Shooting in the dark

This whole incident with the fox shooter and the wildlife watcher is tragic, of course, and just goes to show just how careful one must be when out shooting. Bird may fly and beast may flee, but never shoot where you can’t see and all that. However, one question continues to nag at me. You see, the hunter had been given permission to shoot on the farmers' own land and it seems reasonable to me that the farmer would not give this permission if he knew that out there, somewhere in the undergrowth perhaps, was a wildlife watcher.

Now this is a complete guess, but I suspect that the farmer had no idea that someone else was using his land at the time that he gave permission to the hunters to go on their shoot. This leaves two scenarios that I can think of. Firstly, the wildlife watcher was trespassing or, secondly, he was using land that had some kind of public right of way imposed upon it either by the modern state or by some tradition in law. Now, I have not heard a single mention of the word trespass in all the reports that I have read so I am tending towards the second choice which begs a number of questions.

Is it common and lawful practice for farmers to give permission to shoot across land that may legitimately contain members of the public, say dressed in camouflage at night whilst hiding in the bushes? It would seem an extremely dangerous practice to me if this were the case, putting unreasonable pressure upon both the hunter and the public. An accident waiting to happen if you like.

If this isn’t the case, and the farmer gave his permission in error, then should he be held at least partially accountable for the incident? Also, what alternative pest control methods could a farmer use in such public access cases? Would he have to abandon his land to various pest species due to the burden that public access would have upon his possible pest reduction methods?

Of course, all the above is written without full knowledge of the incident but if I am right in my guess that both the shooters and the member of the public were all lawfully (not legitimately IMHO) rummaging around in the dark wearing the best stuff they could find to make them as invisible as possible then this will happen again. Maybe not this year, or next year, or even over the next two decades but nothing has changed to prevent it from happening again so in all likelihood it will.

Of course to me the answer is written large. The property of the farmer should be fully private. Sporadic access by any member of the public at any time to this bit or that bit should not be enshrined in law but that’s just me talking; some guy on the Internet with a passing interest in property rights, bullets and public safety.