I fear I have all the attitudes that Jeremy Clarkson can’t abide, but I am strangely drawn to reading his amusing columns. However, his defence of game shooting contains diddly squat logic (“The game’s not yet up for my pheasant shoot”, Magazine, last week).
It’s true that pheasants are not very smart but that doesn’t mean it’s all right to blow them apart. That farm animals are killed for meat is not an argument for shooting; it just means that carnivorous anti-shooters are open to the charge of hypocrisy. And the idea that shooting game birds is good for the landscape is laughable. The annual torching of vast tracts of heather is not exactly eco-friendly.
The only defence for shooting game birds is that it is fun. And if you think that is good enough, then I suggest you’re not much smarter than a pheasant.
Robert Wright, Cheltenham
Give it both barrels, Jeremy
At last, some common sense on pheasant shooting. Glory be to God for dappled things — and for Jeremy.
Angela Brookes, Heath Charnock, Lancashire
Haven for pheasants
Clarkson defends pheasant shooting on his land, stating, “When someone has a shoot, they manage the woodland in which the birds live more carefully than if they did not.” I manage 30 acres of deciduous woodland in rural Ulster where there is no shooting, yet an abundance of wildlife. The woodland paths are free for the public to enjoy the flora and fauna. There are even migrant pheasants who arrive and nest, possibly aware it is a safe haven, where they are not subject to a backside full of metal pellets.
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In my experience very few farmers shoot, because they are too damned busy trying to earn a living.
J Alan Bell, Co Antrim
In pursuit of class war
Your report that the National Trust is to ban trail hunting (News, last week). For every fox killed by a hound, a thousand more are killed on our roads. No one tries to fix that problem. For those who are against fox hunting it is in effect a class war issue, not a pro-fox issue.
George Shaw, London SW15
Heritage includes fox hunting
This is a further nail in the coffin of the National Trust as a guardian of the nation’s heritage. When the member quoted proposed, “You can use your vote and decide whether you want to be a part of protecting and conserving our natural heritage”, she failed to appreciate the contradiction: fox hunting is just as much a part of the countryside and its cultural heritage as fine old houses. The Trust has been annexed by urban sentimentalists.
Samuel Roberts, Totnes, Devon
