I live in the North Yorkshire Moors National Park and in my own comparatively small district at least 100,000 pheasant are released every autumn.
They roam roads, fields and country gardens and are an attraction to many tourists. With the threat of avian flu and a possible pandemic, free range poultry keepers, we are told, will be asked to keep hens, ducks and geese under cover.
Surely it must be right, therefore, that the release of pheasant must cease until the threat is over and, if an outbreak emerges during the present shooting season, birds must be culled quickly.
I suggest that owners of shoots and their gamekeepers must be instructed immediately to cease the culling of foxes as they will help to clear the carcases of wild fowl, pheasant and grouse affected by the disease.
This should apply particuarly on grouse moors where, in many instances, foxes and some birds of prey are exterminated ruthlessly with little concern to the maintenance of the balance nature intended.
For once, foxes will be our allies in the fight against a pandemic. Hunts should be allowed to continue to hunt a trail and their followers can be of considerable service to the community by reporting any instances of untoward disease among game birds and wildfowl. The same applies to country walkers.
