CHAMOIS PRESERVES AND PEASANT-SHOOTS
One of the regions most attractive to the sportsman is North Tyrol, and more particularly that wide strip of mountain-land skirting the Bavarian boundary on the one side and the Inn Valley on the other. Here some of the best preserves in the world are situated, five royal shoots almost abutting on each other. These mountains, in character very similar to the better known Dolomites, which range is now, alas! thanks to tourists and peasant-shoots, pretty well cleared of chamois, are the beau idéal of what chamois ground should be. Most of this area consists of vast almost verdureless limestone ranges of jagged peaks intersected by deep ravines, where even in the hottest weather snow-fields nestling in shady recesses form the chamois’ favourite rendezvous. Too barren to make the cultivation of those elevated Alpine pasturages, so common in Tyrol and Switzerland, and which as a rule are fatal to preserves, a paying industry, this sea of mountains is practically one chamois preserve. In this tract, containing seven shoots, the annual bag aggregates between five hundred and eight hundred chamois, while the total head must be over four thousand.
One is often asked what the cost of a moderately large chamois preserve amounts to. It is difficult to give any hard and fast rule; one thing, however, is certain, that a shoot, say of mixed game, i.e. stag and chamois, can be obtained for a fourth or fifth of the cost of a Scotch forest. The chief expense are the keepers, whose wages (from 40l. to 50l. per annum) are, however, low. As a rule, the ground is rented from the Crown, and if it has been hitherto unpreserved, the rental is a nominal sum. In three years, if not shot over at all, the game will have increased probably three or four fold, not only from natural increase, but, being entirely undisturbed, game from adjoining shoots will have been attracted. If any Alpine pasture-rights on any part of the leased land exist, these ‘servitudes,’ as they are called, will have to be bought up or leased from the individual peasant owners.
The following instance, which may be regarded as authentic, will show what can be done in this respect. In 1866 four sportsmen rented on long lease from several Alpine hamlets a number of adjoining ‘servitudes,’ and placed three trustworthy keepers over the shoot, whose sole duty was to prevent poaching. When they started there were between 100 and 140 chamois on the place. In 1867 they killed fourteen, and from that on the bag gradually increased until in 1881 they shot 113 head, while the entire bag from 1867 to 1883 amounted to 766 head, the average number of shooting days being twelve every year. Their rent and keepers’ wages came to under 300l. per annum, and a separate gratuity of ten florins for every chamois killed by the owners offered a further inducement to the keepers to prevent poaching.
Before the year 1848, the Austrian red deer and chamois preserves carried infinitely more game than they do now, though they still are probably the best stocked that exist. In that dire year of revolution the destruction, amounting in only too many instances to complete extermination by the rebel peasantry, gave the deathblow to the cherished rights of the chase—relics of the feudal ages—claimed by all the large landed proprietors. The peasant-shoots as a consequence of the revolution came into existence in that year; for anterior to it the peasantry were feudal vassals to whom their seigneur’s game was almost as sacred as their lives, poaching in the olden days being an offence punished by loss of limb or life. It may be interesting to refer briefly to one of the few instances of peasant-shoots dating back to earlier times than 1848.
In this instance, the rights of the chase date back to the year 1709, when an imperial grant conveyed the sporting privileges to the peasantry of this particular valley as a reward for their conspicuous bravery in the defence of their country against overwhelming odds. Since that time the heirs of the twenty-six peasants who participated in the war have exercised the sporting rights over a very large area. By careful management and the adoption of the following rules, it is made a profitable property. At the commencement of the shooting season the twenty-six shareholders, as they might be called, meet in solemn conclave and settle among themselves what number of chamois and stags are to be killed that season, the severity or mildness of the preceding winter having, as in all Alpine districts, much to do with this matter, and they also select three of their number, who for the ensuing twelve months have to act as keepers to guard against poachers from the adjoining valleys. During the season, any one member may shoot as many head as he chooses until the agreed upon total is reached. As there is a good market for the game within reach, every head is turned over to the treasurer, who sells it. Half of the proceeds goes to the man who killed it, while the other goes to a general fund which is equally divided among the twenty-six members at the end of the season, so that a man who has not fired a shot draws at the end of the year what to these simple folk is a considerable sum. In one year, when the writer was shooting there, the total reached three hundred head of big game, i.e. chamois, stags, and roe-deer, and one was placed in the odd position of not only not having to pay for the capital sport one had enjoyed, but having money offered one in the shape of half of the proceeds of all one had killed.