RE: The Glorious Twelfth (August 12).

There is nothing glorious about a date which marks the beginning of the shooting season and the mass killing of our wildlife for 'fun'.

The days of shooting one's dinner are long gone, and largely replaced with high profile 'big bag' commercial shoots where the more you can shoot the bigger hero you are.

In addition to the shooting of thousands of grouse, in excess of 40 million pheasant and eight million partridges are intensively reared each year for shooting, using methods of rearing banned for chickens on welfare grounds. The public have largely stopped buying battery chickens but continue to buy game under the misguided notion that it is 'wild' or 'natural'.

On top of all of this, thousands of wild animals, domestic pets and livestock are destroyed each day as a result of indiscriminate, barbaric methods of predator control used to protect these stocks. We are repeating our calls for an end to the manufacture, sale and use of snares.

I think it is high time we asked ourselves how much we need to sacrifice to have a good day's fun? The countryside should be a place of peace and tranquillity, not of guns, snares and systematic animal cruelty.

KATY ROBERTS,

Campaigner,

League Against Cruel Sports.