Letter: It’s time for a ban on shooting birds
Wednesday 8th September 2010, 7:00AM BST.
Letter: The horrors of shooting birds for sport will be upon us again. The misery and cruelty involved in this is shocking.
Annually more than 45 million pheasants and partridges are purpose-bred to be used as feathered targets.
As part of the production process, hundreds of thousands of breeding birds are confined inside metal battery cages for their entire productive life.
Most of the released birds die before they can be shot, from disease, starvation and exposure. Of the shot birds, many will be discarded rather than eaten.
I urge the public to contact their MPs and ask them for a ban on the production of birds for sport shooting in Britain.
L Parker
Church Stretton
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meh they’re only birds
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You obviously have got no idea what so ever about what goes into this?
try doing 5 minutes research before writting this dribble.
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Don’t think too many country folk will be with you on this one
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I’d love to see some solid evidence to back up some of the sensational points made above.
The driven shooting industry is essential to rural areas both economically and ecologically. 7.3 million hectares of Britain are managed by gamekeepers who ensure that fragile biodiversity is preserved. Many shoots bring money into rural areas through tourism and other means. roughly 5000 people work as full time game keepers in the UK, not to mention the thousands who are employed seasonally as beaters etc.
There are so, so many more more pressing, more cruel, and more ecologically damaging animal welfare issues than game shooting.
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I think our government has far bigger worries than the shooting of a few birds for sport.
Once we sort out our economy, there is world peace to sort out along with the environmemt and the end of cheap oil and gas. When we have sorted them out maybe we can indulge L Parker and look at what we do for sport – shall we deem fishing cruel? How about Boxing, cage fighting etc, then maybe motor racing as it uses up fuel, why not go the whole hog and ban football as its cruel to breed brainless trolls with fancy footwork, pay them £100k a week and expect them to be civilised human beings.
In case L Parker cannot tell, I am being sarcastic.
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“As part of the production process, hundreds of thousands of breeding birds are confined inside metal battery cages for their entire productive life”.
With regards to the above as written by the L PARKER please, please, DO YOUR RESEARCH you clearly are totally clueless to the point of embarrassing.
The shoot will never be banned they create an absolute fortune for the rural economy, lets not mix this with Fox hunting although a silly law it never generated the money shooting or fishing for that matter does for the rural economy both these are enjoyed by MILLIONS. I suggest you concentrate another issue such as intensive farming methods you may be a little bit more near the mark on that issue but again you need to do a llittle more research .
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Hold on you pro-bird shooting advocats. I’ve been in woods and found shot Jays, plus the usual rooks, crows and magpies, etc. There should be a blanket ban on all shooting of birds. This killing is evil.
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Remove the Jay others are rough shoot quarry, not bred for shooting birds.
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Jays are classed as vermin as well as all other corvids (crows rooks magpies) so no laws are broken by shooting them
As for the shooting of game-birds being banned
You have more chance of seeing a one legged ostrich landing on the moon
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I knew my Ostrich was poing places
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My mistake on the jay
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How does the letter writer believe I should deal with the ‘murderer’ of 2 pheasants on our sports ground last week………..ie. a little cuddly furry FOX.
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You have two hopes and one is called Bob!
That is like asking a chicken farmer to stop farming chickens for the consumption of everyone. Like asking the vegetable farmer to stop producing potatoes etc.etc.
I agree with Henry 100%.
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Mr. Mackley, are you sure about the tourism part of your comment?. I was brought up on Acton Reynold estate, near Grinshill. As a young man I worked as a beater several times but only once per year and that was for a few quid, cash in hand, and a couple of beers after plus a brace for the pot. Hardly a major factor in the employment figures wouldn’t you agree. Strangely I can never recall coach loads of tourists turning up to stand in the cold watching toffs with double barreled names and shotguns blasting near tame birds out of the air so your comment on the tourism aspect has me baffled, could you elaborate?.
As I said, I was young then but now I would not go beating on principle. Those birds were so tame we had a hell of a job to get them to fly, when we approached they came running thinking they were going to be fed.
Like the fox hunting rabble these shooters will say anything to protect their day of fun.
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I lived for a long time on the Downton Estate outsite Ludlow so have also been ‘up close and personal’ with the sport. I wasn’t really meaning tourism as in coach parties, more so the money that these so-called ‘toffs’ will spend in the local area whilst on a shooting break – Hotels, restaurants, self-catering accomodation, in local shops and things of that ilk.
Yes, I agree that beaters aren’t paid much – this was just a small exaample. Many people whilst not necessarily being directly supported from shooting, certainly benefit financially from it. This cannot be disputed.
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I suggest you go to the game fair at weston park in a few weeks , thousands of shooters there etc I would say most are not what you describe as so called toffs, many, many small shoots syndicates are now run by Mr average for Mr average so please not the usual “it is only for toffs” rubbish , Granted if you go to the larger shoots it costs more money and even then I would say spot the toff they are made up of new money not a so called toff amongst them.It is down to the money it generates for the rural economy , I would also add the lab,tory,libs have learnt a lot from banning the hunt to ever go any where near this idea.
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@Henry Mackley
To suggest that gamekeepers do anything to protect fragile biodiversity is ridiculous. Gamekeepers snare, trap, poison, shoot, anything that either prey on the birds being reared to shoot or that compete with those birds for food.
Managed woods are typically dead of anything but the ‘game’ birds themselves.
As a countryman who is unfortunate enough to witness each year the carnage in the countryside I agree with Mr Parker, it time this cruel and destructive practice was banned.
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Good, then as a “countryman” (whatver that means these days), you’ll fully aware that the points set out in the letter are absolute piffle!
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As it would appear are my spelling and grammar!
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What a load of rubbish!. I know a game keeper and he works very hard keeping the land in order and maintaining the birds. At no point in the birds lives are they confined in ‘Battery Cages’. The Birds are looked after night and day, Fed and kept safe as they can be from natural hunters.
Before being released in to private estates they are usually kept in large (2 – 3 acre) Open Pens, where they can fly in and out as they choose.
They do have a good class of life as not all are shot, perhaps Pheasents have a better life than the average chicken. So L PARKER do you want to Ban killing them as well?
What next fishing…?
P.S. Pheasents taste lovely!
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I would also add the pheasant as per the picture would not be as a regular site on a frosty morning as it is now if it were not bred for the purpose of the shoot. Also to say game keepers do little to manage the country side is as ill informed as the original letter.
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The writer’s call for the “sport” to be banned is silly but you have got to ask yourself, what sort of person gets pleasure from killing harmless birds?
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Mnay people in the developed world who indulge in the the sport of shooting, AND THE QUARRY IS EATEN so what the problem..
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The point isn’t whether or not it’s eaten… the point is what sort of person gains pleasure from depriving a creature of it’s life? The fact that plenty of people do it makes no difference whatsoever. Plenty of people shoplift but it doesn’t make it right.
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millions of shooters and fishermen world wide, also many more millions who actually eat an animal for pleasure.Shocking isn’t it.
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The point isn’t how many people engage in this sort of “sport”, it’s the fact that if you gain pleasure from causing an animal to suffer or die, then you’re wrong in the head. Don’t try and pretend that it’s simply because you like eating pheasants… you like killing animals plain and simple.
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Me
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Well bully for you.
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I used to live on land that ran a shoot. Every other week we were tormented by men shouting ‘I’ve got a bird’ as they stood in their tweeds pointing their guns all over the place. And they didn’t care about going on people’s land to get a pheasant. At the back of our house the pheasants were fed from large tin containers. And yes, they do rear them in small cages before they are let into the countryside. It’s not about conservation at all, it’s all about stupid boys wanting to prove they’re men by shooting something- anything, just because they want to and will pay a lot of money for it.
It’s just cruel. Plain and simple. And all guns should be banned. Full stop.
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I shoot, for several reasons: I like eating game, and I like to know where the food that I eat has come from. The sort of shooting I do is not expensive – certainly no more than it would cost to go and watch a football match.
This can be argued until we’re all blue in the face, but a large element of shooting an all that goes with it IS about countryside conservation. There is a massive lack of research apparent in this thread.
The slightly cod-Freudian accusation of ‘stupid boys wanting to prove they’re men’ is just laughable frankly. Ms Oliver may be interested to know that shooting is also extremely popular amongst women too. What are they trying to prove I wonder?
And the suggestion that all guns should be banned is just brilliant! I hope there are some farmers and gamekeepers out there reading this…
Shropshire is by and large a rural community, and not everything that goes on in the countryside is pretty and fluffy. It’s just a fact of rural life. I think we should consider ourselves lucky anyway; in some of the larger cities in the UK people shoot OTHER PEOPLE for sport, so I reckon we’ve got it pretty easy.
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Pheasants are actually native to Russia and were introduced to various countries throughout the world as they are such good GAME birds and are very willing to breed in captivity. Pheasants struggle to rear their young in the wild due to being ground nesting birds and various predators such as foxes and badgers eat the eggs (and mum) before they have even began to hatch or barely been sat on. Or they end up going through the mower cutting hay or silage as the hen wont move as they are a bit dull in the head. I take it the letter writer only seems to love pheasants, where I live its mallard ducks and partridge that are reared for this purpose too.
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Shall we sort out the disgrace that is chicken farming in this country first? Eh boys?
More than 860 million chickens are raised and killed for meat yearly (about 2.1m per day) in the UK. Only are few percent of those are “free-range”.
AnimalAid themselves say that 35-45 million pheasants are bred to be shot every year.
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L Parker – Get a life! There are far more important issues than this affecting the country, such as jobs & housing.
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A lot of people seem to have forgotten to mention a few things about game shooting.
He did not even mention all the snares that are put down, these are put out to kill any animal that is a threat to grouse, pheasant and partridge etc.
These snares are indiscriminate involve a long drawn out kill. Over the years many species of wildlife have been found dead in snares such as badgers and domestic cats, how many times have you read in the paper about a cat losing its leg through being caught in a snare.
You also forgot to mention the numerous gamekeepers who have been found guilty of putting poison down to kill birds of prey, yet again to protect their ‘profits’.
He also did not mention the every year in Britain, around 45 million pheasants and partridges are mass-produced like factory-farmed chickens so that they can be shot down by wealthy ‘guns’, who commonly pay £1,000 per day for the ‘privilege’.
The suffering experienced by these birds while they are being fattened for the kill, and as they repeatedly run the gauntlet of the guns, cannot plausibly be justified.
For more info on gamekeepers convictions see nwhsa.org.uk or the opposition to shooting see animalaid.org.uk
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To the people who do not believe the birds are reared in small cages, go up Haughmond Hill and look in the field over the back ,there you will see the large red gas containers and you will see for yourself. What is wrong in shooting clays? As I and the majority of the shooters do as we can’t afford the £1000.00 plus to belong to a shooting syndicate.Henry, 5000 Game keepers were did you get this figure from? They are a dying breed.
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John
5000 gamekeepers? I plucked this statistic out of the thin blue air, as this seems to be what a lot of other people in this thread are doing.
Not really. I think it came from the British Association for Shooting and Conservation (BASC). It could be argued that this is a one-sided source, but I’m sure the figure is there or there abouts. As for keepers being a dying breed, I’m not entirely sure. Certainly keepers (like everyone else) have suffered during the recession as people have been spending less money on shooting, but I don’t think this is anything to do with an animal welfare issue.
What’s wrong with shooting clays? Absolutely nothing at all, but it’s a completely different sport. Also, given the choice, I’d much rather eat a plump pheasant or partridge over a clay pigeon any day.
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OH and what about all these urban dwellers keeping hens in those tiny little hen houses with little runs, also do not forget the rabbit in his, the guinea pig in his, and the hamster in his, and the poor old fish in there awful tank.
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As a country girl all my life and having grown up around pheasants and helping of the rearing of the birds the comments from L Parker are totally unjustified based on my experiences, I would like to know where they got their fairy stories from. They are quite right to have their opinion about shooting birds but may I suggest that you get your facts right first before commenting on grown up issues.
For the record I know of no-one who rears their birds in cages for their entire duration of life as the birds would peck each other to death, as for them dying through starvation or disease this again is not true as the birds are fed and watered daily. The barrels you mentioned contain food/water for the birds as they cannot open cans or packets themselves. As for disease then the birds are given a form of medicine and this is given to all birds in the area not just the ones with a cough. The pen sizes are very important as the bigger the pens the better quaility of bird is reared.
May I suggest that you comment in future on stories that are factual, rule with your head not your heart.
It’s people like you that are making England into a Nanny state.
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I do not believe a shooter would be pointing his gun all over the place explain small cages ? size etc .
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As an ex-breeder of game birds the points raised above are utter tosh. We try not to lose any birds before release – however the invertible does happen. Upon release on four rough shoots we tend to shoot between 20 to 38% of released birds (known by ring tagging) on a good year. It is estimated that another 25 to 35% go to predators and rest go feral. Pheasants for example, are an introduced species imported sorely imported for hunting – you would not see them if was not for hunting. All these birds get a fair crack of the whip compared to factory farmed fair – a point to consider. As for not eating shot birds – a ridiculous uninformed comment.
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Think the letter writer may have just bought a lovely second home in the country only to find out some backward country folk have the audacity to continue in pursuits they have enjoyed for generations despite the fact that he\she needs their peace and quiet when getting out of the city for the weekend.
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Does the writer have any idea what they are on about.
typical resonse of the uneducated or person that has no idea!!!!
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To take this in a slightly different direction. Humour me here …
45 million birds being shot with only a small fraction of the shot (be it lead, composite, another metal, …) in each cartridge hitting the bird. Assume that there are say 1.5 cartridges fired for each bird killed as Mr Weekend Hunter isn’t the greatest shot. And that there is 1/12th of a pound of shot in each cartridge.
That would suggest that there is nearly 3,000 tons of shot landing in our fields, woods, ponds and rivers every year. And this has been going on forever.
Why aren’t we up to our arm pits in little round pellets?
Maybe something to do with the fact that 45 million Pheasants is an idiotic number.
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Henry. A completely different sport.!!!!!!You use the same over and under, side by side and a few single barrel, 12 bore shot guns, the only difference is that I have to shout PULL. As against waiting for the beaters to flush the birds out. The action taken by the shooter is the same. As my instructor always used to say when I missed. YOUR NOT FOLLOWING THRO. This will be familiar to all the shooters. Have a day out at the Game Fair in Weston Park and see the experts shooting Clays it’s a lot more difficult to down a Clay than a stupid pigeon.But as you say, you can’t eat a clay.
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Surely the “L Parker” letter is a joke – I can’t believe anybody that dim could write a letter?
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Well.
The school holidays hadn’t finished when it was written…….
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Given the fact that the pheasant is not native to this country and also the slowest flying bird, and the wide angle a shotgun disperses shot, these toffs need shooting lessons more than anything! I see more of the birds run over. Of course it needs stopping its a barbaric sport. In relation to this article I came across a dying fox yesterday with its face half torn of through gunshot wounds. Just goes to show what markesmen these inhumane killers are certainly not!
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The dogs would have finished him off….
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What is this rubbish about toffs people of mr clarke keep speaking of? what are you an oik? who does not shoot, fish,ferret, eat meat .
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I’m sorry, but this whole ‘toff’ thing is just ridiculous, and makes you seem like you have a chip on your shoulder more than anything else!
Have you ever been on a shoot, ar met anyone who has? In my experience shooting parties are made up by all sorts of people. Admitedly some of the larger driven shoots may attract a more ‘corporate’ type, but rough shooting and the small driven shoots are enjoyed by all sorts of people regardles of so-called social standing.
And what has a fox with its face blown off got to do with anything regarding this letter? I hope you put it out of its misery.
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A friend of mine is a gamekeeper and once told me how sad it was to watch over weight business types, unable to walk far and not the first clue about shooting, killing the birds he worked hard to raise. Killing for sport is cruel, without doubt, shooting for food I completely understand.
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Would mr parker moan about the pig at the ludlow food festival with the p0le shoved up its rear end and out of its mouth on a spit??? granted it was not dispatched like that however people around it clearly enjoy the sight of a hog roast.
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These toff’s won’t hear anything bad said against their ‘sport’. Just like the fox hunting, they think because they have a few quid they can do what they want. Its about time they got chased through woods by people with guns
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The author Roald Dahl, who’s birthday is being celebrated this very day, wrote in his famous book Danny the champion of the World “Let me tell you about this phoney pheasant shooting business. First of all it is practised only by the rich. Only the rich can afford to rear pheasants just for the fun of shooting them down when they grow up. These wealthy idiots spend huge sums of money every year buying baby pheasants from pheasant farms and rearing them in pens until they are big enough to be put out into the woods. In the woods the young birds hang around like a flock of chickens. They are guarded by keepers and fed twice a day on the best corn until they are so fat they can hardly fly. Then beaters are hired to walk through the woods clapping their hands and making as much noise as they can to drive the half-tame pheasants towards the half-baked men and their guns. After that, it’s bang-bang-bang and down they come”
As a landowner myself until recently, surrounded by land owned by a wealthy estate which retained the hunting, fishing and shooting rights to my land when they sold it to the previous owner, I was able to witness first hand “this phoney business”. I had to put up with total strangers – mostly too stuck up to even acknowledge me and show me any respect – wandering around on my private land, with guns being fired off next to my house, spent cartridges being left on my fields, my horses and sheep being disturbed from the noise and the gundogs running about and vehicles being inconsiderately parked across my entrances. The gamekeeper was also able to enter my land freely and destroy “vermin”. My cat was poisoned, according to my vet by strychnine which had most likely been used to dose a dead rabbit or crow left out by the gamekeeper to kill predators.
Hopefully, one day this “sport” will be banned and we will be able to look back and see what an uncivilised practise it was in what we proudly consider to be a civilised country.
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Good post. And I agree. Shooting for fun is not a civilised.
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shooting for fun is not civilised? WHY?, DO YOU THINK A BUTCHER DOES NOT ENJOY HIS JOB OR A SLAUGHTER MAN ENJOY HIS?
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Yes, good answer mate.
I’m not against eating meat and I’m not against hunting if it’s through necessity, but to do it for sport is sick. It’s like going down to your local abbatoir to help kill some lambs just for kicks… no-one does it because it would be considered mental.
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Maybe I am missing something here. Was the problem not yours rather than the ignorant, legally permissable visitors to your property?
You’re complaining about rights of access to the land you bought, which I am assumning were fully disclosed at the time of purchase.
Instead of whining you should have got the contract out and dealt with the former owner to the extent allowed by the law.
Anyway, sounds like it is a non-issue as you are a former owner, some other poor sap has to deal with it now.
As far as raising birds to shoot, who are we to tell people how to spend their money and free time provided they are not doing something illegal?
And finally, I think you will find that the vast majority of shot birds are eaten. Local butchers will buy them (very cheaply) and my family frequently gets freebies from local farmers who have been shooting.
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Forgive me for being naive on this, but are we saying that not all pheasants that are shot are put in the oven? If not, why the ruddy hell not?!
Is that the reason I can’t get a pheasant as often as I would like? Because believe me, I would like it more often (lightly smoked, simply roasted, and served with a black cherry sauce).
If they’re not all for the pot, then by all means ban shooting them. But rear them all in enclosed spaces, in a confined environment, on cheap feed, then maybe I can afford to enjoy pheasant once a week.
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When people stop shooting other people and there are no more pressing matters then I may consider that it is wrong to shoot animals. Until then I support those that enjoy their pursuits of hunting, shooting and fishing because then I can expect their support to allow me to enjoy my hobby of motorcycling and the hobbies of others.
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