Ely Wildfowlers

I AM sorry that Ray Poolman didn’t realise that wildfowling involves the shooting of ducks and geese, but I must applaud the head at Ashbeach School for having the courage and confidence to give her students the opportunity to understand that meat comes from animals. I thought that Mr Poolman’s attitude was typical of so many people when he said: “Ramsey might be rural but we have a Tesco!”

The cheap meat we find in supermarkets has come from animals and birds that, sadly, can never have the benefit of the free and uncontaminated life that wild game enjoys, however hard we try to improve animal welfare in the meat production industry.

Most of us eat meat but few of us are prepared to kill and or prepare it ourselves, we are only too pleased to leave that job to the professionals. We want our meat on a polystyrene tray covered in cling film and bearing little or no resemblance to the animal from which it came.

Wildfowlers want to see a world teeming with ducks and geese and all the other flora and fauna found on the marsh, they go out of their way to conserve wildlife and take a small, sustainable cull in return just as they have done in the fens for hundreds of years.

PAUL WRIGHT

Blenheim Road

Ramsey