LFG Things have changed somewhat here since the 1970s firstly a top class game keeper is a very rear person so estates are extremely reluctant to dispense with his services if he is good at his trade. A lot of the larger estate houses are now converted in to high class hotels and the last thing a hotel guest paying a rather exorbitant room price is to see a row of corpses hanging on fences and gates for the land owner to see he the keeper is doing his job. Also a vast number of people visit Scotland to view the wildlife and hunt with cameras rather than a gun. Also the RSPB have teeth these days so killing flying Raptors carries rather high penalties these days so if a keeper has a day in court for killing birds of prey his working career could come to an end very quickly. There has to be a fine balance between the sports man or woman and the other visitors that pay good money to enjoy the moors and if the truth be known there are far more of them than people who want to shoot the Grouse. I am not saying that predators arent killed what I am saying is the whole sale slaughter of them has stopped and the old Victorian ideas of how to run a Grouse more for the wealthy few has slipped in to history with Victoria.
