An MP has written to the Home Secretary after an airgun shop opened in his constituency. The South London Airgun Centre opened in a pawnbroker in Norbury, prompting Croydon MP Steve Reed to lash out at the retailer as “utterly irresponsible”. He believes that “advertising guns in a shop window encourages the use of guns on our streets”. Thanks to Andy McGarty for sending this in.
A French master of staghounds has spoken out against animal rights violence. Alain Drach received death threats after police ordered him to shoot a stag in the garden of a private house in a village in his hunt country. The incident took place a year ago.
Fieldsports Channel viewer Joe Jordan shot this 37lb fox – just 1lb under the British record. He shot it in Margate, in Kent, after calling it in to a mouse distress call. It came steaming in, he says, “like a coyote”.
A deerhunter in the USA saved an eight-point buck that had been struggling to stand upright on a frozen lake. After the rescue, Josh Davis from Pennsylvania told his local TV station that there’s a big difference between hunting an animal humanely and leaving one to suffer and die on the ice.
Meanwhile, rescue came too late for this deer. Found frozen solid in a lake in the Canadian state of Alberta by fishing guide Zac Brown. Its eyes were still open, its head was cocked to one side and its front leg extended forward as if it were about to stand up.
Is veganism a religion? An employment tribunal may rule on that as part of a test case. Vegan Jordi Casamitjana says he was sacked by the League Against Cruel Sports after disclosing it invested pension funds in firms involved in animal testing. He claims he was discriminated against, and the tribunal will have to decide if veganism should be protected in law. LACS says he was dismissed for gross misconduct and denies the sacking was because of his veganism. Thanks to Joe Carhart for sending in this story.
And finally, vegans are floating the idea that people should be embarrassed about including animals in everyday conversation. In an article in a magazine called The Conversation, a university researcher suggests that ‘bringing home the bacon’ and ‘putting your eggs in one basket’ could become obsolete. She suggests changing ‘killing two birds with one stone’ to ‘feeding two birds with one scone’ – thus raising the more important spectre of whether to say scon, scone or scoon.