The PERFECT STORM

s the 2020/2021 shooting season came to its end, sadly more with a whimper than a bang, the thoughts of shoot managers, game processors, game dealers, game farmers, agents, veterinarians and Guns turned to assessing where they were and, more critically, where they might be heading. The simple answer is that the future of shooting and stalking in the four countries of the Union is, in many ways, as shrouded in mist now as it was one year ago when we entered the first lockdown. Against the backdrop of Brexit and the changes that it inevitably brings to how we trade with Europe and beyond, we have faced the ravages of the pandemic and, more particularly, the measures adopted by the Government attempting to arrest its progress. The shooting season stuttered as the country had first found itself open for business, then prohibited from shooting, open again, and finally comprehensively shut down. Liam Stokes, boss of the British Game Alliance (BGA), eruditely put it in his