Gamekeepers in the United Kingdom

For the comic book series, see Guy Ritchie's Gamekeeper (comic).

A gamekeeper is a person who looks after an area of countryside to make sure there is enough game for hunting, and or fish for angling, and who actively manages areas of woodland, waterway, farmland etc for game birds/animals.

Typically, the gamekeeper is employed by a landowner, and often in the UK by a country estate, to prevent poaching on his lands, rear and release game birds, control predators, manage habitats to suit game, and monitor its health.

Controlled burning of Heather, just one of the important countryside management duties gamekeepers undertake.

To some, the gamekeeper is viewed as an indiscriminate destroyer of wildlife, with the League Against Cruel Sports estimating 12,300 wild mammals and birds are killed on UK shooting estates every day.

The RSPB, for example, has criticised the poisoning of birds of prey on shooting estates. This is probably the most controversial of all topics surrounding the gamekeeper. However, this is now much rarer than in its heyday, due to better knowledge of the ecology of birds of prey, and cases are generally condemned by the shooting community. On the other hand, the shooting industry says that gamekeepers can be vital workers towards countryside conservation.

In 1997, as a result of months of adverse and damaging media criticism, the Scottish Gamekeepers Association (SGA) was formed to protect and promote the gamekeeper profession. The goal of this organization is to form a professional group that will help promote the work gamekeepers do as well as develop training in the area of law and best management practices in the field of game management.

In the UK many colleges now offer courses up to and including diploma level in gamekeeping. One example is the Northern School of Game and Wildlife at Newton Rigg in Cumbria.

Common Pheasant, the most important bird of all for many gamekeepers

Today, there are some 5,000 full-time gamekeepers employed in the UK. In addition, there are many who spend their leisure time and money, rearing game and maintaining habitats on their own small shoots. There are several variations in gamekeeping:

• Lowland keepers:- rearing pheasant and partridge and managing lowland habitats.
• Moorland keepers: mangaing moorland for grouse in upland areas.
• Stalkers: keepers who specialise in taking people to "stalk" deer species, mainly in the uplands.
• Gillies/River Keepers: keepers who manage rivers for trout and salmon.

Gamekeepers in fiction

• Alec Scudder in Maurice by E.M. Forster (also the film adaptation)
• Mellors in Lady Chatterley's Lover
• Rubeus Hagrid in Harry Potter series
• Tom Redruth in Treasure Island
• Several characters past and present in The Archers

External links

• Gamekeeping as a career - BASC
• National Gamekeeper's Association