Animal rights activists to target MP

Animal Aid blame Richard Benyon for allowing the battery breeding of pheasants in the UK

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.

“The meagre protection these birds receive during the production phase has been reduced still further, thanks to the callous disregard for their welfare demonstrated by coalition Defra ministers.”

Mr Tyler said the protest outside Mr Benyon's Cheap St Office at midday on Wednesday will be peaceful and will consist of a small group of protesters with plackards and perhaps a pheasant suit.

Mr Benyon said that he has not seen the film and would not comment on it, but said: “There were good reasons why we overturned the ban.

“We have very high standards (of animal welfare requirements) for game birds as we would for all kinds of animals.”