The keeper’s view
ne indefensible aspect of game shooting is that the end product has gone from a highly sought-after and valuable commodity to a near-valueless carcass. The very first gamekeepers were employed to provide and harvest food in the form of game, wildfowl, waders and coneys. They shot for the ‘big house’ and sold a surplus at the market. It was all about food production not sport. Traipsing around field, moor, stream and woods was most likely deemed too much like hard work for the landed gentry of the time.
