MAY I clarify claims made by Mr Blakemore of the blood sports lobby under the guise of Countryside Alliance, Letters October 2, implying that they are a necessary part of the countryside producing food etc, and that wildlife thrives in their killing fields.

The only wildlife they allow to thrive are those which are not deemed as a quarry species to be shot or chased, tormented, baited with dogs for a day’s fun, or seen as a threat to this cruel pastime.

If song birds were seen as a threat they too would be persecuted.

The sheer arrogance of these people who think they can dictate which of our wildlife can be left in peace and which will be persecuted exceeds their ignorance of nature which they obviously hate.

What they do is completely artificial, a pastime where they try to blur the difference between culling, if and when necessary in the most humane efficient way, with their demand for a quarry specie, but the more enlightened informed people are not fooled.

Regarding game bird shooting, no mention of how pheasant chicks, a non-native specie, are bred in factory farms in France, rather like our factory hens, crammed into crates and transported to UK to be reared as gun fodder for the big estates.

Even when we had avian flu H5N1 caused by factory farming in Asia, it was the wild birds and our free range hens which were blamed and restricted, yet despite there being a ban on imports at the time, the shooting lobby could still import chicks.

Yes if a meat eater venison is free range, but the shooting fraternity could not even get that right, because their prime aim dominated, too many stags with antlers were shot so the city cowboys could have a trophy to hang on their walls, leaving too many hinds. Many at the time starved to death, albeit some land owners did feed some.

So the blood sports (CA) should be honest. Admit they enjoy persecuting killing other species for fun, and stop the spurious claim it is to do with conservation and necessary for wildlife and the countryside, food production etc which is nonsense.

Persecution not conservation is more an appropriate term.

The Countryside Alliance does not speak for us, the rural dwellers, but for a vested interest, once called the British Field Sports Society, changed after a ban was inevitable and their cruelty had been exposed by some of the more enlightened sections of the media. Before that they had no interest in such issues as loss of rural shops, pubs, bus services etc.

Now they have wrapped themselves up in all things rural in an attempt to get fox/deer hunting/ hare coursing legal again.

D Thomas, Hisomley, Near Dilton Marsh