O NE of North Devon's long-held countryside traditions, the game-bird shoot, is under threat. And it's becoming increasingly hard to defend.

Our celebrity chefs like Jamie Oliver and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall pay homage to the killing and eating of pheasant, for example, but they can't come up with a proper case for an industry that some opponents say is as much factory farming as rearing battery chickens. And now the financial crisis is keeping many rich customers from their shooting parties here in Devon and around the country.

The nearest the rest of us get to killing pheasant is when we accidentally run the birds over. The evidence has been obvious at this time of year with the dead and dying littered across the North Devon Link Road, often still flapping from a glancing blow. But animal welfare organisations say these roadside carcasses are just a glimpse at a multi million pound blood sport which we should have abandoned decades ago as useless and cruel. And it's difficult to see the logic behind banning the hunting of deer or foxes, but continuing to allow intensive bird rearing for sport.

I was drawn to the issue by the comical road sign of a duck on the A361 which accompanies a warning to drivers to watch out for the next two miles. How dangerous are ducks, I mused, before it dawned on me that the sign must be advising drivers there are pheasants about.

Indeed scores of unwary birds are a serious danger in the area. I've mentioned before how I saw one near-hysterical young woman brake her car to a sudden halt on the link road, then get out and run across in front of speeding traffic to try and save a crippled bird. Who would have been up in court if she'd been hit by another vehicle?

There are lawyers, I expect, who'd make a case for contributory negligence against the owners of the local shoot. And how about those drivers who instinctively swerve to avoid a slow-moving pheasant but drive into the path of another motorist?

It seems the majority of us are being put at risk so that people with far more money than they need can arm themselves with a shotgun and wander the countryside killing just for fun. Ah, but it's for food — not fun, I hear some people respond.

Oh yes, if that's so, why is it that hardly anyone in Barnstaple or South Molton eats pheasant? A few will cook the birds now and again, but certainly not in the numbers needed to make good use of the thousands shot over North Devon's countryside during the season.

Opponents claim that people organising shoots have to bury large numbers of unwanted pheasant carcasses — after first rearing the birds simply to kill them. Game shooting is a traditional pastime in our part of the world, allowing some to earn a living, or more usually a bit on the side, by rearing pheasant and frightening them into place ready to be shot. It's not a reputation to be proud of.

If there were a huge market of grateful customers waiting in the wings to feed their families with pheasant it might be a different matter. Yet we rarely see them on the supermarket shelves in spite of being talked up by those celebrity chefs paid to fill TV time. You can buy pheasant in some pubs, and of course it can taste delicious. But there's a difference between genuinely hunting for the pot and inviting the rich to spend hours in North Devon on a blood sport.

It's a difference in morals, and whether they like it or not, our privileged estate owners have an example to set. I'm not a fan of making new laws and don't propose banning game bird shooting. I'd rather see it wither away because we've outgrown needless macho hobbies practised by people who prefer not to examine their reasons for spending so much money.

I understand it was wealthy bankers who made up big weekend parties in recent times, dressing for a weekend in the country to emulate British aristocracy, shooting game and discussing their wealth over dinner, port and cigars. Now we hear they're having to forsake their jollies. The financial collapse they caused has now inspired a slightly more austere outlook and banking directors are desperate to avoid appearing in the media, Fred Goodwin-style, dressed to kill with a 12-bore broken across their elegantly booted and suited or carefully casual knees.

Good riddance.

North Devon's economy would survive if this kind of pheasant shooting shot its own bolt. We'd soon find something more interesting and useful to replace it.