Dictionary Definition
gamekeeper n : a person employed to take care of
game and wildlife [syn: game
warden]
User Contributed Dictionary
English
Extensive Definition
For the comic book series, see Guy
Ritchie's Gamekeeper.
A gamekeeper is a person who looks after an area
of countryside to
make sure there is enough game for
hunting, and or fish for angling, and who actively manages areas of
woodland, moorland, waterway, farmland etc for
game
birds, deer etc.
Typically, the gamekeeper is employed by a
landowner, and often
in the UK by a
country estate, to
prevent poaching on his
lands, rear and release game birds such as pheasant, control predators
such as foxes, manage
habitats to suit game, and monitor its health.
To some, the gamekeeper is viewed as an
indiscriminate destroyer of wildlife, with the
League Against Cruel Sports estimating 12,300 wild mammals and
birds are killed on UK shooting estates every day.
The RSPB, for example, has
criticised the poisoning of birds of
prey on some shooting estates. This is probably the most
controversial of all topics surrounding the gamekeeper. However,
this is now much rarer than in its heyday, due to better knowledge
of the ecology of birds
of prey, and cases are generally condemned by the shooting
community. On the other hand, the shooting industry says that
gamekeepers can be vital workers towards countryside conservation.
In 1997, as a result of months of adverse and
damaging media criticism, the Scottish Gamekeepers Association
(SGA) was formed to protect and promote the gamekeeper profession.
The goal of this organization is to form a professional group that
will help promote the work gamekeepers do as well as develop
training in the area of law and best management practices in the
field of game management.
In the UK many colleges now offer courses up to
and including diploma level in gamekeeping. One example is the
Northern School of Game and Wildlife at Newton Rigg
in Cumbria.
- Mellors in Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence
- Rubeus Hagrid in the Harry Potter series
- Tom Redruth in Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
- Phillip White in Lark Rise to Candleford
- Several characters past and present in the BBC Radio 4 soap opera The Archers
- Joseph in Hautot and His Son by Guy de Maupassant
gamekeeper in Macedonian: Ловочувар
gamekeeper in German:
Wildhüter