Sir, – Jim Crumley’s article, “Time to protect the red fox”, (The Courier, March 27), cannot go without comment. I am no fan of fox hunting and the idea it is an efficient method of pest control is laughable. Chasing an animal with a pack of hounds until exhausted, even if it is then dispatched by a gun, is far from humane.
That is as far as I can go in agreeing with Mr Crumley.
As a farmer, I would like an explanation of the flippant terms “lazy farming techniques” and “lazy estate management”? Can Mr Crumley explain to me how I mitigate the impact of a top predator on my sheep while lambing outdoors? One could just as easily label this “lazy journalism”.
The red fox has a stable population and is far from endangered.
Witnessing the devastation a fox can cause in a sheep flock, I have no issue with controlling numbers using a high-powered rifle and an accurate operator when required. This is as humane as it is possible to be when killing anything.
This focused and targeted method is in sharp contrast to Mr Crumley’s scatter-gun approach from his ivory tower, where all farmers and landowners are apparently seeking to persecute wildlife at every turn.
In my experience farmers are some of the most passionate advocates of wildlife and the environment.
It would be wrong not to acknowledge there have been, and no doubt will continue to be, examples of bad practice within farming and estate management. Equally, it is entirely wrong and disingenuous of Mr Crumley to tar all land managers with the same brush.
Agriculture has significantly cleaned up its act and continues to do so, to the extent the cup of coffee Mr Crumley no doubt consumes while pondering his latest assault on the rural economy contains more carcinogens than a year’s consumption of fruit and vegetables. To label us all as anti-wildlife is not constructive or helpful.
Any custodian of our countryside should tread lightly but this has to be balanced with the economic reality of feeding a growing population. You may not require a doctor, lawyer, or accountant very often, but you will need a farmer three times a day, every day.
Mr Crumley would do well to remember that. If he cared to speak less and listen more, I feel he would find we have more in common than he realises.
Sandy Storrar.
Rossie Farm,
Auchtermuchty.
The fox is not a cuddly creature
Sir, – Jim Crumley (The Courier, March 27)may be full of bright ideas but, for sure, he is also ignorant and ill-informed.
His idea of the cuddly fox is quite wrong – they are among the most ruthless predators in the British Isles.
Should he care to think about the issue of hunting foxes, hill shepherds, hill gamekeepers and professional huntsmen are possibly the last remaining true countrymen, and all are under threat from the prejudice exposed by Jim Crumley’s article.
Angus Cheape.
Fossoway,
Kinross.
Racing ever downwards
Sir, – Dale Smith “More pain is still to come”, (Letters, March 26) accuses the Tories of treacherous double dealing. I feel obliged to take issue with this description.
After their billion-pound tax cut for rich bankers (the ones who give millions to the Conservatives every year), they have set about attacking the sick, poor and disabled through a deliberate campaign of cuts.
Recently the ghastly Jeremy Hunt said that there was need to reexamine the way the NHS is funded, Tory-speak for plans for our NHS to follow Royal Mail as the next target for privatisation and an opportunity for Tory backers to get rich at our expense.
With ever-lengthening queues at food banks and harrowing cases of child poverty rapidly increasing, “treacherous double dealing” does not even begin to do justice to the wickedness the Tories are visiting on our most vulnerable children and adults.
I understand well that the Tory promise, post-Brexit, to get our fishing areas back under our control can be seen as a downright lie. However, their promise that the NHS is safe in their hands was an even bigger and more terrible lie.
God help us if they get back in again next time.
K Heath.
Cortachy,
Kirriemuir.
A pantomime of incompetence
Sir, – It’s getting to the point where the people of Angus dread opening The Courier to be informed of the latest fiasco visited upon us by a most dysfunctional, incompetent administration.
The Angus Council administration learns nothing from its past mistakes and blunders on, lurching from one crisis to another without admitting any responsibility and refusing to recognise where the fault lies.
They choose to avoid the fact that one bad decision – like the recycling fiasco – has ramifications on other council responsibilities.
It’s absolutely appalling that the £1 million prescription costs bill due to the NHS by Angus Council cannot be paid, and reserve funds are depleted.
Council officers have a completely skewed sense of priorities.
They spent £50,000 attempting to convince us the decision to close the recycling centres was the right one when, with the exception of councillors themselves, the dogs on the street knew it was a disaster.
We have never been told the cost of that but if the prescription costs bill cannot be paid as a result,we can assume it was astronomical.
The parking charges coming to High Streets across Angus are another disaster. They will be the coup de gras to small shopkeepers.
Did no one look at the possibility of a 30-minute free parking period? If not, why not?
We were promised a root and branch investigation into the Queens Close homeless housing units in Montrose, unused since a 2007 fire and a half-a-million-pound repair bill, and then sold on at a huge loss.
Montrose councillor Bill Duff said an investigation would ensure this incompetence could never happen again – so far not a further word.
The person responsible for the homeless housing fiasco is no longer in that position; he has been promoted. The person responsible for the recycling disaster is no longer in that position, either; he has also been promoted.
Is there a pattern here?
This pantomime is going to run and run with the same cast.
Robert Alexander.
39 Barry Road,
Carnoustie.
A buffalo, two cakes, and Ruth
Sir, – Count the separate factions joining up to kick Jeremy Corbyn – including Conservatives, Blairites and the Arch-Blair himself. A kick for Mr Corbyn is a kick to all he has made interested in politics and attracted to the Labour Party.
I note the baying hysteria that prevails, any weary old pretext will suffice.
It is said Jeremy Corbyn is knocking at the door of Downing Street.
If there is any justice in this world, if anyone rides into Downing Street on a wave of popularity, it ought to be Celebrity Bake Off champion Ruth Davidson, riding a buffalo, wearing that relentless cheesy grin, and brandishing, in each hand, a lemon drizzle cake.
Iris Jarrett.
45 Naughton Road,
Wormit.
Yes to home-made passports
Sir, – I write in reference to Bryan Auchterlonie’s letter “Outraged relics from empire”, (March 27). Coming from a multi-racial, multi-cultural bi-lingual European family, jobs for my children and grand-children in the UK are a priority. Manufacturing the new passports in the UK makes sense.
So less of the ageism and racism, Mr Auchterlonie.
Joyce Ptaszek.
24 Cruikshank Park,
Montrose.
