Attitudes to animal don’t add up

■ Surely I can’t be the only Metro reader sickened at the prospect of 10,000 turkeys being culled over bird flu at a turkey-fattening site in Yorkshire (Metro, Mon).

This month, Denmark murdered millions of mink following the discovery of a Covid mutation in the animal. In this country, we have seen mass culls following mad cow disease and foot and mouth. Is this because of a lack of compassion, cutting corners on food safety practices and medical practice, or simply financial greed? G Gordon-Wilkin, London

■ John Lewis says Steve Cook is obviously not a ‘dog lover’ after criticising the prominence of Metro’s story on the death of William and Kate’s pet dog (MetroTalk, Fri). What if he isn’t? Not everyone is. Does it make him a bad person?

In particular, does it make him any worse than the majority in this country who are not cow, pig or sheep lovers – who indeed actively fund the slaughter of these animals for their meals? I’ll bet Mr Lewis and Robin Thompson, who also criticised Mr Cook, both eat meat.

In Britain at least, cats and dogs are generally far more pampered than the animals farmed here.

It is to the latter, deliberately slaughtered in the millions for human greed, that my heart goes out.

The campaign to end the eating of dogs – but not that of any other animal – in eastern Asia especially offends me as a spreading of the white man’s hypocrisy. If the ‘it’s only an animal’ attitude should not apply to a cat or dog, why should it apply to millions of cattle and pigs and sheep?