SIR – Today marks an important day in the shooting calendar, and one which always passes without any recognition.
December 12 is what most people would term the real ‘Glorious Twelfth”, for it is on this day that shooting grouse purely for the purposes of sport and entertainment officially finishes.
The grouse-shooting season gets under way on 12 August every year, with a flurry of media interest proclaiming the day to be glorious, when in fact what is being celebrated is the mass slaughter of birds by paying guns, many of whom have had no training or experience of using a gun before in their life.
Not only this, but what is also being celebrated is the systematic slaughter of other species which are wiped out to protect the game birds being reared for shooting. There is nothing glorious about this.
So for once let us recognise the day when the shooting and killing stops for this is the real “Glorious Twelfth”.
Douglas Batchelor, chief executive, League Against Cruel Sports, New Sparling House, Holloway Hill, Godalming, Surrey
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