It's not such a glorious twelfth for the grouse

For August 12 in the last few years has been anything but glorious for those whose job it is to rear birds for sport.

Despite dire predictions from the prophets of doom about global warming leading to the British Isles being transformed into a barren, waterless wasteland, the opposite has occurred.

A long procession of very wet years has followed the long, balmy spring and summer of 1995, the year we came very close to having to get our drinking water rations from standpipes in the road like refugees in a blitzed, wartime city.

The abysmal weather has not suited most of us but some of God's less loveable creatures flourish in damp climates, such as the parasitic intestinal worm which enjoys nothing better than decimating grouse populations.

For some of the past few years, many estates in the area have had to cancel shoots to allow their meagre populations of grouse to reproduce instead of gracing the tables of the declining number of diners who enjoy traditional British game.

Benedict Hayes, the agent of the Duke of Devonshire's Estate at Bolton Abbey, again looks like he may have to suffer the frustration of writing this year off as another population building year.

Although the final numbers have not been properly assessed yet, Mr Hayes said he was hopeful that some sport may be had when the season opens next month.

Mr Hayes said: "It is not going to be particularly glorious this year. We are still doing our count. We had a terrible spring and a poor summer. Just when the chicks were coming out."

Unlike pheasant, another game bird which loves the heather, grouse populations, being completely wild, are at the mercy of nature.

"We manage their natural habitat and try and create the conditions which suit them so they produce good birds. But at the end of the day it is all in the lap of the gods, and nature has a way of dealing very unfair blows," Mr Hayes said.

However, for private grouse moors, the expensive, on-going cost of heather burning, controlling predators and keeping down bracken, need to be offset by the income generated from the shoot. And if there aren't enough grouse, there is no shoot.

Mr Hayes said: "It is expensive and those costs are on-going. Shooting income is the only money we get back to pay for those costs."

The work to try and create an ideal habitat for grouse also enhances the environment for other ground-nesting birds and other species, giving shooting moors their distinctive quality.

There are those who disagree with shooting birds for sport and would have it banned. But this would result in moors not being managed properly, leading to the disappearance of not only grouse but other species as well from our upland countryside.

Almost exactly five years ago, Bradford Council, which had been responsible for Ilkley Moor since 1973, hit upon a unique way to manage it which would be practical enough to satisfy everyone, although it was pilloried and ridiculed at the time.

Councillors decided to manage the moor in exactly the same way a shooting moor was looked after, but with one difference - on the publicly owned part of the moor, all shooting would be banned.

Not, said the council, for anti-hunting reasons, but for the simple reason that as the moor was open to the public all year round with no restrictions on access, it would not be a good idea to have people up there blasting off with shotguns.

Countryside officer Richard Perham explained: "They decided to stop the shooting because of the public safety aspect rather than shooting issues. It is open access all year round.

"We manage it for all ground nesting birds. The techniques we use are similar to a game keeper. We have got quite a good population of grouse at the moment.

"Last year was quite a good year for grouse. This year is average because wet springs are really bad for grouse."

But the council's countryside officers also want to encourage other species such as golden plovers, curlew, snipe, short-eared owl and merlin.

Mr Perham said: The only thing we do differently is that we don't shoot anything. Since the shooting stopped we have done more management than before.

"When we stopped it, it was more on public safety grounds, and we did not want to get into an argument about shooting. It is going really well up there. We are governed by what English Nature tell us to do. And use traditional game keeping methods."

It seems like on Ilkley Moor we have the best of both worlds, particularly when the grouse populations on shooting moors still seem to be having trouble multiplying.

According to a statement from a pressure group supporting grouse shooting, The Moorland Association: "Moorland owners' hopes for a bumper grouse shooting season this year have been dashed by the recent cold weather and heavy rain. In the southern Yorkshire Dales, the cold wet weather over the last five weeks seem to have turned what looked like being an above average year into a moderate one.

"Nidderdale was particularly badly affected by a storm on June 14. The signs are that brood sizes have diminished considerably, especially the later hatches."

Simon Bostock, chairman of the Moorland Association said: "As grouse are a completely wild bird, moor owners carry out careful counts in the spring and in the summer over the same piece of ground.

"This helps to calculate the number of breeding pairs and their success in raising young, and from this, determine the shootable surplus of grouse each year. Leaving enough healthy young stock to breed the following year is of paramount importance."

So it seems Bradford Council's strategy has proved a winner as far as Ilkley Moor is concerned, for those who appreciate a healthy looking moor with a diverse range of species, including grouse, and also for those who don't like shooting for whatever reason.

But it is worthwhile to remember that this happy compromise could only have been reached because the management of the moor is all paid for by the taxpayer.

There is nothing more certain that private grouse moor owners would often be more than willing to abandon the precarious income from shooting in favour of a guaranteed cheque from Her Majesty's Treasury every year.

But then where would that leave those of us who could be regarded as not having any strong opinions when it comes to the shooting/anti-shooting debate, but would be horrified to see a yet another wild delicacy disappear from the menu altogether?