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From Shetland to the Scilly Isles, Open Country travels the UK in search of the stories, the people and the wildlife that make our countryside such a vibrant place. Each week we visit a new area to hear how local people are growing the crops, protecting the environment, maintaining the traditions and cooking the food that makes their corner of rural Britain unique.
Email: open.country@bbc.co.uk
Postal address: Open Country,
91热爆 Radio 4, Birmingham, B5 7QQ.
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The popular image of a poacher is a rustic, Victorian hero trying to catch "one for the pot" to feed his family, but on this week鈥檚 Open Country Helen Mark explores the darker side of poaching and its reality today. When pheasants were worth 拢2.00-拢3.00 they were targeted by poachers, armed with air rifles and catapults, during the winter months. But the price of game has plummeted: pheasants are worth around 50p now, so poachers have switched to snatching the young chicks, or poults, during the summer months. These are worth 拢2.00-拢3.00 each. Gamekeeper Geoff Garrod shows Helen around a hatchery on the North York Moors and explains how poachers drive right up to the release pens and stuff as many birds as they can into crates. They are sold on immediately to people with shoots or for the training of birds of prey.
PC Ray Thwaites patrol around Helmsley and in his 4WD shows Helen the unmarked forestry where poachers stalk deer. He鈥檚 found deer carcasses hung up, but has not caught anyone red-handed. The meat is going to restaurants and butchers, but none of those caught divulge the end destination so he admits it鈥檚 difficult to investigate the poaching chain.
It鈥檚 not just game that鈥檚 being stolen, but also livestock. Jane Medd had 20 sheep rustled last year from her moorland farm, which may have ended up in an abattoir. She is now trialling a new security system on gates and fences. Jane demonstrates what happens if a contact is broken. A silent alarm signal is send via satellite to a tracking station; operators there call up Jane to warn her about a breach of security. The theft of her sheep motivated Jane to start Countrywatch, a network of people on the moors who regularly patrol the area.
The organised nature of poaching is not new. Dr Harvey Osborne has written about 19th century poaching and says the evidence of various parliamentary committees and trials proves poaching was not solely carried out for local demand but was a highly organised activity involving gangs.
Using the stagecoach network and dealers, millions of birds were transported across the country to markets in London like Leaden hall and Newgate where it was sold on or touted around the fashionable districts. The arrival of railways merely speeded up the trade. It was good money too. During one winter in the 1870s a Devonshire poacher poached 385 birds for a contact in Bristol in a three-week period. He earned more in those three weeks than a typical farmworker earned in a whole year.
Email Open Country: open.country@bbc.co.uk
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