IN reply to Mrs Taylor's misleading letter (You Say, October 10), like other misinformed do- gooders, she has got her priorities wrong.

Of all the shoots that existed 40 years ago, 90 per cent have disappeared due to costs. At that time there were more than a thousand full-time gamekeepers in existence. I doubt that these days there are more than a 100, now employed on a few commercial shoots" to cater for the needs of foreigners, French, German and Americans, which bring in much needed currency for our countryside.

Gamebirds are a source of food and can only be harvested by shooting as they cannot be fed and bred en masse like chickens. Of every thousand pheasants released for shooting, 30 per cent are shot and 30 per cent wander off for everybody's enjoyment.

Of the rest, many are killed by vermin and die on the roads.

If gamebirds were not released for shooting, pheasants in particular would become extinct in Britain within five years as they are poor survivors. Until 10 years ago, the Isle of Uist was one of the last breeding areas of the corncrake. Then people illegally introduced hedgehogs on to the island. Corncrake are now extinct.

As a retired keeper and naturalist I know what I am talking about. Does Mrs Taylor want to see pheasants become extinct?

J ALAN HIRST,

Hanley Swan,

Worcester.