League Celebrates Welsh campaign success
Posted 23rd May 2019
League Against Cruel Sports campaigners took to the streets of Cardiff yesterday to celebrate and thank Natural Resources Wales and the University of Wales for stopping the shooting of pheasants on their land.
The celebration was organised by the League Against Cruel Sports and Animal Aid and took place outside the National Assembly before moving on to the University of Wales building in central Cardiff.
It follows the decision by Natural Resources Wales to stop leasing out public land across Wales to pheasant shoots and by the University of Wales to stop leasing out its Gregynog Hall Campus for shooting.
Nick Weston, Head of Campaigns at the League Against Cruel Sports, said:
“Wales is taking the lead in standing against shooting animals for sport. Millions of birds are bred ‘for the gun’ in Wales, but today we celebrate the important first steps in consigning shooting to the history books.
“Recent decisions by both Natural Resources Wales and the University of Wales came off the back of public pressure and the League Against Cruel sports is proud to be in the streets of Cardiff today to celebrate with the people of Wales.”
Fiona Pereira, Campaign Manager at Animal Aid, said:
“Today we celebrated the bold and progressive decision by natural resources Wales and the Welsh government to ban the shooting of birds for sport on land that belongs to the people of Wales.
“The mass production of millions of birds, whose pitiful fate is to be used as targets for shooters, is a destructive, cruel and outdated practice, which is opposed by the majority of the public and which has no place in a modern, compassionate society.”
The campaigners waved thank you placards and marked the occasion with a thank you cake with the image of a pheasant made from icing. The cake was cut on the steps of the Welsh Assembly by Bethan Sayed AM.
Nick Weston added:
“The Welsh public are overwhelmingly opposed to shooting birds for sport. Polling carried out by YouGov in 2018, and commissioned by the League Against Cruel Sports and Animal Aid, found that 74 per cent of people in Wales thought that shooting birds should be made illegal.”