September 19, 2011

ANIMAL rights activists will target Newbury MP Richard Benyon's office this week to protest the coalition government's support for battery-bred pheasants.

Animal Aid blames the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), where Mr Benyon serves as Conservative minister, for the Government's decision to overturn a Labour-led ban on the caged breeding of pheasants for hunting.

The group claims that the increased industrialisation of pheasant and partridge production for sport led to animal suffering and have drawn comparisons with the excesses of the broiler chicken industry. They released a film on their website which they claim shows evidence of the suffering of birds bred in large sheds..

Animal Aid director Andrew Tyler said: "Many people in Britain do not realise that, every year, around 50 million pheasants and partridges are intensively reared especially so that they can be shot for the sheer pleasure of killing them.

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