The Truth About Being a Gamekeeper

When people picture a gamekeeper, they often imagine one of two extremes. Some romanticise the job as walking around a pheasant pen with a dog and a gun. Others believe we spend our lives killing anything that might threaten our birds. Neither picture comes close to showing the truth.

At its heart, our job is to look after game. We are employed to ensure our pheasants, partridges or grouse are properly cared for. However, it would be dishonest to suggest that our work begins and ends with our birds.

Gamekeepers have to be jacks of all trades. We need to understand bird husbandry, crops, woodland, fencing, plumbing, carpentry, machinery and so on. One moment we may be caring for chicks and the next repairing a water system or dealing with a fallen tree. When something breaks late at night, there is rarely anybody else coming to fix it. We have to find a solution.

There is an off-season, but that does not mean the work stops. For many of us - and certainly in my case - February to May is when our hours return to something closer to what most people would consider normal. Once shooting finishes, all the equipment used during the season must be brought back in, repaired, washed and disinfected.

From there, we move straight into implementing plans for the coming season. That could mean building new pheasant pens, repairing partridge pen sections, carrying out woodland work or planting trees. If we rear our own birds, we may have only three months to complete as much as possible before the chicks arrive. Keepers with laying stock receive even less respite because feeding, egg production and hatchery work continue throughout this period.

Although this work is undertaken for our birds, its benefits spread much further. Depending on what is planted, game covers can provide shelter, food or a combination of both for other wildlife. The feeders and drinkers placed for our birds are also used by songbirds, mammals and many other species. Predator control undertaken to protect our birds can also reduce the pressure on hares, songbirds and other ground-nesting wildlife facing those same predators.

Predator control is one part of gamekeeping, but it is not a one-size-fits-all job. Different species have different legal status, create different pressures and must be managed accordingly. Where control is required, it must have a clear purpose and be carried out legally, humanely and in a way that is appropriate to the species and circumstances.

Sometimes it is the smallest decisions that demonstrate the wider value of gamekeeping. During recent woodland work, much of the fallen timber and brash was being removed. However, I specifically asked for small pockets to be left throughout the woodland. Without the keepering input, those pockets would not have remained.

They will predominantly provide additional cover for our pheasants, but they will also shelter other birds and mammals. As the material begins to decay, it will create habitat for invertebrates, including insects and spiders, as well as fungi. It is a small decision made because of our birds, but its value reaches much further.

During the exceptionally dry summer of 2026, we also spent countless hours carrying water around the estate. July became England's driest July since records began in 1836. We were supplying that water for our birds' needs, but many other birds and mammals used it too. Once again, the work was undertaken for our birds, but wider wildlife also benefited.

Much of this work is financed privately through landowners and the income generated by shooting. People do not have to support shooting to acknowledge the habitat, food, water and practical management that it funds.

Our profession is not perfect - but I challenge anybody to name one that is. Every profession and industry has good people and bad people. That does not excuse wrongdoing within our own community.

The least visible part of gamekeeping is the personal cost. There are filthy jobs, disease outbreaks, physical exhaustion and nights when only a few hours separate finishing work from starting again. Our families carry that pressure too.

In my own case, my partner has regularly had to manage family life alone while I have been working. I missed nearly all our twins' earliest milestones - the first time they rolled over, sat up and stood, as well as my son's first steps. Those are moments that cannot be recovered.

And yet, what a way to live. We work and breathe the countryside, follow the changing seasons, work with dogs and animals, and eventually get to share that world with our children. The hardships are real, but so is the privilege.

Gamekeeping can be exhausting, demanding and deeply misunderstood - but when it is good, it is perfect.