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Letter: It’s cruelty in name of sport
EDITOR – In response to last week’s letter about the start of the pheasant shooting season, would you like food that was terrified, chased and killed for fun?
Would you eat it if you knew that it had been bred and reared in cages, before being released to be shot at by paying punters?
Would you eat it if you knew that it had been hit with lead pellets, left wounded until found and seized by a dog before coshing?
Because the shooting industry would like you to believe that the principal purpose of live-quarry shooting is to provide you with food, not to obtain pleasure from killing.
Pheasants fly little better than chickens.
The birds are an easy target and flap their wings for no longer than 10 seconds before their weight overcomes their strength and they glide exhausted back to earth.
Annually in Britain, around 50 million pheasants and partridges are purpose- bred.
According to the industry’s own figures, ‘only’ around 18 million of this total are shot and retrieved.
Of that 18 million, fewer than eight million are sold to game dealers.
It is claimed that the remaining 10 million are handed over to shooters or taken by shoot operators.
The shooting industry’s mouthpiece – The British Association for Shooting and Conservation (BASC) – knows that the biggest threat to live-quarry shooting is the public realisation that the vast majority of these hapless birds are not eaten – just destroyed.
They are not wild. They were bred in disgraceful conditions.
Whether they taste good is a minority opinion.
The pheasant shooting season starts on October 1.
This enormous annual cruelty is repeated in the name of sport.
Please make sure it is not in your name.
KIT DAVIDSON
Shooting Consultant
Animal Aid
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Weather for Horncastle
Wednesday 23 May 2012
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Temperature: 11 C to 21 C
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