Good point McG. You could have added that many of the game birds bred in the UK specially to be shot have their wings clipped in order to give their intrepid "hunters" a sporting chance.

But this pales into into insignificance in comparison with what goes on quite legally elsewhere in the EU. In Spain bulls are routinely tormented and baited, often to their deaths, for the entertainment of huge audiences; goats and donkeys are thrown from great heights, and in the streets of Pamplona, bulls are made to run a crazy gauntlet of frenzied idiots, all in the name of cultural tradition.

In Rumania, soon to join to EU, people still derive amusememt from the antics of "dancing" bears - wretched, emaciated creatures that will endure any degredation to relieve the torment of barbed rings that gradually tear their snouts apart.

It's a funny old thing, human nature.