Polling by YouGov for the League Against Cruel Sports to coincide with National Shooting Week (May 28 to June 5) has shown 61 per cent of the public think it’s unacceptable to shoot live animals for “sport”.
Every year, up to 42 million pheasants and partridges are intensively reared in battery conditions so they can be shot.
Gamekeepers are so keen to ensure as many as possible are available for shooting that they set snares as a form of pest control, despite the fact they often catch domestic cats and dogs and other non-target species.
Many are killed on the roads. I’m sure many people will recall seeing dead pheasants at the roadside.
Let us not be fooled that National Shooting Week is about encouraging future Olympic hopefuls in the discipline of target shooting.
This week is about propping up the pro-bloodsports agenda and nothing else.
Encouraging children to take pot shots at living creatures purely for sport is appalling and our polling shows public opinion is firmly against allowing children to play with lethal weapons.
Don’t stand for the nonsense of National Shooting Week and the promotion of killing for “fun”.
Douglas Batchelor
chief executive, League Against Cruel Sports
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