Before any of you reading this wish to complain about hunting animals, please know this short piece is mean to entertain with a poem. That being said, I am from West Virginia, and during deer season, we used to close the schools because a large number of our boys and male teachers would be out in the woods. Ironically, deer season in WV begins around November 24, which meant only the Monday through Wednesday of Thanksgiving Week was affected. Now back to red grouse …

The start of shooting season for red grouse (lagopus scotica) in Great Britain and Northern Ireland is known as The Glorious Twelfth, the 12th day of August. Ptarmigan (lagopus muta) is also hunted at this time. Not all game (as defined by the 1831 act) have the same start to their open seasons – most begin on 1 September, with 1 October for woodcock and pheasant. [Wild Birds and Management Protection] Since English law prohibits game bird shooting on a Sunday, the start date is postponed to 13 August on years when the 12th falls on a Sunday. [“‘Glorious 13th’ for grouse season”. BBC News. 13 August 2007.]

The date of 12 August has traditional significance; the current legislation enshrining it in England and Wales is the Game Act 1831 (and in Northern Ireland, the Wildlife (Northern Ireland) Order 1985). Prior to the Game Act of 1831, the Game Act of 1773 stipulated that red grouse, or “red-game,” could not be sold before August 12, effectively starting the shooting season on this day.

Those who object to the practice in England claim high levels of biodiversity, including bird who nest on ground level, as well as raptors. Diseases such as the sheep tick, heather beetle (which attacks the heather that several of these species eat) and the intestinal parasite Trichostrongylus tenuis [ “Grouse season ‘not so glorious'”. BBC News. 12 August 2004] can impact population sizes.

All that being said, since tomorrow is the 12th of August, the official date for the beginning of the grouse-shooting season, this poem from a wistful MP in 1833 seems apposite:

THE COURT JOURNAL

SATURDAY, AUGUST 10, 1833.

SONGS OF THE BELLE AND BEAU MONDE. No. II.

THE MOORS. BY AN M.P.

The Park’s growing thinner and thinner,

A ghost of the season that’s past;

On my list I have scarcely a dinner,

And Almack’s has gallopped its last.

The session will never be over !—

All’s up now in town but the House ;

I swear I’ve a mind to break cover !—

We shall all be too late for the grouse !

My Mantons are packed in their cases,

And Ponto is wagging his tail ;

If Ministers don’t lose their places,

By Jove! I’ll take mine in the mail.

Though they know that the twelfth is approaching,

They all keep as still as a mouse !—

Let’s commit the old Bishops for poaching !

I see we’ve no chance with the grouse.

Once Althorp was reckoned a sportsman,

And Melbourne a capital shot;

But now every statesman and courtsman

Is leagued in this villainous plot !—

They care not where Purdy’s or Nock’s is,

They have not an atom of nous,

Or they’d manage to get us our proxies,

And pack us off after the grouse !—

They say the birds never were stronger

In number and feather and wing;

Should these deuced debates last much longer,

I’ll leave D I O with the King.—

If the Speaker would cast round his eye, he

Might bid them count over the House,—

Then adjourn the whole thing sine die,

And hey ! for the moors and the grouse.