Is Conservation Too Cruel? 

This Team is getting SO good at producing these Documentaries. Not only is the production quality exceptional but, most importantly, this fundamental message about conservation, it's reasons and methods, needs to be properly communicated and understood. The natural world is not so much in delicate balance as in dynamic equilibrium where every element has an impact on every other, be it flora, fauna or human. We have been a massive element in this equation and we are the only element that has an inkling of how it works and the ability to influence it. Today, this vital learning is not only not being covered in the mainstream media, it is being actively avoided for fear of upsetting the ignorant. Worse still, it is inflaming and emboldening the uneducated to dangerous action. No one is talking about this and it is so fundamental to the long term survival of what little 'natural' world we have left. Please keep producing this ground breaking output. Keep supporting the Game keepers and let's figure out how to get this into the mainstream.

Superb. These films are of a quality deserving of national airtime

Excellent video. Quality! Chris Pacham needs to watch it. Everyone needs to watch this. I'm sharing it with a few of tree-hugging townies that I know. It might help to open their eyes.

What a great conservation bit of film, Im pleased I've just renewed my NGO membership.

Fantastic filming worthy of mainstream air time. Another great TGS production if only the "uneducated" population would take note. Great work and great spokesperson for all things countryside.

These guys are heroes, they are saving our wildlife. And despite adversity and vicious attacks from so called ‘animal rights groups’ they keep going and they keep saving the natural environment for future generations, absolute heroes.

So eloquently put Jonny , this needs to be put on main stream tv. Keep fighting the good fight 👍

Well done. About time the Keeper was portrayed for what he (or she) is. A conservationist and not a mindless killer of raptors and foxes. A well informed and excellent piece of information. Keep up the good work. 👍🏻

Fantastic film. truly worrying time we are living in. People have become so detached from the natural world and the origins of their food. I hope we will see a shift in attitudes towards the game keepers and people in this line of work. The thing that always perplexes me with vegans and animal rights activists, do they not realise the level of pest control required to grow their vegetables? I'm not just talking about rabbits and pigeons, what about pesticides? killing insects on mass. As you say its a fine balance and a different balance is needed in each area.

The content of this channel has grown massively over the past 18 months. It's a shame that these aren't on public TV to help educate people.

BBC should show this video, it hits on all the facts about looking after our red listed birds. Thoroughly enjoyed the production 👌👏👏👏👏

What an amazing film piece. Stunning scenery, awesome work guys...

We have the same problem here in South Africa. The Kruger National Park has been decimated by the elephant population, the savanna area in about the center of the Park has lost thousands of trees (for every tree per hectare there is now in 2020 there was over 60 in mid the 1960s) when they started to cut down on elephant culling. The population exploded and is over double the size of which the park can sustain. Now other species that where common (20 years ago) have been on a drastic decline because of habitat destruction. Problem is international and local media hate the idea of shooting thousands, yes THOUSANDS of elephants to control the population, and you cannot move ALL of them because it would obviously be extremely expensive. Only small amounts of elephants get relocated to other properties and/or wildlife areas. So the only possible way is to cull half the population which the last game count I remember they released where over 22 000,and the park can only sustain around 10 000 which you could probably push to 12 000. Just whish poeple didn't get there emotions involved in something happening across the planet in a country they most probably haven't even been to. Great video guys love the topic and a big fan of the channel. Very well executed 👌

Great film. I am with the gamekeepers but I wish you would of at least interviewed one of the nut groups as well so people could understand just how out there some of these folks are.

Fantastic effort chaps. Thank you for producing this short film. It really should be played for everyone to see what a brilliant job gamekeepers/land managers do day after day to benefit our wildlife.

Hit the nail on the head. Excellent, hopefully it will educate some People.

Absolutely stunning piece of filmmaking! This is honestly better than the majority of TV programs now. The care, attention, emotion and passion throughout is utterly fantastic. I wish this could move onto a more mainstream view, it deserves a bigger audience. Well done to everyone involved!

What a piece of journalistic art! This really needs to be seen by the mainstream media, and used for education and information. There are a lot of negative views about the management of the countryside and how this has directly had a massive impact on people’s opinions and thought processes. There is so much thought and emotion in this piece of film, talking to people from every aspect of country life, it’s a massive step in the right direction of what is needed to help people understand the absolute need for this type of work. I really believe that in order to achieve what we really all want to see in the world this could do nothing but good! Great work and keep it going!!

great video! a lot of people are ignorant and blind to the fact that without the management of balancing wildlife a great number of species would fall or encroach more into our territory causing us more "first world problems" . Its a real shame we have to do it but it needs doing.

Absolutely superb film. That puts everything into perspective and I will be talking my children through it so they are better educated too. I used to shoot a lot of game on organised shoots with my old man as a young boy/teenager and then realised one day that I wasn’t really enjoying it as much as the thrill of busting clays in an open competition so I quit shooting game. I don’t regret that decision but I do now find I have a little mental battle with myself every time I get an opportunity to go game shooting purely for the reason that I would now only kill something to eat it rather than for ‘sport’. If more anti shooters saw how their food is killed before it gets neatly packaged on a supermarket shelf they would either think twice about eating meat or shut the hell up with their anti hunting idealism’s. And just on the subject of sport if I was Deer or Pheasant would I rather have a chance of free life first and the chance to escape the hunter rather than be born and slaughtered in a factory ? The answer would be yes every time. Our supermarkets have ruined the food chain in my opinion and the general public should be shown and educated on how their meat gets to the shelf, I think only at that point they would realise we are the ‘good guys’ and not the evil murderers they make us out to be.

Great quality, keep up the work guys. The message is very important that it’s not one camp or the other, regardless of your personal feelings, reality is that we have had an irreversible impact and need to do our best to manage the environment.

What a stunning and beautiful piece of cinematography, a very well presented argument for land management, well done TGS Outdoors.

Super video , outstanding quality John an absolute credit to you ,and the guy's that put it together with you . Is there no end to your talents, we need more of these sought of programmes on mainstream T V , but they won't show it will they .

Great video, a really great video. It explains and educates showing why the game keepers do what they do, not just for the shooters but for the enviroment. It is management. But idf you dont manage then all the enviroment will die out!

Brilliant ,these films need to go on national television to educate the masses.

Couldn’t agree more! Education is key👍🏻

Just want to say thank you! You have made a fantastic short film. Well done 👍🏻

One of your best videos ever! Soooo educational. As others have said, it should be on tv to help educate the masses. Please keep up the good work. I love your RU-vid content.

Fantastic Video. I myself am a shooting man in the UK however this really opened my eyes to the scale of conservation and the necessity of conservation. Brilliant content and very well made!

Amazing bit of work on a very diverse subject. Really does hammer home a clear point in an unambiguous manner.

Absolutely brilliant. Felt just like a documentary

superbly produced! I'm jealous of the beautiful landscapes you guys manage!

I agree many many people today are almost totally ignorant of how their food is produced. The processes involved. They are very insulated from 'the coal face' as it were. Although townies my parents families kept poultry for eggs and the table. The abattoir was in the centre of the town with livestock driven down the Main Street for slaughter. I'm in my 60s and our family never needed to keep and kill anything for food. My children are vegetarian because killing and eating animals is barbaric and cruel. That's quite a shift in perception in just two generations! Great to see films like this being produced to provide a more balanced and considered perspective. Nature is is in tension. Every species is competing. It's that competition that provides a long term measure of stability. You simply cannot save everything.

The game keeper who said he likes foxes and only kills foxes when not feeding young . I give him the thumbs up. I agree with that 100% . Not nice knowing that fox cubs could be starving to death, It makes it more humanely .

Really balanced realistic summary. Thank you.

We've all watched things on TV and said "well, that's half an hour of my life I'll never get back". This film is the total antithesis of all that. I would (and will) give up further half hour "chunks" of my life to show this to people who believe that they love the countryside, on the basis that they are diametrically opposed to the killing of any wild animal. Fantastic and well balanced piece of filmmaking!

This is the kind of stuff that SHOULD be on countryfile

I always look forward to your videos. Keep up the good work.

Wow, this is brilliant, many more people should see this to understand how conservation worked. I had a good idea about it before but this really shone a light onto how important it is.

What an amazing video!! Educational and very interesting. This should be on national TV! Well done guys and thank you!!! 👍

This film puts real conservation in to perfect terms for non hunters to understand. Covering the disassociation & and reasoning perfectly.. Very very impressed and the videographer captured its beautifully.. Well done.. #betterthancountryfile

Excellent documentary, the message needs to get out to mainstream media, people have little idea of the practicalities or ethics of conservation.

Well done 👏 that was amazing. You don't get that on the BBC but you do get a lot of sh*t .Thank you for the truth.

Spot on Jonny , well done TSG team massive thumbs up 👍

Really interesting video. Great to see the “other side” of the issue. It’s obvious that the gamekeepers interviewed are passionate about what they do. Many of us “townies” should take a bit more time to try and understand what conservation actually needs to make it work

What have i just watched.. unbelievable insight and production values. Wow

Thankyou for educating me, I had a lot of misconceptions about this. You have changed my mind

Really good work. Beautiful production. I just wish that the groups so set on fighting against field sports would watch and engage

Absolutely superb video, best one I've seen on this topic. Been on you tube years and this is the first comment I've ever left on any video. So it must be good. I agree with one of the other subscribers it is worthy of main stream viewing.

Great video! Reminds me a lot of what Steven Rinella is doing here in the United States.

This is a well done film. Whilst I am become concerned about certain aspects of field sports and it’s sustainability I do believe is makes an active contribution to conservation, particularly on the moorlands. However, I think we need to ask ourselves what contribution are we making as individuals to conservation. I don’t think it’s enough to say because we pay for a days driven shooting that we have made a contribution to conservation. As a community, if we feel conversation is important to the future of fieldsports/hunting, what if we were to make direct contribution as individuals. Even just a day or two a year to help initiatives and projects. I think BASC, NGO and GWTC to have a responsibility to develop, manage and source funding for such projects. Doing so we can demonstrate we are making a direct contribution. This is a model that seem to work very well in the US. I’m a member of both BASC and GWTC. I’ve contacted them both to volunteer time and neither have come back to me - it’s disappointing.

What a fantastic balanced show, it's a pity the main stream media won't take it on board, it's like preaching to the converted. In the same breath, well done for making the video!

Great film TGS up there with best. As with Louis Theroux's African hunting holiday

Interesting take on a very emotive subject. Cheers guys.

Absolutely love your work, from a young person like myself, it really opened my eyes to the work i'll be inlvoed in in the future. Keep it up :)

Brilliant video! Well done

Your best yet Very interesting and informative on life out side the big smoke

Brilliant, keep making these and get them out there

WHY ISN’T THIS ON TV!!!?!!!

Brilliant film and the observations remind me a lot of the debate around conservation and non-native animals in Australia.

Nice footage, although did not touch on the game bird release issue ?? only wild game- all lowland keepers release birds that is what they protect, many people have issue with this. it needs explaining to the wider audience. There are more keepers for pheasants and partridge than grouse. whilst i understand you are trying to explain that keepers maintain a balance they wouldn't be doing that if it wasn't for the birds relesed especially in the lowlands. keep up the good work

Amazing quality and a great insight. What would be great to know is this conservation being done to protect game birds just so they can be shot in season? If so then the conservation is purely for profit from the land owners. But if the conservation is for the right reasons I.e deer 🦌 eating plant life and depleting the food source for others I’m totally on board with doing the right things for the right reasons.

Great production, well done. But this message is largely wasted on us country people, because we already know the truth. We need to show this film repeatedly on national prime time TV to get the message out to the people who really need to see it!

There doing what is needed to be done another great quality film 👍

Wow! Top work guys. Get this on the tv.

This is a great series. I have enjoyed seeing it . People really have no idea what it takes to do the right thing

Very well said sir

Man, this deserves more views.

Brilliant piece of work 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

Great film, hopefully this will educate some of the people who see us all as cruel & evil people. I also agree with Dan P below, these films should be aired nationwide to educate.

Bravo, gentlemen. Bravo 👏

Top notch video

Great video well worth watching 👍great work

Fantastic 👌

I've always sat on the fence about this subject and that's due to my ill education on the matter. I have no problem with killing animals for the right reason and so long as it's humane, but there has always been that niggle in the back of my mind about killing the "cute and fluffy" species, fox, rabbit, deer etc and again that's because i'm a city dweller and don't/didn't understand the exact reasoning behind killing these animals. Again with pigeons and crows, hadn't got an issue with killing them for crop control so long as they weren't just wasted, I guess I didn't see the extent of the problem they caused especially the crows and young livestock thing. Having just moved to a village in a more rural area I had wanted to explore more than just the "Clay" pigeons that I normally shoot but that niggle was holding me back. Thank you for giving me the education to know which side of the fence to walk, much respect to all the gamekeepers out there after this eye opener. Keep up the good work and thank you for looking out for our countryside. Good work TGS, hopefully get down your way one day and pop in and have a chat, might even let you take me out to shoot some pigeons! 😉 👌

Thank you

Can you please send this to bbc etc see if you can get it broadcasted people need to see the truth it is professional quality great job

Top notch! ten out of ten

Awesome video, sad reality is that the people most complaining will drive out kill a pheasant or badger in there car and verbally argue the impact of conservational control, I would argue road kill has a far more negative impact on the British countryside than simply bettering the chances of sustainable survival for struggling native species.

Brilliant.

Great film. I agree with the chap that mentioned overpopulation of this island. Ironic that those sabs who profess love of wildlife also support mass immigration.

So the challenge is wild justice picks three separate square miles of un keepered non managed land. I pick three of keepered managed land. We count wildlife insect plant bird mammal. If they have a greater number I will clean harrods windows naked on Christmas eve. I have a greater number they retire from public life. Will they accept the challenge

Stoats weasels and (FERRETS)?

I have been living and hunting all over the World. Lion, leopard, cape buffalos, and a lot more in Africa. Wild birds and big game in Scandinavia. Birds and big game in the US. ++++. The British idea to shoot farmed driven birds is way under white man's lower level of dignity. To attempt to make the wild grouse a domestic bird and drive them like the stupid pheasants doesn't make it better. Starving deer inside fences is horrible. Doing things the wrong way for 100 years doesn't make it right. Argumentation full of holes does not help anyone,

Same goes to badgers

Tell this to gen z they will meltdown

I agree in conservation management I do not realistically think anyone could argue with that. But when I hear of another Satellite monitored Golden Eagle has disappeared over a Grouse Moor in Scotland, it really does make me sad/concerned for the future of wildlife in this quite nasty little country. Perhaps if the Gamekeepers hear through the grape vine who is responsible for this travesty they could inform the relevant authority's. Just too many stupid, ill informed people on this small Island.

😯😯😯

God is the only God, we don't even come close, it's just ignorance that people think of death in this way.

GAMEKEEPERS! BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAH!!! YOU'RE TOTALLY INSANE!

World of liberals. Just like the response oof liberals to the cat crisis in Australia