WITH reference to recent correspondence in Midweek Letters, February 1 saw the end of the pheasant shooting season. Some 36 million pheasants will have been shot in the past four months.

Another 12 million would have been wounded but not retrieved. The carnage doesn't end there. An estimated five million stoats, weasels, crows and other animals drawn by unnaturally high pheasant numbers are killed to protect profits.

Reared like broiler chickens inside crowded sheds, the pheasants' unnatural confinement results in stress-related bird-on-aggression, including feather pecking. To control this they are fitted with painful beak clips and blinkers or partial beak amputation.

Soon the wretched cycle begins again. Animal Aid believes the time has come for the public to speak out against the cowards who orchestrate this squalid bloodsport.

To learn more contact Animal Aid (Telephone: (01732) 364 546 or www.animalaid.org.uk).

Yvonne Taylor, Bradford Street, Tonbridge, Kent