Public disdain for field sports

Sir, - Rarely does a correspondent get his narrative as wrong as Derek Farmer did (September 9).

Initially he asserts that shot game birds are “not thrown away.”

This is demonstrably incorrect as the Daily Telegraph’s food correspondent, Xanthe Clay, is on record as saying that 10,000 tonnes of pheasant are thrown away every year.

This translates to an estimated 10 to 12 million birds. The public would appear to display its disdain of field sports by boycotting pheasants.

He asks what the difference is between shot birds and animals dispatched in abattoirs. The difference is in the safety of the food.

In 2012 fragments of lead shot forced the Food Standards Agency in both England and Scotland to warn frequent eaters of game, pregnant women and children under five, to eat only limited amounts of meat from animals and birds which have been shot.

Grouse are also subject to a variety of chemicals during the close season.

Mr Farmer then inquires as to who will sustain the landscape should field sports be outlawed? He ignores the substantial input, via tax breaks and subsidies, of the taxpayer who thus unwittingly, and often unwillingly, help to maintain the current regime.

If foxes do require to be culled in the short term there are less cruel and more effective forms than having men, women, horses and dogs riding chaotically across the countryside disturbing everything.

This often culminates with the animal being torn from limb to limb and suffering great agonies. This is the 21st century, Mr Farmer, welcome to it.