SIR - Traditionally, the “Glorious Twelfth” - or the “Inglorious Twelfth”, as it should rightly be named - marks the start of the red grouse shooting season. But this year, many estates have been forced to delay or even cancel the season after human-induced climate change saw unseasonably hard sleet and cold rain, resulting in fewer birds for hunters to blast out of the sky.
The irony is that moor management companies are themselves accelerating climate change. To stimulate the growth of heather shoots for young grouse to eat, landowners set fire to the moors - causing some 260,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide, the primary greenhouse gas responsible for climate change, to be emitted each year.
All this destruction so that a tiny minority of bloodthirsty people can wander through the British countryside gunning down sentient animals – it’s unconscionable. Let’s hope that one day soon, this arrogant tradition will be banned and that August 12 will come to represent progress and morality, rather than destruction and barbarism. Until then, the “Inglorious Twelfth” will remain a blemish on the UK.
Jennifer White, PETA Foundation, All Saints Street, London
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