I'm Getting More Sensitive As I Get Older.

When I was a boy, I regularly went bush beating to earn a few shillings. For those not familiar with this job, the idea is to drive game - principally pheasants - out from hiding places into the open where they could be shot by the waiting, concealed 'guns'.
The days were often heady and exciting; often cold and generally, pretty hard work.
Over time, I began to have my doubts about driving hand reared birds to an unreasonable death at the hands of 'toffs' who had paid a small fortune for the privilege of eight totally artificial 'shoots' per year.
It was not so much that the game was blasted with shotgun pellets by expert shots but rather the vast numbers of appalling shots who wounded more birds than they killed. These would then go into cover where the majority would die a slow, painful and lingering death.

But for the last point, I would reluctantly tolerate the whole affair. I can't stand cruelty to God's creatures so I would now oppose the whole practice.

Such 'shoots' are considerably more offensive to me than the control of vermin by foxhounds where the target either escapes or is caught and dies pretty quickly.