Plenty to grouse about

THERE were high hopes of a vintage year for grouse shooting: warm, dry conditions and the abundance of fly life for chicks (Town & Country, July 23) left many thinking that this Glorious Twelfth was going to be glorious indeed. However, it now looks as if the 2025 season will be only moderately better than 2024 and, in some cases, worse. The GWCT's Cathy Fletcher suggests, based on the charity's summer grouse counts, that this will be a 'building year'. Since 1990, the average rate of loss of adult grouse on moors has been 24%, but this year in northern England, a stronghold for the native gamebird, it was 36%.

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As well as predation, the specific reason is 'nutritional stress'. Dr Fletcher explains that heather-beetle numbers have been particularly high: the beetle feeds on the heather plant, a key source of food for grouse. Where heather beetles thrive, grouse do badly. Warm weat