It’s one of the bluntest expressions of class power in the United Kingdom. Like all expressions of class power, it has become normalised until we treat it as a fixed fact of national life. I’m talking about the bronze plague that spreads over the British lowlands every year, wiping out much of our wildlife: pheasants.
This week, the pheasant shooting season began, appropriately coinciding with the Conservative party conference. Killing them requires no physical exertion and a limited skillset, as the birds are driven over the heads of the shooters by people hired to flush them out of the woods. The men (almost all are) with the guns spray shot at the low-flying birds, killing some, wounding some, missing others. One estimate suggests that between 30% and 40% of all the pheasants shot are wounded and not recovered, dying slowly in the woods.
