READERS may be shocked to learn that every year in Britain, around 50 million pheasants and partridges are mass-produced to serve as feathered targets for wealthy 'guns'.

From birth, they are confined in cages, sheds and pens, in which disease and death are a daily feature.

Many birds, frightened and stressed, are fitted with restraining devices over their beaks to prevent them pecking their cage-mates.

About half the released birds die before they can be gunned down.

They perish from exposure, starvation, disease or predation, or under the wheels of motor vehicles.

Only a fraction of the shot birds are eaten – even pro-shooting magazines – have reported that many are buried in specially-dug holes.

Killing animals for fun has no place in a civilised society.

JOHN PHILLIPS

Fenton