 12 marks the start of the grouse shooting season. Throughout this period shooters from all over the world head for the moors of Scotland and northern England. The season lasts from August 12 to December 10 on mainland Great Britain and from August 12 to November 30 in Northern Ireland. The grouse are wild and not artificially reared.

Most grouse shooting takes place in a formal setting with birds being driven over the shooters. The Guns are placed in butts (a hide for shooting screened by a turf or stone wall) and the birds are driven towards them by beaters. There is a strict code of conduct governing behaviour on the grouse moor for both safety and etiquette. Grouse shooting can also be undertaken by 'walking up' grouse over pointers, or by flushing the birds with other dogs.

This is a traditional sport which was largely supplanted by formal driven shooting in the mid to late 1800s, but which is seeing a resurgence in popularity, although driven grouse shooting is the only commercially viable means of running a grouse moor

Grouse factfile

• Red grouse are only found in the British Isles.
• Grouse rely on young heather as a food source (eating up to 50 grammes a day). They are not reared or released by gamekeepers but grow up in their natural environment on the moors.
• Grouse are a short-lived species, with two out of three dying within one year of hatching, regardless of shooting.
• Game birds such as grouse provide a healthy, fresh and natural source of food. The birds will all be eaten once harvested, having been sold through a game dealer or butcher. Grouse is high in protein, low in fat and free from artificial additives.
• There are 459 grouse moors in the UK covering 1,500,000 hectares.
• Grouse shooting takes place on moorland as far south as Wales and Derbyshire and as far north as the Highlands of Scotland.
• Moors vary in size from 200 hectares to nearly 10,000 hectares with an average of 2,000 hectares.
• Grouse densities of more than 60 birds per square kilometre at 12th August are necessary if moorland is to be economically viable for driven shooting.
• In order to protect grouse numbers and other moorland birds, predators such as foxes, crows and stoats are controlled by gamekeepers.