Thursday 25 February 2010

Shooters write: "Dear DEFRA, please don't listen to BASC"

BASC's uncompromising stance on cage systems for game birds has certainly polarised the shooting community - to the point where BASC members are writing to DEFRA to tell them 'BASC don't speak on my behalf'.

An email currently circulating is headed 'Please read and respond if you wish your sport to have a future'. It provides suggested text for shooters to email DEFRA:
helpline@defra.gsi.gov.uk

Fao Jim Fitzpatrick; as a lifelong Member of the B.A.S.C. I find myself having to contact you to ask you to ignore their representations on my behalf to ban the above systems.

I would also ask you to support the status quo at least until fuller research and consultations have been made. I would point out that presently I am giving serious consideration on whether I continue to support B.A.S.C. who have acted entirely without consultation, it appears as if the organisation has been hijacked by an individual with a particular opinion.
Whatever your view on cage systems, the row must be giving the antis a good laugh as they watch us shoot each other in the foot.

5 comments:

Vicky said...

Sorry but I find myself in BASC's camp. I don't believe raised caged laying systems for pheasants can be justified. Traditional partridge laying boxes are a slightly different story and BASC seem confident their proposals won't affect them. I would go even further banning import of eggs/poults from abroad unless the farm they come from abides by UK standards. Then no-one loses out. If shooters pay more per bird and/or shoot less I see no harm. We are talking about the very future of our sport. No matter how nice the cage is it will always be ammunition for anti's. Can we really claim our sport is free range if the eggs come from a battery system?

Hubert Hubert said...

Hi James, Could you maybe whack a link in to the place where BASC is talking about this? I'm not up on the discussion about the issue so a bit of background would help me.
Cheers,
HH

Alex said...

Oh dear James you'll be having the BASC big guns posting on here again

Sooty said...

Not really a good laugh James it seems to happen to all groups sooner or later,to a certain extent differences are healthy anyway but perhaps annoying at the time.Just important to mend differences afterwards.

James Marchington said...

Hi Hubert - try this link

And Sooty, thanks for the encouraging comments. It's healthy that we debate, even disagree, and indicates how passionate we are about things like the birds' welfare, and preserving our sport for the future. It is, though, frustrating when that disagreement undermines our ability to fight our corner. Ho hum, that's the way it works, and as you say we need to move on.