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Nothing glorious about killing wildlife for fun

11:26am Thursday 13th August 2009 in Your Letters

‘GLORIOUS’ twelfth - There is nothing glorious about a date which marks the beginning of the shooting season and the mass killing of our wildlife for ‘fun’.

The days of shooting one’s dinner are long gone, and largely replaced with high profile ‘big bag’ commercial shoots where the more you can shoot the bigger hero you are.

In addition to the shooting of thousands of grouse, in excess of 40 million pheasant and eight million partridges are intensively reared each year for shooting, using methods of rearing banned for chickens on welfare grounds.

The public have largely stopped buying battery chickens but continue to buy game under the misguided notion that it is ‘wild’ or ‘natural’.

On top of all of this, thousands of wild animals, domestic pets and livestock are destroyed each day as a result of indiscriminate, barbaric methods of predator control used to protect these stocks. We are repeating our calls for an end to the manufacture, sale and use of snares.

I think it is high time we asked ourselves how much we need to sacrifice to have a good day’s fun? The countryside should be a place of peace and tranquillity, not of guns, snares and systematic animal cruelty.

Katy Roberts Campaigner, League Against Cruel Sports

Comments(3)

MattSleight says...
2:10pm Thu 13 Aug 09

And how do you propose to manage the countryside? What will live there if there are no game birds? Who will pay for the upkeep of the moorland if there are no game birds? Do you want to pay thousands of pounds every year just so we can have moorland at all? I didn't think so.

Intensive farming is also NOT used for game birds; and NO illegal practices are used.

And here I was thinking this was going to be a good letter about people killing animals for fun; not for food.

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Gumbert Appollo says...
4:42pm Thu 13 Aug 09

The annual tirade shows its usual level of ignorance. Lets face it, your post is not a heartfelt message to truthfuly appeal against cruelty to animals. At best it's ill -informed (there's no such thing battery reared grouse and pheasant), and at worst your post is class motivated and anti-countryside.

Shooting, trapping and other means of managing land and estates have been prevalent for centuries. Without other means these are the only practical ways of such management. The fact that the annual shoot happens to be enjoyed by some of those who reside in the country is an added benefit, which assists rural tourism and diversification. The countryside is not only a tranquil repost from the intensity of urban life, it must also be sustainable and commercially viable.

Your exaggerated view of all things non-tofu is not helpful to those with a genuine interest in animal husbandry and the countryside as is really is.


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rockinrocky_robin says...
9:39am Fri 14 Aug 09

Straight from the manifesto of a party who thought the most improtant problems facing the country were the hereditary peers and hunting with hounds. Stope interfering with a way of life that has gone on, and on the whole worked, for centuries

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